13-06-14 You will always be my favorite girl

[Shouri]

New strip! http://www.stickydillybuns.com/strips-s ... orite_girl

[Bambikles]

Revelation time ! And "Umcofortable Realizations" too. I'm with you here, Ruby. But really, what kind of education did she get to be so naïve ? Do we know the age difference between her and Amber ? If she was like 10 years old or less, I can understand, but I suspect there is no much more than 2 or 3 years, max 4.

[Spidrift]

As I recall, Amber left home when she was 18, and Ruby was 12. (Those may be best guesses from the past, but I'm pretty sure they fit.) That fits the current setup; Amber is the same age as Zii - late 20s - while Ruby has just graduated - early 20s. So that makes the difference about 6 years. If Amber was 16 or 17 when she started fooling around sexually with Zii, Ruby may indeed have been 10 - certainly not really up to puberty.

Sure, she was maybe a little naive for her age - but remember, it looks like she never learned about Amber's sexual activity until that disastrous party when she was around 14. I get the impression that she idealised her big sister a bit before that; for a slightly priggish, pre-sexual kid, the idea that wonderful big sis was doing anything like that in her room would just have been pretty much unthinkable.

Anyway, this strip does answers one minor ongoing question. We still don't know if Zii will recognise Ruby, of course (which may become relevant if, say, Ruby hits Pixietrix Comix to investigate its yaoi stock), but the odds are "vague recollection" on this basis.

And while this strip hasn't fallen into full-on tragedy or anything, it is yet another time when one has to feel really sorry for Ruby (and this time, the problem is none of her fault). It looks like she really wanted to be accepted by her big sister when she was little, but felt excluded, and that hurt - and now she gets hit in the face with the reason why. In public, in front of someone she doesn't trust, even.

Gary's legendary (and often exaggerated) butt-monkeyhood was just comedy stuff (sexual failure, kicks in the balls, stuff like that). Ruby keeps suffering actual emotional distress. (Her facial expressions here are really quite seriously unhappy.) At this rate, she'll certainly be put off parties and clubs for life.

[wiseguy]

16 and 10 are much more "light years away" than 29 and 23

[Spidrift]

Incidentally, I guess that one measure of how much of a jerk Dillon can avoid being is how he responds if Ruby continues looking this upset. His expression in the last frame suggests that he does realise that this is likely to be a bit of a shock for her.

Which said, a measure of how determined Ruby is to survive will be how quickly she snaps out of this. It's not like her opinion of Amber can get much worse. Dillon has at least done her a few favours in exchange for making her life weird; Amber hasn't actually done more than Ruby would consider her basic family duty.

[Schmorgluck]

Jerzy and Angel in the background of last panel: nice touch.

[brasca]

Well Ruby was right about Zii and her sister playing house.... But it went a lot further than that.

I thought Ruby might remember Zii negatively and she doesn't, but now that she realizes what she and Amber were up to all those times as well as who influenced her to pursue her porn career Ruby's opinion of Zii is likely to plummet.

[Spidrift]

It'd be a big mental jump for Ruby to go from "Zii and Amber were having sex" through "Zii introduced Amber to sex" to "Zii warped Amber's personality so much it made Amber go into porn".

Ruby isn't going to like Zii very much after this, but she starts with a degree of active dislike towards her sister. If anything, she's likely to assume that Amber initiated that relationship - because after all, she already holds Amber responsible for a lot of bad stuff. Unless, of course, Amber does something stupid like tell Ruby the whole story (which might happen, because Amber really doesn't seem to understand Ruby at all, and tends to talk too much). Then, even leaving the porn aside, Ruby is going to hold Zii responsible for stealing the big sister who she actually wanted to hang out with back then.

But right now, Ruby has enough on her plate. Judging by her expression, she's in the process of reassessing a large chunk of her childhood, trying to work out who did what when, and how much Amber lied to her, and whether she ever said anything stupid on some day twelve years ago. If she sticks around to help Dillon with his idiot plans any more, she'll score a lot of points for determination.

Plus, we don't really know if Ruby knew before that Amber is bisexual. She does now, and that might even make sharing Amber's bed feel a bit creepy and weird for her.

Edit: Come to think of it, Ruby was somewhat surprised when she thought that Amber was confessing to being a lesbian to her, the night she first showed up in the apartment. So she probably wasn't aware of Amber's bisexuality before this. Sigh. She really is being loaded down with too much information in too short a time. Nobody should have to try and review and revise half her childhood memories on the fly like this.

[Optimus Kate]

Amber doesn't wear a bra! Yeaaaaaah!

I love Zii's face in the third panel, and that these two are hooking up again. I know they're just FWB but I really enjoy watching them interact. They're sweet together.

[Spidrift]

Amber's bralessness (and penchant for flashing) has been demonstrated previously. Gary will have fond memories of their first meeting, for example.

But let's face it, women in this universe only wear bras when it's useful for plot/comedy purposes - and then mysteriously acquire them automatically. See also Yuki, Sonya, DiDi...

[tanonev]

Plus, we don't really know if Ruby knew before that Amber is bisexual. She does now, and that might even make sharing Amber's bed feel a bit creepy and weird for her.

Because being attracted to members of the same sex makes one incestuous?

Edit: Come to think of it, Ruby was somewhat surprised when she thought that Amber was confessing to being a lesbian to her, the night she first showed up in the apartment. So she probably wasn't aware of Amber's bisexuality before this. Sigh. She really is being loaded down with too much information in too short a time. Nobody should have to try and review and revise half her childhood memories on the fly like this.

On the other hand, nor should anybody be obligated to time their coming out for the convenience of the people around them. Perhaps in the Ma3verse, bisexuality really is the dominant orientation, but in our heteronormative world, these sympathies are misplaced.

[Spidrift]

Plus, we don't really know if Ruby knew before that Amber is bisexual. She does now, and that might even make sharing Amber's bed feel a bit creepy and weird for her.

Because being attracted to members of the same sex makes one incestuous?

No, because Ruby has just had another set of categories scrambled, and she has enough trouble dealing with Amber in the first place.

Look, Ruby is a conventional and straight-laced person. That's not particularly a virtue, but it's how she was when she came through that door. She's made a lot of progress in what I think is still less than a week, but she is still adjusting - and she's still sharing a bed with Amber. She had her brain scrambled badly enough when Amber talked about having had sex on that bed, but up until now she could at least keep a couple of categories clear; men in bed (with women or with each other) => sex, two women in bed together => sisters or friends => not sex. But that doesn't work anymore; weird stuff has happened in this bed and Ruby doesn't understand how the world works at all.

Edit: Come to think of it, Ruby was somewhat surprised when she thought that Amber was confessing to being a lesbian to her, the night she first showed up in the apartment. So she probably wasn't aware of Amber's bisexuality before this. Sigh. She really is being loaded down with too much information in too short a time. Nobody should have to try and review and revise half her childhood memories on the fly like this.

On the other hand, nor should anybody be obligated to time their coming out for the convenience of the people around them. Perhaps in the Ma3verse, bisexuality really is the dominant orientation, but in our heteronormative world, these sympathies are misplaced.

Actually, I tend to think that one should always consider the convenience and feelings of the people around one. It's called politeness. Sometimes, well, one just has to be rude, and and God knows I'm not great at this myself, but "a gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally".

And frankly, Amber bollixed up her relationship with Ruby because she doesn't understand that rule at all. Partly, she screwed things up in a boringly ordinary way; she was a big sister who wanted to do grown-up stuff with friends of her own age when her little sister still wanted to play babyish games. Normally, that problem gets resolved with a few sulks and some yelling at the time, and some shame-faced apologies a few years later. Amber, though, added a lot of secrecy and sex to the mix, Ruby missed some guesses, and now, splat, the fertiliser is in the ventilator.

Ruby could have been smarter there, but honestly, this is a typical Amber problem; she never seems to talks to people about anything when she could ignore the problem and hope it goes away. She's never told her family about her porn career (which is really going to bite her cute little buttocks one day), she never seems to have talked to Ruby after Ruby learned that secret, and she missed at least one opportunity to mention to Ruby that she's bisexual. She's entitled to keep secrets if she wants, but when the secrecy stops working, Amber needs to deal with the consequences.

And it's good to have your assumptions challenged, but note that the person who's really bungling that here is Amber. She doesn't understand Ruby at all, so she just ignores the ensuing problems. Heck, she barely seems to have registered that Ruby is a virgin, though the fact should really be clear to her by now. It's too alien to her, so she ignores it. Ruby is at least trying to process all this new weirdness. Unfortunately, it's Ruby who's suffering the stress as a result of Amber's dimness.

[themacnut]

But right now, Ruby has enough on her plate. Judging by her expression, she's in the process of reassessing a large chunk of her childhood, trying to work out who did what when, and how much Amber lied to her, and whether she ever said anything stupid on some day twelve years ago. If she sticks around to help Dillon with his idiot plans any more, she'll score a lot of points for determination.

I would not be surprised if Dillon turns to Rudy/Ruby next comic to find she's pulled a Kiley on him and vanished without a word. She never wanted to be there in the first place, this is the latest in a number of rather embarrassing moments she's had since she got there, and at this point she may really need to go home and process what she's just learned - like you said, she now has to reassess a lot of the last years of her childhood in light of this, and her choosing to stay (or not being allowed to leave) could result in tension building within her to the point where she blows up at Amber and maybe even Dillon later on.

Plus, we don't really know if Ruby knew before that Amber is bisexual. She does now, and that might even make sharing Amber's bed feel a bit creepy and weird for her.

Because being attracted to members of the same sex makes one incestuous?

No, but possibly being attracted to one's own sibling does. Not that Amber is attracted, but Ruby is likely to start wondering. Which will make her uncomfortable since this is her sister.

Edit: Come to think of it, Ruby was somewhat surprised when she thought that Amber was confessing to being a lesbian to her, the night she first showed up in the apartment. So she probably wasn't aware of Amber's bisexuality before this. Sigh. She really is being loaded down with too much information in too short a time. Nobody should have to try and review and revise half her childhood memories on the fly like this.

On the other hand, nor should anybody be obligated to time their coming out for the convenience of the people around them. Perhaps in the Ma3verse, bisexuality really is the dominant orientation, but in our heteronormative world, these sympathies are misplaced.

Bisexuality does not have to be the majority orientation, it could be that the Ma3verse characters travel in social circles where bisexuality is common, while outside those circles heteromormality is the rule. Ruby is just now getting immersed in this whole world-within-a-world, which partly explains her overall discomfort with it.

Actually, I tend to think that one should always consider the convenience and feelings of the people around one. It's called politeness. Sometimes, well, one just has to be rude, and and God knows I'm not great at this myself, but "a gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally".

A rule that's impossible to follow perfectly, hence the "unintentionally" part. Quite frankly though, by this point I think Amber's broken that rule so many times with Ruby that nothing less than several sessions with a therapist or something like that can work out the problems between them. Which of course is not Amber's style, and Ruby won't be comfortable talking about her problems and feelings in front of a stranger either. Heck, she doesn't even want to talk about them with her sister.

[Spidrift]

I would not be surprised if Dillon turns to Rudy/Ruby next comic to find she's pulled a Kiley on him and vanished without a word. She never wanted to be there in the first place, this is the latest in a number of rather embarrassing moments she's had since she got there, and at this point she may really need to go home and process what she's just learned - like you said, she now has to reassess a lot of the last years of her childhood in light of this, and her choosing to stay (or not being allowed to leave) could result in tension building within her to the point where she blows up at Amber and maybe even Dillon later on.

That's possible. Or, slightly more likely, Ruby will execute a slower retreat and Dillon will go along with her and try to help her process what she's just learned, in his clumsy way. He does look like he realises that this is a bit of a shock for Ruby in panel 4 there, and he's not totally heartless.

Or, much more likely than either, they'll both stick around and start talking about something else. Ruby looks really melancholy in panel 2, and seriously unhappy in panel 4, but I'm not sure that I trust that art. This comic puts Ruby through a lot of crap, but it wants to be a comedy; if Ruby reacted realistically, it would turn into a rather wordy soap opera/melodrama.

We've been here before, when Dillon called Ruby a nymphomaniac to her face. The most plausible reaction most of us could think of there was Ruby punching Dillon through the wall, or at least yelling and screaming a lot. Instead, she just let it go. The butt monkey in a comedy has to be a total sponge for the comedy to keep going, and that's how Ruby gets written.

She may or may not mention the subject to Amber later, but again - where could the plot go, except into wordy melodrama?

[Schmorgluck]

Quite frankly though, by this point I think Amber's broken that rule so many times with Ruby that nothing less than several sessions with a therapist or something like that can work out the problems between them. Which of course is not Amber's style, and Ruby won't be comfortable talking about her problems and feelings in front of a stranger either. Heck, she doesn't even want to talk about them with her sister.

And now I wonder if Kiley would be up for a new challenge...