Story Monday April 2 2018

[Tom Sewell 268]

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

I dunno, personally I would see bullying the bullies as if Elliot constantly went out of his way to pester Tony just as much as Tony pestered Tedd, Elliot only went to Tedd's defense when Tony was seen going after Tedd. Elliot was viewing himself more harshly because he liked defending people.

If you want bully of bullies, look no further than Gerald.

Something really sweet would Gerald and Tony getting into a fight with each other. Make it so someday, Dan! Oh, and of course both getting turned into women. Maybe catgirls. Maybe tiny catgirls. And Kitty should be there. Yes.

[hkmaly 490]

23 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

2 hours ago, Haylo said:

I'm beginning to wonder just how much choice ur-ellen was given, most likely being hurried into "doing the right thing" with no consideration for how painful she would find it in the long run.

Remember, at the time they did not have any options for permanently turning anyone into the other gender save the rather drastic one that would make the target permanently female. Also, then and now, Ellen's principal motivation was to not just be a copy of Elliot. Moreover, Ellen has never experienced gender dysphoria; she has said as much and she has studied the matter. Whether this is because she fully identifies as female or she like the current Elliot is 'gender-meh', we cannot say, of course. Magus is operating from the assumption that Ellen is like Magus' own case, which is a tall assumption. He is also assuming that none of Ellen's friends would have noticed or cared if she had experienced gender dysphoria, which is more than a little insulting -- they would at the very least eventually notice that she was unhappy, which in fact Nanase did.

I suspect that ur-ellen is supposed to mean Magus.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

18 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I suspect that ur-ellen is supposed to mean Magus.

Oh. Right. *scratches head* My apologies, Haylo, I got confused.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

We don't know where (or WHY) yet, but he obviously is in hurry and Dan hinted that in commentary as well.

I'm not sure I would risk it without manual. There are also less useful and more dangerous red shoes which could easily be mistaken for those ... especially considering the ruby slippers were originally silver.

Great....now I've got the intro dialogue to "Dence: Ten, Looks: Three" stuck in my head....  ;-)

[Scotty 1,061]

7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Something really sweet would Gerald and Tony getting into a fight with each other. Make it so someday, Dan! Oh, and of course both getting turned into women. Maybe catgirls. Maybe tiny catgirls. And Kitty should be there. Yes.

Gerald's from South and Tony's North, while Kitty would be fun to see again, it's probably more likely that Rhoda and Catalina would get involved, and still give use that same effect.

[Vorlonagent 442]

14 hours ago, Haylo said:

I'm beginning to wonder just how much choice ur-ellen was given, most likely being hurried into "doing the right thing" with no consideration for how painful she would find it in the long run.

I'm getting that vibe too.  That m!Ellen (magus-Ellen) was forced by his world's rules to be physically male in order to follow the path he wanted (I use "he" and "his" for Magus with some hesitancy.  Magus himself would argue vehemently for it, but I suspect that vehemence might be fueled by genuine gender dysphoria at being male).

If Magus got Elliot's Cherleadra spell along with his new body, that could be an eye-opener for him.  Cheerleadra is far more physically powerful than any unmodified human body, male or female, invalidating the logic that forced Magus to masculinize himself.

[Scotty 1,061]

40 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I'm getting that vibe too.  That m!Ellen (magus-Ellen) was forced by his world's rules to be physically male in order to follow the path he wanted (I use "he" and "his" for Magus with some hesitancy.  Magus himself would argue vehemently for it, but I suspect that vehemence might be fueled by genuine gender dysphoria at being male).

There's still no real indication that Magus was forced to conform, in our world discrimination between sexes stems from assumptions that one sex is better at doing some things than the other, in Magus' world where magic makes it easy to switch sex. Maybe a group of people actually did a study where they did a bunch of tasks as each sex, and they came to the conclusion that each sex was more optimized in performing different tasks. A set of guidelines would likely be drawn up that people don't have to follow but if they want to excel at a particular career it'd be recommended they use the optimal sex, it's efficient, and there are probably very rare exceptions when the opposite sex outdoes the recommended sex (Terra may have turned out to be such an exception), but the system works.

The only drawback is that some people may take it too seriously, like Magus wanting to succeed soo much that anything less is a waste, he's friends with Terra but he's at odds with her because she didn't want to become male. that whole "your potential is wasted!" comment would be evidence of Magus believing that Terra is squandering her chances of being a successful battlemage by not becoming male like Magus did.

[Vorlonagent 442]

2 minutes ago, Scotty said:

There's still no real indication that Magus was forced to conform, in our world discrimination between sexes stems from assumptions that one sex is better at doing some things than the other, in Magus' world where magic makes it easy to switch sex. Maybe a group of people actually did a study where they did a bunch of tasks as each sex, and they came to the conclusion that each sex was more optimized in performing different tasks. A set of guidelines would likely be drawn up that people don't have to follow but if they want to excel at a particular career it'd be recommended they use the optimal sex, it's efficient, and there are probably very rare exceptions when the opposite sex outdoes the recommended sex (Terra may have turned out to be such an exception), but the system works.

The only drawback is that some people may take it too seriously, like Magus wanting to succeed soo much that anything less is a waste, he's friends with Terra but he's at odds with her because she didn't want to become male. that whole "your potential is wasted!" comment would be evidence of Magus believing that Terra is squandering her chances of being a successful battlemage by not becoming male like Magus did.

Magus lays exactly this out in Friday's and Today's comics.  Yes, he's talking about Ellen, but he's also talking about his experience as Ellen.  His motivation is admirable: he wants to spare Ellen the pain he went through, likely as direct atonement to Ellen for willingly letting Sirleck possess her. 

Ellen carries a lot of pain from her first day and suddenly having to come to terms with the fact that she wasn't Elliot, an identity she felt every bit as as deeply as Elliot himself.  Also from starting life sure she was going to simply disappear in a month.  She's carried some anger at Tedd for the series of mistakes that led to her creation and that pain.  Magus thinks he has an insight into Ellen's pain that has not only eluded everybody else around her but they worked to suppress, just as Magus' world worked to suppress who he really was (which comes back to why I use "he" for Magus provisionally)

[Scotty 1,061]

12 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Magus lays exactly this out in Friday's and Today's comics.  Yes, he's talking about Ellen, but he's also talking about his experience as Ellen.  His motivation is admirable: he wants to spare Ellen the pain he went through, likely as direct atonement to Ellen for willingly letting Sirleck possess her.

Magus could still feel like he's had to give up a lot in order to be successful, he may have spent a number of years convincing himself that this is who he must become if he wants to be great. A lot of people fall into the trap of hiding things about themselves rather than embracing them, but it's usually because of their own perceptions of what other MAY think rather than what others WILL think. You say Magus has been hurting because he's been forced to become something he shouldn't be, but shouldn't Terra also be suffering from ridicule and such for choosing to stay female in a male dominant career? In Hidden Genesis, Terra looks confident in her abilities without having to change sex, so either Terra's done a better job of handling it, or Magus is seeing issues that aren't actually there. Remember, Magus has argued with someone over the pros of becoming a man to be a battlemage, it's safe to assume that one such conversation was with Terra, but what if Magus has had to argue this point more than once and with other people? It'd seem more like he was trying to convince others that this would be the best course of action, even though it doesn't have to be. Maybe he's taking flak for that. Our Tedd for a long time assumed that transforming into a girl was just a natural thing that anyone who had the ability would do, and even used the excuse that it was like a vacation, but you remember when he found out about what being Genderfluid was, it was like a weight was suddenly lifted off him. Elliot's had issues with being introspective but has been getting better, it's quite possible that Magus is suffering from that lack in introspection as well.

[Vorlonagent 442]

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Magus could still feel like he's had to give up a lot in order to be successful, he may have spent a number of years convincing himself that this is who he must become if he wants to be great. A lot of people fall into the trap of hiding things about themselves rather than embracing them, but it's usually because of their own perceptions of what other MAY think rather than what others WILL think. You say Magus has been hurting because he's been forced to become something he shouldn't be, but shouldn't Terra also be suffering from ridicule and such for choosing to stay female in a male dominant career? In Hidden Genesis, Terra looks confident in her abilities without having to change sex, so either Terra's done a better job of handling it, or Magus is seeing issues that aren't actually there. Remember, Magus has argued with someone over the pros of becoming a man to be a battlemage, it's safe to assume that one such conversation was with Terra, but what if Magus has had to argue this point more than once and with other people? It'd seem more like he was trying to convince others that this would be the best course of action, even though it doesn't have to be. Maybe he's taking flak for that. Our Tedd for a long time assumed that transforming into a girl was just a natural thing that anyone who had the ability would do, and even used the excuse that it was like a vacation, but you remember when he found out about what being Genderfluid was, it was like a weight was suddenly lifted off him. Elliot's had issues with being introspective but has been getting better, it's quite possible that Magus is suffering from that lack in introspection as well.

Pretty much   Magus spent  a number of years as a girl.  10, 12, maybe even 15 or 16.  Which means when he gender-reversed, he had to have the same damn conversation with a whole lot of people either leading up to the change or afterward. 

[Tom Sewell 268]

2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Pretty much   Magus spent  a number of years as a girl.  10, 12, maybe even 15 or 16.  Which means when he gender-reversed, he had to have the same damn conversation with a whole lot of people either leading up to the change or afterward. 

I'm guessing that most of the boys and all of the girls told her she was making a big mistake. I think you can figure out a reason that has nothing to do with magic.

[Vorlonagent 442]

5 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

I'm guessing that most of the boys and all of the girls told her she was making a big mistake. I think you can figure out a reason that has nothing to do with magic.

I don't think so.  based on magus' dialogue in today's strip, he had it beaten into him that he had to be male to be a battlemage.  Mentally squint a little at his dialogue and gender invert the pronouns, then correct this for Magus' life.  I think he's telling us what happened to him.

"What does everybody do?  Railroad her into staying a man....She was pushed into adopting a gender identity not her own to fit an identity that was created for her....Pressured to be anyone but herself...her only options for becoming female were temporary ones that could easily be dispelled without warning...always knowing what her default form had become."

yeah, I'll be Magus says he likes being male.  he has accepted it as his only option.

I don't get why being a ballemage is such a male-centric job, but if I'm reading Magus right, they brought it down like a sledgehammer on him and he made the switch while Terra bulled through as a female.  Presumably their magical battle was an attempt at settling the gender argument.

[Tom Sewell 268]

29 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I don't get why being a ballemage is such a male-centric job, but if I'm reading Magus right, they brought it down like a sledgehammer on him and he made the switch while Terra bulled through as a female.  Presumably their magical battle was an attempt at settling the gender argument.

Ashley might become a balletmage someday, but I think you had something else in mind.

I think the sparring match was likely Magus trying to prove to himself that he hadn't made a mistake and that Terra is the stronger mage. Why else would he be  using a potion? That's always sounded like a cheat to me.

However, you did not guess the reason I had in mind in my last post which, I repeat, has nothing to do with magic, ballet or battle.

[Vorlonagent 442]

3 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Ashley might become a balletmage someday, but I think you had something else in mind.

I think the sparring match was likely Magus trying to prove to himself that he hadn't made a mistake and that Terra is the stronger mage. Why else would he be  using a potion? That's always sounded like a cheat to me.

However, you did not guess the reason I had in mind in my last post which, I repeat, has nothing to do with magic, ballet or battle.

I'm not sure why Ashley would suddenly be a great battlemage candidate...

Magus made a presumably permanent change to his default form.  He had a big change to defend.  Dunno if it was cheating...

No I didn't guess it because I don't think his family and friends told him the switch was a mistake.  I think they told him he didn't have a choice.

[Tom Sewell 268]

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

I'm not sure why Ashley would suddenly be a great battlemage candidate...

Balletmage. Or maybe soccermage.

 

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

No I didn't guess it because I don't think his family and friends told him the switch was a mistake.  I think they told him he didn't have a choice.

The reason is that all the Ells are hot.

[ChronosCat 155]

On 4/3/2018 at 1:25 AM, The Old Hack said:

Remember, at the time they did not have any options for permanently turning anyone into the other gender save the rather drastic one that would make the target permanently female. Also, then and now, Ellen's principal motivation was to not just be a copy of Elliot. Moreover, Ellen has never experienced gender dysphoria; she has said as much and she has studied the matter. Whether this is because she fully identifies as female or she like the current Elliot is 'gender-meh', we cannot say, of course. Magus is operating from the assumption that Ellen is like Magus' own case, which is a tall assumption. He is also assuming that none of Ellen's friends would have noticed or cared if she had experienced gender dysphoria, which is more than a little insulting -- they would at the very least eventually notice that she was unhappy, which in fact Nanase did.

I suspect if you had some sort of "gender-meter" that you could point at someone and it would tell you objectively what gender-category best fit them, it would place Ellen outside or between the "male" and "female" categories (in whatever category "gender-meh" was labeled as). However gender is such a personal issue that I think how a person chooses to label themself (or not label themself) is far more important than what a gender-meter would tell you - and not just because there's no such thing as a gender-meter.

20 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I'm getting that vibe too.  That m!Ellen (magus-Ellen) was forced by his world's rules to be physically male in order to follow the path he wanted (I use "he" and "his" for Magus with some hesitancy.  Magus himself would argue vehemently for it, but I suspect that vehemence might be fueled by genuine gender dysphoria at being male).

If Magus got Elliot's Cherleadra spell along with his new body, that could be an eye-opener for him.  Cheerleadra is far more physically powerful than any unmodified human body, male or female, invalidating the logic that forced Magus to masculinize himself.

Magus is extremely insistent he's male - so much so that I'm sure he's not gender-meh, and is somewhat insecure about his gender or how people perceive his gender; it's also clear gender has been a source of conflict in his life. This leads me to suspect two possible scenarios: Magus identified as female as a child and still feels female inside, and is trying to convince himself he made the right choice, OR Magus has always identified as male but no one respected or believed that and when he finally got the chance to transition he had to come up with some sort of justification for why he was doing so. I'm not sure which is more likely.

Either way, Magus clearly currently wishes to be referred to as male, so until/unless that changes I intend to use male pronouns for him.

Edited April 4, 2018 by ChronosCat
Forgot to mention the "or between" option for Ellen.

[Vorlonagent 442]

14 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Balletmage. Or maybe soccermage.

Or TransforMage if personal inclination enters into it...

14 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

The reason is that all the Ells are hot.

No argument.  With EGS Prime Ellen the hottest of the bunch.

Appropos of nothing, of the universes we know about Dunkel children born Ellen now outnumber Elliots.   The ratio is either 3:1 or 3:2 depending on how you count the AF04 Universe in EGS: NP.  I think it's a canon universe despite appearing in non-canon EGS:NP, but I couldn't fnd the NP comic that lays out what is canon NP and what isn't.

[Tom Sewell 268]

17 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Appropos of nothing, of the universes we know about Dunkel children born Ellen now outnumber Elliots.   The ratio is either 3:1 or 3:2 depending on how you count the AF04 Universe in EGS: NP.  I think it's a canon universe despite appearing in non-canon EGS:NP, but I couldn't fnd the NP comic that lays out what is canon NP and what isn't.

Perhaps the reason our Elliot is what he is is because he's linked somehow to all the other Ells, most of them female. No wonder he still has such a strong female side even after spinning off our totally-female Ellen. Before that, and even now, our Elliot could be more of a woman than one woman can contain.

[Vorlonagent 442]

1 minute ago, Tom Sewell said:

Perhaps the reason our Elliot is what he is is because he's linked somehow to all the other Ells, most of them female. No wonder he still has such a strong female side even after spinning off our totally-female Ellen. Before that, and even now, our Elliot could be more of a woman than one woman can contain.

Despite being a fictional character Sarah suddenly finds herself unaccountably angry. 

[Tom Sewell 268]

16 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Despite being a fictional character Sarah suddenly finds herself unaccountably angry. 

A good thought, but what I actually meant was that Elliot was and possibly still is such so full of femininity that he was and maybe still is going to blow up if he doesn't free it. Or something like that. Maybe he's due to start bursting out with Ell-fairies...

[Scotty 1,061]

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

I think it's a canon universe despite appearing in non-canon EGS:NP, but I couldn't fnd the NP comic that lays out what is canon NP and what isn't.

You're thinking about the Q&A7 segment, but at the end of the "Blank Check for Weirdness" or (AF04) story, Dan does refer to it as an alternate dimension which could easily make it a canon universe.

But yeah if you include AF04, there's 6 known universes in EGS:

The main one with our Elliot

Lord Tedd's universe doesn't appear to have an Elliot that we know of

Beta Tedd's universe has an Ellen

Second Life has an Ellen

Magus' universe where he's Ellen.

And AF04 with male Elliot.

 

Incidentally the ratio of Male:female Tedds is interesting as well.

Our Tedd is genderfluid

Lord Tedd seems very much male though more info is probably needed

Beta Tedd seems to be male.

Second Life Tedd might be genderfluid as well, at least he appeared to embrace the fact that he was androgynous looking by letting his hair grow long

Magus's universe Terra's obviously female

And AF04 has Tess.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

14 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Our Tedd is genderfluid

For some reason that made me think of this comic.

[Vorlonagent 442]

2 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Lord Tedd's universe doesn't appear to have an Elliot that we know of

Lord Tedd's universe is an open question.  We don't know if there's an "Ellen" and "Elliot" or the closest match is a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

5 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Lord Tedd seems very much male though more info is probably needed

The fact that Lord Tedd's closest friends are General Shade-Tail and Nioi suggest genderfluid to me.

9 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Beta Tedd seems to be male.

He could be genderfluid.  He was acting pretty much like EGS-Tedd.  He just had an active sex life.

11 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Second Life Tedd might be genderfluid as well, at least he appeared to embrace the fact that he was androgynous looking by letting his hair grow long

Magus's universe Terra's obviously female

What nails either down as cis-gender?  I don't see it.
 

14 minutes ago, Scotty said:

And AF04 has Tess.

Tess seems to have enough screen time to establish her as a girly-girl.  She would be the alternate-Tedd that's least likely to be genderfluid.

[Don Edwards 548]

16 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

I suspect if you had some sort of "gender-meter" that you could point at someone and it would tell you objectively what gender-category best fit them, it would place Ellen outside or between the "male" and "female" categories (in whatever category "gender-meh" was labeled as). However gender is such a personal issue that I think how a person chooses to label themself (or not label themself) is far more important than what a gender-meter would tell you - and not just because there's no such thing as a gender-meter.

I suspect such a device, if it existed, would have two dials or digital readouts - one for maleness and one for femaleness - each of which could go positive or negative independently of the other. And while there would be certain patterns of readings that would be significantly more common than other combinations, pretty much every possible combination would occur.

It would also be appropriate to take a person's readings on multiple occasions. Because genderfluid is not a single point in time, it's a process over a period of minutes to months.

Still, I agree that such a device (if it existed) should be merely a tool for diagnosis and suggestions. Nobody should be (or feel) obligated to conform to a behavior pattern because of its readings.

 

[Scotty 1,061]

1 minute ago, Vorlonagent said:

Lord Tedd's universe is an open question.  We don't know if there's an "Ellen" and "Elliot" or the closest match is a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

The only thing we're sure of is that Lord Tedd doesn't have an Elliot for a friend, can only speculate that he either did and Elliot died, or they just never met.

3 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

The fact that Lord Tedd's closest friends are General Shade-Tail and Nioi suggest genderfluid to me.

I'm not sure how being friends with them would suggest that. Though it wouldn't surprise me if General Shade Tail was somehow keeping Lord Tedd from exploring the possibility.

5 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

What nails either down as cis-gender?  I don't see it.

Second Life Tedd could be genderfluid, but since they don't appear to have magic or transformation technology (I suspect it exists though since Uryuoms and Seyunolus do) Tedd might have resorted to expressing it in other ways, a few pages after the one I linked show's Tedd with a choker and general looking more feminine but I don't believe Tedd was physically female, that doesn't mean Tedd wasn't feeling female at that moment though.

Terra's situation is entirely base on Magus' statement of Terra not chosing to become male like Magus did. There isn't any evidence that Terra ever was male, but there also isn't anything to suggest genderfluidity either, I would imagine that if she was genderfluid, being able to switch sexes easily would be the best thing since she can be male for her job but female any other time?