#2 spoiler-ful thread

[Alpha Rider]

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I wonder what Puck ment by "Known to you mortals ..." I wonder if he's possessed or something?

[-K-M-]

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I wonder what Puck ment by "Known to you mortals ..." I wonder if he's possessed or something?

He was the ruler of Hell not to long ago, so he is abit messed in the head right now

[suzene]

Obviously I liked it and there is no cause for gnashing of teeth.

Del, would you mind clarifying what you mean by that? Because it's coming off as really dismissive.

[bigbloo]

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A pretty solid piece of work from the whole creative team.

It's looking like the "not brainwashed" line from #1 was a lie. But I can't really see Pak and Van Lente doing something like that and ending up saying "oh yeah she was brainwashed, so of course she is going to say she isn't brainwashed!". So this whole Unity thing has to be something else. Because if it turns out to be brainwashing I will be very disappointed.

Now if it isn't brainwashing, I can conceivably see Heather as being weirded out by Puck's new personality (heck, I'm currently weirded out by Puck), hence the "freak" line. I mean, he just came from hell. Who can say that he isn't some demon. I'm very intrigued by his statement that he knows what is going on, that he has information from hell. Could all the Unity folks be possessed by demons?

I'm tending to agree with suzene on Aurora's new molester. I feel it's unnecessary, as we could have used any of the old ones, and it would still work. I mean, think of the impact of seeing Soeur Anne strapped to a chair with a rubber ball in her mouth. Think of all the publicity we would get!

I'm very skeptical of Snowbird being beaten by a Boxbot. Shape shifting isn't her only power. She is superstrong as well. Even in her Narya form, she should have been able to smash em. Narya smash!

Finally, now I know why we havent seen Rocksie for so long. She was in hell with Puck.

[DelBubs]

Del, would you mind clarifying what you mean by that? Because it's coming off as really dismissive.

Not my intention. It is directed at myself. I was trying to convey that I couldn't find anything in the comic to make me get overly negative. I did have a tendency to only see negatives and ignore positives at one time. If the comment has been taken as dismissive then I can only apologise, never my intention. I'll amend.

[suzene]

Not my intention. It is directed at myself. I was trying to convey that I couldn't find anything in the comic to make me get overly negative. I did have a tendency to only see negatives and ignore positives at one time. If the comment has been taken as dismissive then I can only apologise, never my intention. I'll amend.

Thanks. It's hard to judge for tone over the internet, so I figured I'd ask.

[varo]

suzene, no offense but never once did the scene say molested, it said abused, which can range from mental to physical, not necessarily sexual. thats just a interpretation. i interpreted as every time jm's powers flared up they threw her in a dark room. i fully understand where your coming from as far as the social issue, but a comic book forum seems like the last place you would want to discuss them.

[DelBubs]

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I re-read what was written before I responded to Suzene. The implication was Sexual Abuse, "There were others", "Why, whenever he got found out, his superiors just shipped him off to another town". All the images of the other victims are young females.

This sequence took place in an AF comic so this seems like a reasonable place to discuss the subject matter.

Hopefully no offense will be taken, my intention was to be devils advocate and nothing else.

[suzene]

suzene, no offense but never once did the scene say molested, it said abused, which can range from mental to physical, not necessarily sexual. thats just a interpretation. i interpreted as every time jm's powers flared up they threw her in a dark room. i fully understand where your coming from as far as the social issue, but a comic book forum seems like the last place you would want to discuss them.

Art doesn't happen in a vacuum. It reflects the attitudes of the world around it and affects the people partaking of it, and keeping quiet about the negative aspects helps exactly nothing except to allow them to continue unchallenged. Trust that I don't start these discussions for pleasure. I've been waiting for this series as long as the rest of the Flight fandom, and having my enjoyment pulled up short by this sort of thing is not fun. Neither is voicing criticism on a matter of importance to me, knowing that it is going be met with indifference or dismissal from most corners (and in that, I am speaking generally, not specifically of this forum). But it's either speak up or be complicit, and I sleep better if I go with the former.

As for the rest of it: Firstly, the scene is clearly meant to suggest that Jeanne-Marie was sexually abused -- the story that was attached to the scene, that of the person with authority shuffled off to a new batch of victims every time his misconduct was discovered, is a direct lift from the Catholic church sex abuse cases. Secondly, if there wasn't supposed to be any implication of sexual abuse, the scene would not have to be rooted in subtext, as the physical and mental abuse in Byrne's run was directly mentioned. Thirdly, if there was meant to be no suggestion of sexual abuse, FVL could simply have said so when directly questioned about it.

You're free to believe what you want in the face of available evidence, but don't imply that I'm having an unreasonable reaction to a scene with other obvious interpretations.

[suzene]

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Hopefully no offense will be taken, my intention was to be devils advocate and nothing else.

I don't know if this is to me or to varo, but there's no offense on my part.

[bigbloo]

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He was the ruler of Hell not to long ago, so he is abit messed in the head right now

From what Puck said, and where he came from, I'm getting the suspicion that Unity may be something like demonic possession.

[bigbloo]

Dear Forum,

Eat my reply one more time, and we are in a fight.

No love,
Me

This happened to me a few times. This is why when I have a long reply, I now compose it on a word document or something.

[Legerd]

This happened to me a few times. This is why when I have a long reply, I now compose it on a word document or something.

I always copy my longer posts, then if they get lost I can simply paste them.

[Phil]

never once did the scene say molested, it said abused, which can range from mental to physical, not necessarily sexual. thats just a interpretation. i interpreted as every time jm's powers flared up they threw her in a dark room. i fully understand where your coming from as far as the social issue, but a comic book forum seems like the last place you would want to discuss them.

When I read through the issue and the scene in question I did take it to be sexual abuse from the male in question, especially with the other victims(who wouldn't have light powers) and the abuser being moved around.
To me (while obviously not condoning any kind of abuse, lets get that out there for starters) it didn't come off as completely out of nowhere.
In many cases that I've read of (second hand, obviously so I have no real basis to judge it upon and may just be falling to media hype etc.) in a lot of institutions/cases where abuse has been recorded (not just religious institutes either, let's get that stated clearly as well - I'm in no-way making a slight upon religion either, the fact that JM suffered at the hands of nuns is aside) mental abuse and physical abuse tend to go hand in hand.

Had it suddenly been revealed that Heather's reason for joining Unity was that she was molested then I'd be writing this Volume off to the great pile of Mantlo & Lobdell-isms.
(Marrina, Snowbird even more so, but that's just even more ridiculous.)

So for me, while I definitely agree that the implication was sexual abuse and that the story could well have been told without it, I don't feel that it's completely out of place, and nor does it have any baring on my thoughts towards Aurora. In the way I see it, this isn't the cause of the Aurora personality.

But that's just me.
I'm a statistic/database geek who likes pretty pictures. I don't always tend to get themes.

And without putting a mod hat on, this is just my personal opinion so anyone can feel free to disagree: As Del's said, the issue's been raised within the comic so I feel it's very relevant as long as we're basing the conversation on JM/Aurora. I believe that the majority of us are mature enough to deal with the subject here as long as we're keeping it relevant to AF.

Putting my mod hat on: If anyone does have a problem with the subject matter feel free to give Ben, Del, Rob or myself a PM.

[DelBubs]

One thing that did occur to me. Did FVL interpret Byrnes original story to mean sexual abuse. There's many recorded cases of problems within Catholic institutions. It wouldn't be to much of a leap to assume that Byrne meant sexual abuse. If FVL was working from that premise, it doesn't mean I suddenly agree with that plot device being used, but I could understand better why it was. If it's just FVL expanding on an established story with controversial/sensational plotlines, then hmmm??