A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
The Sanity Circus
Windy
Magic, monsters and mysteries await in the odd city of Sanity. It's up to Attley and a colorful group of characters to find out just what is going on.
The Hunter of Insania
Aoi Maneki
Wiol Alkko sells fake magical objects to those desperate for cures. When he tries to scam a real witch, she curses him: within a year, Wiol must learn and respect magic, or succumb to corruption of body and mind.
Parisa
Ellen K
Two friends, Nolan and Gwen, take it upon themselves to escort the amnesiac spirit Lelief across the world of Parisa.
Sufficiently Remarkable
Maki Naro
Two young women living in Brooklyn discover that you're always coming of age.
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Anarchy Dreamers
Emily Ree
Sparkly undead kids fight society's worst Nightmares in this pastel-punk urban fantasy coming-of-age!
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Between Failures
Jackie Wohlenhaus
The low stakes adventures of an assorted group of 20 somethings trapped in the declining years of American retail. They are naughty and say lots of swears.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Spinnerette
Krazy Krow, Rocio Zucchi, Pablo Rey
When a lab accident gives Heather Brown spider powers and six arms, she does what any midwest comic geek would do: Become Ohio's #3 superhero!
Devil's Candy
Rem, Bikkuri
A lush fantasy about boy genius Kazu Decker, the girl he constructed for his 9th grade science project, and the world of devils and monsters they live in.
Never Satisfied
Taylor Robin
Lucy Marlowe, a magician's apprentice, competes against other apprentices for an important, magical, Goverment Job.
Wychwood
Varethane
When Tiara's pyrokinesis is finally noticed, she is captured by a magical research organization for study. If she cooperates, she could be helping to save humanity from a dire threat - but can she trust them?
Witchy
Ariel Slamet Ries
In the witch kingdom Hyalin, the strength of your magic is determined by the length of your hair.
Awaken
Koti Saavedra/Flipfloppery
Superpowers, monsters and conspiracies. Piras, the spoiled Dameschi heir, fights to recover his identity after becoming a terrorist!
The Din
Karin (Karrey)
The Din changed the world, mankind & its technology. Gregg Emilio dreams of flying in a sky that hasn't carried airplanes in a century.
Demon Street
Aliza Layne
Two kids explore a world full of monsters and magic trying to find their way home again. But when home has been stolen from you, where do you go to get it back?
Laws and Sausages
Zach Weinersmith
Your cartoon guide to the American governement!
Demon's Mirror
Harry Bogosian
Based loosely off of "The Snow Queen", a story by Hans Christian Andersen, we see things take a different turn as the demons become central characters, and the side characters stick around. Yup, that's the only differences. Enjoy!
Ghost Junk Sickness
Studio CARTRIDGE, Laura Lee
Two hunters try to survive and end up being pushed to pursue a deadly bounty dubbed "The Ghost".
Tove
Severin
The end of the world is coming, and Tove doesn't want to be a hero, but SOMEONE has to look after her little brother.
Real Science Adventures
Brian Clevinger
Spin off stories and other adventures from the world of Atomic Robo!
Elephant Town
Danielle Corsetto
The long, slow tale of Kris, Paul, Berto and Mirando, four people who live in the same creaky old house, but don't know each other. New chapter updates every 2 months.
Wilde Life
Pascalle Lepas
Oscar decided to rent an old haunted house, and that's when things got weird...
[un]Divine
Ayme
A highschool senior thought giving up his soul for a demon was a good idea. It wasn't.
Monster Pulse
Magnolia Porter Siddell
Four kids run afoul of a creepy secret organization's experiments, which turn their body parts into fighting monsters. Part sentimental coming-of-age story, part monster-training shonen manga, with just a bit of sci-fi body horror.
Little Red & Wolf
Aoi Maneki
Delve into the daily lives of two famous fairytale characters, and their adventures in this big weird world we all live in.
Knights Errant
J.R. Doyle
Wilfrid's humble quest for revenge becomes bigger and bloodier by the day.
Star Trip
Gisele Weaver
Jas is a human taken from her home planet on a trip across the galaxy she will never forget.
No Need for Bushido
Suburban Samurai, J W Kovell
The flash of a blade, the clash of steel! A runaway princess and her samurai companion navigate a fractured country on the brink of war.
The Mash
L.F. Garcia, Danigami
In a world shrouded in mystery and threatened by great evil,a young mummy prince will use his new life to unite with other monster children to save it.
MASKLESS
kickingshoes
In a world where people can wield the magic of elemental Masks, all Ashe wants to do is help. Maskless and useless, with dreams of fire and smoke on the back of his tongue, he finds himself on a strange, dangerous path to uncovering the secrets of these incredible objects, and the source of the monsters plaguing his home.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Go Get a Roomie
Clover
Experience the queer journey of an upbeat hippie and the friendships she makes along the way! A tale of self-discovery and love of many forms.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Starhammer
J.N. Monk, Harry Bogosian
A teen girl inherits a powerful alien artifact and proceeds to make a series of increasingly poor decisions
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
Awkward Zombie
Katie Tiedrich
Gags and goofs about videogames and the things that happen in them.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Kelly Turnbull
A weekly comic celebrating the finer things in life. Like manly men, lumberjacks, and time traveling special ops agents.
Girl Genius
Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio
In a time when the Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war, Mad Science rules the World...with mixed success.
Sam & Fuzzy
Sam Logan
Troubled by gangster rodents, lovesick vampire stalkers, or confused ninja assassins? Don't panic! Sam and Fuzzy are here to help. (For a reasonable fee.)
Jailbird
Charlie Davis
An all-ages comic about a recently escaped prisoner's struggle to understand the outside world, and vice-versa. Also, a magic cape!
El Goonish Shive
Dan Shive
WARNING: This comic often ignores the Laws of Physics
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Atomic Robo
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener
The robot punches monsters and bad robots and one time he was a cowboy.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Lighter Than Heir
Melissa Albino
A young Volant woman joins the military in an effort to upstage her war-hero father.
Helvetica
J.N. Wiedle
This story follows Helvetica's quest to uncover who he was in life, his existential crises, and his struggle to to make death worth living.
The Glass Scientists
Sage (S.H.) Cotugno
A gaslamp fantasy comic about the life and times of a ragtag group of mad scientists and their enigmatic leader, Dr. Henry Jekyll.
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I dunno. She might be into scat, and there’s no harm in that.
Accidental rhyming, might as well call me Neil Diamond
(Rhyme/time is too cliché, so I did it my own way *shot*)
Which is pretty amazing, really, considering how the DoA Commentariat is desperate to see everyone else bang, doubly so if its 2 ladies. There’s more shipping in this comments section than the ports of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and LA/Long Beach combined …
The revealed motives, sure, but not the reveal.
And I’d really only filed the ship into ‘probable enough that it won’t be surprising if it comes up,’ so I can’t properly claim to have seen it coming.
Oh wow. I went to college at a NTID school, and let me tell you there are few things more disturbing than two people who CAN. NOT hear how loud they are boning in the next room of a dorm.
Experience tells me that many people appear to be stone deaf during sex no matter how good their hearing is the rest of the time. They also tend to find the 11 on their volume settings.
When the neighbors from three houses down the road call the police because they’re convinced a woman is being murdered, you know you’re not being quiet enough. Also, close the bloody window next time.
Sudden spikes in the volume of the TV or stereo in the living room are also a good indication that you’re louder than you think. The rest of the house has not suddenly become desperate to hear that Sprint commercial clearly, they’re trying to drown out the moaning.
How many folks on campus would be willing to learn sign and are into girls? Even if that list were longer than, let’s be honest, it probably is, that’s a search that’s gonna take time, and Marcie’s got needs.
I don’t get the impression she’s just settling though. Malaya and Marcie genuinely do get along really well. Probably in part because Marcie doesn’t treat Malaya like shit. They’ve bonded over their mutual love of roller derby.
Sure, Malaya’s clearly not what Sal looks for in a sexual partner but she’s still quite a catch. Don’t think Marcie meets cool people like Malaya on a regular basis or anything.
It wouldn’t be that hard for Marcie to meet ‘cool’ people if her standards for ‘cool’ were so freakin’ low that Malaya could meet them. Nah, I think this is just a case of, well, DoA being part of the Willisverse. Every character in the Willisverse has to be fucked up one way or another: Marcie is into Malaya of all people because that’s just the way she’s fucked up.
Um there are probably PLENTY of deaf or mute people on campus. If she gets involved in the community, it isn’t that hard to find them. On my campus, we have a meeting every wednesday at starbucks for any deaf people (or asl students) to come meet each other and hang out. I’m sure there’s something like that on their campus. It just so happens that Marcie met Malaya and was attracted to her.
Oop. Mute people can come too. xD I just haven’t met any of them yet! Though it’s possible I’ve hung out with some, and they just haven’t told me they are mute! I’ll have to ask the group next time.
She always says what’s on her mind. She’s brutally, sometimes insultingly honest, but I’m guessing that if you actually take her at fact value & don’t react like hell the way Sal does, you’ll be able to have a good interaction.
In Iceland, they eat rotting shark and call it a delicacy, so I guess there’s your answer: you can be an utter piece of crap like Malaya, and still there’ll be someone, somewhere who’s into you.
And they’ll probably be best friends with someone like Sal, whose personality is nearly identical to yours (only more active aggression, rather than reactive).
Mmmm, nope, not really. Sal isn’t at all like Malaya. They both have that ‘bad girl’ attitude about them, but that’s about it: Sal is pretty much live and let live; kind of aloof too, but nothing to do with Malaya’s way of lashing at everyone that comes close just because they’re there.
(Still assuming that this Malaya is more or less like the one in Shortpacked!, of course. But we’ve seen very little of her, so that’s all we have to go on)
Malaya has never been shown to ‘lash out at someone just because they were there’. She has been shown reacting to Sal and Amber being aggressive jerks in her direction, but has never lashed out at someone who didn’t start it.
Sal and Malaya are both snarky and with anger control issues only a little behind Amber’s – but Malaya has the decency only to direct her anger at the people who’ve actually made her angry.
I think assuming personality carries over isn’t always warranted. Some characters are very different in DoA compared to their previous incarnations. Sarah is more protective, Amber is a LOT angrier, Joe isn’t a closet nerd/geek/whatever, Dina is almost a different person, and Carla isn’t a prankster.
Seconded. Much as I dislike DoA Joe, it would be nice to see some more depth to him. That way I can either really hate him as irredeemable, or find some hidden quality that makes him seem more human to me. As it stands now he’s almost at Faz levels for me.
This. His Walkyverse character had depth because of his engineering genius, closet nerd status, and then his relationship with Rachel. All three of these have been stripped from him, so now you just have One-Night Stand Joe left.
There’s how many thousands of people on this campus? And literally all of them are more pleasant to be around than Malaya. She’s Mike without the humor or the quality hatesex.
Exactly. Yet, the first time she meets Carla, she’s being quite antagonistic to her. I wouldn’t say she fits into the Full-of-herself or Amazi-Girl categories.
She’s really not. Even if she were only an asshole to people she dislikes as much as the others (and she isn’t, she’s a few steps further in most regards), she dislikes far more people, because she’s a misanthrope.
I like Malaya as a character, but let’s not fucking kid ourselves.
I dunno. I don’t see it. If she didn’t like people she probably wouldn’t be part of a team and hang out with people all the time. She’s just stand-offish and doesn’t get close. Also she’s a jerk. But these guys are all skater punks. They’re all kinda jerks in their own ways.
She’s part of a team that *punches people*. I’m not saying sh dislikes all humans except Marcie. I’m saying she dislikes most people. She can like her team, and still dislike people.
Everyone, and I mean everyone on the planet and in fiction, has at times been at least a bit of a jerk, to at least one actual person. The questions that matter are how often, to what degrees, etc.
I haven’t read any of the other Willis comics (at least not up to the point where Marcie or Malaya existed) and I really don’t understand all the hate for Malaya… Sal and Malaya are both angry, ill-tempered, loner-types, just in slightly different flavors. If Marcie can put up with Sal, it isn’t much of a leap to think she can get along with Malaya.
Well put. Also, as folks have noted, Malaya has been putting effort into learning sign language which seems like a pretty genuine gesture of care and respect. She is capable of giving a shit about people, she’s just super aggressive and abrasive, and Sal has probably left Marcie in good shape to handle those personality traits in a relationship.
Their interactions with Marcie are very different. Sal’s a childhood friend, and probably helped her through adjusting to losing her ability to speak. Malaya’s a new face, shares a sport with her, and is a sexual partner.
That’s a conclusion a lot of people are jumping to, right now, that I’m not sure is right. Marcie WANTS to f**k Malaya, I’m not sure it’s actually happened, yet. Note that Marcie dragged Sal away from Malaya before signing to her – she doesn’t want Malaya to know what she’s saying, yet. Her feelings (desires? unclear) for her may not yet be public.
I don’t think Marcie necessarily planned on telling Sal that, just to play devil’s advocate. She PLANNED on giving Sal a piece of her mind, which is often done in private whether or not you plan on spilling secrets. SAL is the one who demanded to know what Malaya gives Marcie that Sal can’t.
I suspect a lot of the dislike comes from her behavior in a previous universe. Here she is being abrasive in reaction to someone being abrasive to her first, and its coming off as assertive to me. In some other universe, she was initiating, and it came off as … self centered and really awful.
I found her irritating at first in this ‘verse, and even though her attitude improved to a live-and-let-live ‘civil unless provoked’ state pretty quickly, others might’ve had the same first impressions and held on to them long enough for her to be provoked.
A lot of the dislike comes to the fact that she’s a woman with the temerity to be a jerk, really. Mike could get away with literal murder (He may also have literally gotten away with literal murder, but I don’t remember him doing that in SP! at least), but Malaya’s the worst. I find her to be an entertaining jackass.
That’s a fair point; Mike is definitely worse. People seem less angry at him for it. I wonder how much of this is gender, and how much is Mike’s awfulness has wrapped around to the point of unreal/unimaginable, so its funny rather than something one has dealt with in their life. I suspect its both.
It’s my case. In this universe, she seems quite tolerable. But… Yeah. I would be happy to see her receive a proper beating for karmic reasons.
On the other hand, Sal’s behaviour towards her made me want to see Sal on the receiving end of a punch, too. The previous pages made me hope the end of my anger was near… Oh well. It’s going to cool down by itself, it’s not like any of them actually did something I cannot forgive/understand.
In the Walkyverse Malaya was like Dumbiverse Walky. A rather meanspirited jokester. She made humor at the expense of others, tore down the things that brought others joy, frequently asserted how awesome she was.
For some reason this went over really poorly. People would often compare her to characters who are pathologically vindictive/manipulative, or who engage in exaggerated displays of physical violence.
I suspect Malaya being a woman plays a big part in it. Behavior that’s mildly annoying in a man becomes outrageously offensive in a woman.
Yeah, if you had read Shortpacked! you wouldn’t have trouble understanding why we love to despise Malaya. Let’s just say she was… well, not the worst because there was Amber’s dad; but definitely not someone you’d want to have in your life. In fact, she was the kind of person that makes your life better just by not being part of it. Then again, this Malaya might be different: for one thing, she was prepared to learn sign language for the sake of someone else, and that’s something the old Malaya would never have done.
I’d love having Malaya in my life. She tells it like it is. The only reason she seemed so unpleasent is because she was 24/7 sorrounded by people and things she doesn’t like. I liked her in shortpacked too.
Dude, you could drop Malaya anywhere in the world and she’d be surrounded by people she wouldn’t like XD
(Except in the middle of the ocean. Or the Gobi desert. Or Anctartica. Yeah, we could drop her there that’d solve both her problems and everybody else’s. Hmmm… *w*)
As for ‘telling it like (she thinks) it is’… well, maybe my standards are a bit too high (?) but I won’t accept Malaya’s obnoxious brand of self-centered insensitivity as a substitute for sincerity. If that’s what you mean.
Uh. Even Walkiverse Malaya had her caring side. Off the top of my head: suppressed her sexual desires for a year for UC’s sake, stopped eating junkfood for UC’s sake, pooped on Leslie’s mom’s car. She’s always been very selective and very… uh… ‘eccentric’ in how she shows caring.
With Leslie, I just don’t know. I mean, its good to break things off quickly when you realize that its not gonna work. Its good to give the other person some space after breaking things off. That’s all… objectively good behavior.
What matters is if she ever felt anything like caring. And, well, I am not in Malaya’s head, so I can’t tell.
If you want read Malaya as jerking Leslie around, that’s your perogative. But just because Leslie was hurt in the short term, it does not necessarily follow that Malaya never cared about her. A lack of romantic interest != no caring in any capacity whatsoever.
“I was experimenting and it turns out I’m not into girls”
That’s not really her being a jerk. relationships are complicated and if you’re really gonna get butthurt because someone realizes that they’re not physically attracted to you despite liking you as a person, well, that’s your prerogative. She also stood up to leslie’s parents, and this was after the breakup. She definitely cared about Leslie and felt defensive of her.
There was that whole admiring Leslie for going through all the crap for being a Lesbian, that whole ‘you inspire me to be abetter person’ speech, confronting Leslie’s mom for treating leslie so poorly after they broke up, giving Leslie relationship advice when she saw Leslie was in pain watching Robin and Joe being together, and she walked Leslie down the aisle at her wedding.
Whatever made you think that Malaya ever didn’t care about her???????????
“relationships are complicated and if you’re really gonna get butthurt because someone realizes that they’re not physically attracted to you despite liking you as a person, well, that’s your prerogative.”
You also might want to read up on “Nice Guys” and the backlash by/against them. (By “you” I am addressing the “general you” in yoto’s quote, not anyone in particular.)
I mean yeah, sp Malaya could have probably worded the rejection better, but if she were a genius at human interactions she wouldn’t be in a David Willis comic.
OK, so it looks like I’m gonna have to answer my own post, because for some reason I can’t answer yours. The ‘reply’ option just doesn’t appear. So here it is:
That’s not her breaking up with Leslie though. That’s her realizing she’s not into girls. She JUST realized that herself. This is a TERRIBLE example Arianod.
You may also want to take note the conversation they were having ebfore that, where Leslie wishes she’d been more straight forward and honest about her feelings and hadn’t ended up coming out three months into a wedding.
So Malaya did exactly what leslie had just said she wishes she’d done.
And timemonkey, since you apparently managed to miss the point somehow, I’ll spell it out for you: nobody is saying that Malaya shouldn’t have broken up with Leslie (sheesh). The point is that’s no way to break up with someone, certainly not someone you care the tiniest bit about.
And now -seriously- can we stop trying to make excuses for Malaya? Please? :c
I already gave up on trying to convince you of anything, dude. You’re determined to interpret everything Malaya does in the worst possible light and to ignore anything that contradicts this preconceived notion.
Your hard-done-by emoticon and general tone are hilarious though. “Please :c” You’re so personally wounded by attempts to actually answer your question.
You’ve convinced no one you were arguing with of anything, because the one point you’ve made any attempt at rebutting is desperately removed from context, but if you’re done being melodramatically surprised that anyone could possibly think Malaya isn’t the spawn of satan and trying to correct everyone else’s opinions, I think everyone else will agree to leave you alone.
I’m not trying to play victim; but I do get tired of people trying to make excuses for an awful character with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, especially when the arguments they give fly in the face of all evidence. But yeah, the fact that you can take one of that character’s defining moments and dismiss it as “desperately out of context” (wtf??) tells me that I’m definitely not going to convince you of anything, so we may as well leave it here and now because there’s no way this is going anywhere
(I just hope you don’t seriously think -as your post seemed to imply (?)- that I’m “the” guy who doesn’t like Malaya while “everybody else” has a different opinion. Because man, that’d be beyond delusion; I don’t even think there’s a word in the dictionary for that)
In this thread, dude. The everyone else refers to the people who have been arguing with you in this thread.
I do get tired of people trying to make excuses for an awful character with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever
See this is your problem, right here. This is YOUR SUBJECTIVE OPINION, not objective fact. And you aren’t going to win over anyone who disagrees with you by just treating the rest of us like we can’t read.
I read the strips you linked. So did timermonkey and Yotomoe, who both gave you substantive rebuttals, which you almost entirely ignored, yet you keep taking this tone of aggrieved sorrow that you can’t just force other people to change their opinions and feelings about a character by wanting it badly enough.
Consider Malaya chocolate ice cream. You hate it, and think vanilla is a way better flavor, but you’re not going to convince other people who like chocolate that it’s actually disgusting and inedible. They’ve already made their own evaluations based on their own senses, and you shrieking about how chocolate is gross and you wish people would stop pretending it doesn’t taste like shit is… just weird, as well as a huge waste of everyone’s time.
Accept that some of us like Malaya. Accept that we like her EVEN THOUGH we are just as literate as you are! You’ll be happier for it, dude.
(As for “desperately out of context”, that referred to your insistence on talking only about Malaya’s words in a single strip, and your disinterest in the context when Yotomoe and timermonkey pointed it out. Also your disinterest in anything that happened AFTER that page, like Malaya’s walking Leslie down the aisle at her wedding. You are cherry picking in the extreme in this particular instance. But you didn’t bother to respond to that the first time, so why should I expect better? I don’t.)
I thought we had agreed to let this go. Anyway. Hope you don’t mind me answering to you further down (under your comment on Madoka) because we’re seriously running out of space here.
Malaya gets along just fine with Marcie. Not only do they clearly share some interests (Roller Derby/skating in general), Malaya likes Marcie enough to start learning sign language so that she can understand her without Marcie having to write stuff down. When Malaya likes someone, she’s FIERCELY loyal. And that fierce loyalty is a trait that Marcie shares with her (she followed Sal to college despite the fact that Marcie isn’t attending IU, presumeably to keep Sal out of trouble).
Malaya is rude to Sal, yeah, but Sal has been openly hostile to her from the very first interaction we see the two of them have. Seriously, we haven’t seen Malaya be a jerk to anyone who wasn’t a jerk to her first.
Plus, Malaya complemented Marcie’s derby skills. Even if she thought Marcie couldn’t hear: Malaya…said…something…nice. Which I think is huge for Malaya.
Toy piano, not a harpsichord. Though to be honest they did take liberties with the sounds coming from the instrument in the TV specials. In “Charley Brown Christmas” it was a grand piano, a pipe organ, a harpsichord, AND a toy piano.
It’s so weird to me that everyone considers Patty and Marcie to be lesbians. Of all the Peanuts they talk about boys the most (Pep Patty in particular really likes boys) And both of them are crushin’ on good ol’ chuck.
I ain’t sayin’ that bi-sexuality ain’t an option. It’s just strange to me that this has just become the universally accepted thing.
It’s just because Patty wore shorts and Marcie called her “sir”, which is a little bit sexist and homophobic, but its also kind of a cute headcanon thing when viewed in the right light. I think the assumption is that Patty was overcompensating, while Marcie was humoring her but being pretty open about crushing on her. Then in college she finally realizes that Charlie doesn’t feel that way about her, and that really, she doesn’t about him either. That night, Marcie finds her crying in their dorm, she comforts her, smoochy smoochy, yadda yadda yadda they become queer rights activists in the 70s
I ain’t got nothing against Marcie and Pep Patty getting together. It’s cute. But like…it’s become such a common thing that it just feels insulting to peppermint patty’s character. “Oh she dresses like that, hates skirts, and is a tomboy. She must be gay” Why doesn’t anyone say Violet and (Original) Patty are lesbians? They’re always together too! It’s just silly!
Yeah, you’re right. To be honest, I’ve never bought the whole thing. I was more referencing the common public perception than actually believing it myself. I always just saw them as good friends.
Marcy physically resembles Billie Jean King, who was a friend of Charles Schultz. Patty is said to be a lesbian to keep Marcy happy, but Marcy, there’s a real reason.
Oh my god YES. This explains why Marcie is here, and not at her own place.
(Also if you flip that sign to where the two “people” are upright, it means “meet” as in nice to meet you. It’s very amusing when people new to ASL mess that one up.)
Very close. The difference is a tilde (~), which turns an n into an ‘enye’ (no, not an Enya). So, ‘ano’ (ahno) is anus, while ‘año’ (ahnyo) is year.
And in Spanish, you state your age by saying how many years you have (instead of how many years old you are).
JFC, now the whole situation is just punishing poor Marcie. She’s just trying to get some from a pretty firecracker of a girl, and Sal is being a complete asshole and RUINING EVERYTHING FOR HER, like, oh gawd.
This is like comparing two people standing in sewage only one’s ankle deep and the other’s knee deep in it. Sure one’s a little less messy but they’re both standing in shit. Step out of the shit girls.
This has probably already been suggested in a comment sometime, but it would be interesting if Leslie makes an attempt towards Robin that goes horribly wrong and somehow after that she meets Daisy (perhaps interview for paper b/c of her class?) and then they hook up and Daisy finally gets some.
They seemed to be genuinely enjoying hanging out together in the comics where Sal was sulking by the wall, plus Malaya is learning sign language, so I’d say yes.
The only thing I know about red and night vision is that red light doesn’t dilate your eyes as much as normal light (I think because red light is ‘lower energy’, but don’t hold me to that as the reason), you can go between red light and darkness better than other light and darkness because your eyes don’t have to adjust back and forth.
The chemical reaction after exposure to red light isn’t as extreme as the reaction from exposure to the usual light we see, so red light can be used to see at night.
(I think because red light is ‘lower energy’, but don’t hold me to that as the reason)
Red light has the lowest energy in the visible light spectrum.
Does anyone else want Malaya to need Marcie to do some sort of robot cosplay in order to get off? Just for the humor factor? Like silver body paint an such?
Homura’s singular excellence as a gal who loves gals doesn’t necessarily elevate the entire show. I haven’t seen Sweet Blue Flowers since I’m a barbarian, but it could very well be better.
(Also Rebellion is designed to overturn every good thing about the series)
Madoka Magica is all subtext. And misery porn, served with a side of deconstructing a genre. That’s not at all how I like my queer lady media. (If it were, Blue Velvet and Perfect Blue/Black Swan would be my favorite “queer” movies.)
OK. If we’re going to do this, then for the sake of clarity and civility let’s do it this way: let’s go back to square one. Tell me exactly what you think of Malaya.
You stepped into an exchange I was having with Yotomoe, who basically thinks Malaya is awesome and wishes she were real (I know this because they’re stated it many times since the character first appeared, in those words and others to the same effect) My own opinion is that she’s a mean, nasty little jerk who started out without any redeeming or relatable qualities; to the extent that the only other character she herself could relate to was a: not human, and b: as big a sociopath as she was. It was only towards the end that she mellowed out a little and learned a thing or two about how to deal with her fellow human beings. For all these reasons, she’s a character I love to despise and hate (even acknowledging that yeah, she sorta kinda got better in the long run)
Your turn now. What’s your take on her?
(Note: I’ll be checking your answer in about 24 hours from now, so feel free to take your time)
Dude your last comment called me delusional, reiterated that Malaya is an objectively terrible character with no redeeming qualities, and asked me a question (related to the delusional comment). If you didn’t want a reply you went about it badly.
At this point all I think is even slightly productive is for you to acknowledge that other people are capable of reading the same webcomics you do and arriving at different conclusions, while neither being obtuse nor willfully horrible.
I like Malaya. I have always liked her. You can’t “logic” me out of that, especially not by just repeatedly stating things you already know I disagree with. (e.g., no redeemable qualities, incapable of caring about anyone but Carla.)
Again, you can’t just force people to change their opinions by wanting it. I read Shortpacked, I’ve been reading DOA, and I disagree with you about Malaya.
I don’t see the point in saying anything else, and the moment you first replied to me with over the top sarcasm and condescension I changed my mind about trying to talk to you in any real way about Malaya.
At this point I am replying to you to point out that your method of discourse is unproductive, and rude, though likely not in a way you’re ever going to see. (Hint: every time you act like I haven’t read Shortpacked, you’re basically calling me stupid. Since you know I have read it, you must just think I have very poor reading comprehension, or equally poor reasoning skills.)
I’ll give you this much though: this comment, where you acknowledge that she sorta kinda got better towards the end of the strip, is progress! Hopefully soon you will be able to acknowledge that other people might even like her, and might have liked her before then, even if the why makes no sense to you.
OK, so you like Malaya. Care to explain why? More specifically, do you like her in spite of her being an asshole? Or do you not consider her an asshole?
I don’t think I could say anything more appropriate than this, eheheh. FWIW, Willis, I have loved the direction Malaya has taken in this strip! I think she’s exactly the same core person as she was in SP!, but I love seeing her around another person she likes. :3 I am definitely shipping it, though I hope Malaya and Marcie can stay friends if Malaya isn’t interested because even just silent panels of them skating together are super cute.
Also, not that you are doing this strip for me or anyone else, but I enjoy the preponderance of queer characters. You don’t realize how badly starved for representation you are until you consume something that actually contains not just one, but a variety of characters like you. Because of the 10% statistic, anything that has queer characters at all tends to have one and only one in the main cast, unless it’s some niche thing that’s only about queer people and which no one else will watch/read.
After going back to see if there were any hints of this, my headcanon until it’s shown otherwise is gonna be that Malaya’s little “Oh crap” back then was because she’d made some comments to herself about Marcie’s massive hotness within earshot of her assuming she couldn’t hear. And then they went home, Marcie made it clear the comments were appreciated, and they banged like a screen door on the wave of excess adrenaline after the fight.
I don’t think she’s only trying to get laid. Sal asked what Malaya could do that she couldn’t, and Marcie told her that they fuck. Doesn’t mean that’s all Marcie is interested in though.
Wait…did Marcie actually sign that they were doing it? Sal’s translation of it was ‘want to’, not ‘are’, so if Marcie actually said they ARE doing it, that changes my reaction to Sal very slightly (adds a bit more facepalm, since I figure if it was clearly enough present tense in a static image, if she’s seeing it fully signed, she should know what was actually meant).
Marcie simply said ‘fuck’. Everything else is Sal’s conjecture. Personally, I don’t think anything’s happened yet, I think Marcie is just expressing her desires.
Agreed. I think it’s unclear, although we’ll probably know soon enough. Going to feel bad for Marcie if Malaya isn’t interested. Even though orientations remain consistent across universes, it’s hard to predict how her SP sexual identity is going to map to DoA.
Well Sal asked “What can you get from her that you aren’t getting from me” and Marcie responded with “Sex!” That makes me assume that they are actually having sex…but it is possible that she means that she wants to have sex with Malaya, and she’s going to fully explain herself in the next comic. Sal did use the word “can” and not “are” so I suppose I may have jumped to sexy conclusions.
That was my thought too. I think it’s just Marcie’s sarcastic/blunt way of cutting off Sal’s big rant. Probably Marcie’ll go on to explain herself in a way that’s respectful towards Malaya and Sal. Maybe something like saying that she’s making new relationships, in this case a sexual and possibly romantic relationship, and not replacing the relationship she has with Sal. Or whatever.
Depends on how rural you are, too. Cornfield sex was very much a thing where I was raised, although we moved into town before I was old enough to consider it myself.
I actually knew far more gay men than I did lesbians….although it just now occurs to me that being a Comp Sci major probably skewed things a shade or two for me.
I’m going to mention this again: Sal did not deliberately insult Malaya with the “stain” remark. She was speaking to herself, and Malaya overheard her and understandably took offense. It wasn’t a case of Sal marching up to her and saying it to her face.
The rest of Sal’s behavior was deliberately insulting, but the opening volley in the escalation was a stupid mistake, not an aimed shot.
Yes, it is, even when you’re talking out loud to yourself. Which is why you shouldn’t talk about people behind their backs unless you don’t mind them knowing how you really feel. Sal’s young and has lousy social skills. She hasn’t learned that yet. Some people never do.
She was deliberately insulting Malaya. You don’t call someone a cumstain by accident.
What she didn’t want was for Malaya to hear it, because that would let Malaya know she’s not doing this in good faith. Because you also don’t call someone a cumstain, even to yourself, if you’re trying to befriend them in good faith.
I agree that she wasn’t acting in good faith, but what you think about someone is not an insult, it’s an opinion. I’ve worked for and with people that I thought of by far worse names than cumstain, but that was an internal monolog and stayed there where it belonged in the interests of being able to get work done. Did I respect them? No. But I never insulted any of them, and a few of them mistakenly believed that I approved of the actions that made me dislike them in the first place.
Sal is dumb and out of control enough to say things out loud when she shouldn’t, but her first deliberate insult in this arc was the menstruation crack.
I’m wondering how fast someone comments (or already commented and was deleted?) about how Marcie just further proves there aren’t any non-queer characters while completely ignoring Sal’s reaction.
I could of sworn that it was mentioned that Marcie is bi somewhere previously. I still remember those questions popping up when Becky came out though. Because they assumed the question was so original or something.
So I’m gonna go ahead and say I think Malaya was more gray sexual than robo sexual. Calling herself robosexual was an easy handle, and plus it sounds weird so it can be used to annoy people who are too attached to the sexualities they’ve already heard of being the only ones.
She was attracted to Carla. As a person. And Marcie has some of the same traits.
Now I’ll note that in classic demisexual terms, you’d think Malaya could have developed sexual feelings for Leslie, but demisexual people are no more obligated to be attracted to everyone who falls within the scope of “people I theoretically COULD be attracted to” than anyone else. I might also note however that Malaya seemed to want herself to fall for Leslie on the basis of Leslie being nice to her and deserving it, which is a trap lots of us (especially women, due to societal pressure) fall into.
So yeah TL;DR: if you imagine Malaya as someone who requires an emotional bond before sexual feelings happen, she only ever liked two people even as friends in Shortpacked. Marcie has clearly already made that list in DOA.
Valid. And Malaya’s personality in general doesn’t lend itself to making strong emotional bonds (at least not positive ones) with people, so as a demisexual her opportunities to find a partner would be rather constrained.
Of course, that’s SP Malaya. We don’t know enough about DoA Malaya to speculate much. Not even 100% clear if she and Marcie are involved yet, or if Marcie’s just hoping to be.
I agree it’s not clear yet. I would argue (but not strongly) that Marcie’s answer of “fuck” is in response to Sal’s question of “what are you getting from her that I can’t give you”, which kind of implies there is already sexing. I mean, otherwise that might be presumptuous of Marcie to say! “Hypothetically sex in the future if she returns my feelings.”
But I think the point that she took Sal away before being so blunt is a good one as well, and certainly Sal interprets the sign as wanting to, future tense. So it works both ways.
I’m just trying to say, I think assuming Malaya’s sexuality from SP CAN’T hold true because there are no robots, or if it holds true MUST lead to a rejection of Marcie, are both false choices. Demisexual would be consistent with Malaya’s behavior in SP, both the frustration she expressed at not being sexually interested in anyone and her growing interest in Carla exactly as she was.
I don’t know that any of this is Willis’s intention; he was always much firmer in defending Carla’s asexuality than in defining Malaya’s exact identity. But I think it works with the text, you know?
A good portion of the comment section have become Marcie’s disapproving parents.
“Are you sure? You could do so much better”
“You should date that nice girl Becky, she’s lovely.”
Given the selection pool Marcie has to work with, if she wants “pillow talk” afterwards there isn’t much to choose from. This is why I didn’t reply to any of the “you can do better, Marcie” or similar comments above. She really can’t “do better”.
Well…Malaya is undoubtedly going to be gleeful at Sal getting dressed down by Marcie. Which might in fact help with Marcie’s cause. And thus it proves Sal is Marcie’s best friend. Even in ignorance she has makes a great winggal.
I just wan’t sure if my post was gonna be flagged if I say rape? If you do the same sign, but with the fingers (legs) pointing the same way, it means rape.
Not that big a deal for lesbians, they just roll around a lot anyway. And moan (I used to rent a room to a lesbian couple, they could rattle the ceiling on a good night).
It’s the creepy levels, Momo looks too human for it to work. It would really be no different than the relationship between Malaya and ultra car in shortpacked
Malaya is straight and robosexual, but pan romantic. This will probably continue over to DOA, but I’m not sure. I assumed they had already had sex, but again, I might be wrong. And that doesn’t necessarily mean anything…she could’ve had sex with Marcie (or was about to) to see if she liked it or not. She did a similar thing in Shortpacked, but not with sex.
I think of this group, the only characters who have even commented vaguely on their lack of interest in their own gender are Joyce, Joe, Roz, and Dorothy. (You can stretch it to include Sal, as I’ve gone into way lower down.) Ethan told us Jacob is straight, but I’m gonna be honest: I can’t imagine how Ethan got that information. Did he try to slide it casually into conversation? Seems difficult, and more likely that Ethan is assuming in his typically fatalistic way that the guy he thinks is hot could never possibly be interested in him.
Everyone else is being presumed straight, based on having usually one and only one stated romantic interest in someone of a different gender.
(I haven’t read any other Walkyverse comics, so I’m gonna make allowances for characters having made their sexualities explicit in that universe. But otherwise this is heteronormativity in action.)
I mean, Walky even recently established that there’s at least one dude he finds hot, who he assumes everyone finds hot. That’s no longer 100% straight.
You can say with some certainty that these characters are not gay; you can’t as easily say they’re all straight, though, because another option exists.
Joe’s Dad, Blaine, Amber’s Mom, Ethan’s mom, Joyce’s parents, Dina’s parents, Alex, Joyce, Jacob, Roz, Sarah, Penny, Jason, Sal, Walky, Dorothy, Dorothy’s parents, Walky’s Parents, Joe, Amber, the dean…I am assuming they are all straight, but I could be wrong. (I’m 99% sure that Ethan’s dad likes the cock) Actually, I think the straight people outnumber the queer people. Those are all the ones I can immediately think of.
Marcie’s used to cool, angry people. Malaya is just a bit more angry and definitely more rude to all and anyone. She’s also a dirty fighter.
Sal is selective, she only hates Malaya. Unusual face for Sal in the last 2 panels. But, now she knows.
Sal is not into Englishmen in bowties, as some one noted, she was into passing the math class he was teaching. He told her she couldn’t learn, she got a tutor (Danny) and proved Jason wrong-rubbed his face in it and dropped him like a hot potato. Jason is not accepting that well.
My bet is Sal is totally cool with Malaya as of now. Like Malaya can insult her straight to her face and Sal is like, “Haha. Oh, you.”
Because the jealousy was as much insecurity, like does Marcie think Malaya is better than her, but now Sal can figure it’s not a question of who’s better; it’s just how she’s oriented.
Not unlikely. The problem is that it’s because Malay has been reduced in the eyes of Sal from someone Marcie wants to build a genuine friendship with mutual respect, to someone Marcie just wants to fuck.
IF (and I don’t know that) that reflects how Marcie regards her relationship with Malaya that’s something ugly brewing right there.
Maybe. We don’t know enough about Malaya or Marcie to even speculate on their attitudes toward relationships or casual sex, and it’s not even 100% clear if they’re already sexing it up or if Marcie’s just interested in doing so.
For the sake of argument (sorry) Sal did say that she was attracted to Jason, and if she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have tried to get a better grade in the way she did.
This universe’s Malaya has no robot people to resort to. Also, she cares enough for at least one human to trouble herself to learn sign language. So there might be hope for her?
(And by ‘her’ I mean Malaya, of course. Marcie too, but I still think Marcie could do a lot better :P)
I’m glad that last part finally got through to Sal, but methinks it’s kind of irrelevant. Why is Sal so codependantly fixed on Marcie that she needs to be the one person to provide all of Marcie’s friendshippy needs? Sal should not be so jealous of Marcie needing more than one friend, even if it had been only a platonic one.
They’re lifelong friends; that’s a special kind of friendship and it counts/means a lot more than a regular one. Also, it’s not like Sal has got lots of friends.
Oh, it makes a lot of sense to me that Sal is jealous! I have felt similarly in similar situations (although perhaps never acted out so badly in response to it). I just think the fact that Marcie wants to bone Malaya has deflected from the fact that Sal has issues in making and maintaining friendships and that this doesn’t solve it.
I have faith we’ll return to the problem at hand though. Sooner or later.
It isn’t relevant. I see that as Sal venting her frustration that with Malaya in the picture, Sal gets less one on one with Marcie. Which means Sal has to come to terms with the fact that her attitude has made her shit at making other friends. (Actual friends who aren’t just hanging out with her for the “cool” factor.)
Also, two people can be of compatible types, and yet not be attracted to each other. Despite society’s tendency to ‘erase’ such relationships (the “they’re totally banging” effect), straight men and straight women have been forming platonic relationships since the beginning of human societies. Apply to any other orientation as you please.
eeeeh got the best BFF (one of many) in the world, but only entertained the thought of sleeping with them for a grand total of 5 seconds, and the end result of that was “NOPE.”
That could be what’s happening here- you just don’t want to bone someone. It happens.
To all the people who are saying that Marcie could do better and what a terrible, irredeemable jerkface Malaya is, I would like to point out that in the 19 strips she’s been in, we’ve only seen her be antagonistic to two people: Sal and Amazigirl. Sal, who’s been belittling her since her first appearance, and Amazigirl, who came up to them deliberately TRYING to pick a fight.
Other than that? She was whiny that Carla only bought one six-pack of beer to split four ways.
Everything else shows that she gets along with Marcie very well. She was complimentary about her skills in roller derby, they two of them have fun skating together, and Malaya likes her and cares about her enough to start learning ASL for her.
Seriously, Malaya has done NOTHING to deserve the level of hate she’s gotten in this ‘verse. This is not Shortpacked Malaya. Give her a chance, okay?
She didn’t deserve the hate in the other universe either. I mean really, how dare she complain about the job she didn’t want and not want to be friends with her irritating and often insane coworkers.
Well, in Shortpacked I do kind of get the hate, because she’s not just complaining about a shitty job, and not wanting to be friends, she’s actively insulting all the other characters for what they like, and responding to attempts at friendliness from them with contempt. She’s also almost fanatically obsessed with putting down “nerd stuff” – actually, rather like Billie over here in DoA.
It’s still disproportionate, but she actually has done something to earn the reader’s ire in Shortpacked ‘verse.
Except she was, you know, kinda sorta a gigantic asshole to everybody around her, loudly dismissing nerd stuff (to the point of pulling a fake geek girl routine on Lucy) in a comic about nerd stuff read by people who really like nerd stuff.
the level of pure hate the readers had for her within three strips of her existing.
Which amused the hell out of me, given there was porn of her from the moment anyone other than Willis knew that she existed. (IIRC, he posted a character design, and the Rule 34 automagically appeared. Since her first actual appearance is full of the ‘ugh, nerds’ stuff that made people hate her.) Granted, just one picture, but still.
Willis did say he wasn’t going to do the same relationships as in the other universe, for the most part. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen (wasn’t Jason/Sal a thing over in that universe?), nor does it mean Marcie/Malaya has/will (Sal does say ‘want to’ not ‘are’), but it’s not surprising.
Carla isn’t an inorganic AI in this universe. For all we know, she might not even hate all of humanity like UC did. I’m not saying that Carla/Malaya won’t happen, but the chances look kind of slim.
Malaya’s more likely demisexual, rather than having a mech fetish. She happened to connect with Ultra-Car on a more complete level than she has any other person, due to their personalities meshing.
Probably not…they’re obviously a good distance away and Sal is most likely between them. Also, I would assume she knows better than to eavesdrop on a conversation between two people who are already mad at her, one of whom she actually cares if they’re upset with her, and would get more upset if the rumble with the other one resumed.
And that’s assuming she’s actually learned the relevant sign already.
Also, there’s about a chance that even if she does see and understand what Marcie’s saying, it’s not actually new information…
Well, I guess there was no chance this would end with Marcie straight up dropping Sal, considering the last arc revealed that Marcie followed her to Indiana University.
The endgame might be the same, though; Marcie needs her space sometimes and Sal needs to start opening up to other people.
I don’t think Jason/Sal is Kismesis. Jason seems to have more flushed feelings for Sal, and her feelings toward him seem more like apathy and convenience. More of a weak Matespriteship.
Marcie is definitely Sal’s Moiral, at the moment, though, and I can see Malaya returning her feelings to make a good Matespriteship.
Pretty much agreed, except for one thing. Marcie signed “I wanna f her”, no “I love her”: there’s a chance her feelings are black, and that’s what I’m going to go with until proven otherwise. I can deal with Marcie being in spades with Mal, that’d be OK.
I forget, did Dorothy and/or Marcie appear anywhere in the Walkyverse? I mean, even ‘people’ like Beef and Ol’ Gash Face appeared in some form or another. I just don’t remember these two.
On another relevant to the series but not today’s strip note: Am I the only one looking forward to ~2020 (if I’m looking at the time scale of a week per year correctly) when it’s Halloween? Because Ol’ Gash Face is gonna have the opportunity to prowl in disguise and maybe we’ll get not only Amazi-Girl/Joyce resolution but full on masked adventurer vs. costumed criminal action?
Asma, Raidah, Chan, Char, Kaitlin, and many of the parents are new non-Walkyverse characters. Riley and Jocelyne were first introduced in DoA and retroactively back-ported to the Walkyverse. I think all the other named characters in DoA originated in the Walkyverse.
Ok I’m actually completely unsure what that sign is that Marcie just did. I know Fuck you in ASL because of College (Which incase anyone wants to know is the same as thank you except originating from the neck) and I know Fucking in ASL because of Grrl Power. What Marcie did isn’t either of those so what is it?
They actually didn’t teach that in any of the ASL classes I took and Like I said I learned the sign for Fucking from Grrl Power specifically this comic http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1398.
I know in sign the difference between alot of Verbs and their -ing counterpart is doing the motion a second time so I assumed the sign for Fuck was just doing the sign that Jiggawatt did cept only with the finger only going inward once.
I don’t think any of those hand motions are supposed to be ASL. “Okay” in ASL is signing the letters “O” and “K”, while “enemy” appears to be this: https://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/ENEMY/1276/1 Instead, the dude makes a punching motion for “assault” and motions at the wound on his hand for “enemy.” And then the lady does the international children’s playground motion for “sex” and then hits her forehead like “duh,” neither of which seem to be ASL.
In hindsight I probably should have double checked to see if the signs were accurate instead of just thinking that a webcomic was always accurate with the signs. Yours always seem to be on the mark though
when u catch ur best friend picking a fight with the bae
Sal is predictably hypocritical, trying to claim malaya caused this when Sal instigated literally every step of this shitshow but that’s to be expected i suppose.
also, i totally didn’t see this coming and i LOVE IT. I was laughing real hard at the end of this strip. Marcie x Malaya! new favorite pairing. Im guessing marcie has yet to make malya aware of her feelings yet judging by the current situation. Looking forward to how this progresses.
In some ways, yes I am quite glad that he put in the filter. Heh my bongo was supposed to be a playful one (hey it can happen between close friends!) but the ones that are serious and rude…yeah. Glad nobody has escalated to other derogatory swears for ladies. (that i’ve seen anyway.)
I think a lot of “bongo”s aren’t filtered, but deliberately typed like that because it’s funny. *generalizing from self*
True story: The first time I saw “bongo” in the comments, I didn’t even react — I just assumed it was some kind of slang (possibly Australian) for “idiot”. After seeing it four or five times, I assumed it was a meme or a reference to some tv show I don’t watch.
She said, “Ah ain’t doin’ THAT”. As in, “I haven’t been fucking you”. Says nothing about desire, or future action. She isn’t ruling it out. HMS Salarcie has taken damage, but is still afloat.
I mean, I’m not disagreeing with the conclusion, but Sal not being interested in Marcie, or Billie’s super drunken lunge, or Becky’s desperation “joke”-flirting… isn’t really conclusive proof that she’s 100% straight. Like, there are other girls in the universe — ones she doesn’t think of as a sister, or who aren’t obviously incapable of consent + drooling and smelly and incoherent, or total strangers babbling hopefully.
So again, I don’t necessarily disagree with the conclusion, but most everyone assumes they’re straight until one day they have that first moment where they realize they’re not because of heteronormativity.
I mean, look at Danny. He’s been interested in three times as many women as Sal has been interested in men, and only into one dude.
I know Sal’s reaction here might seem strong, but if she overheard Walky’s creepy comment about how Dorothy is just like having a sister except they get to make out, she’d totally make this exact face. If she thinks of Marcie as a sister, that’s totally different from being interested in it generally, just as not wanting to make out with her brother doesn’t make her any less interested in dudes who are not him.
But one last time: I agree that she is probably straight. Just can’t help noticing that we’ve never seen her around any girl she thinks is even half as awesome and beautiful as (straight!) Joyce thinks SHE is.
a.1) This strip made me LOL
a.2) Seriously, did not see this coming. Shame on me, to think that Willis will just do the typical “jealous friend thing” angle, not the clam-jamming box-blocking one.
b) did not know the full story of the bongo filter. I’m scared to CTRL+F now because coming across the nasty comments’ll just ruin my day. I was amused, but now I’m amused + retro-grateful.
I get the feeling people are more likely to intentionally use the word bongo (the drum) knowing that the desired intent comes across while freeing them from the baggage of the word it replaces. So I think if you see “bongo” written, it’s likely that was the word intended to be used (also bc it’s funny to call a person a drum as an insult) I haven’t done any statistics on increased use of bongo vs. b-word (pre-filter) to begin to test this hypothesis, but maybe if I get bored enough one day I’ll make a spreadsheet and run some stats…
Be interested to see those numbers. I know I try to avoid using “bongo” myself, unless I’m trying to make some kind of pun out of it. The unfiltered term is seriously disrespectful to my mind, and not something I use even in jest. Old fashioned, I guess.
What people are actually saying is that Mike is a character who gets very little hate (and in SP! was pretty popular) while being even more of an asshole than Malaya, while Malaya regularly gets nuked from orbit by hate.
It’s not necessarily that all the same people who like one character hate the other, it’s that a lot of people only hated Malaya, and Mike remained generally popular.
You can argue that you’d still feel the same way about Malaya if she were a guy, and you might be right about yourself; in a bunch of studies of varying scientific rigor, however, we’ve uncovered a pretty clear bias against women who are anything less than perfectly pleasant. Female employees get evaluations that frequently mention their personalities, for example, whereas male employees are almost evaluated purely on their skills/productivity/punctuality/etc. Women are also more likely to be docked for their appearance, though this intersects along racial lines, gender nonconformity, and weight. (Fat men but again especially fat women get evaluated negatively based on their appearance.)
So you can deny the causal relationship, as many sarcastic and sneering readers did the other day, but even if you are the magical unicorn unaffected by societal pressure, there’s definitely an effect happening. Whether or not you are personally part of it.
Side note: Malaya in SP! had a lot in common with Billie here. Both were introduced as girls used to being mega hot who had recently put on weight, both were loud about hating nerds, both put on an attitude of confidence in their own awesomeness (and both were secretly lonely). Billie also attracted a large crowd of haters, but I don’t think she ever really approached the “kill it with fire” Malaya hate.
I don’t doubt that this had something to do with an even larger portion of the audience being nerds, and male nerds, of whom Malaya was particularly derogatory.
There’s no real comparison between either Billie or Malaya and SP!Mike, though; Malaya rolled her eyes a lot and told people to shut up, Mike deliberately ruined people’s lives as well as being physically violent all the time.
There’s an argument to be made (and which has been made, frequently) that Mike’s awfulness was so over the top as to be cartoonish. But it was through Mile that Willis told a rape joke or two, and even after those early days were long gone you still had everything in his relationship with Amber leading up to the two of them developing weird mutual feelings for each other. Mike was deeply unpleasant during that time, and Amber being partly to blame for the situation as well didn’t magically make him a better person.
Mike was always meaner than Malaya, and I don’t think you can argue that it was always twelve times more ridiculous than Malaya and therefore magically inoffensive. I think Malaya’s particular jerkiness in SP! just hit a lot closer to home. I think some of the commenters who hated her had known at least one girl like her, who (at least thought she) was hot stuff and looked down her nose at them.
And for everyone else, again, it’s less acceptable for women to be jerks. It just is. We all have less tolerance for it, we all hold female characters to higher standards. It’s the kind of thing we need to work on if we want to overcome, because the programming is deep in there, way past the conscious level.
*up there I mention a larger portion of the audience being nerds — I mean the SP! audience, which attracted a larger proportion of toy/video game/comic book/etc fans. DOA’s audience is more general, is all.
Oops. Well I think that probably makes it worse in a way; I’m sure Billie the popular cheerleader who also hated nerds would have attracted even more vitriol. :|a Plus, Malaya was also thoroughly unreceptive to Ken, the Nice Guy who had a really obvious crush on her. After the weight gain, she also became more combative with Lucy, and briefly jealous over Lucy/Ken, which of course did not help at all, but as Willis said years ago, reactions to Malaya were strongly mixed ever since her introduction. While some people resented her for hurting Leslie, and others for being mean to Lucy, the hate started before either of those things happened, and continued to grow disproportionately.
Thank you for the nitpick! It’s been a long time since I read that story, and evidently my brain abbreviated Malaya’s introduction to that first strip that I remember most clearly.
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“You wanna f…lapjacks? Ah HATE breakfast. It’s only served during sleep time.”
(useful for getting a free drink (if you hold your mouth open while your target throws it in your face))
Sal’s face of realization was realizing how much sleep she could be getting if she gave up eating in favor of naps.
That, and Sal prefers waffles.
Wowzer. Flapjacks. Who’d a thunk.
“You wanna f….lap jacks?”
‘fapjacks’. I believe Marcie wants ‘fapjacks’. Not a typo.
Not if you’ve seen “Children of a Lesser God,” like I have.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0foXV1hWrx4
You wanna f…ly like an eagle, ’til you’re free?
You wanna f…eed your duck?
You want to put togheter two plus two?
Ah ain’t doing MATH! Oh no.
God damnit Sal.
Also I … totally didn’t see THAT one coming XD
You and pretty much everyone who isn’t named Willis, I think.
if anyone did, they didn’t let anything slip in the comment sections, as far as I’ve read.
I saw it coming, i just haven’t got into the comments of this comics like in months
I saw it coming…. I thought it was obvious if you read the relevant patreon comic…
Oh. I guessed you had more information than most of us then XD
Been shipping it for a while, if you scroll down a little further in this thread. – http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/wall/#comment-605913
Carla’s comment in the last panel is an oblique foreshadowing. But it’s not “shit” that’s Marcie’s into doing.
It is, given most people’s opinion of Malaya.
“It is, given the reality of Malaya’s behavior”. FIFY.
no.
I dunno. She might be into scat, and there’s no harm in that.
Accidental rhyming, might as well call me Neil Diamond
(Rhyme/time is too cliché, so I did it my own way *shot*)
I saw it coming, mainly because I figured the only way Malaya could be appealing to someone was if they thought she was hot.
In fairness, I did call Malaya x Sal.
Uhm. Not quite how it turned out, though.
Which is pretty amazing, really, considering how the DoA Commentariat is desperate to see everyone else bang, doubly so if its 2 ladies. There’s more shipping in this comments section than the ports of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and LA/Long Beach combined …
I saw it coming.
Well… I saw it yesterday when he posted the strip on Patreon…
The revealed motives, sure, but not the reveal.
And I’d really only filed the ship into ‘probable enough that it won’t be surprising if it comes up,’ so I can’t properly claim to have seen it coming.
RIGHT?! LMAO! I DIED LAUGH WILLIS….R.I.P Cheryl
“She died doing what she loved”
Right?… DAMNIT! I had something for this!
Hopefully both Marcie and Malaya will both be seen coming very soon. ^_^
An interesting selection of words…
Yes, yes they are, ain’t they?
Are they to be called MarMal?
I thought it was likely from way back, and I’m usually totally oblivious.
I wonder if anyone heard it coming…
Oh wow. I went to college at a NTID school, and let me tell you there are few things more disturbing than two people who CAN. NOT hear how loud they are boning in the next room of a dorm.
Marcie’s not deaf.
Experience tells me that many people appear to be stone deaf during sex no matter how good their hearing is the rest of the time. They also tend to find the 11 on their volume settings.
Sometimes you are trying to be as quiet as possible and believe that you are and yet someone in the next room does hear you ….
When the neighbors from three houses down the road call the police because they’re convinced a woman is being murdered, you know you’re not being quiet enough. Also, close the bloody window next time.
Sudden spikes in the volume of the TV or stereo in the living room are also a good indication that you’re louder than you think. The rest of the house has not suddenly become desperate to hear that Sprint commercial clearly, they’re trying to drown out the moaning.
That’s what gag’s are made for?
I don’t think Tesla was necessarily talking about deaf people
The avatar chain.
Nor did I. O_O
Marcie, you can do better.
How many folks on campus would be willing to learn sign and are into girls? Even if that list were longer than, let’s be honest, it probably is, that’s a search that’s gonna take time, and Marcie’s got needs.
Or maybe they’re just into each other…
Phrasing.
Yes.
HA! so, that perfect one-word reply struck my funnybone. hard.
and i was taking a drink at the time, so…that just about got messy for my monitor.
Daisy is so desperate she will learn Ancient Sanskrit if it means finally getting some.
It’s looking more & more like she’ll have to learn to read a Google map to her nearest adult shop to pick up some self-satisfaction equipment…
I don’t get the impression she’s just settling though. Malaya and Marcie genuinely do get along really well. Probably in part because Marcie doesn’t treat Malaya like shit. They’ve bonded over their mutual love of roller derby.
Sure, Malaya’s clearly not what Sal looks for in a sexual partner but she’s still quite a catch. Don’t think Marcie meets cool people like Malaya on a regular basis or anything.
You make a compelling point.
Yes. Malaya is awesome. That’s legit.
It wouldn’t be that hard for Marcie to meet ‘cool’ people if her standards for ‘cool’ were so freakin’ low that Malaya could meet them. Nah, I think this is just a case of, well, DoA being part of the Willisverse. Every character in the Willisverse has to be fucked up one way or another: Marcie is into Malaya of all people because that’s just the way she’s fucked up.
It’s a David Willis comic, so probably like 80% of the girls would be up for that.
Um there are probably PLENTY of deaf or mute people on campus. If she gets involved in the community, it isn’t that hard to find them. On my campus, we have a meeting every wednesday at starbucks for any deaf people (or asl students) to come meet each other and hang out. I’m sure there’s something like that on their campus. It just so happens that Marcie met Malaya and was attracted to her.
Oop. Mute people can come too. xD I just haven’t met any of them yet! Though it’s possible I’ve hung out with some, and they just haven’t told me they are mute! I’ll have to ask the group next time.
Seriously though… what is Malaya’s appeal? She’s about as appealing as a rotting trout.
She is EVIL!
God, what does it take to turn you on?
Biblical slashfic?
Omniscience makes you a voyeur by default.
So how come HE didn’t know that E & A had eaten the Fruit till he came looking for them and saw that they’d covered their Parts?
SHE was faking the ignorance and outrage. Because OT God likes jerking people around, of course.
“You can do what you want Abe BUT the next time you see me coming you’d better run ….”
She always says what’s on her mind. She’s brutally, sometimes insultingly honest, but I’m guessing that if you actually take her at fact value & don’t react like hell the way Sal does, you’ll be able to have a good interaction.
In Iceland, they eat rotting shark and call it a delicacy, so I guess there’s your answer: you can be an utter piece of crap like Malaya, and still there’ll be someone, somewhere who’s into you.
And they’ll probably be best friends with someone like Sal, whose personality is nearly identical to yours (only more active aggression, rather than reactive).
Mmmm, nope, not really. Sal isn’t at all like Malaya. They both have that ‘bad girl’ attitude about them, but that’s about it: Sal is pretty much live and let live; kind of aloof too, but nothing to do with Malaya’s way of lashing at everyone that comes close just because they’re there.
(Still assuming that this Malaya is more or less like the one in Shortpacked!, of course. But we’ve seen very little of her, so that’s all we have to go on)
Malaya has never been shown to ‘lash out at someone just because they were there’. She has been shown reacting to Sal and Amber being aggressive jerks in her direction, but has never lashed out at someone who didn’t start it.
Sal and Malaya are both snarky and with anger control issues only a little behind Amber’s – but Malaya has the decency only to direct her anger at the people who’ve actually made her angry.
Reread Arianod’s comment
They were referring specifically to her Shortpacked version, which as much as we love her (okay, some of us), did do just what was described.
Maybe, but Malaya is on a hair trigger for both getting angry AND acting on it — she doesn’t have an ounce of Chill in her.
I think assuming personality carries over isn’t always warranted. Some characters are very different in DoA compared to their previous incarnations. Sarah is more protective, Amber is a LOT angrier, Joe isn’t a closet nerd/geek/whatever, Dina is almost a different person, and Carla isn’t a prankster.
I hope that Joe shows some new side of himself soon. He’s becoming something of a one-note character in his interactions with the rest of the cast.
Seconded. Much as I dislike DoA Joe, it would be nice to see some more depth to him. That way I can either really hate him as irredeemable, or find some hidden quality that makes him seem more human to me. As it stands now he’s almost at Faz levels for me.
This. His Walkyverse character had depth because of his engineering genius, closet nerd status, and then his relationship with Rachel. All three of these have been stripped from him, so now you just have One-Night Stand Joe left.
AFAIK Malaya hasn’t committed any violent crimes. One up on Sal.
De gustibus non est disputandam. (EvergreenFir — thanks for the set up to pull out that one: I love saying that!)
Malaya is hot,
That;s what I was thinking.
hey, i know what that means!
I think we ALL know what it means *waggle waggle*
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say-no-more, say-no-more..
Five’ll get you ten, guv’nor, know whut I mean?
…we’re ALL makin’ up words now, right?
…Huh. Well, now everything makes sense.
Uh mystery solved?
jinkies
Zoinks.
Ruh-roh
Did someone call animal controle? We got some reports of strange and loud noises. Perhaps some moaning…
Sal then pulls off Marcie’s mask to reveal that she was actually the creepy old caretaker all along!
Faz? Ruh-roh indeed.
Marcie- “And I would have gotten away with banging Malaya too if it weren’t for that meddling Sal!” in sign language.
Man, finally a Slipshine I’d pay to read.
That would make for an interesting story…
…Where does he keep his money…
Marcie and Malaya?
Stop Willis. I can only get so erect!!!
I flashback to that Shortpacked butts strip and find myself nodding yes.
Short, Packed Butts sounds like Willis’ next pornographic enterprise.
You’re truly an “upstanding” citizen, Yoto.
It’s “hard” to get to make such “head”way in bettering myself. There’s always “stiff” competition and you can’t always “stick it out”.
You’re starting to sound like the arena sex-bot from Borderlands 2
Innuendo Bot?
Competition? Do not look to others to better yourself. All you need is inside…
your pants.
All it takes is firm resolve to be such a person.
Yes. Take your resolve firmly in both hands…
Carefully monitored bloodletting might help.
……. Marcie, REALLY. I’m sure you can do better than Malaya of all people, I mean really.
I second this opinion.
That ain’t for us to decide.
^
This
For lack of Sal being into girls…
There’s how many thousands of people on this campus? And literally all of them are more pleasant to be around than Malaya. She’s Mike without the humor or the quality hatesex.
In your opinion maybe. Marcie obviously gets along fine with her, and Malaya is willing to learn sign language for her which is a hell of a gesture
I need to go back to verify this. But so far she seems only antagonistic to Full-of-herself bullies and Amazi-Girls.
…the difference being?
I wouldn’t put Carla much as a “Full-of-herself” bully. And she wasn’t the most pleasant being to her, bringer of beers.
I think ThatGuy was referring to Sal, not Carla.
Exactly. Yet, the first time she meets Carla, she’s being quite antagonistic to her. I wouldn’t say she fits into the Full-of-herself or Amazi-Girl categories.
Marcie’s a complete jackass. But even a complete jackass can be halfway decent to an individual they care for, and love’s funny that way anyway.
…Obviously that’s Malaya.
Whaddya mean? She’s hot? She’s a great athlete. Can hold her own in a fight. She doesn’t afraid of anything. AND she actually LEARNED ASL for her.
Sounds perfect girlfriend material for a delinquent skate punk gal.
Agreed.
And she’s on her derby team so they’re already hanging out a lot at practice and slamming into each other regularly… as it were.
*Sigh* As long as she only wants to f her. I mean, if it’s a purely sexual thing, I get it. Still think it’s a horrible idea.
Why? Malaya’s a nice girl. I don’t get your deal man. She’s just as much of a dick as all of them man.
She’s really not. Even if she were only an asshole to people she dislikes as much as the others (and she isn’t, she’s a few steps further in most regards), she dislikes far more people, because she’s a misanthrope.
I like Malaya as a character, but let’s not fucking kid ourselves.
I dunno. I don’t see it. If she didn’t like people she probably wouldn’t be part of a team and hang out with people all the time. She’s just stand-offish and doesn’t get close. Also she’s a jerk. But these guys are all skater punks. They’re all kinda jerks in their own ways.
She’s part of a team that *punches people*. I’m not saying sh dislikes all humans except Marcie. I’m saying she dislikes most people. She can like her team, and still dislike people.
Everyone, and I mean everyone on the planet and in fiction, has at times been at least a bit of a jerk, to at least one actual person. The questions that matter are how often, to what degrees, etc.
Glad to be part of the “Seriously, Malaya’s Not That Bad” club with you.
It’s all a matter of taste and texture.
Don’t forget regularity of washing!
Yeah, I wouldn’t bet on that if it’s Malaya we’re talking about.
So she keeps to an erratic pattern of washing? So much the better, texture and taste will be more variable. Marcie certainly won’t be getting bored.
You’ve got taste and I’ve got texture style of thing
I haven’t read any of the other Willis comics (at least not up to the point where Marcie or Malaya existed) and I really don’t understand all the hate for Malaya… Sal and Malaya are both angry, ill-tempered, loner-types, just in slightly different flavors. If Marcie can put up with Sal, it isn’t much of a leap to think she can get along with Malaya.
Well put. Also, as folks have noted, Malaya has been putting effort into learning sign language which seems like a pretty genuine gesture of care and respect. She is capable of giving a shit about people, she’s just super aggressive and abrasive, and Sal has probably left Marcie in good shape to handle those personality traits in a relationship.
Their interactions with Marcie are very different. Sal’s a childhood friend, and probably helped her through adjusting to losing her ability to speak. Malaya’s a new face, shares a sport with her, and is a sexual partner.
That’s a conclusion a lot of people are jumping to, right now, that I’m not sure is right. Marcie WANTS to f**k Malaya, I’m not sure it’s actually happened, yet. Note that Marcie dragged Sal away from Malaya before signing to her – she doesn’t want Malaya to know what she’s saying, yet. Her feelings (desires? unclear) for her may not yet be public.
Fair point. Correct that to “potential sexual partner” then. Which Sal clearly is not.
I don’t think Marcie necessarily planned on telling Sal that, just to play devil’s advocate. She PLANNED on giving Sal a piece of her mind, which is often done in private whether or not you plan on spilling secrets. SAL is the one who demanded to know what Malaya gives Marcie that Sal can’t.
That’s my read, too. Marcie is still hopping mad at Sal for picking a fight.
I suspect a lot of the dislike comes from her behavior in a previous universe. Here she is being abrasive in reaction to someone being abrasive to her first, and its coming off as assertive to me. In some other universe, she was initiating, and it came off as … self centered and really awful.
I found her irritating at first in this ‘verse, and even though her attitude improved to a live-and-let-live ‘civil unless provoked’ state pretty quickly, others might’ve had the same first impressions and held on to them long enough for her to be provoked.
A lot of the dislike comes to the fact that she’s a woman with the temerity to be a jerk, really. Mike could get away with literal murder (He may also have literally gotten away with literal murder, but I don’t remember him doing that in SP! at least), but Malaya’s the worst. I find her to be an entertaining jackass.
That’s a fair point; Mike is definitely worse. People seem less angry at him for it. I wonder how much of this is gender, and how much is Mike’s awfulness has wrapped around to the point of unreal/unimaginable, so its funny rather than something one has dealt with in their life. I suspect its both.
It’s my case. In this universe, she seems quite tolerable. But… Yeah. I would be happy to see her receive a proper beating for karmic reasons.
On the other hand, Sal’s behaviour towards her made me want to see Sal on the receiving end of a punch, too. The previous pages made me hope the end of my anger was near… Oh well. It’s going to cool down by itself, it’s not like any of them actually did something I cannot forgive/understand.
In the Walkyverse Malaya was like Dumbiverse Walky. A rather meanspirited jokester. She made humor at the expense of others, tore down the things that brought others joy, frequently asserted how awesome she was.
For some reason this went over really poorly. People would often compare her to characters who are pathologically vindictive/manipulative, or who engage in exaggerated displays of physical violence.
I suspect Malaya being a woman plays a big part in it. Behavior that’s mildly annoying in a man becomes outrageously offensive in a woman.
Yeah, if you had read Shortpacked! you wouldn’t have trouble understanding why we love to despise Malaya. Let’s just say she was… well, not the worst because there was Amber’s dad; but definitely not someone you’d want to have in your life. In fact, she was the kind of person that makes your life better just by not being part of it. Then again, this Malaya might be different: for one thing, she was prepared to learn sign language for the sake of someone else, and that’s something the old Malaya would never have done.
I’d love having Malaya in my life. She tells it like it is. The only reason she seemed so unpleasent is because she was 24/7 sorrounded by people and things she doesn’t like. I liked her in shortpacked too.
Dude, you could drop Malaya anywhere in the world and she’d be surrounded by people she wouldn’t like XD
(Except in the middle of the ocean. Or the Gobi desert. Or Anctartica. Yeah, we could drop her there that’d solve both her problems and everybody else’s. Hmmm… *w*)
As for ‘telling it like (she thinks) it is’… well, maybe my standards are a bit too high (?) but I won’t accept Malaya’s obnoxious brand of self-centered insensitivity as a substitute for sincerity. If that’s what you mean.
Uh. Even Walkiverse Malaya had her caring side. Off the top of my head: suppressed her sexual desires for a year for UC’s sake, stopped eating junkfood for UC’s sake, pooped on Leslie’s mom’s car. She’s always been very selective and very… uh… ‘eccentric’ in how she shows caring.
…and by ‘eccentric’ and ‘selective’ we mean that only character she could genuinely relate to was literally not human
the* only character (sorry)
People insist on leaving Leslie off the list of people Malaya cared about, but it doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be on it.
Leslie?
“Nope I thought I was into you but it turns out I wasn’t bye have a nice day” Leslie?
Whatever made you think that Malaya ever cared about her???????????
*Takes a chair and sit down* Please explain O_O
With Leslie, I just don’t know. I mean, its good to break things off quickly when you realize that its not gonna work. Its good to give the other person some space after breaking things off. That’s all… objectively good behavior.
What matters is if she ever felt anything like caring. And, well, I am not in Malaya’s head, so I can’t tell.
If you want read Malaya as jerking Leslie around, that’s your perogative. But just because Leslie was hurt in the short term, it does not necessarily follow that Malaya never cared about her. A lack of romantic interest != no caring in any capacity whatsoever.
“I was experimenting and it turns out I’m not into girls”
That’s not really her being a jerk. relationships are complicated and if you’re really gonna get butthurt because someone realizes that they’re not physically attracted to you despite liking you as a person, well, that’s your prerogative. She also stood up to leslie’s parents, and this was after the breakup. She definitely cared about Leslie and felt defensive of her.
There was that whole admiring Leslie for going through all the crap for being a Lesbian, that whole ‘you inspire me to be abetter person’ speech, confronting Leslie’s mom for treating leslie so poorly after they broke up, giving Leslie relationship advice when she saw Leslie was in pain watching Robin and Joe being together, and she walked Leslie down the aisle at her wedding.
Whatever made you think that Malaya ever didn’t care about her???????????
*Takes a chair and sit down* Please explain O_O
“relationships are complicated and if you’re really gonna get butthurt because someone realizes that they’re not physically attracted to you despite liking you as a person, well, that’s your prerogative.”
You also might want to read up on “Nice Guys” and the backlash by/against them. (By “you” I am addressing the “general you” in yoto’s quote, not anyone in particular.)
I mean yeah, sp Malaya could have probably worded the rejection better, but if she were a genius at human interactions she wouldn’t be in a David Willis comic.
OK, so it looks like I’m gonna have to answer my own post, because for some reason I can’t answer yours. The ‘reply’ option just doesn’t appear. So here it is:
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1584
Here’s Malaya breaking up with Leslie. Read it and take note:
That’s not how you break up with someone you care about.
If you care about someone and you feel you have to break up with them, that’s not how you do it.
That’s simply not the behaviour of someone who cares the slightest bit about the person they’re breaking up with.
If you don’t see it, re-read until you do.
That’s not her breaking up with Leslie though. That’s her realizing she’s not into girls. She JUST realized that herself. This is a TERRIBLE example Arianod.
You may also want to take note the conversation they were having ebfore that, where Leslie wishes she’d been more straight forward and honest about her feelings and hadn’t ended up coming out three months into a wedding.
So Malaya did exactly what leslie had just said she wishes she’d done.
It’s OK, guys. Yotomoe, I’m gonna assume that you honestly didn’t remember/realize that the scene didn’t end on that page:
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1585
There.
And timemonkey, since you apparently managed to miss the point somehow, I’ll spell it out for you: nobody is saying that Malaya shouldn’t have broken up with Leslie (sheesh). The point is that’s no way to break up with someone, certainly not someone you care the tiniest bit about.
And now -seriously- can we stop trying to make excuses for Malaya? Please? :c
I already gave up on trying to convince you of anything, dude. You’re determined to interpret everything Malaya does in the worst possible light and to ignore anything that contradicts this preconceived notion.
Your hard-done-by emoticon and general tone are hilarious though. “Please :c” You’re so personally wounded by attempts to actually answer your question.
You’ve convinced no one you were arguing with of anything, because the one point you’ve made any attempt at rebutting is desperately removed from context, but if you’re done being melodramatically surprised that anyone could possibly think Malaya isn’t the spawn of satan and trying to correct everyone else’s opinions, I think everyone else will agree to leave you alone.
I’m not trying to play victim; but I do get tired of people trying to make excuses for an awful character with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, especially when the arguments they give fly in the face of all evidence. But yeah, the fact that you can take one of that character’s defining moments and dismiss it as “desperately out of context” (wtf??) tells me that I’m definitely not going to convince you of anything, so we may as well leave it here and now because there’s no way this is going anywhere
(I just hope you don’t seriously think -as your post seemed to imply (?)- that I’m “the” guy who doesn’t like Malaya while “everybody else” has a different opinion. Because man, that’d be beyond delusion; I don’t even think there’s a word in the dictionary for that)
In this thread, dude. The everyone else refers to the people who have been arguing with you in this thread.
I do get tired of people trying to make excuses for an awful character with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever
See this is your problem, right here. This is YOUR SUBJECTIVE OPINION, not objective fact. And you aren’t going to win over anyone who disagrees with you by just treating the rest of us like we can’t read.
I read the strips you linked. So did timermonkey and Yotomoe, who both gave you substantive rebuttals, which you almost entirely ignored, yet you keep taking this tone of aggrieved sorrow that you can’t just force other people to change their opinions and feelings about a character by wanting it badly enough.
Consider Malaya chocolate ice cream. You hate it, and think vanilla is a way better flavor, but you’re not going to convince other people who like chocolate that it’s actually disgusting and inedible. They’ve already made their own evaluations based on their own senses, and you shrieking about how chocolate is gross and you wish people would stop pretending it doesn’t taste like shit is… just weird, as well as a huge waste of everyone’s time.
Accept that some of us like Malaya. Accept that we like her EVEN THOUGH we are just as literate as you are! You’ll be happier for it, dude.
(As for “desperately out of context”, that referred to your insistence on talking only about Malaya’s words in a single strip, and your disinterest in the context when Yotomoe and timermonkey pointed it out. Also your disinterest in anything that happened AFTER that page, like Malaya’s walking Leslie down the aisle at her wedding. You are cherry picking in the extreme in this particular instance. But you didn’t bother to respond to that the first time, so why should I expect better? I don’t.)
I thought we had agreed to let this go. Anyway. Hope you don’t mind me answering to you further down (under your comment on Madoka) because we’re seriously running out of space here.
Well Sal’s into bowtie wearing Englishmen. The total opposite of Marcie in everyway so there’s not much hope in waiting for that.
Blade Dog and Destroyer are certain to be heartbroken.
Those could work for Carla and Malaya, incidentally. Well, if Carla wore roller blades.
Malaya gets along just fine with Marcie. Not only do they clearly share some interests (Roller Derby/skating in general), Malaya likes Marcie enough to start learning sign language so that she can understand her without Marcie having to write stuff down. When Malaya likes someone, she’s FIERCELY loyal. And that fierce loyalty is a trait that Marcie shares with her (she followed Sal to college despite the fact that Marcie isn’t attending IU, presumeably to keep Sal out of trouble).
Malaya is rude to Sal, yeah, but Sal has been openly hostile to her from the very first interaction we see the two of them have. Seriously, we haven’t seen Malaya be a jerk to anyone who wasn’t a jerk to her first.
Plus, Malaya complemented Marcie’s derby skills. Even if she thought Marcie couldn’t hear: Malaya…said…something…nice. Which I think is huge for Malaya.
I genuinely can’t believe I didn’t see that coming!
Both about the “Marcie wanting to bang Malaya” and “Sal actually expressing an honest emotion this quickly”.
Well, an emotion that isn’t anger.
Nor jealousy.
Same! Now I feel kinda like Sal, in the whole ‘why didn’t I see this earlier’ sense.
Panel 3 looks like Marcie’s about to go Super Saiyan.
And she wouldn’t even have to spend 8 episodes yelling to do it!
booo
Well, something like that.
I think I like her better with dark hair.
YOU THREATENED THE GIRL I WAS TRYING TO FUCK. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
Marcie you’re settling for less. Do not sell yourself short.
Luffy. You of all people don’t know anything about how these kinds of things. You don’t understand sex Luffy. This isn’t ADVENTURE, Treasure or meat.
I can imagine an elastic body having some perks, tho.
It canonically stretches. He even does it in the manga.
I… uh…
I have a hard time believing that One Pieces editors would allow that
http://i.imgur.com/qFoqPxQ.jpg
You dare doubt Yoto’s knowledge of One Piece!!!!?
But it’s kind of like friendship, and friendship’s the most important part of ADVENTURE!
Technically sex is about all three of those things, in varying degrees of euphemisms.
Assuming Malaya is also interested she’d make a fantastic girlfriend.
Unfortunately for Marcie, that’s a pretty big ‘if’. I hope she isn’t in for a disappointment.
*looks around for a Frank Zappa record*
Fly~ me to the moon~ and let m– wait, wrong Frank.
I guess Sal only understands when it gets BANGED into her skull.
Yuk yuk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsjsECW7wE
Though to be fair, she could be bi/pan/etc.
But Marcie may be disappointed if Malaya is like SP! Malaya. She only likes trans-chassis women. And I don’t see her in a robot body.
Wait, would cosplaying a transformer count?
Marcie’s kinda trans-. She straps roller blades to her feet. She’s like Ultra-Carla, she’s just trans-ing the other way.
Cosplaying as a transformer? I’d be in if she did that!
Maybe Marcie saw her with Fuckface? That could help her want to-
“I also like to watch.” XD
For some reason, I was not expecting this.
Well, but you must be pleasently surprised,with that gravatar. I’d ship it
…Well, she IS Marcie. So, I guess Malaya’s Peppermint Patty? Who’s Charlie Brown?
Take your pick.
Joyce Brown.
The future pornlord?
She came from a humble origin, starting in college with whiteboard dicks.
Danny. Fullstop.
Good ol’ Danny Wilcox. How I hate him.
Billie is Lucy
So Ruth is Schroeder, only with Maple Leafs memorabilia instead of a harpsichord?
Toy piano, not a harpsichord. Though to be honest they did take liberties with the sounds coming from the instrument in the TV specials. In “Charley Brown Christmas” it was a grand piano, a pipe organ, a harpsichord, AND a toy piano.
If Snoopy can be a WWI pilot, a lawyer and a dog, a toy piano can be many things as well.
Cant tell if you hate Danny or if your just referencing the comic strip or both
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/September-October-08/On-this-Day–Peanuts-Comic-Strip-Debuts.html
Its a reference to the first strip.
and suddenly I get one of the “you suck” hiatus strips i read yesterday
It’s so weird to me that everyone considers Patty and Marcie to be lesbians. Of all the Peanuts they talk about boys the most (Pep Patty in particular really likes boys) And both of them are crushin’ on good ol’ chuck.
I ain’t sayin’ that bi-sexuality ain’t an option. It’s just strange to me that this has just become the universally accepted thing.
It’s just because Patty wore shorts and Marcie called her “sir”, which is a little bit sexist and homophobic, but its also kind of a cute headcanon thing when viewed in the right light. I think the assumption is that Patty was overcompensating, while Marcie was humoring her but being pretty open about crushing on her. Then in college she finally realizes that Charlie doesn’t feel that way about her, and that really, she doesn’t about him either. That night, Marcie finds her crying in their dorm, she comforts her, smoochy smoochy, yadda yadda yadda they become queer rights activists in the 70s
I ain’t got nothing against Marcie and Pep Patty getting together. It’s cute. But like…it’s become such a common thing that it just feels insulting to peppermint patty’s character. “Oh she dresses like that, hates skirts, and is a tomboy. She must be gay” Why doesn’t anyone say Violet and (Original) Patty are lesbians? They’re always together too! It’s just silly!
oh yeah definitely
Yeah, you’re right. To be honest, I’ve never bought the whole thing. I was more referencing the common public perception than actually believing it myself. I always just saw them as good friends.
Marcy physically resembles Billie Jean King, who was a friend of Charles Schultz. Patty is said to be a lesbian to keep Marcy happy, but Marcy, there’s a real reason.
Oh, also bullshit policing. Was giving my reason.
Oh my god YES. This explains why Marcie is here, and not at her own place.
(Also if you flip that sign to where the two “people” are upright, it means “meet” as in nice to meet you. It’s very amusing when people new to ASL mess that one up.)
Heh, reminds me of how newcomers to Spanish can get ‘year’ and ‘anus’ mixed up. Either that, or they have a truly astounding number of anuses.
A tilde in the right place keeps you from being a huge asshole?… I’ll let myself out.
As a non spannish speaker : something like “ano” and “anno” ?
Very close. The difference is a tilde (~), which turns an n into an ‘enye’ (no, not an Enya). So, ‘ano’ (ahno) is anus, while ‘año’ (ahnyo) is year.
And in Spanish, you state your age by saying how many years you have (instead of how many years old you are).
Explains so much now.
I for one, think Malaya is a lucky lady. We know that Marcie is very good with her hands. I bet she has the best dirty talk too.
You. I like your comments today XD All of them !
Well thanks. I used to comment way more but now I don’t.
Eeeeeeeeeeeh
Quality, not quantity, Yotomoe.
… Whole new meaning to ‘pillow talk’.
Huh. That makes sense. I mean, if you ignore her personality, Malaya’s pretty fornicatable.
Well, it’s not like she could publically come out like Becky did.
Of course not. No closets survived the fallout, so she’s have to import new ones to nuke from orbit.
Also, I appreciate that Marcie’s not putting up with Sal’s bullshit excuses for one second. She knows Sal too well for that.
Yay, I like this pairing. I like both characters, and I think they could be really interesting together, very curious to see what will happen.
JFC, now the whole situation is just punishing poor Marcie. She’s just trying to get some from a pretty firecracker of a girl, and Sal is being a complete asshole and RUINING EVERYTHING FOR HER, like, oh gawd.
If Sal’s being an asshole, Malaya’s being one, too. They were both being belligerant.
Sal started it though.
Didn’t we argue this to death yesterday?
And the day before. And we’ll likely be arguing it to death tomorrow if the scene doesn’t change back to the party.
I’ve always thought the cruelest form of torture would be to suffer the pain of death multiple times.
Just saying, I appreciate your comment + your avatar.
This is like comparing two people standing in sewage only one’s ankle deep and the other’s knee deep in it. Sure one’s a little less messy but they’re both standing in shit. Step out of the shit girls.
She’ll do anything for love but she won’t do that.
Back in the freezer, Eddie.
Marcie, let me introduce you to our friend Becky…
“I wanna bang ladies. I don’t wanna bang every lady.”
Put it on a t-shirt. I’ll wear it forever!
+2
And somewhere, Daisy is still alone.
Poor sweet unsatisfied Daisy, why does Willis punish thee?
Because she didn’t have to go through enough shit in It’s Walky!, apparently.
This has probably already been suggested in a comment sometime, but it would be interesting if Leslie makes an attempt towards Robin that goes horribly wrong and somehow after that she meets Daisy (perhaps interview for paper b/c of her class?) and then they hook up and Daisy finally gets some.
I wonder if Marcie enjoys Malaya’s company, or if this is a purely physical thing.
They seemed to be genuinely enjoying hanging out together in the comics where Sal was sulking by the wall, plus Malaya is learning sign language, so I’d say yes.
Hm, just one wonder. Why is Marcie wearing those red glasses at night ? The luminosity’s low enough as it is.
…unless there’s a particular reason for that.
NIGHT VISION!!!
…that possibility actually crossed my mind XD
Or related to the accident (?) where she lost (?) her voice.
She’s actually Daredevil.
I have heard that red glasses can help with night-vision, so that could be the reason Marcie wears them.
Being lightly-colourblind, I… what ?
It’s what I heard, don’t know if it is proven to be scientific true or not.
They’re Ruby lenses; preventing her uncontrollable laser eye beams from obliterating everything she looks at!
Malaya no Jean Grey tho.
That only works with ruby quartz.
The only thing I know about red and night vision is that red light doesn’t dilate your eyes as much as normal light (I think because red light is ‘lower energy’, but don’t hold me to that as the reason), you can go between red light and darkness better than other light and darkness because your eyes don’t have to adjust back and forth.
Once again the day is saved by SCIENCE!
The chemical reaction after exposure to red light isn’t as extreme as the reaction from exposure to the usual light we see, so red light can be used to see at night.
(I think because red light is ‘lower energy’, but don’t hold me to that as the reason)
Red light has the lowest energy in the visible light spectrum.
I knew it was lowest energy in the visible spectrum, but wasn’t sure if that was directly related in this case.
X-ray goggles!
She’s a Geddy Lee fan.
Does anyone else want Malaya to need Marcie to do some sort of robot cosplay in order to get off? Just for the humor factor? Like silver body paint an such?
…This would be the only slipshine I’d consider purchasing.
For ideas suggested by someone with a creepy Joe avatar, that is a good one.
The Best Lesbian Drama Since Sweet Blue Flowers
I dunno bro, have you seen Madoka Magicka?
a few episodes
my point stands
You kinda need to watch the whole thing to get the proper effect. Or at least 3/4.
Homura’s singular excellence as a gal who loves gals doesn’t necessarily elevate the entire show. I haven’t seen Sweet Blue Flowers since I’m a barbarian, but it could very well be better.
(Also Rebellion is designed to overturn every good thing about the series)
oh I haven’t seen the SWB anime I just read the manga
Yeeeaaaahhhh no.
Madoka Magica is all subtext. And misery porn, served with a side of deconstructing a genre. That’s not at all how I like my queer lady media. (If it were, Blue Velvet and Perfect Blue/Black Swan would be my favorite “queer” movies.)
OK. If we’re going to do this, then for the sake of clarity and civility let’s do it this way: let’s go back to square one. Tell me exactly what you think of Malaya.
You stepped into an exchange I was having with Yotomoe, who basically thinks Malaya is awesome and wishes she were real (I know this because they’re stated it many times since the character first appeared, in those words and others to the same effect) My own opinion is that she’s a mean, nasty little jerk who started out without any redeeming or relatable qualities; to the extent that the only other character she herself could relate to was a: not human, and b: as big a sociopath as she was. It was only towards the end that she mellowed out a little and learned a thing or two about how to deal with her fellow human beings. For all these reasons, she’s a character I love to despise and hate (even acknowledging that yeah, she sorta kinda got better in the long run)
Your turn now. What’s your take on her?
(Note: I’ll be checking your answer in about 24 hours from now, so feel free to take your time)
Dude your last comment called me delusional, reiterated that Malaya is an objectively terrible character with no redeeming qualities, and asked me a question (related to the delusional comment). If you didn’t want a reply you went about it badly.
At this point all I think is even slightly productive is for you to acknowledge that other people are capable of reading the same webcomics you do and arriving at different conclusions, while neither being obtuse nor willfully horrible.
I like Malaya. I have always liked her. You can’t “logic” me out of that, especially not by just repeatedly stating things you already know I disagree with. (e.g., no redeemable qualities, incapable of caring about anyone but Carla.)
Again, you can’t just force people to change their opinions by wanting it. I read Shortpacked, I’ve been reading DOA, and I disagree with you about Malaya.
I don’t see the point in saying anything else, and the moment you first replied to me with over the top sarcasm and condescension I changed my mind about trying to talk to you in any real way about Malaya.
At this point I am replying to you to point out that your method of discourse is unproductive, and rude, though likely not in a way you’re ever going to see. (Hint: every time you act like I haven’t read Shortpacked, you’re basically calling me stupid. Since you know I have read it, you must just think I have very poor reading comprehension, or equally poor reasoning skills.)
I’ll give you this much though: this comment, where you acknowledge that she sorta kinda got better towards the end of the strip, is progress! Hopefully soon you will be able to acknowledge that other people might even like her, and might have liked her before then, even if the why makes no sense to you.
OK, so you like Malaya. Care to explain why? More specifically, do you like her in spite of her being an asshole? Or do you not consider her an asshole?
jesus christ arionod give it a goddamned rest
I don’t think I could say anything more appropriate than this, eheheh. FWIW, Willis, I have loved the direction Malaya has taken in this strip! I think she’s exactly the same core person as she was in SP!, but I love seeing her around another person she likes. :3 I am definitely shipping it, though I hope Malaya and Marcie can stay friends if Malaya isn’t interested because even just silent panels of them skating together are super cute.
Also, not that you are doing this strip for me or anyone else, but I enjoy the preponderance of queer characters. You don’t realize how badly starved for representation you are until you consume something that actually contains not just one, but a variety of characters like you. Because of the 10% statistic, anything that has queer characters at all tends to have one and only one in the main cast, unless it’s some niche thing that’s only about queer people and which no one else will watch/read.
*Sigh* OK then. The reason why some folks liked SP Malaya will have to remain a mistery forevermore.
There are so many lesbians. Or to be fair they could be bi/demi whatever.
After going back to see if there were any hints of this, my headcanon until it’s shown otherwise is gonna be that Malaya’s little “Oh crap” back then was because she’d made some comments to herself about Marcie’s massive hotness within earshot of her assuming she couldn’t hear. And then they went home, Marcie made it clear the comments were appreciated, and they banged like a screen door on the wave of excess adrenaline after the fight.
I like your headcanon!
This works really well with the hovertext on that comic actually (‘Oh no, now she knows all my secrets’).
Oooh! Well remembered!
Your headcanon may actually be canon. Willis seems to love to drop those little hints in way before he reveals things!
QC is doing guest comics this week, so does that mean we will be seeing another butt related Willis guest comic soon?
I find this kinda sweet in a weird way.
I’m reminded of the scene where Danny yelled at Joe for cockblocking him.
Sal’s tiny eyes would go well with’s Joyce’s giant mouth. Throw in some floaty eyebrows and you have a Miró painting á la Willis.
if she’s seriously only trying to get laid I kinda feel bad for malaya, she seems to genuinely admire and care for marcie
I don’t think she’s only trying to get laid. Sal asked what Malaya could do that she couldn’t, and Marcie told her that they fuck. Doesn’t mean that’s all Marcie is interested in though.
Wait…did Marcie actually sign that they were doing it? Sal’s translation of it was ‘want to’, not ‘are’, so if Marcie actually said they ARE doing it, that changes my reaction to Sal very slightly (adds a bit more facepalm, since I figure if it was clearly enough present tense in a static image, if she’s seeing it fully signed, she should know what was actually meant).
Marcie simply said ‘fuck’. Everything else is Sal’s conjecture. Personally, I don’t think anything’s happened yet, I think Marcie is just expressing her desires.
Agreed. I think it’s unclear, although we’ll probably know soon enough. Going to feel bad for Marcie if Malaya isn’t interested. Even though orientations remain consistent across universes, it’s hard to predict how her SP sexual identity is going to map to DoA.
Or we didn’t see the signs preceding the ‘fuck’ sign.
Well Sal asked “What can you get from her that you aren’t getting from me” and Marcie responded with “Sex!” That makes me assume that they are actually having sex…but it is possible that she means that she wants to have sex with Malaya, and she’s going to fully explain herself in the next comic. Sal did use the word “can” and not “are” so I suppose I may have jumped to sexy conclusions.
hmm yeah you guys are right. there’s not really any good reason for me to assume marcie ONLY wants to get laid
That was my thought too. I think it’s just Marcie’s sarcastic/blunt way of cutting off Sal’s big rant. Probably Marcie’ll go on to explain herself in a way that’s respectful towards Malaya and Sal. Maybe something like saying that she’s making new relationships, in this case a sexual and possibly romantic relationship, and not replacing the relationship she has with Sal. Or whatever.
HELLO!
Wow, even more lesbians? You’d think this comic strip takes place at a college or something.
ha.
I thought “lesbians until graduation was only a high school thing.
Well, when is it easier to experiment? At home with parents? Or at college with little supervisions and access to tones free protection?
I come from a place where sexual experimentation begins the moment you get access to a car, usually 16. But I suppose you’re right.
Depends on how rural you are, too. Cornfield sex was very much a thing where I was raised, although we moved into town before I was old enough to consider it myself.
…oh God, that came out SO wrong.
Pretty sure Khrene wasn’t trying for a suggestion of incest, no.
Pretty sure Marcie’s bi.
Marcie’s bi though.
If only there was some sort of…cycle she could ride…
Why? She has SKATES.
Yes, a Bi-Cycle! (I have been waiting for that pun for ages, got tired of waiting)
it reminds me of the leading title for book 5 (from a twitter poll) :
「yes, everyone is lesbian, shut up」
I actually knew far more gay men than I did lesbians….although it just now occurs to me that being a Comp Sci major probably skewed things a shade or two for me.
This makes the hate ship even more intense with the additive of Marcie.
So… Looked at the story title. Looked at Willis’ gravatar on the right…
I am easily amused.
“I came over here to make friends”
“Where is that little cumstain”
>:/
f u sal
You only get to call her a cumstain after you’ve been friends for at least 4 months.
But nobody could ever stay friends with Malaya for 4 months, right?
The gauntlet has been thrown.
I’m going to mention this again: Sal did not deliberately insult Malaya with the “stain” remark. She was speaking to herself, and Malaya overheard her and understandably took offense. It wasn’t a case of Sal marching up to her and saying it to her face.
The rest of Sal’s behavior was deliberately insulting, but the opening volley in the escalation was a stupid mistake, not an aimed shot.
What you say behind someone’s back is a good representation of what you really think of them.
Yes, it is, even when you’re talking out loud to yourself. Which is why you shouldn’t talk about people behind their backs unless you don’t mind them knowing how you really feel. Sal’s young and has lousy social skills. She hasn’t learned that yet. Some people never do.
She was deliberately insulting Malaya. You don’t call someone a cumstain by accident.
What she didn’t want was for Malaya to hear it, because that would let Malaya know she’s not doing this in good faith. Because you also don’t call someone a cumstain, even to yourself, if you’re trying to befriend them in good faith.
I agree that she wasn’t acting in good faith, but what you think about someone is not an insult, it’s an opinion. I’ve worked for and with people that I thought of by far worse names than cumstain, but that was an internal monolog and stayed there where it belonged in the interests of being able to get work done. Did I respect them? No. But I never insulted any of them, and a few of them mistakenly believed that I approved of the actions that made me dislike them in the first place.
Sal is dumb and out of control enough to say things out loud when she shouldn’t, but her first deliberate insult in this arc was the menstruation crack.
I’m wondering how fast someone comments (or already commented and was deleted?) about how Marcie just further proves there aren’t any non-queer characters while completely ignoring Sal’s reaction.
I could of sworn that it was mentioned that Marcie is bi somewhere previously. I still remember those questions popping up when Becky came out though. Because they assumed the question was so original or something.
Well, there has to be a whole FAQ point for Ethan being gay.
So, does this page count for one more “fuck” in the doc file of whoever is keeping track of that ?
Marcie is on the scoreboard.
Too bad “humans” aren’t Malaya’s type.
But sentient robots and/or anthropomorphized former cars are not canon in this universe, so I assume her type has had an adjustment.
Assume nothing. Asexuality is just about the only form of human sexuality that so far hasn’t been brought up in this comic.
Maybe not in so many words, but Carla is actually asexual per word-of-Willis. Also per ‘everyone’s sexuality remains the same across universes’.
Dina’s currently asexual, by some definitions. She’s curious, but hasn’t yet felt the urge.
So I’m gonna go ahead and say I think Malaya was more gray sexual than robo sexual. Calling herself robosexual was an easy handle, and plus it sounds weird so it can be used to annoy people who are too attached to the sexualities they’ve already heard of being the only ones.
She was attracted to Carla. As a person. And Marcie has some of the same traits.
Now I’ll note that in classic demisexual terms, you’d think Malaya could have developed sexual feelings for Leslie, but demisexual people are no more obligated to be attracted to everyone who falls within the scope of “people I theoretically COULD be attracted to” than anyone else. I might also note however that Malaya seemed to want herself to fall for Leslie on the basis of Leslie being nice to her and deserving it, which is a trap lots of us (especially women, due to societal pressure) fall into.
So yeah TL;DR: if you imagine Malaya as someone who requires an emotional bond before sexual feelings happen, she only ever liked two people even as friends in Shortpacked. Marcie has clearly already made that list in DOA.
Valid. And Malaya’s personality in general doesn’t lend itself to making strong emotional bonds (at least not positive ones) with people, so as a demisexual her opportunities to find a partner would be rather constrained.
Of course, that’s SP Malaya. We don’t know enough about DoA Malaya to speculate much. Not even 100% clear if she and Marcie are involved yet, or if Marcie’s just hoping to be.
I agree it’s not clear yet. I would argue (but not strongly) that Marcie’s answer of “fuck” is in response to Sal’s question of “what are you getting from her that I can’t give you”, which kind of implies there is already sexing. I mean, otherwise that might be presumptuous of Marcie to say! “Hypothetically sex in the future if she returns my feelings.”
But I think the point that she took Sal away before being so blunt is a good one as well, and certainly Sal interprets the sign as wanting to, future tense. So it works both ways.
I’m just trying to say, I think assuming Malaya’s sexuality from SP CAN’T hold true because there are no robots, or if it holds true MUST lead to a rejection of Marcie, are both false choices. Demisexual would be consistent with Malaya’s behavior in SP, both the frustration she expressed at not being sexually interested in anyone and her growing interest in Carla exactly as she was.
I don’t know that any of this is Willis’s intention; he was always much firmer in defending Carla’s asexuality than in defining Malaya’s exact identity. But I think it works with the text, you know?
I still don’t like Malaya, but I don’t have to, Macie does. Get some, ladies. Excellent. I approve of any and all consensual bang-age.
Your comment is the only one that made this okay for me.
(Marcie fan, but not a Malaya fan)
A good portion of the comment section have become Marcie’s disapproving parents.
“Are you sure? You could do so much better”
“You should date that nice girl Becky, she’s lovely.”
+1
the comments section has a long standing tradition of Bad Dads
lol I love this comment
Hahahaha
Best comment of the day.
I’d be willing to wager that nothing better comes up in the next twenty hours.
Oh dear, that’s far too true for comfort
I like to consider myself the creepy uncle of the comments section.
“You know….all I’m saying is Becky makes three…”
Coming out? With the number of lesbians we’re seeing, we’re the ones coming into the closet.
don’t they know it stretches credibility???
I’m sure there’s plenty of porn that involves people coming into closets.
The camerawork must be terrible, though.
It’s a porn. Of course the camerawork is awful.
Yet there’s an AVN award in that category.
No reason it has to be. Oh Joy Sex Toy ran a strip with some suggestions on lighting and camera placement last week. Very educational.
I approve of Malarcie. Or Marlaya.
Or, if you want to be brave, the M&Ms.
Marcilaya confirmed.
…Malaria ?
Well I know what I’m calling it now. The rest of you can do whatever.
I like Malarcie. It has a pleasing phonetic similarity to malarkey.
Stop that.
Given the selection pool Marcie has to work with, if she wants “pillow talk” afterwards there isn’t much to choose from. This is why I didn’t reply to any of the “you can do better, Marcie” or similar comments above. She really can’t “do better”.
…but again, would she WANT to ? They’re probably just compatible and that’s it.
Don’t worry, the both talk with their hands, in AND out of bed.
You can’t do better than Malaya because she’s the best.
But… Sierra…
Sierra doesn’t wear shoes. Skates are a type of shoe. I fear that ship ain’t sailing.
If she got involved with the deaf or mute community in the area, it would expand her options. It just so happened that she met Malaya and liked her.
That is the best Sal face in the 20-or-so-year history of Willis drawing Sal.
See, I saw this coming back when Willis posted that one comic about Marcia teaching Malaya sign language… on a bed
He posted a comic about her teaching Malaya to sign on a bed? When was that?
From what I read above, it was a Patreon bonus comic.
Well…Malaya is undoubtedly going to be gleeful at Sal getting dressed down by Marcie. Which might in fact help with Marcie’s cause. And thus it proves Sal is Marcie’s best friend. Even in ignorance she has makes a great winggal.
Also, as an aside I wanna know where Marcie gets her Mr. Freeze glasses.
Freeze Frames™
Wow, whiplash!
I know that sign!
Me too! I got told off for doing it wrong, with the fingers pointing in the same direction. That was a big mistake.
Why, what were you saying?
“We don’t need a safe word.”
Err, more consent, than safeword.
I just wan’t sure if my post was gonna be flagged if I say rape? If you do the same sign, but with the fingers (legs) pointing the same way, it means rape.
Because missionary is that uncomfortable!
HAH! She did the surprised Walky face!
Marcie, Malaya, Billie, Ruthless, Leslie, Becky…
I’m sensing a theme here.
A sexy theme.
If sexuality carries over from the Walkyverse, then Malaya isn’t gay, as Leslie found out.
She’s actually only attracted to misanthropic gynoids with extendo-hands that come out of the opening in the middle of their chests.
Which kinda sucks hard for Dumbingverse Malaya, really.
I figured that Malaya’s being robosexual couldn’t carry over to DOA.
Ugh. I just got a mental image of Malaya and Pintsize from QC.
And now so do you. Sorry.
..ew. no.
Not the ship we need, or even want, or even dare think about, but the ship we deserve.
Hahahahaha! Thanks, Smiling Cat, that made my day.
Truly, cat-themed commenters are the best.
On the one hand, OHGODNO
On the other hand, who’s on top?
Not that big a deal for lesbians, they just roll around a lot anyway. And moan (I used to rent a room to a lesbian couple, they could rattle the ceiling on a good night).
Eh she really would do better with Winslow
Why isn’t anyone thinking of Momo (or arguably May) ? ^^; At least they’re kinda humanoid.
It’s the creepy levels, Momo looks too human for it to work. It would really be no different than the relationship between Malaya and ultra car in shortpacked
Oh, Malaya and May would get along like a house on fire. That is, there will be a house on fire by the end of the day.
Malaya is straight and robosexual, but pan romantic. This will probably continue over to DOA, but I’m not sure. I assumed they had already had sex, but again, I might be wrong. And that doesn’t necessarily mean anything…she could’ve had sex with Marcie (or was about to) to see if she liked it or not. She did a similar thing in Shortpacked, but not with sex.
Goddammit. Daisy erasure is getting to be an actual honest-to-God thing around here. It’s no wonder she’s so frustrated.
I think since she rarely shows up, people kind of forget she exists.
*Obligatory “Where are all the straight people” whinging.*
There’s one talking a lot in this very comic!
Sal, Walky, Dorothy, Amber, Jason thats who I can think of off the top of my head.
Joyce, Joe, Jacob, Roz and Sarah too.
Add Raidah and Penny.
I think of this group, the only characters who have even commented vaguely on their lack of interest in their own gender are Joyce, Joe, Roz, and Dorothy. (You can stretch it to include Sal, as I’ve gone into way lower down.) Ethan told us Jacob is straight, but I’m gonna be honest: I can’t imagine how Ethan got that information. Did he try to slide it casually into conversation? Seems difficult, and more likely that Ethan is assuming in his typically fatalistic way that the guy he thinks is hot could never possibly be interested in him.
Everyone else is being presumed straight, based on having usually one and only one stated romantic interest in someone of a different gender.
(I haven’t read any other Walkyverse comics, so I’m gonna make allowances for characters having made their sexualities explicit in that universe. But otherwise this is heteronormativity in action.)
I mean, Walky even recently established that there’s at least one dude he finds hot, who he assumes everyone finds hot. That’s no longer 100% straight.
You can say with some certainty that these characters are not gay; you can’t as easily say they’re all straight, though, because another option exists.
Joe’s Dad, Blaine, Amber’s Mom, Ethan’s mom, Joyce’s parents, Dina’s parents, Alex, Joyce, Jacob, Roz, Sarah, Penny, Jason, Sal, Walky, Dorothy, Dorothy’s parents, Walky’s Parents, Joe, Amber, the dean…I am assuming they are all straight, but I could be wrong. (I’m 99% sure that Ethan’s dad likes the cock) Actually, I think the straight people outnumber the queer people. Those are all the ones I can immediately think of.
I love Marcie’s expressions here. “DAMMIT SAL, WHY ARE YOU SO DUMB AND SEXY?”
Those glasses look really freaky without their earpieces!
Funniest Willis strip–EVAH! Brilliant.
Nope, did not see that coming. But, why not.
Marcie’s used to cool, angry people. Malaya is just a bit more angry and definitely more rude to all and anyone. She’s also a dirty fighter.
Sal is selective, she only hates Malaya. Unusual face for Sal in the last 2 panels. But, now she knows.
Sal is not into Englishmen in bowties, as some one noted, she was into passing the math class he was teaching. He told her she couldn’t learn, she got a tutor (Danny) and proved Jason wrong-rubbed his face in it and dropped him like a hot potato. Jason is not accepting that well.
My bet is Sal is totally cool with Malaya as of now. Like Malaya can insult her straight to her face and Sal is like, “Haha. Oh, you.”
Because the jealousy was as much insecurity, like does Marcie think Malaya is better than her, but now Sal can figure it’s not a question of who’s better; it’s just how she’s oriented.
I had a similar thought.
It’s not garanteed to work that way, alas
Not unlikely. The problem is that it’s because Malay has been reduced in the eyes of Sal from someone Marcie wants to build a genuine friendship with mutual respect, to someone Marcie just wants to fuck.
IF (and I don’t know that) that reflects how Marcie regards her relationship with Malaya that’s something ugly brewing right there.
Maybe. We don’t know enough about Malaya or Marcie to even speculate on their attitudes toward relationships or casual sex, and it’s not even 100% clear if they’re already sexing it up or if Marcie’s just interested in doing so.
For the sake of argument (sorry) Sal did say that she was attracted to Jason, and if she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have tried to get a better grade in the way she did.
That is SO Takei.
Wow, Sal and Marcie’s faces are just the best here.
“You wanna f… Funk? You wanna funk?”
uptown?
Uptown funk you up.
Uptown funk you up.
Say whaaat?!
Come on, dance
Jump on it
If you’re sexy then flaunt it
If you freaky than own it
Don’t brag about it, come show me
Marcie’s face in every panel is so made of win.
I would’ve said ‘rage’, but win works, too.
GOD DAMMIT MARCIE NOOOOO >_<
Panel 6 should remind everyone that Sal and Walky are definitely twins.
Too bad Malaya isn’t doing that either because she ain’t into humans
This universe’s Malaya has no robot people to resort to. Also, she cares enough for at least one human to trouble herself to learn sign language. So there might be hope for her?
(And by ‘her’ I mean Malaya, of course. Marcie too, but I still think Marcie could do a lot better :P)
And the little gauge in her skull goes from “clueless” to “gets it”.
In other news, Sal is totally being Walky in this strip ^^ It’s so damn cute and so damn hilarious at the same time.
They ARE both Walkertons.
The seed is strong!
I’m glad that last part finally got through to Sal, but methinks it’s kind of irrelevant. Why is Sal so codependantly fixed on Marcie that she needs to be the one person to provide all of Marcie’s friendshippy needs? Sal should not be so jealous of Marcie needing more than one friend, even if it had been only a platonic one.
They’re lifelong friends; that’s a special kind of friendship and it counts/means a lot more than a regular one. Also, it’s not like Sal has got lots of friends.
Oh, it makes a lot of sense to me that Sal is jealous! I have felt similarly in similar situations (although perhaps never acted out so badly in response to it). I just think the fact that Marcie wants to bone Malaya has deflected from the fact that Sal has issues in making and maintaining friendships and that this doesn’t solve it.
I have faith we’ll return to the problem at hand though. Sooner or later.
yep, Sal has issues all right. Not gonna argue with that ^^
It isn’t relevant. I see that as Sal venting her frustration that with Malaya in the picture, Sal gets less one on one with Marcie. Which means Sal has to come to terms with the fact that her attitude has made her shit at making other friends. (Actual friends who aren’t just hanging out with her for the “cool” factor.)
*Sigh* Why can’t Sal be into girls, and then we wouldn’t have to deal with all this :c
Marcie would have to want to fuck Sal though. Marcie might still wanna bang Malaya over Sal cuz slammin’ tuna with your bff is weird.
Also, westermark effect. You can grow to love a best friend in principle, but childhood friends? Yeah, generally no.
True, forgot about that. Dammit :c
Wouldn’t be the first time people upgrade a relationship from ‘bffs’ to ‘regularly bumping bits’.
‘slammin’ tuna’ *dies laughing*
WE HAVE A SECOND CASUALTY. SOMEBODY STOP THE HUMOR!
Where’s the drama in that?
Also, two people can be of compatible types, and yet not be attracted to each other. Despite society’s tendency to ‘erase’ such relationships (the “they’re totally banging” effect), straight men and straight women have been forming platonic relationships since the beginning of human societies. Apply to any other orientation as you please.
THIS. I have great female friends that I’m just not interested in dating. And I’m not disparaging their looks, either.
eeeeh got the best BFF (one of many) in the world, but only entertained the thought of sleeping with them for a grand total of 5 seconds, and the end result of that was “NOPE.”
That could be what’s happening here- you just don’t want to bone someone. It happens.
To all the people who are saying that Marcie could do better and what a terrible, irredeemable jerkface Malaya is, I would like to point out that in the 19 strips she’s been in, we’ve only seen her be antagonistic to two people: Sal and Amazigirl. Sal, who’s been belittling her since her first appearance, and Amazigirl, who came up to them deliberately TRYING to pick a fight.
Other than that? She was whiny that Carla only bought one six-pack of beer to split four ways.
Everything else shows that she gets along with Marcie very well. She was complimentary about her skills in roller derby, they two of them have fun skating together, and Malaya likes her and cares about her enough to start learning ASL for her.
Seriously, Malaya has done NOTHING to deserve the level of hate she’s gotten in this ‘verse. This is not Shortpacked Malaya. Give her a chance, okay?
Thank you for this!! I’m shocked by the amount of hate I’m seeing. Who knows, Malaya might be a pretty cool person in this universe.
But…! But I don’t want her to be :'( I want awful, hateable Malaya!
I agree. Malaya doesn’t really deserve her reputation.
*clap clap clap* Malaya x Marcie make a cute couple.
She didn’t deserve the hate in the other universe either. I mean really, how dare she complain about the job she didn’t want and not want to be friends with her irritating and often insane coworkers.
Well, in Shortpacked I do kind of get the hate, because she’s not just complaining about a shitty job, and not wanting to be friends, she’s actively insulting all the other characters for what they like, and responding to attempts at friendliness from them with contempt. She’s also almost fanatically obsessed with putting down “nerd stuff” – actually, rather like Billie over here in DoA.
It’s still disproportionate, but she actually has done something to earn the reader’s ire in Shortpacked ‘verse.
Except she was, you know, kinda sorta a gigantic asshole to everybody around her, loudly dismissing nerd stuff (to the point of pulling a fake geek girl routine on Lucy) in a comic about nerd stuff read by people who really like nerd stuff.
There were reasons to dislike her but nothing justified the level of pure hate the readers had for her within three strips of her existing.
No real point in fretting over how much people like or dislike a character. If I could do that then Yotomoe would be sacrificed at the Altar of Danny.
Which amused the hell out of me, given there was porn of her from the moment anyone other than Willis knew that she existed. (IIRC, he posted a character design, and the Rule 34 automagically appeared. Since her first actual appearance is full of the ‘ugh, nerds’ stuff that made people hate her.) Granted, just one picture, but still.
In all honesty, I’m indifferent about her still.
I entertained the thought of “hating” her because [almost] everyone in-comic seemed to, but that didn’t last long.
does this mean carla/malaya isn’t gonna translate?
Willis did say he wasn’t going to do the same relationships as in the other universe, for the most part. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen (wasn’t Jason/Sal a thing over in that universe?), nor does it mean Marcie/Malaya has/will (Sal does say ‘want to’ not ‘are’), but it’s not surprising.
Sal/Jason was a thing back in the Walkyverse. Other than the teacher/student dynamic, it’s pretty similar.
Carla isn’t an inorganic AI in this universe. For all we know, she might not even hate all of humanity like UC did. I’m not saying that Carla/Malaya won’t happen, but the chances look kind of slim.
Malaya’s more likely demisexual, rather than having a mech fetish. She happened to connect with Ultra-Car on a more complete level than she has any other person, due to their personalities meshing.
She’s been shown to mesh pretty well with Marcie.
That’s probably the most reasonable mapping of her “robosexuality” to a more realistic setting.
So, we agree that Malaya/Marcie is more likely than Malaya/Carla?
Looks that way, yeah.
From what we know of the characters so far. Which isn’t much, all three of them have had rather minimal panel time.
That ship just launched torpedoes at the heart.
Or something.
BTW, as long as Marcie is wearing roller skates, she is part vehicle and therefore Malaya’s preference for human-vehicle hybrids translates.
I’m here for this
Malaya’s into girls who don’t give her backtalk. OOOOOOOHHH!!!
Well that… de-escalated quickly.
Marcie still looks like she’s ready to knock both girls into tomorrow.
I like Marcie.
I like Malaya too.
Uh, can’t Malaya SEE what marcie just said?
Probably not…they’re obviously a good distance away and Sal is most likely between them. Also, I would assume she knows better than to eavesdrop on a conversation between two people who are already mad at her, one of whom she actually cares if they’re upset with her, and would get more upset if the rumble with the other one resumed.
And that’s assuming she’s actually learned the relevant sign already.
Also, there’s about a chance that even if she does see and understand what Marcie’s saying, it’s not actually new information…
Well, I guess there was no chance this would end with Marcie straight up dropping Sal, considering the last arc revealed that Marcie followed her to Indiana University.
The endgame might be the same, though; Marcie needs her space sometimes and Sal needs to start opening up to other people.
Poor Marcie is quadrant-locked. She wants to be in ♥ with Malaya, but is for the time being stuck in ♣ with Sal and Malaya.
If she succeeds in stopping their feud, however, we might get (Jason ♠) Sal ♦ Marcie ♥ Malaya.
Gotta love the quadrants.
You left off a ‘club’ for Malaya. (I dunno how to get the little chars). It’s fitting, too.
I don’t think Jason/Sal is Kismesis. Jason seems to have more flushed feelings for Sal, and her feelings toward him seem more like apathy and convenience. More of a weak Matespriteship.
Marcie is definitely Sal’s Moiral, at the moment, though, and I can see Malaya returning her feelings to make a good Matespriteship.
Pretty much agreed, except for one thing. Marcie signed “I wanna f her”, no “I love her”: there’s a chance her feelings are black, and that’s what I’m going to go with until proven otherwise. I can deal with Marcie being in spades with Mal, that’d be OK.
That’s because she love Sal (as a friend) too.
What does Marcie’s shirt say? If you can read this I’m skating?
Looks like it to me.
It’s printed upside down – you know, because skaters.
The Walkertons are indeed siblings. I laughed outloud at the last two panels.
Oh wow… I can’t believe I actually called it right on the, “I tried to make nice but she threw it back in my face,” thing.
Also, nice to see the coin finally dropping in the sixth panel there. (Didn’t actually see that coming.)
Good for M&M. Looks like they’re gonna have a sweet relationship.
I forget, did Dorothy and/or Marcie appear anywhere in the Walkyverse? I mean, even ‘people’ like Beef and Ol’ Gash Face appeared in some form or another. I just don’t remember these two.
On another relevant to the series but not today’s strip note: Am I the only one looking forward to ~2020 (if I’m looking at the time scale of a week per year correctly) when it’s Halloween? Because Ol’ Gash Face is gonna have the opportunity to prowl in disguise and maybe we’ll get not only Amazi-Girl/Joyce resolution but full on masked adventurer vs. costumed criminal action?
Dorothy appeared in Joyce and Walky, Marcie was a member of squad 48
Must say, I’m going to start using the moniker Ol’ Gash Face to refer to the shitstain that happens to share my name.
Asma, Raidah, Chan, Char, Kaitlin, and many of the parents are new non-Walkyverse characters. Riley and Jocelyne were first introduced in DoA and retroactively back-ported to the Walkyverse. I think all the other named characters in DoA originated in the Walkyverse.
I sense another SlipShine coming…
Ok I’m actually completely unsure what that sign is that Marcie just did. I know Fuck you in ASL because of College (Which incase anyone wants to know is the same as thank you except originating from the neck) and I know Fucking in ASL because of Grrl Power. What Marcie did isn’t either of those so what is it?
That’s definitely the sign for sex, man.
Fuck as in sex.
I’m curious as to what you learned as fuck in ASL, because Willis’s drawing of it is dead-on to what I learned for that sign.
They actually didn’t teach that in any of the ASL classes I took and Like I said I learned the sign for Fucking from Grrl Power specifically this comic http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1398.
I know in sign the difference between alot of Verbs and their -ing counterpart is doing the motion a second time so I assumed the sign for Fuck was just doing the sign that Jiggawatt did cept only with the finger only going inward once.
I don’t think any of those hand motions are supposed to be ASL. “Okay” in ASL is signing the letters “O” and “K”, while “enemy” appears to be this: https://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/ENEMY/1276/1 Instead, the dude makes a punching motion for “assault” and motions at the wound on his hand for “enemy.” And then the lady does the international children’s playground motion for “sex” and then hits her forehead like “duh,” neither of which seem to be ASL.
In hindsight I probably should have double checked to see if the signs were accurate instead of just thinking that a webcomic was always accurate with the signs. Yours always seem to be on the mark though
Knew it, I knew it!
So how long until Becky finds her…assuming she ever escapes Dina’s grasp
I like how Marcie’s part in this dumb drama can be summarized as ” dude, stop clam-jamming me”
Oh my god I love that term. xD I tried to say box-blocked, but that does NOT roll off the tongue.
I have to admit I googled until I found one I liked.
Google autocompleted my search term without needing that much of a promt. It’s apparently not an uncommon question.
He’s a lesbian, she’s a lesbian, EVERYBODY’S A LESBIAN!
Marcie’s bi.
Ethan isn’t a lesbian.
If you’re going to use LOGIC and REASON, none of us can be friends!
when u catch ur best friend picking a fight with the bae
Sal is predictably hypocritical, trying to claim malaya caused this when Sal instigated literally every step of this shitshow but that’s to be expected i suppose.
also, i totally didn’t see this coming and i LOVE IT. I was laughing real hard at the end of this strip. Marcie x Malaya! new favorite pairing. Im guessing marcie has yet to make malya aware of her feelings yet judging by the current situation. Looking forward to how this progresses.
“bongo don’t beat up the girl I’m trying to fuck!”
“But I thought she was a friend stealing hussy.”
Oops I forgot about the bongo filter. Doesn’t give the same feeling. I am now imagining her signing to a pair of drums.
“Girl, don’t fuck the bongo I’m trying to beat!” #HowDoesThatEvenWork
With the sheer amount I see bongo, I’m now from ambivalent to “thank you Willis” for putting it in. Did not notice how much it was being used.
In some ways, yes I am quite glad that he put in the filter. Heh my bongo was supposed to be a playful one (hey it can happen between close friends!) but the ones that are serious and rude…yeah. Glad nobody has escalated to other derogatory swears for ladies. (that i’ve seen anyway.)
I think a lot of “bongo”s aren’t filtered, but deliberately typed like that because it’s funny. *generalizing from self*
True story: The first time I saw “bongo” in the comments, I didn’t even react — I just assumed it was some kind of slang (possibly Australian) for “idiot”. After seeing it four or five times, I assumed it was a meme or a reference to some tv show I don’t watch.
Sal is straight?
BOYCOTTED!
She said, “Ah ain’t doin’ THAT”. As in, “I haven’t been fucking you”. Says nothing about desire, or future action. She isn’t ruling it out. HMS Salarcie has taken damage, but is still afloat.
*Plays the theme from Titanic on a kazoo*
Salarcie? I prefer Marsala!
It’s been pretty clear so far that Sal is straight, that ship is sunk joining my own beloved JoycexSal at the bottom of the briny deep.
I mean, I’m not disagreeing with the conclusion, but Sal not being interested in Marcie, or Billie’s super drunken lunge, or Becky’s desperation “joke”-flirting… isn’t really conclusive proof that she’s 100% straight. Like, there are other girls in the universe — ones she doesn’t think of as a sister, or who aren’t obviously incapable of consent + drooling and smelly and incoherent, or total strangers babbling hopefully.
So again, I don’t necessarily disagree with the conclusion, but most everyone assumes they’re straight until one day they have that first moment where they realize they’re not because of heteronormativity.
I mean, look at Danny. He’s been interested in three times as many women as Sal has been interested in men, and only into one dude.
I know Sal’s reaction here might seem strong, but if she overheard Walky’s creepy comment about how Dorothy is just like having a sister except they get to make out, she’d totally make this exact face. If she thinks of Marcie as a sister, that’s totally different from being interested in it generally, just as not wanting to make out with her brother doesn’t make her any less interested in dudes who are not him.
But one last time: I agree that she is probably straight. Just can’t help noticing that we’ve never seen her around any girl she thinks is even half as awesome and beautiful as (straight!) Joyce thinks SHE is.
a.1) This strip made me LOL
a.2) Seriously, did not see this coming. Shame on me, to think that Willis will just do the typical “jealous friend thing” angle, not the clam-jamming box-blocking one.
b) did not know the full story of the bongo filter. I’m scared to CTRL+F now because coming across the nasty comments’ll just ruin my day. I was amused, but now I’m amused + retro-grateful.
I get the feeling people are more likely to intentionally use the word bongo (the drum) knowing that the desired intent comes across while freeing them from the baggage of the word it replaces. So I think if you see “bongo” written, it’s likely that was the word intended to be used (also bc it’s funny to call a person a drum as an insult) I haven’t done any statistics on increased use of bongo vs. b-word (pre-filter) to begin to test this hypothesis, but maybe if I get bored enough one day I’ll make a spreadsheet and run some stats…
Be interested to see those numbers. I know I try to avoid using “bongo” myself, unless I’m trying to make some kind of pun out of it. The unfiltered term is seriously disrespectful to my mind, and not something I use even in jest. Old fashioned, I guess.
Oh, I dunno Sal. With that look I think Marcie is about to tell you to go do that exact thing to yourself.
“You wanna f…ly away, butterfly?”
Perhaps Marcie can tame the savage beast that is Malaya.
Next Slipshine confirmed!
Now that I think about it, hasn’t it been all of one day since Sal learned Malaya and Marcie were hanging out?
Dumbing Of Age – Teaching ASL one curse word at a time since … whenever the strip started!
So glad to see my favorite sign in all of ASL made an appearance.
In case you’re wondering, the hand shape is supposed to be bunnies. Because. Well. Obviously.
Why does everyone seem to assume that people who hate Malaya like Mike, and are therefore hypocrites? I just find Mike kind of boring.
They’ve been pulling that bullshit comparison since she showed up back in Shortpacked.
You’re reducing the argument to absurdity.
What people are actually saying is that Mike is a character who gets very little hate (and in SP! was pretty popular) while being even more of an asshole than Malaya, while Malaya regularly gets nuked from orbit by hate.
It’s not necessarily that all the same people who like one character hate the other, it’s that a lot of people only hated Malaya, and Mike remained generally popular.
You can argue that you’d still feel the same way about Malaya if she were a guy, and you might be right about yourself; in a bunch of studies of varying scientific rigor, however, we’ve uncovered a pretty clear bias against women who are anything less than perfectly pleasant. Female employees get evaluations that frequently mention their personalities, for example, whereas male employees are almost evaluated purely on their skills/productivity/punctuality/etc. Women are also more likely to be docked for their appearance, though this intersects along racial lines, gender nonconformity, and weight. (Fat men but again especially fat women get evaluated negatively based on their appearance.)
So you can deny the causal relationship, as many sarcastic and sneering readers did the other day, but even if you are the magical unicorn unaffected by societal pressure, there’s definitely an effect happening. Whether or not you are personally part of it.
Side note: Malaya in SP! had a lot in common with Billie here. Both were introduced as girls used to being mega hot who had recently put on weight, both were loud about hating nerds, both put on an attitude of confidence in their own awesomeness (and both were secretly lonely). Billie also attracted a large crowd of haters, but I don’t think she ever really approached the “kill it with fire” Malaya hate.
I don’t doubt that this had something to do with an even larger portion of the audience being nerds, and male nerds, of whom Malaya was particularly derogatory.
There’s no real comparison between either Billie or Malaya and SP!Mike, though; Malaya rolled her eyes a lot and told people to shut up, Mike deliberately ruined people’s lives as well as being physically violent all the time.
There’s an argument to be made (and which has been made, frequently) that Mike’s awfulness was so over the top as to be cartoonish. But it was through Mile that Willis told a rape joke or two, and even after those early days were long gone you still had everything in his relationship with Amber leading up to the two of them developing weird mutual feelings for each other. Mike was deeply unpleasant during that time, and Amber being partly to blame for the situation as well didn’t magically make him a better person.
Mike was always meaner than Malaya, and I don’t think you can argue that it was always twelve times more ridiculous than Malaya and therefore magically inoffensive. I think Malaya’s particular jerkiness in SP! just hit a lot closer to home. I think some of the commenters who hated her had known at least one girl like her, who (at least thought she) was hot stuff and looked down her nose at them.
And for everyone else, again, it’s less acceptable for women to be jerks. It just is. We all have less tolerance for it, we all hold female characters to higher standards. It’s the kind of thing we need to work on if we want to overcome, because the programming is deep in there, way past the conscious level.
*up there I mention a larger portion of the audience being nerds — I mean the SP! audience, which attracted a larger proportion of toy/video game/comic book/etc fans. DOA’s audience is more general, is all.
Nitpick, Malaya’s weight gain came a year after she’d first appeared (which was realtime).
Oops. Well I think that probably makes it worse in a way; I’m sure Billie the popular cheerleader who also hated nerds would have attracted even more vitriol. :|a Plus, Malaya was also thoroughly unreceptive to Ken, the Nice Guy who had a really obvious crush on her. After the weight gain, she also became more combative with Lucy, and briefly jealous over Lucy/Ken, which of course did not help at all, but as Willis said years ago, reactions to Malaya were strongly mixed ever since her introduction. While some people resented her for hurting Leslie, and others for being mean to Lucy, the hate started before either of those things happened, and continued to grow disproportionately.
Thank you for the nitpick! It’s been a long time since I read that story, and evidently my brain abbreviated Malaya’s introduction to that first strip that I remember most clearly.
In the last comic I was wondering how Marcie was going to settle this, but man, the answer was right in front of me all this time.
At this point I’m wondering whether the average Kinsey Scale value for this webcomic has exceeded 3.