The Old Hack

I could wish for that to happen. It might well force the issues between Tedd and Mr. Verres out in the open and finally start Mr. Verres down a road where he actually tried to understand Tedd rather than just think there was something wrong with him.

Good luck, Prof. And take good care of yourself.

I am unaware of one but I would be ASTOUNDED if you were the only one. And the term may well exist and probably does. On top of this, add in the pressure to be 'normal'. It would not only discourage such individuals from discussing the matter but would make them prefer to not even think of it as many people are reluctant to think of themselves as 'not normal.' This pressure is not to be underestimated as it keeps many fully LGBTQIA* people from ever admitting what they are to themselves. *sigh*

Two points. One, the genders are not even and never have been. By now, the only 100% definite male left in the Main Eight is Justin. Tedd is genderfluid. Elliot may well be genderfluid as well, though I suppose it is possible that there is some other form of way of describing Elliot that fits better. As to the rest: Grace is a seyunolu. I am not even sure if human sexual identification applies to them at all, but let us for simplicity's sake assume so for this argument. Grace will occasionally spend time as male but not even nearly as much as Elliot has, and seemingly desires to continue to do. Susan does not seem to have any interest in being male. Ellen is female and always has been. Nanase was only male one time, which was during the birthday party arc. That leaves only Sarah as someone who has shown much interest in being male and even this is mostly mentioned in exposition or flashbacks. That leaves a final score of one male, one genderfluid, one probable genderfluid, one possible genderfluid but otherwise female, and four females. And even if we ignore the genderfluidity/other options, we would still only have three males and five females. Two, Dan has repeatedly stated in public posts as well as one time in a private communication with me that he does not feel comfortable at having Ellen be male. Some may call that a mere authorial quirk but given that these stories originate in Dan's mind I feel that it should be respected. (If you wonder when I was exchanging mail with Dan, it was back when he made this image as a Patreon commission. We were discussing a good way to make the long-desired All Male Wallpaper and Dan told me that he still was having trouble swallowing mEllen, so I told him to just make Ellen the referee and not worry about it.) Dan also says that he is not sure what is behind this concern of his but that he has never been able to overcome it. I do not wish to armchair analyse him, so I have chosen to simply respect it instead.

Prescription strength STFU? o.O

No, merely -- as was his wont -- allowing his logorrhea and sesquepedalianism run away with him.

And the concept of it will be with us for as long as we live!

Er, just in case I was not being clear enough -- I was in no way seeking to either refute you or cast any blame on you. I was simply taking the thought experiment through various steps to look for paths it might lead to. My apologies if you thought I was attacking your argument!

I especially like that with these last posts, coffee is officially considered medicinal on these forums.

I just saw a clumsily phrased headline on Danish TV stating that a man had been convicted of murdering an entire municipality three times over and sentenced to a lifetime in jail. Given that about 100.000 people live (or at any rate, used to live) there, this struck me as a not entirely unreasonable sentence. Then I started to wonder. I am informed that in some parts of the US the punishment for repeating a crime is cumulative. Presuming that the convicted murderer was not actually sentenced to death, how many thousand years of prison would he be sentenced to?

Cheers. Long live a good cup of coffee. As my wife would say, down the hatch!

That is not quite what I meant, but I can see that I included this thought without realising it. Mind you, since I agree fully with it, I shall take credit for it by saying that my subconsciousness obviously wanted to say it. To be slightly more serious, what I meant was that the temptation to perform a given deed grows stronger in inverse proportion to the risk of getting caught. Understand, I do not mean that temptation automatically becomes irresistible -- only that it is at its strongest when one believes there will never be any consequences for one's acts. In many ways, we truly are what we do when we think we are unobserved in the dark. But as Vorlonagent states, it is also a factor if the temptation is available to one at whim in nearly any situation. In the technological variant of this scenario, you would need to prepare a place with cameras and/or listening devices; it would take some preparation and cost money. In the magical variant of it, it is basically anywhere and any time. It is the difference between being in a candy store where the counter is staffed and the candy is on display behind glass or being alone in one after closing hours where all the candy is lying around in open boxes.

The Moderator: Thread locked due to the fact that if I answer the last response the way I desire to, I will be violating my own forum rules.

I doubt it. Said purpose is almost certainly related to what happens in the case of a system change. And since Mr. Verres does not seem to be aware that Arthur is aiming for forcing a system change, it seems very likely that he is not even aware that system changes might occur. The knowledge can't be common; even Pandora only realised because she had to dig around in the memories of previous incarnations. I might be wrong, of course; the above is merely my impression.

Certainly. But my opinion of the characters is informed by the way they have acted and how they presently act, not of how they may potentially act in the future. Wouldn't it be rather irrational of me to consider, say, Diane an irresponsible driver because she might in some future comic hit somebody in her car and then drive off without helping? I was not stating that Edward's ignorance was deliberate, merely that of the two forms of ignorance I despise deliberate ignorance the most. Not that I have much fondness for the lazy and careless form of ignorance that stems from not bothering to discover if you might be missing something. As to intentions, they are worthless on their own. Results count. In fact, they are everything. And the present result we have is that Mr. Verres is alienating the son/daughter he is responsible for. If he later on wakes up to his mistake and deals responsibly with it, I will be relieved and far more inclined to think favourably of him. As it is, the parents that send their child to reparative therapy to be 'cured' of being homosexual/transsexual may have the best of intentions. They are still harming their child and making matters worse.

A friend of mine played in a LARP where "talking is a free action" was deliberately disallowed and replaced with a five-word speaking limit per combat round. On his turn, he said, "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, tintinnabulation,floccinauccinihilipilification, antidisestablishmentarianism, trinitrotulurene." He got mobbed by the referees and the other players. I told him I was very disappointed that he hadn't included 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.'

Deliberate ignorance is still ignorance. In fact, it is worse, because it will not accept correction. The entire point of Tedd's feeling is that Mr. Verres is NOT accepting. And again. "Stop whining just because your dad keeps beating you. There are other kids who get much worse beatings and far more severe abuse, so BE HAPPY!" Yeah, definite Father of the Year material there. Last: I despise Edward Verres not simply for his failings but for his failure to realise even that he has a responsibility he is not meeting. And I do not need to justify that. You may find it acceptable. Fine. I do not want to dictate how you should feel. But I find his flaws all the more offensive for the fact that he COULD do better but is too intellectually stagnant or lazy to even try. Yes, the man has good traits and has done good things. But they do not cancel out the ill he has inflicted and still is inflicting. I expected and expect better of him. And until he finally wakes up to what he is doing and starts to correct himself, I will remain angry at him.

Or maybe you are simply too honest to accept that rationalisation. The difference between magic and science is even worse than that. If you used science to gain illicit knowledge, it could be traced. With magic, it cannot be. The difference is that it is all going on in your mind and no-one save you could ever know what you learned. The camera cannot be uncovered, its film cannot be stolen or copied. There is no easy explanation or justification. It is an act you must live with. Perhaps we should be glad that we do not really have magic in our lives.

Maybe the fact that his son is CONSTANTLY SWITCHING GENDERS might provide him with an important clue. Maybe the fact that HE HIMSELF is concerned about it might provide him with the motivation to look into the matter. And a parent does not have to choose prejudice over a child. All they have to do is to display it repeatedly and constantly. Alienation and estrangement will take care of the rest. As to the 'some parents are worse' argument, well, that's just bollocking wonderful. We can give Mr. Verres the 'Not Quite As Big An Arsehole As He Might Have Been' medal. Against all the excuses offered for Mr. Verres, I have just one reply. His child no longer trusts him. His child is afraid of explaining their feelings to him. All other judgments, be they apologia or condemnations, are utterly irrelevant. Tedd is in pain, and Mr. Verres is its cause. I posit that this is consequence enough, and more than enough.

I'm not sure it can be rationalised. Maybe it is simply the level of temptation and the knowledge that you are not doing it in the real world but only in your head. That way it becomes a sin of thought rather than a sin of action, and churches and religions notwithstanding, it is hard to convince the self that they are the same thing. I personally would likely also find the temptation irresistible, for that matter.

Heh. Yeah. This is the sort of thing where you find yourself growing numb from all the punches. I am really sorry. But we are still with you and I believe you can still find a way to hold on and eventually get better. I have faith in you, and I have faith in Mrs. Prof.

I also disagree with you. When it comes to parenting, ignorance is NO excuse in the information age. Mr. Verres is well off, in a government position, has full access to the Internet and last but not least HE IS A PARENT WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A CHILD. If he is worried about how his son develops, he has plenty of options. He could read parenting books. He could pay minimal attention to media debate about gender identities. He could do a bollocking Google search on 'gender issues' or 'gender identity.' I just did and found a MULTITUDE of links and resources that the man could spend, oh, as little as half an hour on reading if he thought that his son was worth that much time. Or he could, like, go the classic route and just assume that he knows best, that he alone knows what is good for his son, try to 'straighten him out,' completely ignore his son's viewpoints. This method is amazing and I highly recommend it for any parent who wishes to completely alienate their child and drive a wedge between them that may take years or decades to work free again, if it is even possible. My father used it to great success, for example. I am sure he got a great deal of enjoyment from all the times I slammed the phone on him or all the mail I returned unopened. When the wedge between us was finally removed, it took outside intervention from someone I held in high respect to even begin to work it free. If that hadn't happened, my father and I might have been estranged to this day. Also, you are getting things upside down. I am not hurting Mr. Verres -- I cannot. He is a fictional figure and I am completely certain that Dan could care less what I think about him. However, he is a character in a story where he is abusing and hurting his own son. I can despise a character who does that, even if he does it through well-meaning ignorance. And I do.

I am not particularly eager to gamble on that.

Ouch. I am very sorry to hear. *sigh* The blows just keep coming, don't they. Dammit.

This is also called 'straightsplaining' and is absolutely no defence. "His actions process differently if one simply assumes that gender is binary only and that homosexuality is a choice."