I did not, yet I feel like I should have. I looked at the bottom of the page where you have the ChaosLife banner, and your expressions in the banner fit perfectly with the last panel. I had a good laugh for a few minutes!
As Gaki’s absolute fan, I now take back Mary’s “Favourite Character” achievement. Gaaaakiiiii… It’s not fair. (Still he’s got his Alice, but she looks like a teenager, so I don’t think it would be, am, legal)
Well, look at it this way: How fair is it to string along a guy who you have absolutely no feelings for? I never got any sense that Mary was ever “in love” with Gaki, or interested in him in that way.
First response seeing this: Oh! they shipped them!
Second Response: Not surprised. But I wonder how Gaki will take it.
Third response: How will Fragile react?
Now I’m terribly curious about the next panel!!!
I for one wonder how Arthur will react with his “homosexuality is a sin” :/ I always got the feeling that he idolized Mary a lot and soon as he finds out “pure” Mary loves not only a girl but a potentially dangerous vampire who almost got him killed, he’ll be FURIOUS and betrayed and I’m kinda worried about his stability.
BUT MARY AND FRAGILE KISSED AND I’M ONE HAPPY SHIPPER THANK YOU GUYS
Mildly surprised. Then wondered what Gaki would make of this. Was mildly unsettled by the thought of a Mary-Gaki-Fragile threesome. Am not mildly surprised and unsettled.
Just my two cents – it seems really unfeasible that the great majority of the cast in your story is turning out to be LGBT, which is normally uncommon. Imagine I grabbed ten people off a busy New York sidewalk at complete random, and told you that seven of them are left-handed, and two more refused to answer the survey. You wouldn’t believe me. Or if I told you that eight of them were pregnant – purely by chance. You would be very skeptical. For me, this particular page bounced, and I was left thinking “Really? Another one? Who’s left?” Gaki seems to be the only character who has demonstrated that he isn’t LGBorT. Poor guy. All alone. 😛
Despite that, I love this comic series. I love the art, and I love the differences between character personalities, and I love how some are good, some are more evil, and some are somewhere in between and seem to be uncertain how they feel about that. Keep them coming!
I’m glad you enjoy the comic so much, thank you for that!
But… Aw, man. Aw, hell, it is hard not to be pissed off and a little mean about that first paragraph. I mean, for starters, you’re worried that too much LGBT representation being unrealistic in a fictional world in which vampires, demons, and robots are running around. I could even argue that people of the supernatural subset might be more likely to fall somewhere in the LGBT spectrum simply because they’re counter-culture, often long-lived enough to experiment with sexuality and gender concepts, and a statistically more isolated group. And all of that reasoning is without even beginning to touch on your implied notion that LGBT people should stay statistically represented to about 10% or less, just to keep things “normal.” If we should be more conscious of the real world of averages, how do you feel about the races being represented? Statistically speaking in world averages, around 46-50% of our cast should be Asian, and the rest black or middle eastern, with maybe one token white guy.
Finally, maybe seeing that many LGBT characters simply isn’t normal for you. Depending on who you talk to, a lot of LGBT people tend to mostly know LGBT people. It’s perfectly normal for us to be surrounded by our own kind, no matter how statistically odd that might be on a world scale. All of the statistics aside, we are making a conscious effort to make this comic more than a little LGBT-centric, because the regular media does a pretty shit job of representing people like us. We started this comic with exactly that in mind: to make something we wanted to see, and to see ourselves and our friends represented in it. To turn your argument around: think of 10, 20, 30 popular movies or TV shows right off the top of your head. How many of them prominently feature any LGBT folk, with at least one or more of them as the lead or main relationship? I’m going to bet that it’s a whole lot less than 10% of them. That does seem pretty unfeasible for the real world, doesn’t it?
So, I’ve got bad news for you: if you’re uncomfortable seeing so many LGBT characters in one place, it’s only going to get a lot worse from here.
I for one really enjoy the amount of LGBT representation in this comic. I think it illustrates the fluidity of all the identity spectrums and that you should never assume anything about anyone else’s identity. Thank you and keep it up! 😀
Well said.
I myself am straight and only know a few people who aren’t. That said I would have to agree with almost everything you said. If you grab 10 random people off the street and ask them and they all answer honestly you could get anywhere from none to all of them being LGBT because they would stick together because (I’m assuming here so correct me if I’m wrong) they know that it won’t be held against them unlike what many ignorant straight people would.
I read a book that words it nicely, though it was with magic users; Finding someone with Talent is rare, however finding two people with Talent in close proximity is not rare at all because we are drawn to each other.
And because I often play devil’s advocate I am gonna poke at one thing you said. That being that 46-50% should be asian and so on bit. If I’m not mistaken then your comic is taking place in America, therefore there would be more than a token white guy. I used this link for my information since I myself am Canadian; http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
Now even if this isn’t the most accurate I’m guessing that the degree it could be off is at most 20% probably more like 10-15%. Assuming worst case for accuracy that still puts white people at slightly over 50%.
That said I still agree with everything else you said and truly love the comic.
“I mean, for starters, you’re worried that too much LGBT representation being unrealistic in a fictional world in which vampires, demons, and robots are running around.”
Re-reading all of this past talk, coming back to it and all, while I think “Someone” phrased it awkwardly and a little bluntly, I will say I CAN understand where he is coming from. I think while WORLD-averages would dictate half the cast be Asian, the percentage of LGBTi people in most parts of the world is relatively low – relatively.
Being gender-queer myself, I DO feel gratified when people of less-common or under-represented sexualities or genders are shown. However, I will say I can understand that, for a lot of people, the concentration of non-straight people in this comic could feel like an over-compensation or representation – in much the same way if I had a comic with about 70% Jewish people, I myself being Jewish and knowing a lot of Jewish people, would feel unusual to others.
Not really taking sides, but easing off the steam a little and also just putting it out there. 🙂
Yeah I’m just gonna second that whole “LGBT people know LGBT people”. I talk to a lot of people, and guess what? Most of them are some shade of queer. I don’t typically hang around with cishet folks anymore, just by the process of eliminating “who is gonna say weird shit about my gender and sexuality”.
Personally, as another queer writer, I’m not INTERESTED in writing about straight folks. I can’t speak for Stiffler and K, obviously, but personally I would rather write about people who’s experiences are similar to my own. Maybe this gives me a smaller audience, but you know what? I honestly don’t care. Like, honestly: I do not care.
Finally, jesus what’s with all the “AW POOR GAKI~~~” on this page?? It’s been pretty clear that Mary isn’t actually interested in anything more than what they have. And yeah, this’ll suck for Gaki, since he does seem to honestly dig her, but what about what Mary wants? What about how she feels? Honestly I wonder what her intent is with Fragile — while they HAVE had genuine tension between them, Mary is still in such a weird place in her life: she could honestly do with being single for a while, I think! Maybe cultivate some honest friendships and work on processing how much her life has changed. (tbh I would actually love to see a Mary/C.E. friendship/mentorship blossom >__> )
Yes, exactly!! I mean, sure, Gaki is a nice guy (for the series’ standard. I mean he disposes fucking dead people and all.) but Mary clearly showed disinterest and all. Now that you said it… I wonder, is she toying with Fragile? So many questions, so long the wait for the next page.
Thanks A & K for the effort you put into this comic!!
Yeah, that one’s hard. I don’t THINK she’s toying with Fragile — I think the attraction is genuine, if only because, well… frAGILE… — but she defs could use some time to reflect on her new life. She’s suddenly been tossed into this bizarre world and doesn’t seem to have had much time to process, so I would GUESS that seeking a relationship wouldn’t come from that genuine place of “I like you and want to be with you”, but more of that “I could use some stability and I dig you”.
I have had relationships of the former, and this just… well, I’ll say Mary’s actions are familiar. Mega familiar. OTL
Glad I’m not the only one who finds the “aw poor Gaki!” comments to be a little messed up. But maybe this is because I’ve been in Mary’s shoes a few times before, stuck in relationships with guys I had no feelings for until I realized that I wasn’t into dudes. I thought it was pretty obvious from the start that Mary wasn’t that into Gaki, and it didn’t seem like that was going to be changing anytime soon, if ever. Sucks for Gaki, sure, but it also sucks for Mary to be in the situation she’s in.
And yeah, I know a lot of people of the LGBT crowd, so it’s not that weird for me to see more than “the token gay character” in a story. If nothing else, it’s refreshing and uplifting to see more than one LGBT-type character in the cast, because to me it’s more realistic. We’re not as uncommon as people seem to think, and in this day and age we are feeling more safe and comfortable coming out.
This is old, but I had to comment. I immediately felt “Awww Gaki” because he’s the only one who is going to be hurt and hurt a lot by this. Mary never really set it straight that she wasn’t into him, didnt give a firm, “No, I just want sex and nothing more.” and continually dodged him. It has nothing to do with what Mary wants or what Gaki wants or whatever.
It’s just that Gaki is going to be in pain while Mary find potential happiness. That’s all.
It just goes to show how demoralizing mainstream media is towards LGBT folk that when I first realized I shipped these two, my first thought was ‘there’s no way they’ll make them canon’. Not just because they’re two ladies, but because with Arthur the ‘gay quota’ had already been filled. It’s nice to read a fantasy story where queerness abounds.
As for the person above who said it was unrealistic to have so many queer folk in one story, I know that’s crap. I met my two best friends, a guy and a girl, in secondary school when I was twelve. It was a tiny school in rural Ireland, thirty eight students in our class, after a bunch of transfers. I knew I was gay from pretty early on, but I didn’t tell anyone. Little did I know, both my friends were gay as hell too. This led to a few weird years where we all pretended to be uber straight but were in fact hella gay (in retrospect, it was hilarious, like a little gay sitcom). And we weren’t the only ones. In a class of about thirty eight, eight-ten of us were gay. This stuff totally happens…
Hey just read through your comic and i really hope your making more no matter what anyone says it’s your comic do what you like it’s just i see it has not been update it a bit
Thank you and no worries: we’re wrapping up the next page as I type! Ignore the dates on the Chapter section, it went bananas some time ago and stopped updating around February, even though we’ve been updating weekly since then. 😐
…. Didn’t see that coming. Hoped it was though. Glad it did. I love this sooo much.
hellz yaaaaaa 😀
I did not, yet I feel like I should have. I looked at the bottom of the page where you have the ChaosLife banner, and your expressions in the banner fit perfectly with the last panel. I had a good laugh for a few minutes!
You beat me to it, I was just about to say the same thing!
Finally
Yeeeeeeey!! <3 I want more!! XD
*toe-wiggly happiness* 😀
YES YES YES. Thank god yes. Gaki’s nice and everything but he doesn’t make Mary smile like Fragile does. This needed to happen.
Oh, wow, I didn’t see that coming. Awesome!
wait WAT? I did NOT see that comin!
Am I the only one who saw that coming? 😀
absolutely loving it! <3
Lol finally!! You could cut that tension with a butter knife!!
YASSSS
Oh no Gaki ;o;
As Gaki’s absolute fan, I now take back Mary’s “Favourite Character” achievement. Gaaaakiiiii… It’s not fair. (Still he’s got his Alice, but she looks like a teenager, so I don’t think it would be, am, legal)
Like anything they do is legal? lol
He might dispose of bodies, but even Gaki would find that notion creepy as fuck.
Fair point. There can at least be legitimate reasons to murder someone, as opposed to, that, which is NOT okay. EVER
he seemed genuinely freaked out when Mary accused him of keeping her as a sex slave a while back too.
P.S. I know this has been up for a while now but i just started reading it and it’s amazing
Well, look at it this way: How fair is it to string along a guy who you have absolutely no feelings for? I never got any sense that Mary was ever “in love” with Gaki, or interested in him in that way.
I am very much pro this happening, but….poor Gaki!
That was quick o.o
First response seeing this: Oh! they shipped them!
Second Response: Not surprised. But I wonder how Gaki will take it.
Third response: How will Fragile react?
Now I’m terribly curious about the next panel!!!
Hoooooooooolllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyy sheeeeeeeit. Now that was a twist.
Totally saw it coming.
Man, poor Gaki. He’s my favourite character (Tied with C.E of cource) and I’m sad this has to happen. At least it makes Mary happy?
Hells yeeaaah
Soooo, octopus guy wandered off before anyone could talk to him. Are we going to see more of him?!
I thought he was got by the golems?
…well, I sure didn’t.
and now the week long wait to see what happens next begins… I’ll be in the corner slowly rocking back and forth in anticipation…
I didn’t know I needed this until now! (although I have an itching for Mary and CE for some reason)
tots saw that coming
Aww, Gaki… I kinda did see it coming though.
I for one wonder how Arthur will react with his “homosexuality is a sin” :/ I always got the feeling that he idolized Mary a lot and soon as he finds out “pure” Mary loves not only a girl but a potentially dangerous vampire who almost got him killed, he’ll be FURIOUS and betrayed and I’m kinda worried about his stability.
BUT MARY AND FRAGILE KISSED AND I’M ONE HAPPY SHIPPER THANK YOU GUYS
IKR I’M SO FUCKIN’ STOKED TO SEE WHERE THIS GOES HNNGGHH
She just keeps sticking her self on everyone like a sticker aint she ? Cx
FINALY!!!
Yeah, totally saw that coming. 🙂 But what about poor Gaki???
You have no idea how happy you made this little weirdo 🙂
Yes. We totally did.
Mildly surprised. Then wondered what Gaki would make of this. Was mildly unsettled by the thought of a Mary-Gaki-Fragile threesome. Am not mildly surprised and unsettled.
Feeling conflicted, send help.
I guess it’s not Gaki’s lucky day.
Just my two cents – it seems really unfeasible that the great majority of the cast in your story is turning out to be LGBT, which is normally uncommon. Imagine I grabbed ten people off a busy New York sidewalk at complete random, and told you that seven of them are left-handed, and two more refused to answer the survey. You wouldn’t believe me. Or if I told you that eight of them were pregnant – purely by chance. You would be very skeptical. For me, this particular page bounced, and I was left thinking “Really? Another one? Who’s left?” Gaki seems to be the only character who has demonstrated that he isn’t LGBorT. Poor guy. All alone. 😛
Despite that, I love this comic series. I love the art, and I love the differences between character personalities, and I love how some are good, some are more evil, and some are somewhere in between and seem to be uncertain how they feel about that. Keep them coming!
I’m glad you enjoy the comic so much, thank you for that!
But… Aw, man. Aw, hell, it is hard not to be pissed off and a little mean about that first paragraph. I mean, for starters, you’re worried that too much LGBT representation being unrealistic in a fictional world in which vampires, demons, and robots are running around. I could even argue that people of the supernatural subset might be more likely to fall somewhere in the LGBT spectrum simply because they’re counter-culture, often long-lived enough to experiment with sexuality and gender concepts, and a statistically more isolated group. And all of that reasoning is without even beginning to touch on your implied notion that LGBT people should stay statistically represented to about 10% or less, just to keep things “normal.” If we should be more conscious of the real world of averages, how do you feel about the races being represented? Statistically speaking in world averages, around 46-50% of our cast should be Asian, and the rest black or middle eastern, with maybe one token white guy.
Finally, maybe seeing that many LGBT characters simply isn’t normal for you. Depending on who you talk to, a lot of LGBT people tend to mostly know LGBT people. It’s perfectly normal for us to be surrounded by our own kind, no matter how statistically odd that might be on a world scale. All of the statistics aside, we are making a conscious effort to make this comic more than a little LGBT-centric, because the regular media does a pretty shit job of representing people like us. We started this comic with exactly that in mind: to make something we wanted to see, and to see ourselves and our friends represented in it. To turn your argument around: think of 10, 20, 30 popular movies or TV shows right off the top of your head. How many of them prominently feature any LGBT folk, with at least one or more of them as the lead or main relationship? I’m going to bet that it’s a whole lot less than 10% of them. That does seem pretty unfeasible for the real world, doesn’t it?
So, I’ve got bad news for you: if you’re uncomfortable seeing so many LGBT characters in one place, it’s only going to get a lot worse from here.
I for one really enjoy the amount of LGBT representation in this comic. I think it illustrates the fluidity of all the identity spectrums and that you should never assume anything about anyone else’s identity. Thank you and keep it up! 😀
Well said.
I myself am straight and only know a few people who aren’t. That said I would have to agree with almost everything you said. If you grab 10 random people off the street and ask them and they all answer honestly you could get anywhere from none to all of them being LGBT because they would stick together because (I’m assuming here so correct me if I’m wrong) they know that it won’t be held against them unlike what many ignorant straight people would.
I read a book that words it nicely, though it was with magic users; Finding someone with Talent is rare, however finding two people with Talent in close proximity is not rare at all because we are drawn to each other.
And because I often play devil’s advocate I am gonna poke at one thing you said. That being that 46-50% should be asian and so on bit. If I’m not mistaken then your comic is taking place in America, therefore there would be more than a token white guy. I used this link for my information since I myself am Canadian; http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
Now even if this isn’t the most accurate I’m guessing that the degree it could be off is at most 20% probably more like 10-15%. Assuming worst case for accuracy that still puts white people at slightly over 50%.
That said I still agree with everything else you said and truly love the comic.
“I mean, for starters, you’re worried that too much LGBT representation being unrealistic in a fictional world in which vampires, demons, and robots are running around.”
Holy shit, well put. You guys are so great.
Re-reading all of this past talk, coming back to it and all, while I think “Someone” phrased it awkwardly and a little bluntly, I will say I CAN understand where he is coming from. I think while WORLD-averages would dictate half the cast be Asian, the percentage of LGBTi people in most parts of the world is relatively low – relatively.
Being gender-queer myself, I DO feel gratified when people of less-common or under-represented sexualities or genders are shown. However, I will say I can understand that, for a lot of people, the concentration of non-straight people in this comic could feel like an over-compensation or representation – in much the same way if I had a comic with about 70% Jewish people, I myself being Jewish and knowing a lot of Jewish people, would feel unusual to others.
Not really taking sides, but easing off the steam a little and also just putting it out there. 🙂
Yeah I’m just gonna second that whole “LGBT people know LGBT people”. I talk to a lot of people, and guess what? Most of them are some shade of queer. I don’t typically hang around with cishet folks anymore, just by the process of eliminating “who is gonna say weird shit about my gender and sexuality”.
Personally, as another queer writer, I’m not INTERESTED in writing about straight folks. I can’t speak for Stiffler and K, obviously, but personally I would rather write about people who’s experiences are similar to my own. Maybe this gives me a smaller audience, but you know what? I honestly don’t care. Like, honestly: I do not care.
Finally, jesus what’s with all the “AW POOR GAKI~~~” on this page?? It’s been pretty clear that Mary isn’t actually interested in anything more than what they have. And yeah, this’ll suck for Gaki, since he does seem to honestly dig her, but what about what Mary wants? What about how she feels? Honestly I wonder what her intent is with Fragile — while they HAVE had genuine tension between them, Mary is still in such a weird place in her life: she could honestly do with being single for a while, I think! Maybe cultivate some honest friendships and work on processing how much her life has changed. (tbh I would actually love to see a Mary/C.E. friendship/mentorship blossom >__> )
Yes, exactly!! I mean, sure, Gaki is a nice guy (for the series’ standard. I mean he disposes fucking dead people and all.) but Mary clearly showed disinterest and all. Now that you said it… I wonder, is she toying with Fragile? So many questions, so long the wait for the next page.
Thanks A & K for the effort you put into this comic!!
Yeah, that one’s hard. I don’t THINK she’s toying with Fragile — I think the attraction is genuine, if only because, well… frAGILE… — but she defs could use some time to reflect on her new life. She’s suddenly been tossed into this bizarre world and doesn’t seem to have had much time to process, so I would GUESS that seeking a relationship wouldn’t come from that genuine place of “I like you and want to be with you”, but more of that “I could use some stability and I dig you”.
I have had relationships of the former, and this just… well, I’ll say Mary’s actions are familiar. Mega familiar. OTL
Glad I’m not the only one who finds the “aw poor Gaki!” comments to be a little messed up. But maybe this is because I’ve been in Mary’s shoes a few times before, stuck in relationships with guys I had no feelings for until I realized that I wasn’t into dudes. I thought it was pretty obvious from the start that Mary wasn’t that into Gaki, and it didn’t seem like that was going to be changing anytime soon, if ever. Sucks for Gaki, sure, but it also sucks for Mary to be in the situation she’s in.
And yeah, I know a lot of people of the LGBT crowd, so it’s not that weird for me to see more than “the token gay character” in a story. If nothing else, it’s refreshing and uplifting to see more than one LGBT-type character in the cast, because to me it’s more realistic. We’re not as uncommon as people seem to think, and in this day and age we are feeling more safe and comfortable coming out.
This is old, but I had to comment. I immediately felt “Awww Gaki” because he’s the only one who is going to be hurt and hurt a lot by this. Mary never really set it straight that she wasn’t into him, didnt give a firm, “No, I just want sex and nothing more.” and continually dodged him. It has nothing to do with what Mary wants or what Gaki wants or whatever.
It’s just that Gaki is going to be in pain while Mary find potential happiness. That’s all.
It just goes to show how demoralizing mainstream media is towards LGBT folk that when I first realized I shipped these two, my first thought was ‘there’s no way they’ll make them canon’. Not just because they’re two ladies, but because with Arthur the ‘gay quota’ had already been filled. It’s nice to read a fantasy story where queerness abounds.
As for the person above who said it was unrealistic to have so many queer folk in one story, I know that’s crap. I met my two best friends, a guy and a girl, in secondary school when I was twelve. It was a tiny school in rural Ireland, thirty eight students in our class, after a bunch of transfers. I knew I was gay from pretty early on, but I didn’t tell anyone. Little did I know, both my friends were gay as hell too. This led to a few weird years where we all pretended to be uber straight but were in fact hella gay (in retrospect, it was hilarious, like a little gay sitcom). And we weren’t the only ones. In a class of about thirty eight, eight-ten of us were gay. This stuff totally happens…
But yeah, go Fragile/Mary! Whoo!
Hey just read through your comic and i really hope your making more no matter what anyone says it’s your comic do what you like it’s just i see it has not been update it a bit
Thank you and no worries: we’re wrapping up the next page as I type! Ignore the dates on the Chapter section, it went bananas some time ago and stopped updating around February, even though we’ve been updating weekly since then. 😐
Oh ok thanks for getting back to me
This is an amazing series just like ChaosLife! Thank you for being awesome and writing these! 😀
God, finally some bi/pan representation in a work I enjoy! I love it!