29-07-14 28 is lucky

[Spidrift]

It's not cynical if Dillon offers to help even though she knows he's just using her for one of his schemes as long as she knows she's getting something out of it too. Unless it's a scheme that really violates some ethics I can see her shrug and go along with it since the previous adventures weren't a total loss.

I don't know. I just can't see Ruby going along with somethings just because she gets some material return on it. For one thing, she knows by now that Dillon's schemes are likely to lead to embarrassments and uncomfortable revelations, and it'd take a lot to compensate for all that. And for another, she's a socially inexperienced nerd with a strong sense of morality. That means that she constructs her moral decisions from first principles, and using people as things is a priori wrong. Even if they are Dillon.

She can be bounced or morally blackmailed into things, sure, or persuaded just to stop Dillon's whining, but I think she's too-admirably high-principled to go all exploitative on him.

And that help with her wardrobe was not completely altruistic since having her around got some looks from guys so he could see who is and isn't gay. It's not the most self serving thing he's done and seeing as how he bought her some designer jeans a fair trade, but there was a reason for that shopping trip in which he benefited too.

Oh, Dillon wants to be Ruby's official Gay Best Friend because it makes him look like a character in a romcom, and so he can use her as a dressing-up doll. He wasn't being half as nice as Ruby thought, really. But from her point of view, it was a spontaneous offer of help from someone who didn't owe her anything, and she's clearly not used to that.

Unless you count his getting in the way of Amber hooking up with Gary - she's his BFF, and he's used their friendship as a means to prevent her from pursuing a guy he has a crush on/who wants nothing to do with him sexually.

Do note that Dillon generally denied that he was doing that, especially by the time his own comic started. Of course, Amber knew better and called him a liar, but the problem there was as much Amber's fine-tuned and slightly weird sensitivities as Dillon's actual attitude.

(Which ties up to Dillon's big problem, or rather the big problem with Dillon; a total lack of self-awareness. With most people, real or fictional, poor self-awareness is an unfortunate flaw. Dillon manages to raise it to the level of a punch-in-face-worthy vice.)

What happens when word of Amber bagging Gary gets back to her own apartment will be interesting. Yes, half the interest value will be what Dillon does say when he has to deal with the reality of this, rather than the hypothetical possibility; he may well go all drama queen. The other half is how Ruby deals with the whole thing, given that she currently has the vague impression that Gary is gay (thanks to Dillon's gift for leaving out crucial details when talking about Gary).

[Fluffy]

Worst case scenario is that he attempts to seduce Gary away from Amber (not that there's even a remote chance that Gary will go gay for him; but that wouldn't stop Dillon).

[crimzontearz]

Again why is Dillon trying to push his sexuality on people even REMOTELY acceptable?

[Fluffy]

Because he thinks he's all that, and a bag of chips?

[crimzontearz]

Right yet if a straight guy was to do that to a lesbian girl (whether successfully or not) the uproar and indignation would be insane

[Zippy]

It's certainly an... interesting experiment to have a lead character with no sympathetic characteristics whatsoever - even proper jerkass leads usually get SOME sort of shading, even if only by virtue of being put up against someone or something So Much Worse.

[TheDude]

The amount of self-righteous indignation baffles me once again. How about some empathy? Dillon clearly is his biggest enemy and it will probably take quite a while until he gains some self-awareness, but with Ruby by his side (who clearly benefits from being forced out of her comfort zone) his chances have greatly increased. He's a poor schmuck but - at least to me - still pretty funny.

As for the eternal "if the genders were reversed": it doesn't work, because once you reverse or change genders you change the quality of the situation. Men and women are treated differently and subsequently experience life differently. Thus the same behaviour may be experienced totally differently by men and women.

[Bambikles]

Can we ditch this whole SDB comic and replace it with one starring the LaRose sisters?

But who would be the smooth one with a good relationship with both, then ? Given how the relationship is now, it could only end up in a catfight, sooner or later. I know most readers wouldn't mind, but it wouldn't bring us very far.

[Zippy]

Has Dillon EVER been funny? He's a stalker/bully who has no concept of personal space and has his head so far up his own alimentary canal he can do a very fine Arnim Zola impression.

(*had stopped following SDB some time ago, only caught up because of the Required Reading crossover...*)

[Artemisia]

As for the eternal "if the genders were reversed": it doesn't work, because once you reverse or change genders you change the quality of the situation. Men and women are treated differently and subsequently experience life differently. Thus the same behaviour may be experienced totally differently by men and women.

When a man hits on a lesbian, the issues are very different than when a gay man hits on a "straight" man. Women in general are treated by and viewed by our society as being less than men, and the possessions of men. Thus, a woman actually showing that she can live her life without a man and going ahead and living her life without a man is seen as being outside the norm and something that must be "corrected". Thus, a lesbian is pressured not just directly, but indirectly to center her life around men. With regards to sexuality, however, women are in a less problematic position than men are. Whether or not a woman has sex with another woman is not seen as being horrific or wrong. In fact, our society encourages a certain amount of "experimentation" so long as it is done for 1) the gratification of men, and 2) the women then center their interests on men afterwards.

When a gay man hits on a "straight" man, things are very different. There are a lot of men who are bisexual or pansexual, but who have been forced by societal expectations to align themselves sexually with women. The pressure on men to be straight is also incredibly strong. You end up with situations like with Nathan in Ma3. There are a lot of men out there who have sex with other men without admitting it. The issues there are not about being possessions of men. Instead, the issue is that our society sees anyone who has sex with men as being less than masculine. Thus, the end result is that men are suppose to be ashamed of having any attraction to men. In some ways, Dillon isn't exactly seducing straight men away from their girlfriends. Instead, it would probably be more accurate for him to say that he is having sex with men who are too ashamed to admit to being attracted to other men in some way. Of course, unfortunately, many gay men have a tendency to engage in bi-erasure, and often ignore bisexuals as existing.

These are kind of shortened explanations. There's a LOT involved in the different dynamics.

[tanonev]

Right yet if a straight guy was to do that to a lesbian girl (whether successfully or not) the uproar and indignation would be insane

But straight girls don't present lesbian because they're closeted/in denial. Gay guys presenting straight because they're closeted/in denial, however, are a real thing. Furthermore, there is zero societal pressure for a straight person to accept a gay advance, whereas there is plenty of societal pressure for a gay person to accept a straight advance, so it's reasonable to assume that someone who presents straight but accepts a gay advance is doing so because of their own inclinations as opposed to simply caving to societal pressure. For similar reasons, the indignation at a woman seducing a man presenting gay would be higher than at a woman seducing a woman presenting lesbian, and understandably so.

[Mr. Bee]

Ship Ruby to SOTR. Amber can stay in MA3 and take Angel with her to be Zii's antagonist. Heck bring Jerzey along he has history with Zii. All that's just left is Dillon. Might I suggest the Sun?

[GothPoet]

[Giz]

Dillon clearly is his biggest enemy and it will probably take quite a while until he gains some self-awareness, but with Ruby by his side (who clearly benefits from being forced out of her comfort zone) his chances have greatly increased.

[Artemisia]

Why is it that Dillon gets so much hate? Honestly, it took me quite a while before I even started reading SOTR, and I'm still kind of not following it regularly.