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HarJIT

Story Comic for 2016 April 25th

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Yeah, it might be a genderfluid thing, or maybe Elliot's realized there's something other being one gender or the other and is basically saying "I'm both and I love it."

Maybe Gender-Dual can be a thing?

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Having a genderbent version of himself as a "sister" probably also provides a great deal of perspective for Elliot on the whole "turning into female forms" issue.

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6 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Considering how Elliot thinks about being a super part time girl some how brings to mind the old Almond Joy - Mounds jingle.  Thinking about it even more makes the jingle seem obscene in this context.

 

Thank god! I wasn't the only one to think of those commcercials when the subject of gender fluidity came up.

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For advertising jingles that appear loaded with double entendres, I have yet to see any that top the Juicy Fruit gum song.

Take a stick

pull it out

the taste is gonna move you when you put it in your mouth

<_<

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6 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

The first time Elliot was ever turned into a girl, I am fairly sure Elliot's gender identity was that of a boy turned into a girl, i. e. still considering himself male.

Over time, this seems to have gradually changed. I wonder if today's comic's moment of acceptance also marks that Elliot now fully considers herself a girl while transformed into her superhero identity or other variations of female selves?

I didn't noticed any example of him considering himself a girl. I think he just went from "I'm a guy transformed to a girl, WTF, fix this" through "I'm a guy transformed to a girl, mildly inconvenient" and "I'm a guy transformed to a girl, it has it's advantages" to "I'm a guy transformed to a girl and I like it".

Obviously, his answer to "how exactly you still considers yourself male" will be another "um ..." (or I'm not sure, I ... I havent' really though about it) but still.

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5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Obviously, his answer to "how exactly you still considers yourself male" will be another "um ..." (or I'm not sure, I ... I havent' really though about it) but still.

Elliot technically answered it later. But like I said before, I think it's more like he's both at the same time. In Tedd's case it's a feeling of needing to be male or female at a given moment. For Elliot is probably more like he's comfortable in either form equally and thus can switch back and forth freely.

 

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54 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Elliot technically answered it later. But like I said before, I think it's more like he's both at the same time. In Tedd's case it's a feeling of needing to be male or female at a given moment. For Elliot is probably more like he's comfortable in either form equally and thus can switch back and forth freely.


 

My guess it that realizing that Ashley not only thinks it's cool that he can transform, but that she loves seeing the transformation and doesn't have a problem with dating him as her is what got Elliot over the hump. Before that he was probably afraid of how any potential girlfriend would react when learning that not only was he a boy-scout hunk that a lot of girls admired from afar, but at any time he could turn into a spandex clad crime fighting babe, who by now probably is responsible for a lot of wet dreams. Face it, as Cheerleadra probably is an embodiment of Elliot's preferences and dreams she's got the looks of a teenage boys idea of perfection. While Elliot may fail at intentional Perversion his subconscious most certainly doesn't have any such hangups, and it takes a certain kind of girl to feel it's OK if her boyfriend makes a habit of turning into a girl that has the perfect body, never has a bad hair day, never has any zits, blemishes or broken nails, and always has perfect makeup...  And that's before you mention super strength, flight, integrated GPS and hands free mobile...
 

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12 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Face it, as Cheerleadra probably is an embodiment of Elliot's preferences and dreams she's got the looks of a teenage boys idea of perfection.

I'm not sure it's embodiment of Elliot's idea of perfection. It may also be embodiment of Tedd's idea of perfection (through FV5). And Tedd doesn't fail the test.

12 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

it takes a certain kind of girl to feel it's OK if her boyfriend makes a habit of turning into a girl that has the perfect body, never has a bad hair day, never has any zits, blemishes or broken nails, and always has perfect makeup

... yup, hard to compete with that. In fact, it's not even makeup. You may think that the goth secret identity have makeup, but she's doesn't, just like Heidi is not really drunk. She just LOOK as if she has makeup.

12 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

My guess it that realizing that Ashley not only thinks it's cool that he can transform, but that she loves seeing the transformation and doesn't have a problem with dating him as her is what got Elliot over the hump

Not sure if over THE hump but it definitely helped a lot.

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3 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

My guess it that realizing that Ashley not only thinks it's cool that he can transform, but that she loves seeing the transformation and doesn't have a problem with dating him as her is what got Elliot over the hump. Before that he was probably afraid of how any potential girlfriend would react when learning that not only was he a boy-scout hunk that a lot of girls admired from afar, but at any time he could turn into a spandex clad crime fighting babe, who by now probably is responsible for a lot of wet dreams. Face it, as Cheerleadra probably is an embodiment of Elliot's preferences and dreams she's got the looks of a teenage boys idea of perfection. While Elliot may fail at intentional Perversion his subconscious most certainly doesn't have any such hangups, and it takes a certain kind of girl to feel it's OK if her boyfriend makes a habit of turning into a girl that has the perfect body, never has a bad hair day, never has any zits, blemishes or broken nails, and always has perfect makeup...  And that's before you mention super strength, flight, integrated GPS and hands free mobile...
 

I'm not sure Elliot's preferences and dreams had much to do with it, if you recall, Super Elliot was male in the dream that made Elliot morph into Cheerleadra the first time, that would have been prime evidence of his subconscious at work there. Magic just assumed Elliot's superhero form should be female. His alter egos are a good example too, he at first didn't like the idea of how they messed with his personality, but later when he first used the Heidi identity he liked how upbeat and impulsive she was. I wonder if that was the moment he started thinking that the female forms weren't as bad as he thought.

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5 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I went about 70-30 creating female vs. male heroes on City of Heroes.  Commonly I built the sort of female body that I was attracted to.  :)

That's about what I do too. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before but I'm of the type where if I'm going to be looking at the rear end of a character I play in a video game, it might as well be female. Though if i was actually going to role play a character, it'll be male.

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2 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

My guess it that realizing that Ashley not only thinks it's cool that he can transform, but that she loves seeing the transformation and doesn't have a problem with dating him as her is what got Elliot over the hump. 
 

 

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Not sure if over THE hump but it definitely helped a lot.

*wonders if making a joke about Elliot's developing a different kind of hump on thinking about Ashley would be lowering the tone too much*

*decides it would be and to let the straight line remain unbent*

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12 hours ago, Scotty said:

Yeah, it might be a genderfluid thing, or maybe Elliot's realized there's something other being one gender or the other and is basically saying "I'm both and I love it."

Maybe Gender-Dual can be a thing?

There are at least two varieties. Gender-neutral* would feel like both more or less equally and not really care which one presents at the moment. (I think I'm there a lot, but since I can present one gender for free while presenting the other takes a lot of effort plus skills I've never practiced and accessories I don't own, I can't say for sure.) Bigender feels like both more or less equally and wants to present both simultaneously. (Never been there.)

* Some definitions of terms are in flux. Gender-neutral is sometimes treated as synonymous with agender, which has some fairly narrow definitions (basically meaning that gender is pretty much absent from the person's sense of identity) and some amazingly wide definitions (at the widest, anyone not cisgender is agender) and quite a few different in-between definitions. I prefer a narrower definition for agender, and a different fairly narrow definition for gender-neutral, such that in theory if there were an objective and well-calibrated way to measure these things we could draw a sharp line between the two - but in practice they overlap a bit along one edge.

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

Elliot technically answered it later. But like I said before, I think it's more like he's both at the same time. In Tedd's case it's a feeling of needing to be male or female at a given moment. For Elliot is probably more like he's comfortable in either form equally and thus can switch back and forth freely.

I wasn't remembering that one line. Yep, Elliot's now genderfluid to some degree. However, that may be influenced by the fact that for Elliot, changing sex can actually slightly change who he is and significantly increase what he can do (e.g. fly).

I'd also add that with all the female forms we've seen Elliot in, ALL of them are about his own age and something that a large fraction of males his age would describe as "cute" and/or "sexy". (Not necessarily the case that any ONE male would use those terms for all of them.)

.

(Side note: I've found another way around the problem with editing messages. Turn the block of text where your editing needs to occur into a bulleted list, and all the text becomes visible. When done, you can highlight the entire bulleted list and un-bullet it.)

 

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Maybe bigender then, gender neutral sounds like there's no real feelings for either, saying he loves the Cheerleadra form doesn't seem neutral.

The only reason I'm thinking he has equal preference, is because I don't think Dan would suddenly have Elliot prefer being female more than male. To me that would seem like Elliot getting in a position that many were afraid Ellen would end up in if she ever was zapped with a male form.

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The trouble with deciding to label Elliot at this point is that right now, being female is tied up with having special powers.  He's reached the point where he's able to admit to himself that he loves being a superhero-female, but we really don't know for sure to what degree he'll like being a girl when being a superhero-male is just as easy to become, with just as many magical advantages. For Elliot, right now, being a girl is superior for too many reasons that don't actually have anything to do with being a girl, for him to really know yet whether the 'girl' part is a factor or not.

It will be interesting to find out.  Maybe Elliot will discover a fondness for being a girl based on the same power-tripping "great big tease" reasons Tedd had expressed for wanting to be a sexy female in earlier stories.

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21 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I went about 70-30 creating female vs. male heroes on City of Heroes.  Commonly I built the sort of female body that I was attracted to.  :)

I've dabbled with creating male characters once and awhile. They usually last 30 minutes before I go delete them. :|

 

13 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

The trouble with deciding to label Elliot at this point is that right now, being female is tied up with having special powers.  He's reached the point where he's able to admit to himself that he loves being a superhero-female, but we really don't know for sure to what degree he'll like being a girl when being a superhero-male is just as easy to become, with just as many magical advantages. For Elliot, right now, being a girl is superior for too many reasons that don't actually have anything to do with being a girl, for him to really know yet whether the 'girl' part is a factor or not.

Yup. In a sense, Dan has been teasing various details for a while now. Elliot has seemingly been more willing to experiment with traditionally feminine clothes than Ellen (good example here). Ellen has been a bit of a tomboy in comparison (can anyone link to Ellen wearing a skirt? I'm sure it's happened, but I'm not sure when). Elliot has intentionally picked an outfit for transformation because it was cute (and it is). And I'm still wondering what the hell this all means.

Yet, what we don't know is really how all this comes together. Unlike Tedd, where we've gotten a "there's a name for it" moment, we haven't gotten anything really concrete with Elliot. Ideas, hints, commentary, but nothing really concrete. 

 

7 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

there's also a possibility that we're overlooking. it's pretty much a constant that magic changes things. What if there's a good reason people don't get psychologically mismatched spells?

I'm not certain I follow. Are you suggesting that the magic itself is changing Elliot's outlook? Or perhaps that the magic was responding to something subconscious or repressed?

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21 hours ago, Scotty said:

That's about what I do too. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before but I'm of the type where if I'm going to be looking at the rear end of a character I play in a video game, it might as well be female. Though if i was actually going to role play a character, it'll be male.

Agree. There are more games with bad camera angles than games where you actually need to role play.

19 minutes ago, BurntAsh said:

Yet, what we don't know is really how all this comes together. Unlike Tedd, where we've gotten a "there's a name for it" moment, we haven't gotten anything really concrete with Elliot. Ideas, hints, commentary, but nothing really concrete. 

It's possible that there is NOT a name for it. I mean, that his situation is more complicated than Tedds and therefore naming it will not be as simple.

21 minutes ago, BurntAsh said:

Elliot has seemingly been more willing to experiment with traditionally feminine clothes than Ellen (good example here). Ellen has been a bit of a tomboy in comparison (can anyone link to Ellen wearing a skirt? I'm sure it's happened, but I'm not sure when).

While not technically skirt, I think both this and this count as very feminine clothes. And remember that Elliot's ability to change clothes gives him much more opportunities for experiments that Ellen has - and more opportunity for Dan to show it. I don't think Elliot will get to be more female than Ellen.

26 minutes ago, BurntAsh said:
7 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

there's also a possibility that we're overlooking. it's pretty much a constant that magic changes things. What if there's a good reason people don't get psychologically mismatched spells?

I'm not certain I follow. Are you suggesting that the magic itself is changing Elliot's outlook? Or perhaps that the magic was responding to something subconscious or repressed?

Magic can adapt people to match the spells just as it's changing spells to match the people.

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22 hours ago, Scotty said:

That's about what I do too. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before but I'm of the type where if I'm going to be looking at the rear end of a character I play in a video game, it might as well be female. Though if i was actually going to role play a character, it'll be male.

I actually spoke those words to my brother, who saw me playing a female character.  He kinda looked at me funny and I could tell he was wondering WTF.  I said, "Well, whose butt would you want to look at for several hours at a time?"

I roleplay either gender as the mood strikes.  About half of my characters had enough animating energy for me to write a bio for them.  About half of those I have some idea how they think.  About half of those I have a good idea of how they think.  Half of those I can roleplay on demand.  So when I run 70-30 female there's a lot of girls in the upper-echelons.

Man I miss that game.  Writing this reply, I've really had to resist going into "tell you about my character" mode...

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2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Magic can adapt people to match the spells just as it's changing spells to match the people.

I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the idea that magic would be making Elliot like the female forms, at least that's what your sentence sounds like. It implies personality alterations not as extreme as the superhero spell's secret identities but still an alteration. Elliot's personality is probably the perfect type for the situation he's in, he was always pretty much "eh no big deal" especially if it dealt with things about him, if it's something like bullies or gay bashing he doesn't let it stand, but most other stuff doesn't bother him that much and so he takes it in stride, when he first got zapped by Tedd, yeah he was upset for a moment but then he was like "well, I can't let this keep me from doing what I normally do."

That kind of personality was never adverse to strange things, Elliot and Tedd are best friends after all and Elliot's seen a lot of strange stuff hanging out with Tedd. Also, take a look at Elliot and Ellen's parents, they're not phased by strange things, Elliot definitely gets his laid back nature from them, and I think that's what's helped him become comfortable enough with his magic and female forms to actually like them.

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

It's possible that there is NOT a name for it. I mean, that his situation is more complicated than Tedds and therefore naming it will not be as simple.

Considering how many labels there are already, there probably is. But we aren't privy enough to know how Elliot feels in depth yet to really match it up yet, I don't think. On the surface, so much of this looks like so many other things. 

 

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

While not technically skirt, I think both this and this count as very feminine clothes. And remember that Elliot's ability to change clothes gives him much more opportunities for experiments that Ellen has - and more opportunity for Dan to show it. I don't think Elliot will get to be more female than Ellen.

There we go, I totally blanked on this, despite one of those examples being fairly recent. Yeah, I don't think Elliot would be more female than Ellen. But here's the other side, why would Ellen be more female than Elliot? The easy answer would be to say that second life dumped into her head, but that isn't a complete answer. So In many ways, I'm interested in the both of them, since they are twins. Things that Ellen is willing to do (with some known limitations) speak a bit about Elliot on some level and vice versa. But what I do find interesting is that when Elliot is given more freedom to experiment, he doesn't seem adverse to going down the "rabbit hole" just as far as Ellen. 

 

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

Magic can adapt people to match the spells just as it's changing spells to match the people.

I was going to write something here, but Scotty ninja'd it.

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Magic can adapt people to match the spells just as it's changing spells to match the people.

I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the idea that magic would be making Elliot like the female forms, at least that's what your sentence sounds like.

I'm personally not comfortable with it either. But it is possible and it may be what Infinite Remnant was referring to. If it's small, subtle, gradual change, how can we tell if it's natural or not?

This is the true danger of magic. Not the obvious stuff like Not-Tengu transforming room of people into Nanase's clones, but small subtle changes.

Only thing even more dangerous - and ALSO possible with magic - is the kind of change with ex post facto effect: And since the change, it always has been that way.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Also, take a look at Elliot and Ellen's parents, they're not phased by strange things, Elliot definitely gets his laid back nature from them, and I think that's what's helped him become comfortable enough with his magic and female forms to actually like them.

Yes, with parents like this both Ellen and Elliot's behaviour can be explained even without magic changing them.

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