28-07-18 SDB-Good for something

Discuss Ma3 here!

Moderators: Dave Zero1, Don Alexander, Giz, midgetshrimp

User avatar
Spidrift
Posts: 13180
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:11 pm

Re: 28-07-18 SDB-Good for something

Post by Spidrift »

brasca wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:36 am
Spidrift wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 7:29 am
brasca wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 5:53 am
Ruby is one the few characters that isn't clueless just willfully ignorant and stubborn at times.
Ignorant I’ll freely grant you, but “willfully”?? The single biggest running joke with Ruby is the way that she googles anything and everything new. She clearly hates feeling ignorant. It’s her biggest nerdy virtue.

“Naive” might be a better word for her.
I'm referring to her relationship with Amber. Her animosity towards her was willful ignorance. Ruby chooses to think she's depraved, but I think she knows better. Yes, Amber has a bit more of sexual appetite than the average person, but Ruby realizes now that there's nothing wrong with wanting sex.
Uh, no. That's a moral judgement, not a matter of knowledge. She always knew exactly what Amber did (and indeed that was where the trouble started). It's what she thinks about it that causes trouble.

You can certainly call her judgmental, and with her broadened horizons you might now say that her thinking is a little muddled, but she's never been ignorant.
brasca wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:36 am
Okay so he's had even less action than I imagined... and yet he's not complaining about it. It's even more compelling evidence that he's asexual since he doesn't seem to mind that he's only been on one date and it was his cousin. Gary on the other hand was clueless about his lack of success with women and wanted to do something about it.
Well, he's certainly a lot less sex-obsessed than Gary ever was, sure. You can say that makes him kind of asexual, at least for the moment, if you like. But as I understand it, a real asexual isn't attracted at all to either sex. Andy is clearly attracted to Ruby at some level -- he likes the idea of dating her, he apparently enjoys kissing her, and the idea of sex as a favour to her didn't throw him at all badly -- whereas his interest in men seems to be truly zero. He seems to have a low sex drive, but it doesn't seem to be entirely absent.

How low it'll remain once he starts actually having sex remains to be seen. If his reaction is "meh, that was okay, I hope that you enjoyed it", sure, I'll grant you that he's approaching asexuality (though not getting there). If, on the other hand, it's more like "gosh, thanks, that was a really good idea", I'll classify him as merely a late starter. And being a late starter isn't the same as being asexual; if it was, you'd have to call Ruby asexual -- which would make the word pretty meaningless.

(Plus, comedy. Making a character asexual would kind of drain scenes of humour in the context of these comics. Making them clueless, or giving them weird systems of morality, is an unending source of jokes.)
---------
Spidrift
"Brevior vita est quam pro futumentibus negotium agendo."
-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
Avatar misappropriated from the wonderful XKCD.

User avatar
brasca
Posts: 3848
Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2011 6:04 am

Re: 28-07-18 SDB-Good for something

Post by brasca »

Spidrift wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 1:28 am
brasca wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:36 am
Spidrift wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 7:29 am

Ignorant I’ll freely grant you, but “willfully”?? The single biggest running joke with Ruby is the way that she googles anything and everything new. She clearly hates feeling ignorant. It’s her biggest nerdy virtue.

“Naive” might be a better word for her.
I'm referring to her relationship with Amber. Her animosity towards her was willful ignorance. Ruby chooses to think she's depraved, but I think she knows better. Yes, Amber has a bit more of sexual appetite than the average person, but Ruby realizes now that there's nothing wrong with wanting sex.
Uh, no. That's a moral judgement, not a matter of knowledge. She always knew exactly what Amber did (and indeed that was where the trouble started). It's what she thinks about it that causes trouble.

You can certainly call her judgmental, and with her broadened horizons you might now say that her thinking is a little muddled, but she's never been ignorant.
Ruby doesn't hold Zii to the same standards she holds Amber. Morally speaking Amber and Zii aren't all that different and yet she accepts Zii's promiscuity, but not Amber's.
brasca wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:36 am
Spidrift wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 7:29 am
Okay so he's had even less action than I imagined... and yet he's not complaining about it. It's even more compelling evidence that he's asexual since he doesn't seem to mind that he's only been on one date and it was his cousin. Gary on the other hand was clueless about his lack of success with women and wanted to do something about it.
Well, he's certainly a lot less sex-obsessed than Gary ever was, sure. You can say that makes him kind of asexual, at least for the moment, if you like. But as I understand it, a real asexual isn't attracted at all to either sex. Andy is clearly attracted to Ruby at some level -- he likes the idea of dating her, he apparently enjoys kissing her, and the idea of sex as a favour to her didn't throw him at all badly -- whereas his interest in men seems to be truly zero. He seems to have a low sex drive, but it doesn't seem to be entirely absent.

How low it'll remain once he starts actually having sex remains to be seen. If his reaction is "meh, that was okay, I hope that you enjoyed it", sure, I'll grant you that he's approaching asexuality (though not getting there). If, on the other hand, it's more like "gosh, thanks, that was a really good idea", I'll classify him as merely a late starter. And being a late starter isn't the same as being asexual; if it was, you'd have to call Ruby asexual -- which would make the word pretty meaningless.

(Plus, comedy. Making a character asexual would kind of drain scenes of humour in the context of these comics. Making them clueless, or giving them weird systems of morality, is an unending source of jokes.)
Asexuality is more original than another clueless person. How many does this strip and Menage a 3 have? If it worked for Girls with Slingshots Erin and Jamie it can work here too.

User avatar
Spidrift
Posts: 13180
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:11 pm

Re: 28-07-18 SDB-Good for something

Post by Spidrift »

brasca wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 2:08 am
Ruby doesn't hold Zii to the same standards she holds Amber. Morally speaking Amber and Zii aren't all that different and yet she accepts Zii's promiscuity, but not Amber's.
Muddled. Still not ignorant.
brasca wrote: Asexuality is more original than another clueless person. How many does this strip and Menage a 3 have? If it worked for Girls with Slingshots Erin and Jamie it can work here too.
The reason we see a lot of clueless people in these comics is that it’s a stock source of comedy which Giz and Dave clearly both love to mine. The reason we don’t see much asexuality is that it’s really not very good for jokes. (Witness that, although Amber says that she met asexual people in the porn business, all the porn actresses we’ve actually seen in the comics are sex mad.) Erin’s kind of cute, but she’s probably too low-key a character to work in a gag-a-strip comic like this one. And Jamie is able to resolve the problem of getting her oats by going out and picking up guys in bars, with Erin’s consent. I can’t see that working for Ruby (or Andy).

Anyhow, I don’t reckon that Andy has terribly realistic psychology; I think that he’s a parody of a certain type of good-hearted, romantic, small-town boy as seen in certain types of old-school comedy comics, in which inconvenient teenage hormonal urges couldn’t be an issue. In other words, I don’t think his passing resemblance to Archie Andrews is a coincidence.
---------
Spidrift
"Brevior vita est quam pro futumentibus negotium agendo."
-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
Avatar misappropriated from the wonderful XKCD.

User avatar
brasca
Posts: 3848
Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2011 6:04 am

Re: 28-07-18 SDB-Good for something

Post by brasca »

Hopefully Andy is not another James.

User avatar
Spidrift
Posts: 13180
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:11 pm

Re: 28-07-18 SDB-Good for something

Post by Spidrift »

Uh, yes. And I hope he isn’t another Takeru, or another Nathan. We have no reason to worry about that.
---------
Spidrift
"Brevior vita est quam pro futumentibus negotium agendo."
-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
Avatar misappropriated from the wonderful XKCD.

User avatar
Spidrift
Posts: 13180
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:11 pm

Re: 28-07-18 SDB-Good for something

Post by Spidrift »

Now, odds for tomorrow. I guess we may actually get an explanation for what Ruby just said about owing Amber a debt; if Ruby wants to really undercut the sentimentality and stop Amber hugging her, she could even say "You set me an example. At university, whenever I got bored of my books and thought about going out to parties and meeting men, I thought about the last party I'd been to, and that reminded me of what you were doing with your life. And then I went back to my books. You're the reason I got good marks."

But I don't actually think she'd be that brutal. Anyhow, I think it's more likely we'll either get a brief discussion of what Ruby should do next, or an immediate cut to her next action. Which, logically, might be a trip to the pool to research what people there know about Andy -- but could just as easily be a meeting with Andy and an attempt to probe his psychology directly. If Ruby's feeling really flexible, she might even let Amber loose to vamp at him a little and double-check his reactions to cues -- but I doubt that's terribly likely. (And no, I don't think that Maneuver Four is at all likely. But hey, then again, when all Amber has got is a hammer... If she tried it without clearing it with Ruby first, well, one step forward, maneuver four back.)
---------
Spidrift
"Brevior vita est quam pro futumentibus negotium agendo."
-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
Avatar misappropriated from the wonderful XKCD.

Post Reply