31-03-15 Tasteful connoisseur

[Giz]

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

[lordoffiling]

Damn. Zii is the puppetmaster.

[Spidrift]

Well, she's on the ball, but this isn't exactly a difficult target. Pride is at war with self-respect in Ruby's head, and sanity gets caught in the crossfire.

But I kind of hope that Zii just lets Ruby down gently next strip, and they can move on to other topics. Zii must see exactly what's going on at this point, and she can't get much more personal amusement out of this; just saying "Look, whatever, I don't judge, I'll just go ring these up. Now, what are you doing these days?" would look cool rather than cruel.

And as I half-suspected, Amber probably hasn't told Zii about Ruby being in town. (That's "Oh, you're rooming..." not "Oh yes, Amber said you were rooming...") Which may be largely for plot purposes, but it might also suggest that Amber has got a little too used to keeping friendship, sex, and family relationships in totally separate boxes. Zii accidentally breaking down a few of those partitions could have interesting consequences.

[brasca]

I knew Ruby could easily recover since she really did buy the first volumes for Dillon, but as you said her pride is getting in the way. This would not go nearly as badly if she was more nonchalant or matter of fact about it. I would not be surprised if Zii knows a lot of people like Ruby who vigorously deny their guilty pleasures and thus how to communicate with them.

[Spidrift]

That recovery wouldn't really have worked, whatever; Ruby said that she didn't even know that this was a comics shop, and then Jung revealed she'd been buying stuff in there just a day before. Her stories are more holes than story. But that's only a real problem insofar as Zii can be bothered to humiliate her, which probably isn't actually very far.

I don't know about people Zii knows, but as I've said before, Ruby may well not be the first customer in the Yaoi section of the shop to have a hang-up about her own interests - and anyway, Zii's more the kind to want to tease and persuade Ruby round to admitting her interest rather than taunting and humiliating her. She a libertine, not a sadist, and anyway that's better business.

And of course Ruby wouldn't be having problems here if she was more nonchalant about it; she could just have said "great, I'll pick up those three books, I've got the first two" and be gossiping about their hometown by the till by now. But it'll be a while before she'll be able to manage that.

[wiseguy]

poor Ruby

she is a fish net trying to hold water

[FlashD81]

I think Zii is starting to see the big picture here.

[panzertank83]

*HEADDESK*
jesusf***ingchrist, Ruby, just be a human being for five f***ing seconds ohmygod!


(note: this was intended as comedy and should be taken as such, I am not actually upset.....obviously)

Overdose of F-words. Warning issued. The DAMNed

[Spidrift]

One small question that we've all missed so far: Where did Ruby learn the "uke" and "seme" terminology?

I'd guess that she took a look round the Wikipedia entry for Yaoi, or something similar - or does that sort of vocabulary actually appear within yaoi manga? Either way, well, I may be over-interpreting, but I'm putting this together with her use of "in media res" last strip; I think that someone on the writing team has remembered that she's supposed to be a rather nerdy university graduate, so she'd be exactly the sort of person who'd investigate technical terms for something she was interested in, and use non-English vocabulary where it's appropriate.

*HEADDESK*
jesusf***ingchrist, Ruby, just be a human being for five f***ing seconds ohmygod!

(note: this was intended as comedy and should be taken as such, I am not actually upset.....obviously)

Nonetheless, you have a point; if she's supposed to be smart and analytical, Ruby should be concluding by now that she really can't hide her interest in yaoi very convincingly, and if she doesn't want to give it up, she's going to have to be more honest with herself and others.

Talking of which, I really hope that this scene moves on a bit next strip. "Ruby like yaoi, but denies the fact, but nobody is fooled" is a perfectly good joke, but we've now seen it repeated with Yuki failing to fool Jung, Dillon, Zii, and for that matter herself -- and every time, the failed denial has been stretched out over multiple strips. The comic is beginning to need a new gag, or some character development. Meanwhile, there's more to Ruby for Zii to get her head around than the yaoi addiction.

(We'll probably get Ruby failing to fool Amber too, some time, but that's different; she has a real hang-up there.)

Quote edited. The DAMNed

[brasca]

You and Wiseguy have your theories, but I think Ruby did not get the whole "talk" with her mother. Seeing as how Amber and Ruby's parents are doctors I cannot imagine that she never received any lecture about sex education, but there was likely one important question Ruby could never ask without it leading to a secret she wanted to conceal. Her fear is that if she indulges just a little she could go down the same path as Amber. The problem is asking this question could risk revealing Amber's secret and since Ruby is such a terrible liar she probably did not want to risk it. It may seem silly that she never consulted anyone else, but her mother would be the most trustworthy woman she would know. At this point she should seek a professional psychologist's advice since there really is no one else that can. Zii is not a good example of someone who can juggle work and play. If she was her musical career would not have hit a wall like it did.

[Spidrift]

I'm not sure what theory I'm supposed to hold about Ruby and her sexuality; if you can clarify what you think I think, I'll tell you if you're right or not. I try to stick with the evidence we're given, plus the odd flight of fancy that I try to label clearly as such. But lately I've just been talking about her interest in yaoi and general chats she might have with Zii, probably not even mentioning sex directly.

(Wiseguy ended up on my Ignore List months ago, so I don't have much idea at all what he thinks.)

As to whether she's ignorant in some way... People can know all the mechanics of sex, and even have received some good advice on emotional implications, and still come to completely different conclusions, thanks to their different tastes and impulses and hang-ups. I'd assume that Ruby knows enough about the mechanics of what goes where to survive.* She also knows perfectly well that some people enjoy sex a lot, and get very enthusiastic about it, but we know that she's convinced herself that's mainly a male tendency, which allows her to feel that her own repression is "normal" and reasonable.

Equally, we know that she doesn't want to be "like Amber", who she defines as the opposite of her self-controlled and sensible self, and that's doubtless tied up with the bad experience at the teenage party; any time she thinks about sex, she's likely to suffer visions of her sister, naked and doing weird stuff, which would be enough to mess up anyone's sexuality. But that's not a matter of ignorance; that's repression, an understandable hang-up caused by seeing that Amber-Amber porn video, and a lot of self-justification. She's also got a serious obsession with respectability; she's perpetually afraid that everyone she meets is judging her, and she doesn't want anyone thinking that she engages in anything as sticky and unrestrained as sex.

If you said to her that perfectly respectable women can enjoy monogamous sexual relationships with men they like without turning into promiscuous maniacs, she'd likely shiver and say "Maybe they can - people say so - but that's their choice when they can find the time. I'm too busy to waste my time that way, and I don't feel the need. There are plenty of happy single people around, you know." It's not so much that she thinks doing sex at all automatically turns you into Amber, it's thinking that there's no point in starting with sex if you don't plan to continue, and she's convinced herself that she's not interested at all.


*And she's a practical person in her own way; if and when she starts engaging in consensual sex, I'd bet she'll take all sensible precautions. Given her nerdy tendency to research, she'll probably also start out having committed three chapters of The Joy of Sex to memory.

[Bambikles]

Ah, so this is another facet of Ruby: vanity.
Is really "dabbler" that pejorative in English ?
And she uses degenerate again. Can't help but associate the use of the term in this context with a Bible-belt bigot. *cringes*
Indeed, Ruby is remarkably (unrealistically ?) un-prejudicied for someone so in denial about theirs sexuality.

[Don Alexander]

Why look, another comic in which Minew is totally ignored.

Anyway, I'm eagerly awaiting Celebrity Denial Deathmatch: Ruby vs. Sonya!!

[X3N0-Life-Form]

"Did you order the code Yaoï?"
"You're darn right I did!"

[Spidrift]

Ah, so this is another facet of Ruby: vanity.

There's always been a hint of it there, going back to when she first arrived and snapped at Amber about the difference between "school" and "university".

It doesn't surprise me at all; she's a nerd surrounded by non-nerds. The classic method for a nerd to defend themselves against the sneers (real or imagined) of the non-nerd is to adopt an air of intellectual superiority. If you can't be cool or tough, be the smartest person in the room, and make sure that other people know it. Frankly, been there, got the T-shirt with the obscure quotation on it.

It's mostly harmless - people expect that sort of behaviour of nerds, and the vanity is usually at least partly justified - but it can get a bit irritating if carried to excess. And why am I having to tell a French person about academics adopting an air of intellectual superiority?

Is really "dabbler" that pejorative in English ?

Depends. Call me a dabbler in a field where I merely dabble, and I'll shrug and agree. Call me a dabbler in a field where I earn a living or which I take really seriously, and I'll take offence. Synonyms: amateur, dilettante. And Ruby is clearly prone to committing seriously when she commits at all.

And she uses degenerate again. Can't help but associate the use of the term in this context with a Bible-belt bigot.

It's too old-fashioned for me to find it really worrying; frankly, I'd take it as a joke if anyone called me a degenerate, unless they were holding a shotgun or a pitchfork at the time. To me, this mainly looks like Ruby being a few decades behind the times, again. Anyway, the problem is the lack of a less old-fashioned synonym; "pervert" just sounds like too much of a joke.

Indeed, Ruby is remarkably (unrealistically ?) un-prejudicied for someone so in denial about theirs sexuality.

Wrong way round, I think; people with strong prejudices against strong or unconventional sexuality may well be in denial about their own inclinations, but prejudice isn't a prerequisite for denial. All it needs is for the person to wish not to be like that.

And Ruby's denial has two good sources of fuel without her being prejudiced. First, she wants to be not like Amber, because Amber is the person who does those weird and disgusting things she saw on screen, and who isn't as bright as Ruby but who gets more parental approval anyway. And second, she has a quite extraordinary sense of shame. She seems to be utterly convinced that anything she does can be seen and judged by the entire world. She believed in her heart that the selfie she took two years ago would somehow become public knowlege, remember, she assumed that Zii would start laughing at her at the start of this scene, and she couldn't accept Dillon's reassurances about her taste for yaoi. She can't admit to anything that might possibly be thought wrong, because if she does, the world will judge her for it.