1119 Undeclared.

by

Rather than dance around the issue for ages, the way that some thing try to, I decided to go ahead and let Jess nail down her sexuality. She is generally a very confident person. As long as things are on her terms she’s comfortable in any situation. She also gets bored easily and likes to try new things, and apparently people. Jess is that kind of person that people would accuse of being queer for attention. I’m not sure if everyone knows what that is, but that’s as best as I know how to describe it. It seems to some people like she’s faking it. You guys will have to give me some feedback if this is a common thing or just something I saw in Kansas. XD Anyway, you can start sailing your ships all over the place now, and look back at older pages with updated knowledge.

Please keep clicking on the Jolene voting image. I am now amused that the comic is slowly moving up the listings and ruining the day for a few people as it goes. Let’s see how high it can go. Maybe my regular posting schedule will be enough to take down Two Kinds. XD

I decided to just go ahead on with the fiction thing rather than overthink it and stall out. I can always edit stuff later. I know for sure that I’m going to change some earlier stuff. Or, rather, add some things in before the introduction of Twigg, but that will probably appear in the print version rather than be updated in real time in the blog posts. In any event, here’s a Little more story for you:

“Do you think they’re corporeal?” Asked Niona.

“You mean can they hurt us?” Replied Julius.
“Yeah.”

“I’m not sure.” He continued. “It’s so hard to tell with spectral things…”

“I think these are trapped souls.” Interjected Alina. “Or at the very least bound to this infernal mechanism. There’s a good chance they have influence in our dimension.”

“Can you dispel them?” Twig asked shakily.

“I don’t think so. Temporarily maybe, but they’d be drawn right back.” Alina answered. “We four know shield charms. We should be able to repel them as a group. Long enough to undo whatever this is anyway.”

“Twig and I know some as well…” Julius mentioned in passing.

“Excellent. We should be fine then. I’ll generate a barrier for us all, if it looks like that won’t be enough we each come in as needed according to ability.”

“Wait.” Julius interrupted. “Where do twig and I come in?”

“It’s Me, Herrin, Regalius, Niona Twig, then you.” Alina explained.

“I’m last?” Julius sulked. “I studied as a temple guard…”

“Your protege, has already displayed more natural talent than any of us, apart from Regalius maybe, but as a team I’m more comfortable relying on known variables and tactics.” Alina replied testily.

“Still…” Julius mumbled.

“Realy?!” Alina growled. “This is the thing you decide to argue about? In the bottom of a haunted temple!?”

“No, no!” Julius backpeddled. “I just felt a little slighted.”

“I can’t even tell if you’re being serious.”

“I’m kind of wishing I hadn’t brought up the issue at this point.” Julius recoiled.

“In that we are agreed.” Alina replied, slugging Julius hard on the arm.

Julius summoned all of his will to stifle a scream. It was like being hit with a rock. Eyes watering, he moved ahead at Alina’s direction. The group stepped into the room completely and slowly made for the center. Evidence of tampering became more and more apparent as they went. There was no way they could avoid all of the hazy specters so Julius elected to simply approach one. At first it didn’t take any notice, but as they moved by it seemed to be deciding if it had actually seen anything. It was vaguely female. Its slim arm reached out as if to interact with them, but was halted by Alina’s barrier. After a few moments a small band of the spirits were slowly following the team. A few even made to impede their progress, but simply fell away, unable to find purchase on anything.

Though apparently safe Twig was clinging to Julius as tightly as she could, while trying to seem cool in front of new people. She need not have worried however, as the ever increasing hoard of disembodied people was beginning to frighten everyone. Especially because the more spirits joined in the more the faint whispering that seemed to be everywhere sounded more like actual words.

60 Comments

I didn’t kind you could even major or even minor is Lesbianism, times sure have changed since my day.

I think it’s more of an extracurricular… but women studies sounds like a lot more fun now ;)

Being one of only two guys in a women’s studies class is fecking hilarious, especially when you’ve grown up around women so most of the ‘gross’ stuff is boiler plate. I would look across the seats at the other man in the room and just smirk at how he would find somewhere else to look at as his face turned bright red.

the tendency towards biphobia is everywhere and regrettable being Bi can lead to an awesome social thing where you are accepted in both the LGBTQ community and the Hetero community or it can be the reverse, you end up as a sort of werewolf where you’re just too wolfish for the humans and too human for the wolves. It all depends on the people.

That being said, it’s all about your expression of it. If Jess just quietly dated whoever she wanted people would probably think she was legit, but if she were to plaster pride flags all over and shaved part of her head I can see there being a backlash.
Its sort of like how a really masculine gay man rarely gets homophobic bigots bothering him (and feminine lesbians mostly get shit if they turn down a guy) its all about gender expression, not orientation.

As Woody Allen said, being bisexual doubles your chances of a date on Saturday night.

While that is a lovely quote, it is SO untrue. It’s really difficult to come off as bi–people either assume you’re straight or gay, and if they can’t decide, they steer clear. So if you plan on finding a date, you pretty much have to pick one and stick to it in that setting.

On top of that, a lot of people who are gay see people who are bi as fickle or undecided, whereas a lot of people who are straight see people who are bi as looking for attention, or trying to live out someone else’s fantasy.

I’m convinced that 90% of women who claim to be “bi” are doing it for the attention, or because it sounds “hot.” Obviously there are those out there who really are attracted to both genders, but I don’t really believe most people when they say it.

I’ve certainly run into a few people who like to announce it for the attention. My response is usually something along the lines of “Good for you, I like women too.” (I’m a guy, so its not surprising)

Honestly, you’ll get a bigger reaction out of my by randomly announcing you love marmalade. (Seriously, how awesome is marmalade)

Being on the entire other side of the spectrum has its trouble, too. Choosing to be a straight virgin prompts a surprising number of people to ask if I’m gay.

I never was good at comebacks. If anyone ever asks me again, though, I’ll respond by asking them how many homosexual virgins they know. Honestly, I’m not sure how people make the connection.

Well, you have to consider one’s motives for not only remaining a virgin, but for making such intention public knowledge.
One can be straight and desire chastity for religious adherence, or even without religious influence still want sex with their married partner to be unique and special and exclusive. A person can be generally asexual but identify a little more closely with heterosexuality.
However, if the person does not give any of the above as the reason for their identifying as ” happily a hetero virgin,” the most easily believed situation would be a person being subconsciously gay, but due to the stigma associated, be consciously fighting that inclination. In that case, the person would declare themself straight but desirous of their own virginity, as a way of maintaining social acceptance AND precluding sexual relations ( which would violate either their own desires our their social identity, depending on what gender was involved).
This last is of course an absurd situation to paint yourself into. But with social dynamics and internal struggles of today being what they are, it is perfectly understandable to come about. It does happen. And when it is the case, or seems like it might be, people wish to call it out as the twofold cop out that it is. People wish to make the person realize that it is okay to come clean to the group, and to the person’s own conscience, about that person’s true feelings.

I see people being gay for attention around here at times but you can’t always tell when they are or aren’t. My biggest beef is straight girls using the term girlfriend to indicate a female friends.

At least around here it feels straight girls have been doing that to be all “lesbians don’t exist when they say girlfriend they just mean close female friend they want guys too”

one: when I was that age, I was curious too. Until I found out GIRLS ARE NOTHING BUT TROUBLE.

two: Love where you’re going with the story. Don’t change a thing!

Some people can best described as less bisexual and more “attracted to anything high up on the social ladder that wants to pleasure me”.

This is totally my fault, I missed the “and” in panel three, but the ensuing nonsense of the dialogue was funny to me. Summary:

Thomas: Nina is highly attractive.
Jess: And tall.
Thomas: No offense, but you don’t have to tell me that. I KNOW that Nina is tall.
Jess: Thomas, am I into girls?
Thomas: Yes, you are, everyone knows this.
Jess: I’m young, hot, female, in college, and haven’t declared a major.
Thomas: Ohhh, I get it. Please continue to remark all you like about Nina’s height.

Rather than dance around the issue for ages, the way that some thing try to, I decided to go ahead and let Jess nail down her sexuality.

Y’okay, only that seems to be like nailing jelly to a tree. B{)} I’ve known a lot of women like Jess, gone out with a couple of them, and never failed to be impressed by how well they keep their act together. I mean, one I dated was a bit of a ditz but functioned A+ (eventually married someone else and is raising three kids); the other knew what she wanted out of life and went and got it and now runs a pet grooming parlor in Florida.

The three schizoids (okay, one has full-blown schizophrenia — and is under medication) I dated were all straight-arrow heterosexual women, two of whom found the whole LBGT thing morally repulsive. Well, I knew which friends not to introduce to them…

Just as an FYI, “schizoid” as an actual psych term is unrelated to “schizophrenia”. I know it sounds like one is a subclass of the other, but they’re actually completely different things who’s terms coincidentally share a linguistic root.

Prolly seems pedantic, but since “schizoid personality” is an actual clinical diagnosis (albeit one of the “pathologizing of normal human variation” contentious ones), misusing it can lead to bad things.

Not saying that was your intention (looks like you were just trying to coin/extrapolate a broader term for schizophrenia-like dysfunction on the fly), just saying it’s something to watch out for.

Okay, since you joined the class late, I’ll repeat for the whole group that I was a Psych major in college the first time around, back in the mid-1970s, and I did pretty well, GPA-wise. I didn’t switch to Computer Science until I went back to school in the late 1980s. In the intervening nearly forty years, I’ve probably forgotten more about Human Psychology than you will live long enough to learn.

The two women I described as “Schizoid” fit the description. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 2000 Text Revision (DSM-IV — do I need to elaborate, or can you look it up?) Schizoid Personality Disorder is a Cluster A Personality Disorder expressed by a only a limited range of emotion in social interactions and form few if any close relationships with others.

The two women I had in mind were borderline when I met them, as both engaged in social interactions because they had children from previous marriages and felt they had to. Once so engaged, their true nature played out, and from the children (all three girls, as it happened) I learned that this was a repeated behavior. Perhaps because they felt they had a responsibility to their daughters to find father figures, Scizoid might be a bit extreme, as these were both late-onset examples; but the symptoms were there and clear in both cases. One is currently under treatment, the other is still out there and seems to have evolved to other antisocial behaviors.

People are clicking on the Jolene voting image because she so gosh darn cute.

I categorically deny that! Okay, maybe just a little…

I’d bet even if the artist/writer were to put Jo inside of a teddy bear costume, people would still press that button.

Okay, now you’re just talking crazy. They would sneak into Wi-Fi spots with borrowed phones, tablets and laptops to click Teddy-Brooksie and vote for Between Failures.

Around here being Bi is a trend. It’s really kind of sick. That came out wrong. There’s nothing wrong with being gay or bi but pretending to be just because it’s ‘cool’ is sickening and makes you question everyone when they say they’re Bi. If they said they’re bi-curious that would be a different story but they all declare they’re Bi for sure even if they’ve never dated a girl and never plan to.

I’ve been enjoying watching your meteoric rise through the Topwebcomics thing for the past week. Before the Jo button, you had around 150 votes and sat somewhere in the high 100’s. Now you have 2200 votes and are #16. Hope you have a nice banner, at this rate you’ll be in top 10 in a week.

I actually don’t know what’s there. I didn’t set it up and no one will return my emails. It directs people to the proper place, so I guess that’ll have to be enough.

From what I see, the new banner involves Carol and Nina and the vote bonus is a very amusing picture of Carol holding a mug of beer.

Hopefully not your “Busty Carol” banner from years ago. It would probably get you more clicks but I recall you mentioning shenanigans regarding it.

Now I’m curious what it will end up being…

Crave, I’m responding to your question on Twitter (or whatever it is on the side).

Switching the first two letters between my first and last names (if that’s what that even means) has a similar effect to Mater’s response to Lightning when Lightning found out about Doc’s Piston cups in the movie Cars.

It’s not much better if I use my middle name, either.

No one around here pretends to be bisexual. If someone did, the real bisexuals would hunt them down with pitchforks. We’re protective of our trademark and take counterfeit products very seriously.

In college I knew a few girls freshman year who, whether they were actually curious or not, definitely relished the guys’ attention for such things. A lot of the folks I knew, though, tended to waver because they were figuring out what they actually were (balanced against both “what they thought they wanted to be” and “what society wanted them to be”) rather than a deliberate play for attention. I ended up in a very … let’s say “non-standard” social group though, I was the token straight white non-poly cis male, so my sample set was one that had a lot of support for anyone who was going through that sort of thing.

I dunno about ‘hot’.

But then again, she is a cartoon, but I HAVE met girls with necks THAT LONG in real life, and chins almost that pointy.

Not my thing.

Beauty is subjective, so even a character that is generally accepted to be hot will have people who don’t feel that way. Beauty in the comic is basically a shorthand of things I like. Big ears, prominent teeth, forward sweeping hairstyles, big eyes… You’ll notice that characters I really dislike tend to have traits I dislike. Compare Dawn’s ear size to other characters, for example. Wes is the only blond male, and so on.

I stopped reading for a year because of life stuff. I came back upon this site recently, and decided to read the entire thing from the beginning.

I blazed through the archives in three days. And for the life of me, I can’t see why this doesn’t have more fans.

Crave, I just wanna congratulate you. Using mostly dialogue and antics, you’ve created an amazing webcomic, one I look forward to reading regularly from now on!

Glad to have you back! Tell a couple of like minded friends, maybe I’ll end up with an acceptable number of readers after a bit. XD

A point about top web comics.
Their idea of what is “R” rated is probably a lot looser than yours, I have seen a lot of “PG” things on there that are more raunchy/foul mouthed than this comic (just read the whole archive).
The reason I point this out is that top web comics also has a rating filter, you have to agree to see R rated comics or they won’t show up to vote for/read. So by having an “R” rating you are probably unintentionally hiding your comic from part of your potential audience…

It’s to protect himself in the case he does do something a little too salacious for “average soccer mom” to see her 12 year old son reading. I always rated my comics a little bit higher than needed just in case.

Well, in this case someone else chose the rating for me, but I generally go by movie rating rules. Which, of course, most people don’t for fear of being shunned.

…you mean, you count the times you characters say “fuck”?

That’s actually in the US ratings rules, I looked it up in wikipedia. There’s a set number of times characters can say swear words before it bumps up the rating… kind of silly if you ask me.

I always thought of it like a future warning. :) It’s PG now, but… it won’t be after that sex scene a year from now… 9_9;

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