1140 She Might.

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Like all villains, Jess can’t help telegraphing her intentions. Unfortunately she doesn’t have a cat to stroke, just that huge book.

I really want to talk about this interaction between them, but feel like it will give away too much if I do. Plus it’s not over, so the full canvas isn’t here to discuss. In any case this will probably not do anything to help Jessica’s reputation with people who already are disposed to not liking her. I, however, am very pleased with where she’s going as a character and with what the future holds her and because of her. Many happy accidents have helped further shape her personal arc, which will enrich the story as a whole.

Her doppleganger in the Adventures Of Julius Drywood is also a lot of fun. Once I get around to having that available I think you readers will also enjoy her and her brother’s exploits in that magical land. There’s not enough hours in a day for all this, I tell you. (especially since the Teen requires an insane amount of looking after.)

Even now I am supposed to be watching another movie. It’s some kind of Kung Fu monstrosity that doesn’t intrigue me in any way. I think it’s called Forbidden Kingdom. It was either that of watch Invader Zim for the billionth time. While I certainly do love that show there comes a point with all things where a person feels like they’ve seen it enough. The Teen is not at that point yet. I really need to lobby for the continuation of Doctor Who. If I can just get her past #9 I feel like #10 will hold her attention, which would be great because right now her attention span can only be measured in nanoseconds.

Borderlands still won’t let a second player log in. I feel less dumb because it’s apparently a common problem, but so far nothing anyone has told me to do to fix it has worked. I can’t sign two accounts in on my 360. It’s one at a time only. I feel like it wasn’t always like that, but I can’t find a setting to change it, or whatever it is I need, anywhere. In any case, I’m enjoying the single player stuff at least. The teen isn’t happy unless someone is dying every two seconds (because of that attention deficit thing I mentioned earlier.) So sneaking up on dangerous foes rarely goes well… Tactical combat is not her forte at present. Right now our tactics involve a lot of running and screaming.

71 Comments

Maybe Ed just knows his sister better than I do… but making it into a challenge doesn’t seem like a good strategic move here. I suspect telling her that she can’t do it is likely to have exactly the opposite effect.

I was just watching this because I vaguely remembered it from my childhood.
Compared to My Little Pony it’s…. different.
Here, judge for yourself.
http://youtu.be/GtNX8z5y79U
I couldn’t have been more than 6 when I watched this. There was another one I’ll watch later. Probably next week.

I’ve never had a sister. I have no frame of reference for this situation. Shoot, I’ve scarcely had any women in my life. Well, except mother. I know better now, but the thinking I had growing up is, “She doesn’t count.”

I’m not sure if this has been said yet, but as to the Borderlands problems, are both Xbox Gold Members? If one isn’t, that may be why the box is throwing a fit…

Also- long time reader, first time commenter. Always excited to see what you write next. Keep it up, Crave! =D

I was going to suggest that the opposite might be the problem!
Also, I would suggest that part of the fun of borderlands (for me at least) is the all-out, lack-of-strategic-thinking play style that you can get away with (sometimes ;)

I don’t hate Jess, but the facet of her personality that would attempt to snatch a girl from under her brother, or even joke about it, feels very off to me. I’m not a twin, but I have an brother. We spent years trying to kill each other as we grew up, but now, we’re each other’s steadfast defenders when needed. I won’t let anyone f**k with my brother, I’ll tear the throats of his adversaries with my bare hands if it comes to it. (I’m like this with my friends, as well, which I think I have mentioned on a past comic before.)

Waaiiiiiitttt a minute. Perhaps she has seen that Ed has yet to make a move on his bonnie lass, so she intends to spur him into action via this threat/ultimatum? If so, winning sibling maneuver! If not…Ed needs to hurry up and ask her out anyway, we already know they like each other!

@Neo–

You pretty much made the exact comment I was considering. You even used the word ‘spur’ I chose. Good — now I can go goof off and work.

She’s still being a bitch about it.

There’s no evidence that this would make him do anything positive when all her other exploits have, as she’s stated in the past, basically broken him.

If this were to happen it’d be very much a directed outcome by the other, and not have much basis in actual history for the character, or college level psychology.

The whole ‘breaking point’ thing rarely happens so cleanly or positively. More than likely, if Jess were to actually put the moves on Nina, it would shove a divide between Jess and Ed that would ultimately end up with Ed isolating himself from both of them, or becoming bitter, and more closed off. Much like I said would possibly happen with Jo.

A lot of people praise this comic for it’s ‘real people’ which I tend to agree with, but to do this would be more unrealistic than the other may be willing to go for and feel somewhat ‘funneled’.

This is my assumption. Also if it fails to spur him to action she might get some Nina love. Jess can not lose in this situation.

…

Maybe she is an evil genius? :O

exactly, siblings know how to push the others buttons. She probably knows that he’ll just piddle around and let Nina pass him by. So she’s pushing his buttons to get him to make a move.

Is it bad that I’m torn between the idea of Jess and Nina together and my desire to ship Ed and Nina? Don’t get me wrong, Jess is playing dirty here, but either couple could be cute. Though to avoid being lit by the fires that are internet flaming, I will point out that I am on Ed’s side.

I feel like one of the only people who likes Jess. :/

Other than that, how can you not enjoy Forbidden Kingdom? Yeah it could have been better but it was still fun.

You are not alone! I like her a lot, but she is a unique personality that many people will not understand easily. I look forward to the day people look back at these early conversations and think ‘Wow, never would have guessed then she was so deep’. ;)

I like her too. I’m quite a bit like her. To me, alot of her interactions with Ed just seem like she’s messing with him. She says and does things for the sole reason that they bug him, but she would never intentionally hurt him. The concept of stealing your twin’s crush just for the lulz seems far to cruel for her not to be kidding. She’d never do it, she just gets a kick out of the way he reacts. Same with Thomas. She sees that he’s in a committed relationship and so will flirt with him like crazy, but wouldn’t really act on it. She just seems to enjoy teasing and messing with people, but there is affection underneath it all.

Nice theory, except the fact she HAS stolen girlfriends from him before. It was mentioned about 10 comics ago….. So, her character maybe similar to what you’re saying, but it’s not 100%, in all fairness.

I can see why a majority of fans dislike Jess. NTR by siblings would have that affect on almost anyone… =/

She didn’t “steal” a girlfriend from him. The mentioned girl was an old crush that Ed had gotten over. She wasn’t doing it to hurt him. And the event happened years after his crush on her. She didn’t go after the girl because Ed used to like her. It was implied to be a coincidence. I’ve teased my own brothers about things like this, only because their reactions are amusing.

I think her personality is easily understood. She’s a child. She wants to do whatever she wants, but doesn’t want to get a job, make money, become truely independent or have anyone with any real influence on her life know what she does.

She takes money from her brother, bums around college, doesn’t pay rent or work, and is upset that her mother would find out about her shenangins rather than finding the hypocrisy of enjoying rubbing her brother’s face in it and see his reactions.

Everything screams 12 year old girl aside from her promiscuity.

I’ve known a 12 year old girl who was that promiscuous. It doesn’t happen often, because it requires extroversion, enough sexual maturity to be interested in promiscuity, not buying into the fantasy of the one true monogamous relationship that’s usually pitched to girls, and either a lack of intelligence or a lack of consequences to teach them they need to be more careful.

Most of the girls I’ve known who were sexually mature that young were traumatized by the teasing of their classmates before they were mature enough to have a healthy sexual awakening. Regardless of whether someone is an extrovert or an introvert, when one has PTSD, one generally behaves in a more introverted fashion, especially if it was social trauma.

Disclaimer: I’m not opposed to properly cautious and fully consensual polyamory, but Jess doesn’t strike me as someone who follows what I would consider due diligence. Specifically, she seems less concerned about STDs and consent than I would think is prudent. Now, it could be this comic world doesn’t have STDs, which would excuse the former. But the degree to which she pursued Jo feels like a potential boundaries violation, and it feels like she hasn’t talked with Jo about any current relationships she might have or whether it would be OK with Jo if she pursued Tom, Carol, or Nina. She did, at least, let Jo know of her Tom + Carol interest. I also admit that it feels a bit odd in comics sometimes when characters whip out kink consent checklists (usually called BDSM consent checklists, I think, because they’re so much more critical in relationships with power dynamics).

Forbidden Kingdom is what the remake of Karate Kid wanted to be.

Still, not an unenjoyable version of the Monkey King for westerners, and not a terrible movie. jackie Chan and Jet Li, together along with white haired witches and too much oxpositing? Expositioning?

Too much telling about backstory so you can have a clue what’s going on.

All in all I enjoyed the movie, but would have liked to see more about Buddhist Palm techniques (since they were mentioned.)

That and one armed boxing is still superior. You bastard try this melon.

Personally I’d rather see Jess go after Brooksie.

As for the Borderlands thing you are having the second player hit the xbox button and then sign in after starting up the game right? Only one person can be “officially” signed into the xbox home page at a time even if there are multiple accounts on the same console. That keeps track of who owns what on the system. Also, as Sylex said if they’re not both gold it might try to pitch a fit, but I’m pretty sure there is an offline co-op mode if I remember correctly.

To be honest, I find Jess for lack of a better word. HOT. Like sexy evil kinda HOT. If she were a real person and walked through my door right now and asked if I wanted to *hang out* with her? I’d drop EVERYTHING and jump on that wagon, if you catch my drift. *nudge nudge* *wink wink* say no more, SAY. NO. MORE. “A nods as good as a wink to a blind man. Eh? Eh?”

Gotta agree with you there. She seems like one of those careless, fun, crazy, no-strings-attached kind of girls. You could have fun sexy times with her and she wouldn’t expect forever and ever from you. Just a good time, and maybe a good laugh.

The moment I read the “Biblically”, I couldn’t help but grin. That’s perfect sibling relations, right then and there. Right there, defines a person’s odd need to get under the skin of their sibling. So beautiful. TwT

for those who are really angry at jess, you realize there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that she’ll actually hook up with nina right? and secondly she’s probably mostly saying it to get under ed’s skin, I don’t think she’s so heartless as to try and get into the pants of someone ed is really fond of, and even if she is please refer back to the first sentence.

on the borderlands saving issue, I own the ps3 version so its been a while since I’ve dealt with the xbox version. if worse comes to worst what I think i would do is create a character in single player, log out, create another player on single player on a different profile then load up split screen, flip to existing character, it should allow you to choose the profile, for both player 1 and 2 separately and then load out, when running around in split screen make sure you see the vault symbol pop up in the corner of both screens one after the other when you hit a checkpoint or a fast travel. that should let you know its working. but I’m pulling all this from a distant memory so I may be incorrect. Anyway good luck

C’mon guys, Jess isn’t THAT evil. It’s actually painfully obvious that she’s saying this as an attempt to have her brother actually make a move. If he feels he’ll miss his chance because of his sister (something that he probably worries about often) He will try to beat her to the punch.

Let me just say, “Hedonistic, self-centered free spirit.” There. Not evil, just out to get her thing on.

You forgot hypocritical.

hyp·o·crit·i·cal

/hip??kritik?l/
adjective:

1. behaving in a way that suggests one has higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case

Nope, not seeing that. Jess may be a hot-to-trot vixen and a user, but I don’t see where she’s pretended to be better than she is.

Unless I’ve misunderstood you:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

–Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

“It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is‘ is.

–Bill Clinton

If only one of your xbox profiles is a LIVE user, make sure you change your co-op network mode to local.

I think folks are reading too much into this. Remember the topless bit a while back? Jess likes to do things tweak her brother. And Ed it so uptight and serious, I can imagine the urge to tweak him even a little would be irresistible. Also recall that Jess went out with a girl Ed was interested in *after* he no longer had interest. I think that, in spite of her brazen nature, she wouldn’t cross certain boundaries. After all, they’re siblings, and no matter how much they may get on one another’s nerves, they still care about one another.

In the past Jess went after a girl that Ed liked but never pursued. We don’t know whether she knew ahead of time that Ed had feelings for her or not, but we do know the result caused Ed to lose something.
However, lets not forget the formidable powers of the great Nina. She might be a male-only type of girl and/or easily break down Jess’ game in the way she overwhelms Ed.

What did Ed “lose”
Are you referring to his reaction? Cause that seems like a logical, natural reaction to walking in on your twin sister having sexy times with a former crush of yours….

as far as the Borderlands thing, uhh…I know you might have tried this, but I’m still gonna put it out there, ’cause it’s obscure ‘n shit anyways.

If you have your 2nd controller turned on, and you press the Xbox button in the center, you can sign into a 2nd account using the 2nd controller.

It’s obscure because it took even my uncle and myself (both people who consider themselves tech saavy, since we both can take apart, clean, and build computers pretty easily, and he can practically code up an entirely new OS for it if he wanted to) more than a few minutes to figure it out.

ps. first time (second now) posting, been a fan for at least a year now, your stories were awesome, your comic is even more awesome, looking forward to every page.

My $0.02

Like a lot of others, I am of a mixed mind about Jess.

Jess and Jo – I think that Jess would be playing around, having fun and Jo getting attached and hurt. I love Jo too much to want to see her hurt.

Jess and Nina – Ain’t gonna happen. Several reasons – 1) Nina and Ed are a thing, official, unofficial, they are both into each other and I doubt our Blond Amazon shares. 2) If Jess actually makes a move on Nina and it seriously hurts Ed, the a fore described Blond Amazon will have her guts for guitar strings. 3) Nina like to flirt and play, but she goes only one way.

I can see Jess making herself ‘persona non grata’ fairly easily – she almost pissed off Carol talking about Thomas.

I also think that Jess has an evil sense of humor, but is not A Bad Person herself. I think Jess could be summed up with Poor Impulse Control.

Well, to be fair on the Carol front, she had no idea they were a thing. She doesn’t seem like the type to intentionally destroy a stable relationship. She’s attracted to Thomas because he has no interest in her. But once Carol marks her territory with Thomas, Jess’ll back right off. I mean, really, would YOU mess with Carol?

Hahaha. I am loving all the controversy over this move. :D

Well played Crave. Well played. :cheers:

Let;s pretend we are in Chicago everyone.
Don’t forget to vote early and vote often ladies and gentlemen!
TWC Big link by the comic.

I don’t think Nina would really go for Jess – they’re too much alike. So I have to agree with other people on the thread and say that she’s probably just goading him on purpose to try and get him to chase Nina. However, I don’t think it’s so that he’ll succeed – it’s so that she’ll have someone to “steal” Nina from. Not worried, though – Nina loves our little Eddie.

I’m wondering if Jess is like Batman, the hero the video store needs, but doesn’t necessarily wants right now. If it motivates Ed to action like Diplo’s music motivates women to get low and start twerking then maybe Jess on the low is the truth……Halfway through that sentence I started wondering if Jess likes Diplo and incidentally knows how to ‘Drop it like an Earthquake’.

In the military we had a term for this type of behavior, as being a” Blue Falcon.” Basically it was a nicer way of referring to someone being a” Buddy F@@ker.” The guy hitting on your date or girlfriend while you’re in the bathroom driving the porcelain bus? That’s a Blue Falcon. Oddly appropriate that Jess is wearing a Blue dress.

I just finished an archive binge of this comic. Until this point I had no taste in slice-of-life stories; that era of my life is now over. Maybe it just takes a certain talent to write a good slice-of-life story. I also found the characters full of hidden wisdom and ideas about life I had never thought of and have started taking to heart.

So thanks for making this so far. But it hasn’t even been a month in comic time has it? 20,000 pages later we might reach the 6 month mark.

It’s been about 3 months give or take, but you’ll find that the passage of time is not as important as the story in slice of life works.

Passage of time only matters when something is referenced that might be a bit dated, like the DS lite being the current handheld.

…You ever think about going back and redoing the first few pages?

Since the basic design of the DS is unchanged there’s hardly a reason to worry about it. They seem pretty set on the flip open case for the time being.

What? You mean they AREN’T all buying the 2DS? And I meant just the name. If you just change DS Lite to DS it would actually make the dialogue more timeless.

I’ve actually thought about it. Also changing the micro to phone.

You know, I actually really miss my Game Boy Micro. It was so tiny! I carried it with me many places. It even came with a little velvet pouch that I hooked on a belt loop next to one of my pockets.
Some people probably didn’t like the exceedingly tiny screen, but I didn’t have any trouble with it.
I played so much Final Fantasy VI advance on that little thing!
In fact, I think I ruined myself from FFVI forever…

A bit of a tangent here. I noticed a game on 3DS called Bravely Default. It’s by Square Enix, isn’t a FF title, but has FF spell names.
I’m not sold on it, but it caught my attention enough for me to do an “eyebrow raise” take.

Great comic, one of my favs.

Just wanted to say about borderlands, if you are trying to do splitscreen, you need to make sure that the “network settings” are set to local.

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