It is very rare for a posting day to land on April Fool’s day. Because of this I felt a much stronger pull to try and do an April Fool’s joke than I normally would. I chose not to because when I read a lot of webcomics I always got angry when someone who complained about not having time to make a comic suddenly made time for a once a year, not very good, joke. That’s not to say I’m against the concept or anything, I just think some people should check themselves before they wreck themselves. Since I barely manage to provide any extra content for the patreon it would be pretty shitty if I suddenly busted out an April Fool’s page instead of just continuing my very slow paced story. It’s also why I stopped doing special holiday pages except in times of great need of filler. That kind of this was practically required in the early days of webcomics, but the people who enforced that culture are nearly all gone now. Since most webcomics are islands unto themselves nowadays we all make up our own rules. This is how I choose to sail my ship.

It is extremely difficult to change a casual reader into a patron. Risking ruining that relationship is dangerous. I regularly do that on accident. Doing it on purpose would be ludicrous. If the comic doesn’t provide enough laughs there’s always my blog to look to for someone to mock anyway. There’s bound to be a chuckle somewhere around here…

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for tonight. I had a late start to the day so I’m finishing this about 30 minutes before it needs to go up. I had a run of a few days where I was getting done nearly a day in advance. In any event I hope you have a nice Wednesday as we say goodbye to the auspicious 20th anniversary month. I will return on Friday as always with more page. Until then, be not proud.

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Me: *Sitting here thinking about my eight romantic partners, many of whom have several of their own*

We are strange, perhaps, but too I think it may be more infrastructural/energy limitations that any limit to the feelings involved.

Most people love a bunch of people, methinks. Or would if they could be safely honest about their feelings, perhaps.

I think it’s also a little out of character for Alex to drop that line about STIs when poly folk are *less* likely to have STIs than the general population. Feels like a Reggie-being-bigoted kinda line where I’d almost expect Alex or Thomas to correct him; Alex because nerd and Thomas because trivia/wiki walking, with Thomas then being like “not for me, but I’m not ignorant,” like he’s confident in his sexuality enough to fuck with John.

Yes to all of this! Gosh I love healthy consensual polyamory!

I think Alex’s primary understanding of Polyamory might come more from the horny side of the internet than actual research into the subject, so she probably equates the concept, at least on some level, with general promiscuity, even though that is not accurate for most poly people, to my understanding at any rate.

Like, I think the logic is, “if person A is sleeping with five people, and each of those people is sleeping with five people, and so on, at some point one of them is going to catch an STD from somewhere, and it’s going to work it’s way back through the polycule.” Now, naturally, someone who understands polyamory as an actual relationship dynamic rather than “gee, it must be hot to be able to sleep with as many people as I want and get my relationship cuddles from as many people as I want, too!” will be able to poke holes in that logic pretty easily, but for someone who thinks of polyamory as more of a sexual fantasy than an actual relationship dynamic, they might not think through it so deeply that they can realize those holes, especially when responding to a question from a friend they weren’t expecting or prepared for and had only a passing familiarity with the concept from possibly not the best sources (ie, horny sources).

Alex is generally a fairly intelligent and learned individual, but as someone who thinks of himself as such an individual, and mostly hangs out with such individuals, we all have our blindspots and sometimes get caught talking out of our butts about subjects we don’t actually know that much about because we have been appointed the defacto expert as the one who knows the most on the topic in the room, even though that isn’t actually that much and “the most in the room” is a very low bar to clear in most rooms regarding most topics.

For every one decent polyamorourist there are a thousand self absorbed hedonists that rove around like disease vectors. Thats why it’s always going to be a fringe lifestyle with a bad reputation. If you want to live that way thats your business, but don’t lie to yourself about how most people see it.

And even if the ratio is the other way around, all it takes is one person being a sleaze for a large number of people to suffer. It’s just simple math. Even “serial monogamy” isn’t unending sunshine and rainbows in that regard.

I’m monogamous, I just have a some friends that are polyamorous.

Also, who gives a crap about how anybody “sees” it? What matters is the reality of the situation. Sure, there are some people who try to use polyamory as an excuse to cheat or whatever, but assholes are gonna be assholes regardless of whether they are poly or monogamous or single or whatever. There are self-absorbed hedonists who become disease vectors without claiming to be poly. There are people who behave like crap in every category of people, so using the assholes in one group as an excuse to hate on the group as a whole is just a crappy way to be, and clearly marks you as one of the assholes yourself.

There are always going to be closed minded morons who decide to bash things they choose not to understand and make up reasons and excuses to justify their crappy views. But by making information available that’s how we get fewer and fewer of those until they become the fringe group with a bad reputation, then the way “most people see it” won’t be based on ignorance and lies anymore.

You can miss me with your kumbaya cope. The reason we have new strains of resistant syphilis is giving people a pass to act however they like. Dating apps and all that crap made everything worse. Call me whatever you like but I don’t want my family to die of airborne mega aids because people want to fuck ten other people on the reg.

Do remember that the author can have characters express opinions without that being the author condoning or promoting said opinion.

Alex is smart but everyone has some prejudices.

Well said.

These two are precious and adorable.

“pft, what are you gonna do, eat me?”
“now that’s an idea”

Bravo!
:)

Love the banter so much.

As for April Fools, have found as I’ve gotten older I’ve moved from trying to do general pranks and laughs in school to maybe a few small gotchas with friends to now it’s just another day, except I explicitly avoid social media to not deal with it. Is that a sign of aging, a reflection on how April Fools can be experienced changing, both, or neither? Who can say haha.

So, he’s officially Reggie “Fuck Cake” Boothe now.

I would cherish a woman who gave me that nickname.

That actually sounds kind of stylish + trendy.

…Reggie “F C” Boothe, would really look, very cool, on a business card.

Plus Alex can then confidently say “My cake is NOT a lie!”

Hee, hee, hee!
That’s fun!
:D

Back when I was doing a lot of tech news for work, I routinely ran into news sources thinking they were “clever” for announcing something ludicrous on April 1 and not bothering to label it a joke.

I hated April 1 with a passion for years.

:33 < love is very complickated and i'm glad someone told reggie this !! your art is amazing as always !!!!! also i realized i spelt arsenic wrongly so sorry about that !!

Speaking of loving five at once, I don’t know if this is before or after the mentioned conversation.

(This is a bit before, same day.)

I suppose it would be bad form to label Jo as ‘Bonnie Blue’ now.

[Said in a Strong, Tony the Tiger voice]-
Beware, Reggie!
IMO- in the arena where the insult fights are held…, compared to Alex- you are a just a cream-puff, if not a cake-puff.
;D

2966 Talking Cake.

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