Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
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!
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
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.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Slightly Damned
Chu
Rhea Snaketail returns from the dead, befriending a Demon who falls in love with an Angel. The afterlife ain't what it used to be!
Countdown to Countdown
Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Mac Hall
Matt Boyd
The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
2 Slices
RJ Morel
After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Fantomestein
Beka Duke
Desperate for companionship, Frankenstein's Monster pretends to be the Opera Ghost. A grave mistake.
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
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Ok. That wins, I don’t need to read any further. Plus 1 internets to you, a bouquet of flowers, the Maltese Dingus, a lifetime subscription to Disney +, a box of cookies of your choice. Best comment of the week, and it was only Monday.
Reminds me of the “sexy snake” concept oglaf threw out a strip or two ago. Slap boobs on it and call it sexy or erotic, and pretend the whole rest of it just doesn’t exist.
If we were being more accurate about it, we’d call it “sexualized cannibalism” or “cannibalism fetish” or “pervy nomnoms”. I guess what I’m saying here is, a snake-fucker is still a snake-fucker, even if the snake has boobs. #YourLifeLessonForTheDay
To be fair, vampires seem to straight up inject their prey with an aphrodisiac as they bite in, with much the same mentality as the numbing agent certain insects (eg, mosquitos) apply with their injections- that is, it’s a method of ensuring the feeding isn’t interrupted.
So if we’re looking at the lore scientifically, then we’re either looking at a chemical interaction similar to drugs or, we’re looking at something along the lines of erotic asphyxiation, wherein the stray individual is really into the light-headed/etc aspects associated with either/both of asphyxiation or blood loss.
And then, on the other side of things, you just have perverts like Bella who have no real self-identity or personality of their own, and attach to an abusive older man and take pleasure in the abuse because it makes her feel desirable (or something).
Basically, what I’m saying is, it’s not really the vampires that are sexualized [in their nature as vampires], but the kind of humans they interact with and how they interact with humans.
And then of course you’ve got Anne Rice books and True Blood, but there it’s less them being vampires that’s sexualized, and more the fact that for some reason all vampires are hedonistic libertines in those settings.
That is to say, they’re not any more sexualized as a species or by their nature than the humans or werewolves or whatnot in their respective settings. They’re just treated as incredibly sexually indulgent humans, and everyone else just kinda gets caught up in their pace.
Or, put another way, Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris sexualize vampires by their writing but, the setting itself doesn’t sexualize them as a species. In other words, you could put it off as a chemical element, fetish, or cultural aspect of the vampires.. rather than “vampires (and being bitten) are inherently sexy”.
To tl;dr that whole thing, in summary:
The sexualization of vampires and the sexualization of exsanguination aren’t necessarily directly associable. Some people just like fucking really old corpses, without bleeding from the neck as they do it. #RespectSexualDifferences (?)
As a tangental thought, now I’m wondering how many people sexualize being bitten by mosquitos. I mean, I’m curious, but not enough so to actually want to hear the answer. -.-;
Well, guro’d mean horrific, grotesque, or gore, depending on contextual usage. Cannibalism could fall under that but, isn’t a direct synonym for guro. In fact, vore, rape, scat, and most anything else that’s offensive in nature could be considered as guro as well.
In other words, “vore/guro and cannibalism/guro are two seperate things” would be better written as “vore and cannibalism are two seperate subcategories of guro”.
Do let me know if my interpretation of guro is off, but a quick google search across major info hubs like wikipedia seems to suggest it isn’t. Side-note, I hate the fact that I can associate the meaning of that word so clearly even before looking it up. Fucking internet..
there is a difference, even if both involve being eaten: one is slow death by pain and blood loss, the other is being devoured by another person’s body.
You know what I hate about Rule 34? ..I hate that ever since people started making porn and tagging it with that, I can’t ever find any Rule 34 porn anymore. ..y’know, porn about fucking Rule 34. I mean.. that’s where it was always going, to begin with.
Rule 34 is an Internet maxim which asserts that Internet pornography exists concerning every conceivable topic.
“though i shouldn’t really have to justify my fetishes”
Actually, that’s false. As soon as one’s fetishes (or general sexual outlook) are brought up for discussion by the fetish-holder or are directly infringing on someone else, then it’s something you need to justify.. if not in holding it as a fetish, then as being warranting of bringing it up in the first place.
Conversely, if it happens in private, and all parties involved are capable of giving consent and have sincerely, without exploitation or coercion, done so, then everyone else can just fuck right off and mind their own business.
..cause, frankly, wanting to give a fuck about anyone else’s private sexual activities is a bizarre fetish in and of itself. -.-;
But no, this isn’t the kind of context where justification really should be brought up without an instigating factor for such.
Doing such just gives the same impression as “I can talk about my misogny here, and I shouldn’t have to justify my fetishes”. Misogny doesn’t necessarily lack consent, either, after all, but it’s still uncomfortable for others to hear framed in a “this is my thing, I’m going to bring it up, but don’t try and go against it” manner.
Or, to reframe that: If you bring it up, others have just the same right to bring up their dissatisfaction with the concept [so long as they do so with a minimum of respectfulness].
Anyway, nitpicking on phrasing and presentation aside..
I’m of the opinion that vore is simply [hard] vore, given that basic biting and sucking has always been a part of “soft” sexualization from the start. Rather, I’d call yours “Mastication-free Vore”? Though that just makes me think of free-range chickens and the resulting hybridized conception is really.. unpleasant to think about. >.<
i’ll concede i didn’t need to bring it up, but it’s also not hurting anyone? so it’s not like it matters in particular one way or the other.
a little confused why you bring up sucking, maybe “chewing” wasn’t clear but i was only referring to like … bites that injure the prey? i don’t like maiming, which i guess was what i wanted to explain. i thought that would be considerate, but perhaps i was projecting my discomfort?
but yeah i don’t have a problem with people expressing discomfort, when it’s done with respect rather than a bullying/disparaging/kinkshaming reaction.
vore’s sort of come into the internet limelight as a meme/joke and it’s a bit weird. shrugs maybe i was feeling a bit defensive about that trend when i responded. i don’t think anyone here was being disrespectful. apologies if my initial comments were a bit snippy.
(i guess that’s assuming that “being eaten alive” means being eaten in a few bites and quickly swallowed rather than the more realistic and slower cannibalism angle. if you’re dispatched with the throat lunge and then systematically eaten a bit at a time, i guess that’s cannibalism as people have stated above. at that point, it’s not in the vore umbrella anymore so it’s out of my depth.)
So, to sum that up.. you’ve got standard cannibalism, and then you’ve got Attack on Titan cannibalism? And I guess snake cannibalism’d be the last one, since it’s typically associated with being completely bite-free. :taps chin:
soft vore (at least what the furry community calls “soft vore”; from your other comment, it seems like you may have some other idea of what that term means?) is very much snakelike, yeah. (probably why there’s a fair amount of snake/naga/dragon preds.) of course i guess there’s also macro/micro which doesn’t require as much anatomical disproportionality, just size difference.
” it seems like you may have some other idea of what that term means”
No. I was stating my belief that “soft vore” as a concept doesn’t really exist as a fetish, given that anything classifiable as “soft” vore would be fairly normal to begin with. Basically, you’re either tearing a chunk outta someone (or swallowing whole), or you’re not; Consumption as a concept isn’t overly complex in nuance, regardless of whether we’re discussing biting or swallowing.
Willis did some art a while back for Bisexual Awareness Day IIRC, very prominently featuring Danny, Jennifer, and Ruth – all of them confirmed to be bi per word of Willis.
‘If you’ve never been with a boy, how are we sure that you’re bi?’ is a very tired take.
If people are bi, let them be bi instead of making them ‘prove’ it. She doesn’t have to express sexual interest or history in a guy or a girl to prove that she has the capacity to like them beyond platonic reasons.
Has she ever claimed to be bi? I see King Daniels post now thay Willis has confirmed it, jusy saying the commenters above that might not have known, so would be guessing from the comic strip, in which case who a person has dated is relevant information (unless Ruth has stated her sexuality and I just forgot)
I don’t think she’s stated it specifically, but she’s known to have dated two people – Jennifer, and a boy named Ciaran, from Ontario. Her asshole grampa used the end of that relationship to stab at her.
…So I guess Ruth’s type is “people with ponytails,” then?
I don’t know much about Avalon beyond a) the fact that It’s Walky! does a pseudo-crossover with it (currently reading it for the first time, haven’t gotten there yet), b) that its creator Josh Philips has seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth, and c) it ends with a text story where everyone is lesbians.
No, but this is fiction and we can only rely on what we’ve seen or been told. In canon, the evidence for her being attracted to guys is pretty minimal – I think there’s one reference to a boyfriend back in Canada. Which is of course not proof, since it’s not uncommon for gay people to have a straight relationship or two before coming out. I don’t recall her explicitly claiming to be bi, though I could have forgotten.
We do have Word of Willis though and evidence from the Walkyverse as well. She is confirmed bi, but it’s not surprising that readers would wonder, given the minimal evidence in DoA itself.
Ruth had a boyfriend. She dated a girl. It seems like it’s easier to go ‘okay, you’re bi, cool’ than ‘hmmm but what if that boyfriend was just a PHASE and you’re actually a full-on lesbian now???’.
If Ruth dated one guy and then three girls, it doesn’t make her any less bi, it just means that she happened to date three women in a row. There’s no minimum ‘quota’ that needs to be filled to prove that you’re attracted to both genders. If Ruth decides to come out as lesbian later on, fine. But it’s honestly just rude to go ‘yeah but I know lesbians who dated guys before they come out’.
It does happen. It’s not even uncommon among lesbians. If she was saying she was bi, then I certainly wouldn’t be saying that, but as far as I know, all we have to go on is a couple of reference to dating a boy in high school.
My argument here isn’t that she likely isn’t bi, just that 1) it’s easy to miss those references (or the Word of Willis) and 2) even those references aren’t actually proof.
I’d argue that having dated a guy and now dating a girl and not having stated a label, the best guess is probably bi/pan/poly/some other sexuality into multiple genders. After all, she hasn’t called herself a lesbian either and her dating history has both. Assuming lesbian seems biphobic to me.
And my argument is that if I heard someone dated a guy and a girl, the polite thing to do is to assume bi unless proven otherwise.
Look, I’m not perfect about this either, I’d completely forgotten that Mandy/Grace/Sierra were all canonically bi because of the Walkyverse. But it’s serious bi erasure to assume that just because someone doesn’t outright say they’re bi, that dating a guy in the past is automatically suspect just because their most recent dating adventure was with a girl.
Alright, but ‘oh I know lots of lesbians who went through a dating a boy phase so maybe this is like that’ has a sense of ‘well yeah, but my experience is different, so maybe yours is less valid’ and bisexuals have had to deal with that for too much. Heck, change the terms around and ‘I know it seems likely that it’s X, but I’ve heard Y, so it’s not like it’s that unbelievable people think it’s Y’ can apply to any number of LGBTQ+ categories.
I really should just let it go, but the main point of the “it’s not surprising readers think she’s a lesbian” is that there are only a couple of references to the boy over ten years of comics that they could easily have missed or forgotten.
She mentioned a boyfriend to Billie and then later Dickbag Grandpa brought him up and she seemed pretty protective of remembering that relationship and reminded Dickbag Grandpa of his name.
I’m ashamed to admit that “I’m into it” would be my exact response to a threat like that too (even if it’s untrue). But then, the only people who’d threaten me like that are good friends. Joe, I think you’re in danger, lol
The two might actually make decent friends, their back and forth plays well with a lot of friends’ banter…and we know that Joe is all bark and no bite at times, just as Ruth is.
As much as I might enjoy being bitten during sexy times, I like my insides where they are thank you. Also Joe if you know she was dating someone and presumably knew it was Jennifer, then why ask without first determining if she is bi?
The purpose of evolution is the survival of the species, not the individual.
I consider Joe a member of a prey species, and Ruth a predator. Sure, the lifespan of an individual prey creature is not particularly high, but they breed frequently. Joe acting recklessly in pursuit of mates may get him killed, but the species lives on.
Look at how much Joe resembles his father. Clearly Rosenthals have very strong genes, all the more reason to pass them on.
Her post-time-skip demeanor is making a lot more sense now. Not that it didn’t make sense before, but it’s all sort of clicking into place. It’s not just that she’s not over Billie/Jennifer (was the name switch before or after the breakup? Guessing after), but that she doesn’t want to risk falling for one of the students under her again.
And so she’s going to cut herself off from everyone again, and it’s going to hurt her so much, and DAMN YOU WILLIS
Do we know anything about Daisy’s personality beyond “desperately horny”? She’s only had a few bit parts since the comic started, but there was more to her than that back in the old universe.
I’m hoping to see more nuance, but every lesbian in this strip so far (Becky, Mandy, Grace, Daisy, Sierra) haven’t had a lot of time to showcase other things other than ‘lesbian’. Sierra probably got the most other than Becky.
For Daisy and Grace I agree, Sierra for me registered more as “the bare-foot gal” than “some lesbian”, Mandy I barely remember.
But Becky, in spite of her “Guess what?” phase, has definitely had a lot more character development than that, I feel.
She’s a spunky orphan who has just escaped the claws of religious hell, misses her mom and had to cut ties with her dad, who landed work well above her education and experience level, leveraged that into a scholarship that’s going to allow her to be a scientist, who’s doing good at being in a nurturing relationship in spite of her crazy, manipulative, violent dad who never taught her how to do “healthy”, who’s struggling with her hang-ups on sexuality – but in a way hat’s related to “religion and premarital hanky panky”, and not to sexual orientation, who’s also a good friend when given a chance though she’s being kept in the dark at to her best friend’s religious crisis.
That’s not exactly zero nuance. But I do want more “Daisy as a journalist”!
Grace and Mandy are secondary extras, they haven’t gotten a whole lot of screen time. They’ve had about as much character development as Other Rachel and Agatha.
Sierra has barely been in the comic more than they have. Like Meredith, she’s an extra with a memorable gimmick.
Becky, though? Really? She’s a pretty major secondary character at this point.
I remember when Joe used to have more finesse than that when he was making a pass at a girl…. or maybe I’m remember things differently, I always call him Johnny Bravo as a joke but I think Johnny would have more game then that.
This this “Hey your cute wanna bang” technique have a winning track record for Joe, or does he know Ruth’s a lesbian and is just giving her a hard time?
In a sense, it doesn’t matter why it worked. That Joe took the shot and got laid was likely most of what registered for him. Positive reinforcement be like that.
OTOH a brocken clock can be right twice a day, but that doesn’t make it a practical tool for telling time.
The difference being that Joe’s technique is bearing him an acceptable degree of fruit for his labours. Thus he is less likely to be motivated to change it as long as he is content with his harvest. This is not to discount other influences which do seem to be making an impact on his character.
Joe’s technique may have brought him less success than he pretended. We only know of 3 hookups for Joe: Roz, Penny and Malaya. (Multiple times for Roz, but she’s done with him now.)
Malaya we know approached him. The other two we didn’t see the approach, but it’s at least plausible they made the first move.
We know he exaggerated how much sex he was getting. No threesomes at least. We don’t know how much if any there was beyond the encounters we know about.
I imagine it works for some people if it’s a casual hookup.
The problem is the atmosphere. This isn’t a club, this isn’t an app.
Like, Joe’s style isn’t a problem in and of itself. He wants casual sex, that’s fine. The problem is where and how he tries to go for it. The most we’ve ever seen him ‘try’ with someone is, funnily enough, asking Joyce out on a date.
On another note entirely, it occurred to me that if Hank got an apartment, then Carol is probably still in the house and the Browns have to go through her to see the dog. So, you know, that’s kind of a bummer. Hope I’m wrong
I was hoping that with all their kids fully grown and out of the house we be able to avoid a custody battle situation I forgot about the fuking dog…. probably be funny if they settled it by letting the dog choose who to go with and he automatically went to Hank. Which would be fair Hank would have the dog to keep him company and Carole still have that crazy ass cult neighborhood where she would still feel like she belonged.
Hell, it wasn’t even an actual mistake. He had consensual sex with somebody who offered, but if I remember right his hangup was that he didn’t want to be That Guy, not that he was swearing off sex entirely. It’s a completely irrational backslide for really stupid reasons, but he’s a college freshman so it at least makes sense.
He thought he had to swear off sex in order to not be that guy – thanks to the example of his father. He took hooking up with Malaya as proof that he couldn’t.
I kind of respect Joe for being confident in his sexuality hut also he just seems really creepy and sleazy about how he goes about it. I’m not a prude but is randomly propositioning people for sex just how the kids do it these days? Am I out of touch? At least ask her out first right?
To Joe, incompatible orientation might be just one of many reasons he could be turned down, and he might not see making a wrong guess as a particularly big risk.
Joe is within earshot(earsight?) and has to know about Ruth’s reputation so he’s putting on a show for her. He might be lewd and crude, but the man isn’t a fool: she needed that reaction from him to help her a little.
Comment section today: If you dated someone of the same gender (and also dated someone of a different gender at some point but that doesn’t count) you must carry your bisexual identification papers with you at all times.
Y’all this ain’t complex. Being in a same sex relationship doesn’t preclude you from other kinds so consequently it shouldn’t mean assuming one brand of sexual identity in someone because they’ve been in a same sex relationship.
I suspect it’s really more like:
Comment section: I forgot the one time mention of dating a boy in the past and haven’t seen any other indication of interest in guys or explicit statements on her part that she’s bi.
Yeah, bi invisibility plays into it, but so does presentation – especially in fiction, where all we know about the characters is intentionally chosen by the author.
In this case, we do know from Word of Willis, but that’s not hard to miss.
You also have people in this very comment section wondering if the boyfriend was just a phase where she dated boys before deciding to become a lesbian.
There’s ‘we’re not shown all the pieces’ and then ‘there’s evidence but I’m ignoring it for my headcanon’.
Fundamentals of fiction: If you want a character trait to be understood, you’ve got to let the audience know. Showing is more likely to register with the audience than a casual mention.
The problem is that it boxes queer characters into stories that have to be about being queer. If something like The Last Guardian, a game where there is no other human being to talk to and your only companion is your big catdog, gets made then there’s no way to convey that a character is queer. There’s no reason not to read into it, but try and tell me anyone’s going to perceive the absence of a declaration towards a character’s sexuality as anything but being straight.
We’re not a “theme” or story trope, we’re real people.
Not to mention Ciaran gets brought up by her granddad and Ruth is clearly upset about leaving him and her old life. That’s not a strip that would have worked if he was just a phase she was going through.
She could still have fond memories of him, even if she realized she wasn’t really attracted to guys. Imagine Ethan’s reaction to a similar slighting of Amber.
Which isn’t to say I think she’s not bi. Leaving out Word of Willis, it’s still the most likely guess based on what we’ve seen. In the absence of her explicitly claiming to be bi, which I don’t recall, it wouldn’t be a huge shock if she wasn’t.
And like, we’re not even mad we gotta correct this, that’s just the lived experience for now, but damn once you are corrected don’t go off about how “well technically it could be wrong because X reason” yo.
I’m already dreading rehashing this argument if/when Drew becomes important again (though that’s dependent on Ethan’s role in the comic). Are people going to start frothing if Drew dates Sal or something?
Nah, I’m going with Drew. Confirmed bi even in the old universe, but he’s always been a love interest for a gay dude. I’ve seen enough people getting seriously teed off when bi characters like that end up in a ‘straight’ relationship. Which… like, I get it, representation and all. But bisexuals confident in their sexuality (which is why I’m not including Danny, he’s still figuring it out) should be able to date whatever gender.
Did Joe forget that Ruth is a lesbian, being in a relationship with Jennifer and all, or is he hoping that she is bi? Either way, he needs a fist/foot to the face.
I remember at one point there was a drawing Willis did for like Bisexual Visibility Day or something which had Ruth grabbing Danny and Jennifer by the arms.
Which was before Danny had realized he was attracted to Ethan so it was foreshadowing.
Ah, thanks!! My memory was off as to who was at the center! But the point stands that’s with the reveal that it was also supposed to include Danny as part of the Bisexual Visibility, it probably also includes Ruth.
I think Billie ruined it by falling off the wagon and pushed Ruth away. I mean Billie before the time skip just was trying really really hard not to drink for Ruth but she probably never got help beyond that. There are AA groups for a reason.
Jennifer says she’s had therapy and her apparently successful attempt to go sober before the time skip also involved promising to go to therapy, though I don’t think there was time for a session before the jump. I don’t see any reason to doubt that she did.
Though of course anything could have happened and people certainly fall off the wagon even with therapy and the best intentions. We’ll find out.
How to read all 28 issues of my Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run on Marvel Unlimited:
1: The first four issues were published as the miniseries "Mary Jane."
www.marvel.com/comics/serie...
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 12d
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of COURSE Joe’s into vore
…
*never looked up and spontaneously wonders if there’s a difference between “fetish for being eaten alive” and “fetish for being swallowed whole”*
Fetishes are fractal, infinitely divisible yet retaining always the fundamental essence.
That must be why DeviantArt is still so popular.
yeah vore and erotic cannibalism are different
don’t ask why i know this i am Cursed with Knowledge
DOA 11: Cursed with Knowledge.
Oh,wait. It has to actually be in the comic.
DOA 11: I Won’t Rip Out Your Neck Tendons with My Teeth.
DoA 11: “I Feel Like I Need To Be Less Socially Accessible”
The title 2020–21 earned
Ok. That wins, I don’t need to read any further. Plus 1 internets to you, a bouquet of flowers, the Maltese Dingus, a lifetime subscription to Disney +, a box of cookies of your choice. Best comment of the week, and it was only Monday.
Isn’t it tuesday, though?
For me, it was.
I am, … in time,… but only very loosely connected to it. We have a antagoni…. it’s complicated.
I feel your pain, because I’ve also been broken by the Internet.
“erotic cannibalism”
Reminds me of the “sexy snake” concept oglaf threw out a strip or two ago. Slap boobs on it and call it sexy or erotic, and pretend the whole rest of it just doesn’t exist.
If we were being more accurate about it, we’d call it “sexualized cannibalism” or “cannibalism fetish” or “pervy nomnoms”. I guess what I’m saying here is, a snake-fucker is still a snake-fucker, even if the snake has boobs. #YourLifeLessonForTheDay
I don’t think having your throat ripped out counts for either of those
technically it’s just extremely heavy necking
I mean, vampires are heavily sexualized, and that’s erotic exsanguination, also in the neck region – not THAT different.
To be fair, vampires seem to straight up inject their prey with an aphrodisiac as they bite in, with much the same mentality as the numbing agent certain insects (eg, mosquitos) apply with their injections- that is, it’s a method of ensuring the feeding isn’t interrupted.
So if we’re looking at the lore scientifically, then we’re either looking at a chemical interaction similar to drugs or, we’re looking at something along the lines of erotic asphyxiation, wherein the stray individual is really into the light-headed/etc aspects associated with either/both of asphyxiation or blood loss.
And then, on the other side of things, you just have perverts like Bella who have no real self-identity or personality of their own, and attach to an abusive older man and take pleasure in the abuse because it makes her feel desirable (or something).
Basically, what I’m saying is, it’s not really the vampires that are sexualized [in their nature as vampires], but the kind of humans they interact with and how they interact with humans.
And then of course you’ve got Anne Rice books and True Blood, but there it’s less them being vampires that’s sexualized, and more the fact that for some reason all vampires are hedonistic libertines in those settings.
That is to say, they’re not any more sexualized as a species or by their nature than the humans or werewolves or whatnot in their respective settings. They’re just treated as incredibly sexually indulgent humans, and everyone else just kinda gets caught up in their pace.
Or, put another way, Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris sexualize vampires by their writing but, the setting itself doesn’t sexualize them as a species. In other words, you could put it off as a chemical element, fetish, or cultural aspect of the vampires.. rather than “vampires (and being bitten) are inherently sexy”.
To tl;dr that whole thing, in summary:
The sexualization of vampires and the sexualization of exsanguination aren’t necessarily directly associable. Some people just like fucking really old corpses, without bleeding from the neck as they do it. #RespectSexualDifferences (?)
As a tangental thought, now I’m wondering how many people sexualize being bitten by mosquitos. I mean, I’m curious, but not enough so to actually want to hear the answer. -.-;
Modern vampires are all hedonists because they’re a) based on Lord Byron and b) a metaphor for the ruling classes.
Does it really matter? Either way, you’re gonna be dead.
I dunno it worked out fine for Mario and Luigi in that game where they got vored by Bowser.
Introducing bizarre fetishes to the children? Classic Nintendo.
Yes, vore and cannibalism/guro are two separate things.
TheMoreYouKnow.gif
TheLessYouWantTo.gif
Well, guro’d mean horrific, grotesque, or gore, depending on contextual usage. Cannibalism could fall under that but, isn’t a direct synonym for guro. In fact, vore, rape, scat, and most anything else that’s offensive in nature could be considered as guro as well.
In other words, “vore/guro and cannibalism/guro are two seperate things” would be better written as “vore and cannibalism are two seperate subcategories of guro”.
Do let me know if my interpretation of guro is off, but a quick google search across major info hubs like wikipedia seems to suggest it isn’t. Side-note, I hate the fact that I can associate the meaning of that word so clearly even before looking it up. Fucking internet..
there is a difference, even if both involve being eaten: one is slow death by pain and blood loss, the other is being devoured by another person’s body.
Rule 34 at its finest!
Bunch of sickos. What am I doing here? Oh, right, I’m a sicko. Just not that kind.
You know what I hate about Rule 34? ..I hate that ever since people started making porn and tagging it with that, I can’t ever find any Rule 34 porn anymore. ..y’know, porn about fucking Rule 34. I mean.. that’s where it was always going, to begin with.
that’d be hard vore.
source: i am unironically into furry vore.
(but if it’s any consolation, i’m into soft vore without the chewing angle. though i shouldn’t really have to justify my fetishes lol)
“though i shouldn’t really have to justify my fetishes”
Actually, that’s false. As soon as one’s fetishes (or general sexual outlook) are brought up for discussion by the fetish-holder or are directly infringing on someone else, then it’s something you need to justify.. if not in holding it as a fetish, then as being warranting of bringing it up in the first place.
Conversely, if it happens in private, and all parties involved are capable of giving consent and have sincerely, without exploitation or coercion, done so, then everyone else can just fuck right off and mind their own business.
..cause, frankly, wanting to give a fuck about anyone else’s private sexual activities is a bizarre fetish in and of itself. -.-;
But no, this isn’t the kind of context where justification really should be brought up without an instigating factor for such.
Doing such just gives the same impression as “I can talk about my misogny here, and I shouldn’t have to justify my fetishes”. Misogny doesn’t necessarily lack consent, either, after all, but it’s still uncomfortable for others to hear framed in a “this is my thing, I’m going to bring it up, but don’t try and go against it” manner.
Or, to reframe that: If you bring it up, others have just the same right to bring up their dissatisfaction with the concept [so long as they do so with a minimum of respectfulness].
Anyway, nitpicking on phrasing and presentation aside..
I’m of the opinion that vore is simply [hard] vore, given that basic biting and sucking has always been a part of “soft” sexualization from the start. Rather, I’d call yours “Mastication-free Vore”? Though that just makes me think of free-range chickens and the resulting hybridized conception is really.. unpleasant to think about. >.<
i’ll concede i didn’t need to bring it up, but it’s also not hurting anyone? so it’s not like it matters in particular one way or the other.
a little confused why you bring up sucking, maybe “chewing” wasn’t clear but i was only referring to like … bites that injure the prey? i don’t like maiming, which i guess was what i wanted to explain. i thought that would be considerate, but perhaps i was projecting my discomfort?
but yeah i don’t have a problem with people expressing discomfort, when it’s done with respect rather than a bullying/disparaging/kinkshaming reaction.
vore’s sort of come into the internet limelight as a meme/joke and it’s a bit weird. shrugs maybe i was feeling a bit defensive about that trend when i responded. i don’t think anyone here was being disrespectful. apologies if my initial comments were a bit snippy.
(i guess that’s assuming that “being eaten alive” means being eaten in a few bites and quickly swallowed rather than the more realistic and slower cannibalism angle. if you’re dispatched with the throat lunge and then systematically eaten a bit at a time, i guess that’s cannibalism as people have stated above. at that point, it’s not in the vore umbrella anymore so it’s out of my depth.)
So, to sum that up.. you’ve got standard cannibalism, and then you’ve got Attack on Titan cannibalism?
And I guess snake cannibalism’d be the last one, since it’s typically associated with being completely bite-free. :taps chin:
soft vore (at least what the furry community calls “soft vore”; from your other comment, it seems like you may have some other idea of what that term means?) is very much snakelike, yeah. (probably why there’s a fair amount of snake/naga/dragon preds.) of course i guess there’s also macro/micro which doesn’t require as much anatomical disproportionality, just size difference.
” it seems like you may have some other idea of what that term means”
No. I was stating my belief that “soft vore” as a concept doesn’t really exist as a fetish, given that anything classifiable as “soft” vore would be fairly normal to begin with. Basically, you’re either tearing a chunk outta someone (or swallowing whole), or you’re not; Consumption as a concept isn’t overly complex in nuance, regardless of whether we’re discussing biting or swallowing.
i think the difference between hard vore and cannibalism is whether it’s a mouthful.
It will never happen, but if it did they might dethrone Walkyverse Amber and Mike for “Most Epic of Hatefucks”.
Welcome to Rutjoevia. Currency: POUNDS.
Population: Your bloody femurs?
is she into guys at all? she has been only with Billie/Jennifer so are we even sure that she has a thing for guys alongside girls?
She had a boyfriend back home named Ciaran, IIRC.
This doesn’t mean much. I had a bf in high school and I am hella gay. Lots of us did.
Willis did some art a while back for Bisexual Awareness Day IIRC, very prominently featuring Danny, Jennifer, and Ruth – all of them confirmed to be bi per word of Willis.
(incidentally, Walkyverse!Billie dated both of them at different points in the timeline)
And just to close the tight loop, Danny and Ruth also dated there.
Did Danny and Ruth actually date, or did she just socially isolate him from his established friends and then hang out with him?
It’s been awhile since I read those Roomies! strips, but I thought they did.
Ruth and Danny never dated. They were friends.
‘If you’ve never been with a boy, how are we sure that you’re bi?’ is a very tired take.
If people are bi, let them be bi instead of making them ‘prove’ it. She doesn’t have to express sexual interest or history in a guy or a girl to prove that she has the capacity to like them beyond platonic reasons.
Has she ever claimed to be bi? I see King Daniels post now thay Willis has confirmed it, jusy saying the commenters above that might not have known, so would be guessing from the comic strip, in which case who a person has dated is relevant information (unless Ruth has stated her sexuality and I just forgot)
I don’t think she’s stated it specifically, but she’s known to have dated two people – Jennifer, and a boy named Ciaran, from Ontario. Her asshole grampa used the end of that relationship to stab at her.
Thought by many to be a link to this Ciaran, since there aren’t that many of them in webcomics.
…So I guess Ruth’s type is “people with ponytails,” then?
I don’t know much about Avalon beyond a) the fact that It’s Walky! does a pseudo-crossover with it (currently reading it for the first time, haven’t gotten there yet), b) that its creator Josh Philips has seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth, and c) it ends with a text story where everyone is lesbians.
My personal thanks for stating this.
No, but this is fiction and we can only rely on what we’ve seen or been told. In canon, the evidence for her being attracted to guys is pretty minimal – I think there’s one reference to a boyfriend back in Canada. Which is of course not proof, since it’s not uncommon for gay people to have a straight relationship or two before coming out. I don’t recall her explicitly claiming to be bi, though I could have forgotten.
We do have Word of Willis though and evidence from the Walkyverse as well. She is confirmed bi, but it’s not surprising that readers would wonder, given the minimal evidence in DoA itself.
Ruth had a boyfriend. She dated a girl. It seems like it’s easier to go ‘okay, you’re bi, cool’ than ‘hmmm but what if that boyfriend was just a PHASE and you’re actually a full-on lesbian now???’.
If Ruth dated one guy and then three girls, it doesn’t make her any less bi, it just means that she happened to date three women in a row. There’s no minimum ‘quota’ that needs to be filled to prove that you’re attracted to both genders. If Ruth decides to come out as lesbian later on, fine. But it’s honestly just rude to go ‘yeah but I know lesbians who dated guys before they come out’.
It does happen. It’s not even uncommon among lesbians. If she was saying she was bi, then I certainly wouldn’t be saying that, but as far as I know, all we have to go on is a couple of reference to dating a boy in high school.
My argument here isn’t that she likely isn’t bi, just that 1) it’s easy to miss those references (or the Word of Willis) and 2) even those references aren’t actually proof.
I’d argue that having dated a guy and now dating a girl and not having stated a label, the best guess is probably bi/pan/poly/some other sexuality into multiple genders. After all, she hasn’t called herself a lesbian either and her dating history has both. Assuming lesbian seems biphobic to me.
And my argument is that if I heard someone dated a guy and a girl, the polite thing to do is to assume bi unless proven otherwise.
Look, I’m not perfect about this either, I’d completely forgotten that Mandy/Grace/Sierra were all canonically bi because of the Walkyverse. But it’s serious bi erasure to assume that just because someone doesn’t outright say they’re bi, that dating a guy in the past is automatically suspect just because their most recent dating adventure was with a girl.
I agree with both of you and never meant to say otherwise.
Alright, but ‘oh I know lots of lesbians who went through a dating a boy phase so maybe this is like that’ has a sense of ‘well yeah, but my experience is different, so maybe yours is less valid’ and bisexuals have had to deal with that for too much. Heck, change the terms around and ‘I know it seems likely that it’s X, but I’ve heard Y, so it’s not like it’s that unbelievable people think it’s Y’ can apply to any number of LGBTQ+ categories.
I really should just let it go, but the main point of the “it’s not surprising readers think she’s a lesbian” is that there are only a couple of references to the boy over ten years of comics that they could easily have missed or forgotten.
She mentioned a boyfriend to Billie and then later Dickbag Grandpa brought him up and she seemed pretty protective of remembering that relationship and reminded Dickbag Grandpa of his name.
You’re into /not/ having your neck tendons ripped out?
Honestly, who isn’t?
honestly who isn’t
Captain Jack, however …
How do uh, overweight people gel with that? Like, ooh, I’m going to rip out your, um… okay, there’s too much neck in the way.
They survive it in style, like the fictional badass Wyman Manderly
Thank you for that.
“…your femurs, however, are still fair game.”
I’m ashamed to admit that “I’m into it” would be my exact response to a threat like that too (even if it’s untrue). But then, the only people who’d threaten me like that are good friends. Joe, I think you’re in danger, lol
Insert obligatory Ralph meme here.
nah, she’d probably grin and let it go but make Joyce/Dina think that she’s considering it even if she has no intention of harming him
you’ve gotta give it to Joe…
nope, thats it, and by ‘give it’, I mean his face a punch
Ruth, it is OK to have friends.
preferably ones who are not Joe
You know what kind of people have Joe as friends? Danny.
Don’t be Danny, Ruth.
It might be fun to see Ruth try being Danny. It’d be disconcerting but funny to watch.
“Hey, I just got Asher hit by a truck. Wanna hook up?”
Joyce and Jacob also consider Joe friends, though.
Therefore Joyce and Jacob are Danny.
Or at least have Dannyed it up.
The two might actually make decent friends, their back and forth plays well with a lot of friends’ banter…and we know that Joe is all bark and no bite at times, just as Ruth is.
I mean, Sarah is also bark and no bite, but uh, her and Joe got off on two wrong feet.
Well, Ruth’s clearly implied she’s only “no bite” because Joe helpfully proved her point.
As much as I might enjoy being bitten during sexy times, I like my insides where they are thank you. Also Joe if you know she was dating someone and presumably knew it was Jennifer, then why ask without first determining if she is bi?
Being considerate is for virgins!
/s
But only if they’re 10s.
I mean, asking directly is a way to figure that out.
Joe continues to defy the concept of Darwinism, it seems.
The purpose of evolution is the survival of the species, not the individual.
I consider Joe a member of a prey species, and Ruth a predator. Sure, the lifespan of an individual prey creature is not particularly high, but they breed frequently. Joe acting recklessly in pursuit of mates may get him killed, but the species lives on.
Look at how much Joe resembles his father. Clearly Rosenthals have very strong genes, all the more reason to pass them on.
As Richard has told us, his genetic material is very persistent.
He’s like one of those spiders that just keeps going, even as the female devours him.
Notably, Ruth, you don’t have ANY influence over Joe.
She does if she gets her teeth in him. That’ll influence him.
Joe: Horny on Main, and First, and Broadway, and….
More like, Ruth wants to do Joe in.
Oh.
Oooh.
Her post-time-skip demeanor is making a lot more sense now. Not that it didn’t make sense before, but it’s all sort of clicking into place. It’s not just that she’s not over Billie/Jennifer (was the name switch before or after the breakup? Guessing after), but that she doesn’t want to risk falling for one of the students under her again.
And so she’s going to cut herself off from everyone again, and it’s going to hurt her so much, and DAMN YOU WILLIS
If only there was some hot, single newspaper editor she’s not responsible for who was extremely desperate!
…I did not even consider this possibility, but I immediately love the concept
Oh holy shit I’m Blow-Job Cat now??? SWEET
Imposter!
I can’t imagine Ruth being able to stand Daisy even a little bit
Dang, you’re right. Daisy would be fine for a casual hookup…but then, so would Joe. Neither is someone whose company I can see Ruth enjoying
Do we know anything about Daisy’s personality beyond “desperately horny”? She’s only had a few bit parts since the comic started, but there was more to her than that back in the old universe.
She has, or had some journalistic standards.
Until her hormones took over.
I’m hoping to see more nuance, but every lesbian in this strip so far (Becky, Mandy, Grace, Daisy, Sierra) haven’t had a lot of time to showcase other things other than ‘lesbian’. Sierra probably got the most other than Becky.
For Daisy and Grace I agree, Sierra for me registered more as “the bare-foot gal” than “some lesbian”, Mandy I barely remember.
But Becky, in spite of her “Guess what?” phase, has definitely had a lot more character development than that, I feel.
She’s a spunky orphan who has just escaped the claws of religious hell, misses her mom and had to cut ties with her dad, who landed work well above her education and experience level, leveraged that into a scholarship that’s going to allow her to be a scientist, who’s doing good at being in a nurturing relationship in spite of her crazy, manipulative, violent dad who never taught her how to do “healthy”, who’s struggling with her hang-ups on sexuality – but in a way hat’s related to “religion and premarital hanky panky”, and not to sexual orientation, who’s also a good friend when given a chance though she’s being kept in the dark at to her best friend’s religious crisis.
That’s not exactly zero nuance. But I do want more “Daisy as a journalist”!
Grace and Mandy are secondary extras, they haven’t gotten a whole lot of screen time. They’ve had about as much character development as Other Rachel and Agatha.
Sierra has barely been in the comic more than they have. Like Meredith, she’s an extra with a memorable gimmick.
Becky, though? Really? She’s a pretty major secondary character at this point.
Mandy. Grace and Sierra are all bi (and all slept with Joe in the Walkyverse).
I believe Sierra’s pan, actually.
I think the last thing Ruth needs now is more clinginess.
I didn’t even consider a Ruth/Daisy ship before now. Intriguing.
Ruth is a national treasure.
But only if you’re Canadian.
I am Canadian!
Ruth AND Quebec. Awesome.
Seconded, as liking the Leafs obviously cannot hinder ones’ Canadianness. We are Canadian with all the good and the bad that comes with it.
I come from a Leafs house.
I totally did not recognize Joe there at first.
Egh, not my style of grav.
Hmm, so now I’m wondering whether I should stick with one/two of Walky/Dina/Carla, or keep holding out for Asher…
I remember when Joe used to have more finesse than that when he was making a pass at a girl…. or maybe I’m remember things differently, I always call him Johnny Bravo as a joke but I think Johnny would have more game then that.
Joe? Finesse?
What alternate universe was this?
I think it’s a difference in the core of “Actively pursuing an interest in a girl” vs “being a misogynistic flirting prick because he is expected to”
Trust me, Joe. You will never like that feeling.
I ship Joe and Ruth more than Joe and Joyce.
If you’re going to ship him with every girl that threatens him with violence I see you becoming very conflicted in the future.
We all have our individual peculiarities.
I agree with this. Joe/Joyce seems more like big brother/little sister to me than a romantic relationship
Ooh, kinky.
What are you doing bro?
Unacceptable.
I challenge you to a duel.
A duel, or a “d-d-d-d-duel!”?
This this “Hey your cute wanna bang” technique have a winning track record for Joe, or does he know Ruth’s a lesbian and is just giving her a hard time?
Ruth isn’t a lesbian.
It worked with Roz.
except she might have only had sex with Joe to make the video to embarrass Robin so it may not have actually worked on her
IIRC according to the Slipshines, Roz and Joe have hooked up on more than one occasion.
In a sense, it doesn’t matter why it worked. That Joe took the shot and got laid was likely most of what registered for him. Positive reinforcement be like that.
OTOH a brocken clock can be right twice a day, but that doesn’t make it a practical tool for telling time.
The difference being that Joe’s technique is bearing him an acceptable degree of fruit for his labours. Thus he is less likely to be motivated to change it as long as he is content with his harvest. This is not to discount other influences which do seem to be making an impact on his character.
Joe’s technique may have brought him less success than he pretended. We only know of 3 hookups for Joe: Roz, Penny and Malaya. (Multiple times for Roz, but she’s done with him now.)
Malaya we know approached him. The other two we didn’t see the approach, but it’s at least plausible they made the first move.
We know he exaggerated how much sex he was getting. No threesomes at least. We don’t know how much if any there was beyond the encounters we know about.
And we don’t know what worked with Roz. We didn’t see the approach, just the aftermath. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if Roz made the first move.
I think that’s his universal approach to females who he knows he has zero chance with.
I imagine it works for some people if it’s a casual hookup.
The problem is the atmosphere. This isn’t a club, this isn’t an app.
Like, Joe’s style isn’t a problem in and of itself. He wants casual sex, that’s fine. The problem is where and how he tries to go for it. The most we’ve ever seen him ‘try’ with someone is, funnily enough, asking Joyce out on a date.
I’m assuming it must work for some women, or Joe wouldn’t bother using this technique.
…goddammit joe.
On another note entirely, it occurred to me that if Hank got an apartment, then Carol is probably still in the house and the Browns have to go through her to see the dog. So, you know, that’s kind of a bummer. Hope I’m wrong
I was hoping that with all their kids fully grown and out of the house we be able to avoid a custody battle situation I forgot about the fuking dog…. probably be funny if they settled it by letting the dog choose who to go with and he automatically went to Hank. Which would be fair Hank would have the dog to keep him company and Carole still have that crazy ass cult neighborhood where she would still feel like she belonged.
Snoop went to Hank, but only because Joyce was standing with him. (And so was Becky with a pocket full of dog treats.)
[pulls nightvision goggles over his eyes]
Initiate operation Dognapping!
Joe died how he lived… His characterization shot in the foot by a single mistake which is completely unforgivable because… Reasons.
And now Joyce needs a new lab part.
If she needs a part for biology lab, can’t she just cut something off of Joe? I mean, the implication was that he’s done with his… parts.
Hell, it wasn’t even an actual mistake. He had consensual sex with somebody who offered, but if I remember right his hangup was that he didn’t want to be That Guy, not that he was swearing off sex entirely. It’s a completely irrational backslide for really stupid reasons, but he’s a college freshman so it at least makes sense.
He thought he had to swear off sex in order to not be that guy – thanks to the example of his father. He took hooking up with Malaya as proof that he couldn’t.
I kind of respect Joe for being confident in his sexuality hut also he just seems really creepy and sleazy about how he goes about it. I’m not a prude but is randomly propositioning people for sex just how the kids do it these days? Am I out of touch? At least ask her out first right?
Well the last time he tried that, he got beat up… and hey, Malaya used this exact approach on him and it worked.
What, does Ruth have a “bisexual” stamp on her forehead or something? Weird parallel dimension where certain sexual orientations are common knowledge…
See https://i.etsystatic.com/11743934/r/il/de101d/2262613453/il_794xN.2262613453_h6n0.jpg
To Joe, incompatible orientation might be just one of many reasons he could be turned down, and he might not see making a wrong guess as a particularly big risk.
Joe. My dude. My brother. My compadre.
There’s some targets that’re not worth targeting.
Joyce’s face kinda says it all.
I mean Ruth’s cute and all, but damn that’s the wrong way to approach someone.
Like someone said earlier, this is “crass flirting prick” Joe, not “genuinely persuing a relationship” Joe.
There is no “genuinely persuing a relationship” Joe. Because Joe is convinced he’s his father and would cheat on anyone he got in a relationship with.
Probably the closest we’ll get for now is “whatever you call the way he behaves around Joyce” Joe.
PALS PALS PALS PALS PALS PALS PALS
Joe is within earshot(earsight?) and has to know about Ruth’s reputation so he’s putting on a show for her. He might be lewd and crude, but the man isn’t a fool: she needed that reaction from him to help her a little.
Unfortunately, not even Joe is powerful enough to hit the reset button to get Amber out of her apathy and self-deprecation.
Help her do what? Help her realise that, yes, she’s right not to socialise with these people, which is what she directly says he’s done?
Yes? It lets Ruth be angry and in an emotional state she’s comfortable in.
Joe actually hitting on someone is more like
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/03-see-you-in-the-funny-page/shackles/
There he just talks about sex stuff to gauge someone’s interest.
Here, he’s just trolling for a specific reaction and got it.
I thought Joe hitting on someone was him lifting his shirt to show his abs to Becky and going ‘woah, who’s the tasty new redhead?’.
Or telling Rachel she was an eleven.
Joe – Making Booster’s offer sound better.
Not with her teeth…
Man, I wish I could find a girl who’d rip out my neck tendons with her teeth…
It’s almost like he read yesterday’s comments section when he was writing the dialog for today’s comic…
Joe wears a hat now? I don’t remember the last time I saw him wearing a hat.
The hat virus spread from Danny to the rest of the cast.
Or maybe it’s just cold.
Don’t kill him, Ruth! That just would make him a martyr.
Why do I have a feeling that one day Joe will wake up in a torture dungeon and there will be no safe-words involved…
I -really- like Ruths color scheme in this section. The green, orange/red, white and blue really mixes well together.
The hat though, could have been a nicer hat. Like a toque.
Joe doesn’t count, he’d hit up on a mop
Someone throw a bucket of ice water on Joe.
The alt text just made me think of this SMBC (which is a little more graphic than I recalled)
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2006-11-25
Comment section today: If you dated someone of the same gender (and also dated someone of a different gender at some point but that doesn’t count) you must carry your bisexual identification papers with you at all times.
Y’all this ain’t complex. Being in a same sex relationship doesn’t preclude you from other kinds so consequently it shouldn’t mean assuming one brand of sexual identity in someone because they’ve been in a same sex relationship.
I suspect it’s really more like:
Comment section: I forgot the one time mention of dating a boy in the past and haven’t seen any other indication of interest in guys or explicit statements on her part that she’s bi.
Yeah, bi invisibility plays into it, but so does presentation – especially in fiction, where all we know about the characters is intentionally chosen by the author.
In this case, we do know from Word of Willis, but that’s not hard to miss.
“Yeah, bi invisibility plays into it,”
Yes this is the important part thank you for spelling it out.
You also have people in this very comment section wondering if the boyfriend was just a phase where she dated boys before deciding to become a lesbian.
There’s ‘we’re not shown all the pieces’ and then ‘there’s evidence but I’m ignoring it for my headcanon’.
It also ties into the idea that narratives about bisexual characters *have* to be about their bisexuality in some way.
Hades’ protagonist Zagreus is bisexual, but we sure as hell wouldn’t know that if he wasn’t able to romance both Thanatos and Megara.
Fundamentals of fiction: If you want a character trait to be understood, you’ve got to let the audience know. Showing is more likely to register with the audience than a casual mention.
The problem is that it boxes queer characters into stories that have to be about being queer. If something like The Last Guardian, a game where there is no other human being to talk to and your only companion is your big catdog, gets made then there’s no way to convey that a character is queer. There’s no reason not to read into it, but try and tell me anyone’s going to perceive the absence of a declaration towards a character’s sexuality as anything but being straight.
We’re not a “theme” or story trope, we’re real people.
Not to mention Ciaran gets brought up by her granddad and Ruth is clearly upset about leaving him and her old life. That’s not a strip that would have worked if he was just a phase she was going through.
She could still have fond memories of him, even if she realized she wasn’t really attracted to guys. Imagine Ethan’s reaction to a similar slighting of Amber.
Which isn’t to say I think she’s not bi. Leaving out Word of Willis, it’s still the most likely guess based on what we’ve seen. In the absence of her explicitly claiming to be bi, which I don’t recall, it wouldn’t be a huge shock if she wasn’t.
“You had a boyfriend who is gone and I don’t know his name, same deets for the girl you’re with now.”
“I clearly care about him enough to spitefully reply his name alongside the name of my current girlfriend and romantic interest.”
This is not complex. This is just a thing y’all have been trained to do through culturally ingrained bisexual erasure.
It’s also possible their relationship fell apart when Ruth and Howard were put under their grandfather’s custody in Indiana.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/dawdled/
(Content warning: Ruth and Howard’s grandfather)
‘There’s still reasonable doubt in-universe that she’s not bi despite the fact that she’s namedropped a former boyfriend.’
This is exhausting. Why is it so hard to just believe face value that she’s bi?
And like, we’re not even mad we gotta correct this, that’s just the lived experience for now, but damn once you are corrected don’t go off about how “well technically it could be wrong because X reason” yo.
I’m already dreading rehashing this argument if/when Drew becomes important again (though that’s dependent on Ethan’s role in the comic). Are people going to start frothing if Drew dates Sal or something?
Do you mean Danny? ‘Cause there is a Drew, but I don’t think you mean him.
Nah, I’m going with Drew. Confirmed bi even in the old universe, but he’s always been a love interest for a gay dude. I’ve seen enough people getting seriously teed off when bi characters like that end up in a ‘straight’ relationship. Which… like, I get it, representation and all. But bisexuals confident in their sexuality (which is why I’m not including Danny, he’s still figuring it out) should be able to date whatever gender.
It isn’t. She’s bi.
Silly Ruth. There is no level of social inaccessibility that can protect you from Joe.
That’s not true, Joyce deterred him quite efficiently… With Physical Violence!
Panel 4 Joyce: Dammit Ruth stop threatening my ma- er, I mean, Dammit Joe stop being a pig!
g’ddamit joe
the alt text *slayed* me
Did Joe forget that Ruth is a lesbian, being in a relationship with Jennifer and all, or is he hoping that she is bi? Either way, he needs a fist/foot to the face.
Ruth’s bi.
Fucking hell, Joe.
I remember at one point there was a drawing Willis did for like Bisexual Visibility Day or something which had Ruth grabbing Danny and Jennifer by the arms.
Which was before Danny had realized he was attracted to Ethan so it was foreshadowing.
Now I can’t find that image. Boo.
https://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/62072776793/oh-hey-its-bi-visibility-day-short-for-billie Here!
Ah, thanks!! My memory was off as to who was at the center! But the point stands that’s with the reveal that it was also supposed to include Danny as part of the Bisexual Visibility, it probably also includes Ruth.
I think Billie ruined it by falling off the wagon and pushed Ruth away. I mean Billie before the time skip just was trying really really hard not to drink for Ruth but she probably never got help beyond that. There are AA groups for a reason.
Jennifer says she’s had therapy and her apparently successful attempt to go sober before the time skip also involved promising to go to therapy, though I don’t think there was time for a session before the jump. I don’t see any reason to doubt that she did.
Though of course anything could have happened and people certainly fall off the wagon even with therapy and the best intentions. We’ll find out.
Joe’s ability to power through threats is both funny and creepy