13-05-13 Must put a stop to this right now

[Milnoc]

Not a fan of hot man-on-tentacle sex are you Milnoc?

It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't leave thousands of hickeys all over your body!

[Arkadi]

Ruby's so cute, it'd be a real shame if she were a bigot.

I'm guessing that she's not a really hard-core homophobe; she's just very confused and inexperienced, to the point of sheer ignorance, and she's adopted a lot of very conventional, simplistic morality (possibly from her upbringing) as a simplifying filter on her view of the world.

Well, she's basically caught in a situation where she shouldn't be to begin with, watching something that is literally none of her business, and her first reaction is "must stop this". So yeah, I think we've really got a bit of the old homophobia here. Then, of course, I also hope that it's a superficial thing and we'll see some character development...

[themacnut]

It'd be perfect for story purposes if Ruby was homophobic, or reacted in a homophobic way to this...experience. What a terrible position Amber would be put in then, having to put up with a sister who kept her early career secret from their parents, but who hates her roomie and best friend for his orientation and lifestyle (and she doesn't even have to be hatefully homophobic, just be unable to deal with sharing an apartment with someone living that lifestyle).

Sure she could just send said sister packing back home, but would Ruby continue to keep her secret then? Plus Amber would have to deal with her guilt over letting Ruby carry the burden of keeping that secret all those years (Amber could have just outed herself to her parents and saved Ruby some stress after all). Oh the drama! The pathos! The growing forum hate for Ruby! It'd be GREAT!!!! ;)

At the very least, after seeing what could not be unseen (much as she'd want to unsee it), Ruby's going to have a great deal of trouble even looking Dillon in the eye for a good while to come, never mind having an actual conversation with him.

[Spidrift]

No, Amber isn't sending Ruby anywhere. I'll still be interested to see how much sense of guilt she admits to, on screen, for the poor judgements on her part that have been instrumental in leaving Ruby in this state* - but that, plus the fact that she really doesn't want to put Ruby in a situation where she's likely to blow Amber's secret, plus the fact that Ruby is family, will be quite enough to ensure that Ruby sticks around, even if she pisses off the apartment's co-owner.

Which, of course, hasn't actually happened yet. I'm also interested to see exactly what happens next. I can't see Ruby mustering what it would take to actually step out of the wardrobe screaming "Stop!" now, but she may actually faint or collapse, slumping into the room and interrupting events. Knowing Dillon's ditzy vanity, he'd probably assume that she was spying for the yaoi and was overwhelmed by his gorgeousness... But probably more likely, she curl up inside the wardrobe, gibbering silently to herself and trying not to listen.

Cue comedy in the morning, when Amber sails into the room expecting to find Ruby and finds Dillon and Jerzy instead. At that point, I'll guess that the guys never will discover where Ruby was (thanks to some comedy choreography), and Amber will be left keeping Ruby's secret for once. And having to perform emergency CPR on Ruby's psyche.

And no, Ruby will have a lot of difficulty relating to Dillon after this, whatever happens. So my guess that Dillon would be the sort to inflict a makeover on Ruby probably won't come off - or if he tries, he'll find Ruby screaming "Don't touch me!" whenever he comes near her.


*To reiterate, in case anyone is still clueless; she could have come clean about her career early, but she didn't, virtually ensuring that someone - as it turned out, Ruby - would find out in the most traumatic way possible. Once Ruby did find out, she could have come clean to their parents - but instead, she lumbered Ruby with the burden of her secret for several years. Having done that, she could at least have talked to Ruby occasionally and found out how she was handling it - but she didn't, leaving a teenage girl to develop a confused view of sex with absolutely nobody she could talk to about it. Amber bollixed this whole thing up, big time, as she has only just discovered. One kind of hopes that she's having difficulty sleeping.

[Milnoc]

Here's something to ponder.

What if the parents knew from the very beginning that Amber was into porn, but didn't mention it to anyone so that Amber would muster up the courage to tell them herself.

It's like good parents who know their child is gay, but remain silent so that the child can find their own courage and self confidence to tell them.

After the big announcement, mom and dad can casually say "Yeah. We knew that for years. You're still our child and we still love you."

In Amber's case however, it could be extremely creepy if mom and dad followed their daughter's career, and had the same extensive Amber-oriented porn collection as Gary!

[themacnut]

Not to mention what it'd do to Ruby if she found out her parents knew all along. I'm pretty sure her attitude would NOT be one of relief.

[Spidrift]

We've been over this before. I know that some things are worth reiterating, but in certain cases I get the feeling that some people like wheeling out the incest squick.

[Bloody Vikings]

The only time I believe the term "That's Not Right" might have been uttered justifiably in a sexual context was in the movie Galaxy Quest.

Prude.

[BlairFan]

Well Ruby, if you don't like almonds, you shouldn't hang around an almond orchard. ;-)

[Spidrift]

By the way, no one has yet commented on Ruby getting extra-boggled by the latent sex ninja powers of the entire damn cast. "Ack! Now where did their shirts go!?!"

[themacnut]

Just one more aspect of the whole experience that will continue to blow Ruby's mind. Her comfort zone hasn't receded into the distance - it's gone completely, vaporized to atoms.

[ThePonyGuy]

1. Ruby's starting to feel like a strawman sex hater to me.
2. Not every straight woman gets turned on by two guys having sex, and the same (slightly altered) goes for pretty much all sexualities.

I just feel that these points should be mentioned. These stereotypes do frustrate me, much like the "homophobe = self-hating homosexual" stereotype.

Sorry to ruin your fun.

[tenchi13]

Unless Ruby does something other than stand there, she's going to see the title of this strip unfold before her eyes.

[brasca]

I think it's a little too soon to determine if Ruby is a homophobe or not partly because of my own ignorance of Canadian culture.

In America someone like Ruby wouldn't be too uncommon. Seeing as how she's a career driven business student would put her in the company of a lot of young Republicans and they tend to wear their Christian beliefs on their sleeves whether they believe any of it or not. I'm not sure if it's the same in Canadian university campuses, but if so I can see her falling in with the kind of crowd that disdains homosexuals or anything else the perceive as indecent. It's unknown if Amber and Ruby came from a particularly religious family, but if that's the case it would be all the more reason Amber doesn't want her parents to find out and why Ruby would be reacting the way she is in addition to her previously bad experience of seeing her sister in a porno at an impressionable age.

She might be as appalled with pre-marital hanky panky as she is homosexual coupling which would make her a perfect roommate for Joyce Brown:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/ ... sday/pmhp/

[astaroth09]

*sigh* (puts on sith robe) Good, good, let the yaoi flow through you