26-09-17 Your luck just changed - end of book 9

[Fluffy]

Thanks!

I did remember most of the backstory, but did forget the specific "whom" that Zii had stolen. Also, since I don't quite understand non-binary/gender fluid (I'm trying, please bear with me), I'm not sure what Angel's romantic preferences would be or not.

As with the majority of this characters in this comic, I think Angel is bisexual - as, when Angel lost their shit when catching Zii and Jerzy having sex, Zii's only excuse for banging Jerzy was that she thought Angel was only into girls.

[Spidrift]

By the way, if Sonya's entry line had been "Face it, Tiger -- you just hit the jackpot!", I'd have forgiven this strip anything.

Sonya is going to be a ... Pretty Boy?

Honestly, you wanna argue with her, the frame of mind she's in just now?

I'll refrain from suggesting that she may just qualify as the ultimate Electric Toy.

Well, Zii is ultimately her own worst enemy, I suppose. It is fairly evident by now that she makes her own monsters.

Running away from your problems works better if you run far and fast enough, doesn't it? And now I'm thinking of the Pretty Boys as the comic's version of Tim Jones's League of Enemies. Though they'd need a volcanic island.

I guess I could look it up myself, but for the heck of it: could someone refresh my memory about Angel? I thought she/he was biologically female, while being gender fluid, but was just attracted to men? Was it established she found Sonya physically attractive? Granted, perhaps there was a statement in either this or the Dillon spin-off that answers my questions...

Angel's sexual tastes seem kind of poorly defined, frankly. In female mode, she goes after guys like Jerzy and Richie, while in male mode he seems fixated on ... Jerzy. However, Zii said in one flashback that she thought that Angel (who she knew fairly well) was only interested in women. So we can probably assume that we're looking at another bisexual here. How unusual in this comic.

However, we don't have to read this strip as indicating much sexual attraction to Sonya. The first reaction and even the heart bump could be a response to the idea of getting a competent bassist who'll look great on stage and annoy the crap out of Zii, and it's Sonya who initiates the kiss. And if there is a twinge of lust involved, well hell, it's Sonya in full sex appeal mode here. Remember Peggy's line about DiDi turning any woman a bit lesbian? Some of us can believe that more easily of Sonya.

Sonya wearing a black shirt helps emphasise her decision to follow the proverbial Dark Side by aiming for revenge; her confident stance is also exceptional, and it is easy to see how Angel would be taken aback by her presence. Also, the devilish smile and subtle scowl in the last panel helps display she will probably enjoy vengeance or at least find it strangely cathartic - it could also be showing her embracing her "evil" side.

I think that Sonya has pulled that pose, or one like it, occasionally in the past; as she's got the hang of her sex appeal, she's become very competent at working it. It's all part of her really growing as a character -- which even she knows is largely thanks to Zii, so it'll be nicely ironic if the last stage in the process comes from her love for Zii turning to hate and some well-executed revenge plans.

Anyway. AWESOME! This was entirely unpredicted (right?)!

Actually, somebody did suggest it as a possibility, but I for one didn't think it was likely, for a whole string of logical reasons which I explained and which Giz and Dave have simply ignored. Hey ho. Comics logic.

As it seems to be her modus operandi; Zii sabotaged her band's budding music career by sleeping with Angel's boyfriend, Jerzy. Angel walked in on the thryst and broke up the band on the spot. Zii and Angel (moreso Angel) has held a grudge against each other ever since.

To be completely fair to Zii -- she's done some stupid stuff in her time, but maybe not so much on that occasion. Not only did she claim at the time that she thought that Angel was only into women, but Jerzy himself did not consider himself to be Angel's boyfriend at that time. Jerzy classes himself as solidly gay, and classed Angel as just a friend. (Things have become messier since.) And even when they got into a physical brawl, Zii seemed to be mostly just defending herself while Angel went berserk. While Zii hasn't exactly tried to negotiate a truce, most of that feud seems to come from Angel's side.

So putting the angry, bitter Sonya in a band with the jealous, irrational Angel may not be 100% healthy.

My only criticism is that we've left behind Peggy's confrontation of Zii about her culpability in Sonya's backlash, and we never got to her calling out DiDi for her role in all this.

Calling out DiDi might be satisfying but would be fundamentally pointless; DiDi is incapable of really understanding other people, remember. As for the rest of it -- we've seen the basics. We know what Peggy's line of attack is, and we know that Zii doesn't have much defence and is beginning to acknowledge that she's made a vast error. (Giz and Dave compressed all that stuff rather brilliantly into three frames.) Filling in more dialogue on the same lines would be fairly boring on a TV soap opera, and a criminal waste of time and pixels in a four-panel comic. It's time to move on to consequences.

Other than that we haven't seen xir interact with many female characters apart from Zii (whom xe hates with a burning passion), Ramona (xir sister) and Ruby (near as I can tell, they're just friends).

Ruby tends to throw most of the rest of the cast into older-sibling mode.

I think we would need to put xir in a room with someone like DiDi and see how xe reacted to get a definitive answer, although what plot contrivance would have to take place for that to happen I'm sure I don't know.

And it'd be an unfair test, because Plot-Defined Sex Goddess who can make any woman Kinsey 2.

(EDIT: Ninja'd left right and centre, but what the hell.)

[Fluffy]

To be completely fair to Zii -- she's done some stupid stuff in her time, but maybe not so much on that occasion. Not only did she claim at the time that she thought that Angel was only into women, but Jerzy himself did not consider himself to be Angel's boyfriend at that time.

More like he was Angel's boyrfriend and Zii had no idea because she was convinced Angel was strictly into women.

Jerzy classes himself as solidly gay, and classed Angel as just a friend. (Things have become messier since.) And even when they got into a physical brawl, Zii seemed to be mostly just defending herself while Angel went berserk. While Zii hasn't exactly tried to negotiate a truce, most of that feud seems to come from Angel's side.

So putting the angry, bitter Sonya in a band with the jealous, irrational Angel may not be 100% healthy.

Jerzy relationship with Angel is on par with Zii's relationship with Sonya - this being that he's well aware that Angel is more than a little obsessed with him, but chose to avoid acknowledging it outright. And it really didn't help that Jerzy didn't discourage Angel from flirting with him/sleeping with Angel after having a spat with Dillon. Like Zii had done with Sonya, Jerzy is guilty of giving Angel mixed signals when it came to how he felt about them.

So, though both Sonya and Angel need to get over their obsession with their respective exes; Zii and Jerzy aren't helping matters by repeatedly leading them on.

[uzivatel]

...wait, when did they even meet?

They did not talk much
, but he knows she is good and vice versa. And of course she knows his manager.
If the end of this volume was a set up for Zii to somewhat evolve, she may as well fix her relationship with Angel. Or maybe not.

Crash and the Boys had a girl.

Someone else doing it should be yet another reason not to.

[brasca]

Well I'm pleasantly surprised by all this since it could mean more Sticky Dilly Buns cameos, but I don't think Sonya's approach is going to succeed, but she's working with what she knows.

[rakedan]

Ohoho, this is gonna be interesting. *rubbing hands together like a villain*

[Spidrift]

Well I'm pleasantly surprised by all this since it could mean more Sticky Dilly Buns cameos, but I don't think Sonya's approach is going to succeed, but she's working with what she knows.

It'll already be working; even if Peggy hasn't got through to Zii at all, she's down one bassist -- and Angel will be able to get some good solid gloating in next time they meet. Plus, Sonya is not only proving that she can survive emotionally without Zii -- she's set to prove that she doesn't need Zii to get herself a career in music.

Even if Zii patches things over with her and gets her back in the Troublemakers, Sonya is well placed to win this one. The only danger is, she's bitter and angry, and now hanging out with someone with even worse fixations than herself -- so she may well try too hard and make an even bigger mess. And -- two drama queens in one band? That's a recipe for harmony and agreement over everything, isn't it just.

[rogermart]

I'd say that it didn't help in one respect that this strip doesn't repeat any of the characters from 150 strips ago, but meh, excuses excuses.

It happened before, in vol. 5, first strip was Dillon, Amber and Chanelle, last strip was Gary, Sandra and Senna.

[samtheman]

Well, that was unexpected. I thought the band rivalry subplot was dead and buried.

As for how volume 10 opens, Kiley and Matt have been absent from the comic for a while... Maybe Yuki walks in on them having sex on a couch again?

[Fairy Glade's Fairy]

sooooo.....

I'm gonna be the first one saying it: this is a dream, right?
I mean, there's no way this is really happening: Angel of all people needs a new bassist right now (gee, how incredibly convenient! /sarcasm) and Sonya comes to join, and Angel's heart goes BABUMP cause Sonya is so busty and curvaceous and erotic (yeah, cause Angel is all about buxom sexy goddesses, that's always been 100% Angel's preference /sarcasm), and Sonya's first move is to hot kiss Angel cause that's her method to get a job, jump the potential employers and seduce them, yeaaah (that waitress job she used to have? I guess the job was half waitressing and half sleeping with the bald guy who was her boss /sarcasm)
...
this is supposed to be for real?

...... nah, this is Zii's horrible guilty nightmare, and next strip will be about Didi waking her up cause she was screaming in her sleep (and then Zii will say she was dreaming about Sonya, and Didi will be jealous lol )

[Zippy]

No-one else recalls Angel's current manager?

http://www.ma3comic.com/strips-ma3/Comp ... ur_contest

[LegendaryKroc]

My only criticism is that we've left behind Peggy's confrontation of Zii about her culpability in Sonya's backlash, and we never got to her calling out DiDi for her role in all this.

Calling out DiDi might be satisfying but would be fundamentally pointless; DiDi is incapable of really understanding other people, remember. As for the rest of it -- we've seen the basics. We know what Peggy's line of attack is, and we know that Zii doesn't have much defence and is beginning to acknowledge that she's made a vast error. (Giz and Dave compressed all that stuff rather brilliantly into three frames.) Filling in more dialogue on the same lines would be fairly boring on a TV soap opera, and a criminal waste of time and pixels in a four-panel comic. It's time to move on to consequences.

I see where you're coming from, but still I beg to differ. It did seem that Zii is starting to own up to her failings, but the way things ended the last time we saw them (Peggy saying that Sonya's hurt badly while Gary snarks about how no one cares that he's flat on his back with a cat on his face) to me feels like a poor way to end that scenario until we come back to it. (Yes, I did get a chuckle out of it but still.) Ending on a funny but irrelevant joke and and a Captain Obvious line just isn't a satisfying ending for me. I didn't want it to go on for a whole other strip, though. Maybe a panel out of this one instead, or portrayed over half the panels while Sonya's actions went on in the other half. Not a comic book professional so I don't know how it would work out.

Also, you're the one who said that DiDi's "It is ma faute!" doesn't mean anything if she can't maintain the remorse. If there's any chance to get her to consistently feel bad about recent developments and want to somehow fix them or at least change her own behaviour, it would be a moment like this. And she does have an ability to understand people, albeit she's rudimentary at it at best. If she were truly unable to understand anyone and were the completely selfish person you apparently see her as (based on your past comments, tell me if I'm wrong), she wouldn't have made the decision to give Roxie her wallet back come Hell or high water despite having to go far away from her apartment to do so, or make the comment that maybe they should give Sonya some space after she found out they slept together. The problem is twofold: a) that her search for "l'orgamse" brings out the worst in her, but no less than Sonya's obsession with Zii does for her, and b) that her overall awareness and competence seem to be in constant flux, as the writers use her obliviousness for the punchline of jokes or to make plot developments plausible. The Rule of Funny isn't always a good thing.

Finally, if anyone can get through the fluff and cotton wool in her brain to the underused reason stems within, my money is definitely on Peggy. And while it's an unenviable job, any satisfying ending for DiDi will require spring-cleaning of her conscious mind to remove the childishness and get her to grow the hell up. Not knowing what will happen next, for all I know they will never share a strip or even a panel in the next volume, which would ruin any chance of that happening. God knows we can't count on Zii to correct her moral compass.

I think we would need to put xir in a room with someone like DiDi and see how xe reacted to get a definitive answer, although what plot contrivance would have to take place for that to happen I'm sure I don't know.

And it'd be an unfair test, because Plot-Defined Sex Goddess who can make any woman Kinsey 2.

A Kinsey 3, actually - or at least that's what Peggy said. Nevertheless, touché.

[leftturnonly]

The rival band idea is great because it makes a comic-wide event every character can react upon.

[Fluffy]

No-one else recalls Angel's current manager?

http://www.ma3comic.com/strips-ma3/Comp ... ur_contest

Aside from the fact this is the second of Zii's exes that have found their way to working with Angel, I don't see the issue.

Besides, Erik is an aspiring talent agent/manager; and it's doubtful that he was aware that Angel and Zii worked together prior to taking Angel's band under his wing. Sonya, on the other hand, knows full well of Angel's history with Zii and may be doing this more to get under Zii's skin - the fact that she can still be part of an up and coming band is just a bonus.

[Spidrift]

I mean, there's no way this is really happening: Angel of all people needs a new bassist right now (gee, how incredibly convenient! /sarcasm) and Sonya comes to join, and Angel's heart goes BABUMP cause Sonya is so busty and curvaceous and erotic (yeah, cause Angel is all about buxom sexy goddesses, that's always been 100% Angel's preference /sarcasm), and Sonya's first move is to hot kiss Angel cause that's her method to get a job, jump the potential employers and seduce them, yeaaah (that waitress job she used to have? I guess the job was half waitressing and half sleeping with the bald guy who was her boss /sarcasm)

Those are, pretty much, the reasons why I rejected this possibility when Cortez raised it a couple of threads ago. Sigh. Comic-strip logic.

But we don't actually have to assume that Angel is supposed to be sexually attracted to Sonya for this to hold together on its own terms. "Visually hot and technically competent bassist, recruiting whom will annoy the crap out of Zii and possibly bring the inside scoop on Zii's recent activities"? That could make Angel's heart beat faster without any sex being involved. And the kiss - which Sonya initiated, to Angel's surprise - could just count as sealing the deal and saying "We're going to have such fun together". Sometimes, a kiss is just a kiss.

Anyhow, I reckon that Sonya is mostly improvising here, albeit quite successfully. Which raises the question of how much she actually knows about Angel's sexuality and identity. Zii apparently knew enough before (she never referred to Angel as "he"), and certainly knows everything after the brawl in SDB, but may or may not have mentioned it to Sonya at some point. If not, Sonya likely thinks of Angel as a flamboyantly camp and hence likely gay man - in which case, flirting with "him" is probably strictly for everyone's casual amusement. And if "he" does respond to the flirting, or if Sonya knows more of the truth but Angel responds as a lesbian this time, well, whatever; Sonya's sexual ethics always leave something to be desired (mostly Sonya).

(And if Sonya doesn't know the full details with Angel, well, finding out is unlikely to phase her much at this point.)

I see where you're coming from, but still I beg to differ. It did seem that Zii is starting to own up to her failings, but the way things ended the last time we saw them (Peggy saying that Sonya's hurt badly while Gary snarks about how no one cares that he's flat on his back with a cat on his face) to me feels like a poor way to end that scenario until we come back to it. (Yes, I did get a chuckle out of it but still.) Ending on a funny but irrelevant joke and and a Captain Obvious line just isn't a satisfying ending for me.

TCampbell said a while back that it's a basic principle of this comic that 80% of strips will end on a punchline. In other words, comedy first, drama second. Take it or leave it.

Also, you're the one who said that DiDi's "It is ma faute!" doesn't mean anything if she can't maintain the remorse. If there's any chance to get her to consistently feel bad about recent developments and want to somehow fix them or at least change her own behaviour, it would be a moment like this.

I can't help thinking that it would take more than a few lines from Zii. Anyhow, Peggy is (justifiably) holding Zii responsible for Sonya's distress, and hence concentrating her fire there.

And she does have an ability to understand people, albeit she's rudimentary at it at best. If she were truly unable to understand anyone and were the completely selfish person you apparently see her as (based on your past comments, tell me if I'm wrong), she wouldn't have made the decision to give Roxie her wallet back come Hell or high water despite having to go far away from her apartment to do so, or make the comment that maybe they should give Sonya some space after she found out they slept together. The problem is twofold: a) that her search for "l'orgamse" brings out the worst in her, but no less than Sonya's obsession with Zii does for her, and b) that her overall awareness and competence seem to be in constant flux, as the writers use her obliviousness for the punchline of jokes or to make plot developments plausible. The Rule of Funny isn't always a good thing.

I won't deny that the quest for a punchline sometimes makes the writers make these characters a bit inconsistent. That's Ma3, I'm afraid.

And "selfish" may be slightly the wrong term for DiDi, to be honest. Mostly, she's just horribly broken. She knows the basics of how other people work, in principle, and she has a sentimental attachment to doing the right thing, as she understands it and when she remembers. But as someone else said a while back, she believes that she lives on Everyone Loves DiDi World - so how can anyone really object to anything she does? At most, some people avoid her (most women she met, before the start of the strip, for a start), but that means she never actually gets confronted with why they dislike her presence.

And this has been going on for years - at least since puberty, and in some ways all her life, judging by what she told Kiley about her parents. That'll make it a hell of a job to fix.

Finally, if anyone can get through the fluff and cotton wool in her brain to the underused reason stems within, my money is definitely on Peggy. And while it's an unenviable job, any satisfying ending for DiDi will require spring-cleaning of her conscious mind to remove the childishness and get her to grow the hell up. Not knowing what will happen next, for all I know they will never share a strip or even a panel in the next volume, which would ruin any chance of that happening. God knows we can't count on Zii to correct her moral compass.

Impressive though Peggy is, I don't think that she's that good. Kiley, whose brain-fixing skills are legendary round here, made a lot more systematic study of DiDi, and identified a lot of what was going wrong in her brain - and all that happened there in the end was that DiDi managed an orgasm and Kiley nearly ended up broken herself. All Peggy could do with a bit of shouting and sarcasm is make DiDi cry a bit until something else came along.