1122 Perversion Aversion.

by

Okay… I’ve always had problems with shampoo. When I was young they used to think I had dandruff, but what it really was, was me having a reaction to shampoo. I know I’ve written about it before, but I bring it up because I have a new shampoo that works really well, except that I have to be SUPER CAREFUL with it. If I leave even a hint of this stuff in my hair after I rinse it seems to eat my skin away. So, right now the back of my scalp is a bloody mess. I don’t mean bloody in the figurative cursing way either. The skin has broken open and is seeping because I didn’t wash my hair correctly. I thought I had because I felt squeaky, but I must have gotten in a hurry. I really miss the shampoo I had been using. They stopped making it. The stuff I’m trying out is almost exactly like it except it’s perfumed. I’m pretty sure that is the element of the stuff that makes me break out. You’d think I’d learn after the first time I had this happen and not get in a hurry. It was only a little patch that time. This time it’s the whole back of my head. Of course I rewashed it, but the damage was done overnight. Now I’m just dealing with he healing.

What a weird thing to blog about. I must confess I’m having a very hard time thinking about anything else at the moment though.

Anyway, for as saucy as Thomas can be in some ways he’s a little conservative when it comes to sex stuff. Jess is totally the other side of that spectrum AND acting up in a fairly clear attempt to impress him. I don’t know for sure if it’s working, but she certainly puts it all out on front street. In some ways that’s kind of what Thomas has always wanted; to just be told where he stands with a potential mate. Jess just kind of got there late and doesn’t know, or accept, it.

96 Comments

Ick…I have similar issues with all the rest of my skin other than my scalp occasionally. I have eczema, and when it flares up for whatever reason, sometimes soaps, I have to get a prescription to help keep my skin from just, like, falling off.

“As hard as Algebra” ROFL

Algebra ain’t that hard, now Calculus on the other hand…

OK, great minds think alike. Let’s go for differential equations.

I see your differential equations and raise you partial differential equations.

I’ll see your partial differential equations and raise you quantum mechanics and statistical thermodynamics (although I did get A’s in both of those)….. ;-)

I’m with ya. I dropped out of Calc II because my plate was already loaded and I didn’t want the D or F. And I was a Computer Science Major — I wound up taking a CLEP to get out of having to earn Math credits the traditional way.

Careful. Don’t want a “Math is hard” Barbie moment… I would say lol, but you know that’s not my thing. I’M OUT, BITCHES!

(Yeah, I have no idea why I said that.)

In Jess’s defense, Algebra is hard for me too, and I’m pretty bright. XD

It’s geometry that gets me… not for a real reason cuz it’s really easy– but I can never remember which axis is X and which is Y so I get them wrong constantly. :P
Maybe I just never got to the hard classes… 9_9; That’s probably more true.

I’m very artistic, but really dumb when it comes to math. I never got past fractions in school and at 44 I still don’t get it. Forget anything higher than that.

So, I don’t know if you’ve tried it, but Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap makes for a decent shampoo substitute. Also, you could try baking soda and vinegar wash. Yeah, I know it sounds goofy, but I’ve used it a couple of times and it’s not so bad. The Vinegar smell fades after a few minutes, but you could add rosemary oil or something to the mix. Look it up.

I would guess this issue has been resolved, but…

If your allergy is to the sulfates in the shampoo, then DevaCurl’s No Poo may be useful – it’s a sulfate-free shampoo.

If your allergy is to something other than the sulfates in the shampoo, then Puraderm makes a hypoallergenic shampoo with sulfates, but pretty much no other allergen. It also rinses much better than most shampoos I’ve used.

…what the hell is going on with her top?

It went from being as tight strung as her brother to as loose as she no doubt is!

…oh god. Now I’m doing it.

She’s purposefully letting it slip down, if it isn’t painfully obvious.

I actually re-looked at it after you pointed it out. I think the mix up is because the sleeves disappear when her collar falls down

Yeah, now that you pointed it out, it is obvious. Jess is probably thinking “Oh no, I’m losing him. Time to win him back over with the power of cleavage.”

Little does Jess know that she’s got nothing compared to Carol. The game was already lost before she even started playing.

Jess is just doing her duty as a designated fanservice provider.

This isn’t anime, it doesn’t need ‘fanservice’ to be awesome or popular – doing stuff like that is part of Jess’ character and I suspect Thomas will shut her down once he takes notice…. or hopefully Carol will.

Carol?

I just realized that Carol recounted her college shenanagins and how it affected her negatively. Now we’ve got Jess doing a similar thing, although she’s doing it more from an empowered female standpoint than a taken advantage of female stand point.

It would be interesting to see how Carol reacts.

Welp, now I hate this character too.
They’re falling like domino pieces since the previous arc.

It’s all downhill from here.

Congratulations, you’ve succeeded in making your characters human, faults and all.

Got to agree on that. I actually like Jess (and not only because I think she’s hot for a drawing). Outside her promiscuity, she reminds me a bit of my older sisters.

Why is it that when a man is promiscuous he’s clapped on the back and congratulated on being a man, but if a woman is promiscuous she is shamed and called loose, slut, or whore? I personally hate double standards regardless of who they are against or what they are about. Just because she is bisexual and open with her interests she’s considered loose or of lesser morals.

She hasn’t been seen with anyone, she may only have had a hand full of sexual experiences all together, but just because she’s not ashamed that she likes both men and women and shows her interests openly everyone is down on her.

Regardless of your viewpoints on bisexuality, if she were a man and hitting on a woman after inquiring about another person she wouldn’t get half as much flack as she’s getting from the comments here.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike her due to that. Others might, but what really gets under my skin is how she treated what she did with her brother. By her not seeming too apologetic about it, or rather, she seems to have still enjoyed it quite a bit, pisses me off.

This is something she did that has *potentially* traumatized her brother and yet the only thing she gets out of it is how much hotter getting caught made the act. It’s *THAT* part that pisses me off about her, and how she seems to be lined up to be perfectly okay making a pass at Nina.

It’s that selfish, self-serving attitude that cares about absolutely nobody else, that even the respect of a family member can’t overcome that I think earns her the titles of ‘loose’ ‘slut’ and ‘whore.’

Considering you seem to be replying to me as it seems your reply is aligned in my comments reply section. If you weren’t then ignore this. As far as Jess’s promiscuity, she’s in no short words admitted to promiscuity. That said I said I like the character, the only thing I mentionend about her promiscuity is just that she was kind of like my sisters outside her promiscuity.

I’m no stick in the mud, I consider intercourse a perfectly natural thing and as long as you aren’t in a relationship and of consenting age, you should feel free to sleep around as much as you want, male or female. Being promiscuous is not a bad thing, although it has gained a bad spin as of late. You need to test the waters before you dive in to find out which way you swing.

All that said, I think the gambit run here is not really a double standard (trust me I’ve seen other comic comment sections with a bad double standard going the opposite direction with a absolutely horrible female character being cheered just because she’s a she). I think the majority here are venting because they feel that the way she reacted to the whole affair was wrong, not that she screwed a chick and while I think that’s it’s kind of stupid to get angry at that I can see where they are coming from.

TL;DR you’re seeing a double standard that isn’t there.

It’s stupid to call her a “slut” or something like that for it. Not stupid at to dislike her or get angry at her though (could say it’s stupid to get angry at a fictional person, but arguably that means the fiction is doing it’s job rather well in getting people emotionally involved).

She’s implying that she thinks she hurt her brother in a borderline traumatic way, and that she enjoyed it, will have no hesitation in doing it again. That makes her at the very least a shitty sibling.

As far as double standards go: on the one tentacle, Jess is actually working against her own cause (however much it may be a cause for her) by treating being an asshole as if it’s just part of being promiscuous. She’s not a “slut”, she’s a libertine, and guys who act like that [i]are[/i] considered assholes.

On the other tentacle, thinking someone’s deficient for [i]not[/i] being promiscuous (as Jess and some of the commenters are doing) is just as much of a BS double standard as slut shaming.

I never said she was a great human being, just that it seemed there were more comments aimed at the fact that she was open with her sexuality than there were aimed at the specific douche baggery she admitted to doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that Jess is a stellar person, (there’s always an evil twin) but that some folks were focusing on the wrong things to be pissed off at her about.

Double standards are a pet peeve of mine regardless of who they are aimed at.

I’m not saying not to get angry, I said I can understand where they are coming from. I just personally think that the scenario doesn’t merit anger from the audience 1) It’s not like she stole Ed’s first crush from him and 2) her reaction when retelling the scenario could also be partially Ed’s fault. He didn’t come out and say “Hey, not cool.” and as such she interpreted as he, while weirded out, was okay with the situation thus feel it’s a joking matter in hindsight. If she made a joke of the scenario if Ed had walked in on her eating out his girlfriend then I can understand the anger. However that is not the case, hence why I said what I said.

I feel vindicated. Yesterday I was all, Jess comes on too strong it will come back to bite her.

It bit her! Straight in the equation! :D

Again, if Jess was a guy hitting on a girl, no one would bat an eye about how strong she’s coming on to Thomas, in fact, if the genders were reversed most would be commenting on how subtle she’s being.

Also if you read my post from which I’m quoting, you’ll notice that on that page I reference Nina’s throwing Ed off guard, talking about when she jumped on Ed. I also point out Ed’s quieter nature, openly congratulating him not being pushy.

I am saying, and I believe others are as well, Jess is being a little too forward here. Nina, who is forward but sticks to a line, is not, in my opinion.

Stride is right; no double standard here!

The double standard I was referring to is everyone’s slut shaming attitude. I never said that Jess wasn’t being a douche, and I wasn’t saying that her brother needed to come on to Nina in a douche like manner. He was caught completely off guard by her welcoming glomp, and personally though I really like Nina I felt that action was completely out of line.

Invading a total strangers personal space like that regardless of the reasoning (in my opinion) is wrong. And if it had been a man doing that to a woman there would have been a huge outcry about assault. Once again, the lack of comments about that show the double standards at play.

Dude, that shampoo thing is nuts, I have honestly never heard of an acidic reaction to shampoo. Worst problem I have is my scalp burning like hell after I use anti-dandruff shampoo. Anyhow, good luck man.

As hard as algebra, omg I NEED to use that one

The version of the phrase I’ve heard before is “as hard as Chinese algebra”. Which does sound awfully hard, at least for someone like me who can’t speak or read Chinese…

I have similar issues with a lot of chemicals — I even have a bunch or fairly recent food allergies. I’ve been using Suave because it’s fairly mild and it hasn’t made my scalp break out like other shampoos.

@Clark mentioned Dr. Bronner’s, and that’s my daily shower soap, because it doesn’t make my back dry out or break out. I use their Almond Oil Hemp liquid soap; I found the Eucalyptus and Peppermint varieties stuff caused more problems than they solved. Bronner’s (www.drbronner.com) has eight ‘flavors’; I’d try a 2oz. or 4oz. bottle of some of the milder stuff.

You should look into Lush Cosmetics. They do these awesome solid shampoo bars. All natural, no purfumes, each handmade. My favourites are the cinnamon one and the seaweed.

Ironically one of the ads showing right now for the comic is rackspace….[insert any dirt jokes you may have here. lol]

(for the record I am a more of a fan of carol’s than jess’s myself. )

That sounds terrifying. The shampoo business I mean. I didn’t know it was possible to have that adverse a reaction. Washing your hair should definitely not be that dangerous.

I really want to see Thomas blush from this conversation. At some point. It would be hilarious.

i like the saying thats a good one. when i ran out of shampoo one time i was forced to use dish washing liquid.believe it or not it works wonders for your hair.it got my hair super clean and stripped out all of the conditioner build up.palmolive dish washing liquid is for sensitive skin.that may be something you might try.

Not sure if it is what you intended, but this could explain why Ed is so introverted. He can not trust his sister, someone this close to him with people he has feelings for. I doubt Jess is really considering how much it could hurt their relationship by going after Nina. This could go funny, bad or really bad.

Nina will either:
a.) Tell her outright no
b.) Agree to one date
c.) Agree to one date, only if Ed goes too.
d.) Tell both of them that it could never happen in a million years, because her one true love is Regican’tfinishthatsentence.

Well…Jess seems to try to seduce men as much as possible…..And failing on that part with Thomas….Thankfully.

And have you tried the baby shampoos? For newborns? Or the organic washes for babies. Most of those are ph balanced for sensitive skin. Hair & skin have different ph balances….So getting one for your skin instead of the hair is a wiser bet.

I have been there, Jess. Going for geeks means a lot of headaches. I shoulda chose another subculture, I tell ya… I miss the nuances of subtlety.
She needs to flirt more with Brooksie! She is totally available and totally in to her.
Those are some nasty allergies you have there. I’d be preoccupied with random hygiene related wounds too! Scary. XD You could make some homemade “green” concoctions, and do a skin test… you put a Q-tip sized amount on your skin and let it sit for 10 minutes. If it itches, wash it off quickly. Most products like nair and hair dye that have a high chance of skin reaction problems suggest that.

After this, I’m not really sure what to make of Jess. I got to say that, even if it was a long time since the crush ended, making out with your brother’s first crush is a little on the low side. Not everyone is into really perverted stuff (at least not all the time) and it seems to me that Jess may be confusing female empowerment with immaturity (this happens more than most people like to admit).

I doubt seriously that she thought very far in advance, or realized that she might hurt Ed until after the fact. But by that point it was already done, so may as well make the best of it.

Well, no. Even if she didn’t realize she was hurting him at the time, she says she gets off on the thought of having hurt him like that. You could say that that counts as making the most of it in a strictly mathematical sense, but that doesn’t make it any less… well there’s no nice way to put it: kinda low-grade psychopathic.

Saying she was “making the most of it” doesn’t paint her in any better of a light. It doesn’t say “I don’t have to feel bad because I believe I did nothing wrong”, but rather “I believe I did something wrong, but I want a way to escape feeling bad about it, and I don’t care if that makes the wrong thing worse just so long as I don’t have to feel bad myself”.

And dismissing him as uptight or a prude is a meaningless distraction at best. Whether she really did or not, she apparently believes she really hurt him badly, and takes pleasure in that. Add to that how she implies that she’s willing to knowingly do it again, with the idea that she’ll get off on it there too so inferably adjacent, and it really doesn’t paint a nice picture of her as a person at all.

A certain amount of what you’re saying is based on assumptions about her motives that you can’t possibly know for certain. There’s also a certain level of self delusion involved on her part most likely AND you should take into consideration who she’s talking to. Of course your, and other people’s, responses are going to be reactionary because you don’t have the benefit of perspective that I do. I would say, however, that all the bile being thrown at Jess is not unlike what Reggie got when he was introduced, and yet he proved to be more than just a one dimensional jerk. He’s certainly not perfect, but he’s not the antichrist either. This interaction is one data point, yet people are willing to throw her under the bus in spite of several moments previously shown where she very clearly cares about people other than herself. What’s really remarkable is how so many people have taken every word she’s said as gospel. No one seems to have considered that she might be painting herself this way for effect, or as a way to hide her true self. Of course I get off on watching the chaos, so whatever, but I do find it interesting how quick people are to judge, and how brutal they can be about it.

All I have to go on is her words and what you say about her. I can’t work with info I don’t have, or info that’s false/reliable that I have no way of knowing to be such. Same as in real life. If someone paints themselves inaccurately in a particular way, either deliberately or through carelessness, you can’t really be surprised if people come away with an inaccurate impression.

If you as a writer deliberately paint them in a particular way, you can’t be offended when your audience bases their view of the character on that. If you want us to have a different impression, then craft that impression instead, but you can’t get upset when people fail to appreciate truths you’ve hidden from them.

When you meet someone for the fist time, you give them the benefit of the doubt, but everything they say and do is constantly building and shaping an impression. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean crossing your fingers and ignoring red flags when they come up. It means letting them throw up their own flags in their own time. If you would have me credit the glimpses of good in Reggie, then glimpses of bad in Jess must also be credited.

I’ve been giving Jess the benefit of the doubt for years. This is the first time I can remember where I’ve seen her character actually tested on any level apart from the general high-energy gregariousness that is her ground state. All her other interactions have been relatively light and non-serious, stuff she would just as well do because they’re fun and not out of her way.

I’m not offended by the commentary. As I said, I just think it’s interesting. Although I don’t feel like I couldn’t be offended. Shouldn’t perhaps, but in the event that I was offended I would certainly be capable of it, warranted or not.

You seem to be in a huge hurry to cast people down based on limited and easily misinterpreted evidence. Why???? Be sceptical, try to falsify your hypotheses.

It’s strange that I’ve had this conversation with many females. it is very traumatic along the lines of destroying their other sibling.

As for the shampoo Crave, Best bet is to get the basic Pert or Keep it simple and use arm and hammer can’t break out with that.

“All I want is a decently horny guy, which is why I keep chasing after my twin brother’s love interests…”

I don’t know why, but somehow I see this line (or something similar) being uttered by Jess in the near future.

Crave, if you’re having shampoo issues check out this group

http://no-poo.livejournal.com/

I transitioned in 2010 and after the transition period it’s been pretty great. My scalp itching’s gone, my dandruff (formerly blizzard-level) is barely there, and my lady regularly comments how soft and shiny my hair is.

Well… the prude in me has decided Jess and I could never be friends. At least not really close friends. At most, she’d just be an acquaintance that I randomly avoid whenever she’s too much for me.

Laughing about making out with your brother’s first crush? Oh… would you look at that? I have to go and wash… my… garden… yeah. Bye!!

Also, I want to say for Pashakitty’s benefit that this would be the same if it was a guy. For me, it’s just another example of how cavalierly people tend to treat sex which isn’t something I really agree with.

Thomas’s face in the middle-left…I kinda want to have a pic of just that. It’s a meme-worthy reaction face.

Okay I was rereading old comics… and since you don’t have a CONTACT area I can find, I’ll have to post this here and hope you read it.

in the news post of
/comics1/852-asking-for-it

You mention between failures and a .net address

Well I went to betweenfailures.net and got a malware warning as follows

The Website Ahead Contains Malware!
Google Chrome has blocked access to betweenfailures.net for now.
Even if you have visited this website safely in the past, visiting it now is very likely to infect your computer with malware.
Malware is malicious software that causes things like identity theft, financial loss, and permanent file deletion. Learn more
Go back Advanced

Witch Hazel, Crave: doesn’t over do the oils, is antibiotic, aids the healing process, and balances PH. You can also try an apple cider vinegar rinsed, neutralizes most things, and gives a nice acid wash to the hair, but is the closest thing to natural skin ph- most shampoos are heavily alkaline.

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