Ménage à 3 Universe Comics

Ruby is taking Zii as a role model?

We saw how she got there, but it's still a fairly radical change for her. She's basically admitting to having sexual desires, which is new; previously, even when she admitted to liking yaoi, she generally tried to say that she read it for the stories or whatever. And she's bending her own rules about consent, whereas previously her morality tended to be rather rigid.

The comic is sometimes prone to back-pedalling on its Character Development, but at present this looks like a bit of a tipping point for Ruby. This strip seems to be saying that this day has been significant for her.

A bit. Borrowing ideas, anyway. But I suspect that she'll continue to be her own woman, even if she's a woman who'll listen to ideas from the friends she's just discovered she can make.

Interesting that character development for Ruby is 'I was a self-righteous prude, now I'm a creep that violates the privacy of others for my own voyeuristic arousal'.

Alternatively, "I was screwed up one way, now I'm overcompensating slightly". Anyway, at least she gets some moderately complex character development.

It's not like she was hiding in the closet... again. They both knew she was there, a desire for privacy was neither expressed or implied. Considering it was practice for skill improvement, a video record was quite thoughtful. Now let's go to the tape.

Ahh, the old 'you were in public (consisting of one bystander) so you had no expectations of privacy' idea?

Yep.

edited 12th Jun '15 5:44:24 PM by Daremo

I'd rate what Ruby did as impolite, but not unforgivable. She shouldn't have done it, but so far, no harm, no foul. (And note that Dillon has a much bigger collection of rather more ethically dubious pics.) If she lets those images out in public, then she'll have slipped over a bit of a Moral Event Horizon.

Actually, I think that there might be a plot to run one day about her 'phone. Aside from these latest images, it has whatever Zii sent her, and also the leg-flashing selfies from a couple of years ago. There's all sorts of plot twists and character jolts possible if that ever gets out of her hands.

Anyway, new Ma3 strip, and it seems that Giz and Dave have worked out how to write a moderately twisty character-driven storyline. (And it's a good thing that this comic really isn't porn, because the yells of "Get on with it" from the peanut gallery would be deafening by now.) The amount of self-deception these two characters are running is truly epic, and now Kiley has got right inside Matt's head...

edited 13th Jun '15 11:56:16 AM by Spindriver

Ruby, not Kiley.

Correct. Sorry. Fixed.

And new Sandra...

Oops. I mean, really, really oops.

Whelp, his brain is definitely fried from the incomputable data input.

"Just let me enjoy this."

"If I don't ever close my eyes again, this dream won't ever end."

"Of all the times to lie down on my right side..."

Kiley, he named the other guy Lothario Cad. Come on.

edited 13th Jun '15 9:22:10 PM by wanderlustwarrior

A busy morning...

New Ma3. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!

New Sandra... Note that the last two panels are a fantasy running inside Alex's head; not all readers are picking up on the rounded frames at first glance.

New SDB. Ruby does want retroactive consent; Ray wants a career. And isn't there a difference between a director and a lighting cameraman?

edited 16th Jun '15 4:39:57 AM by Spindriver

Yes, but it's the director who tells the lighting cameraman what to do, right?

Yup.

Yep, but as I understand it, that's in general terms, and if a shot makes a really nice picture, you can usually thank the cameraman, same way as you credit the photographer for a good photograph (though the director may be responsible for the composition). So lighting cameramen get more kudos within the business than they do with the public.

edited 16th Jun '15 12:01:59 PM by Spindriver

Matt is paying with fire a bit by bringing up that subject with Kiley, don't you think. I mean to some effect they've been operating as a couple already, but he's opening himself up to more moments like that last one from Kiley if he's not taking this seriously or thinking about thingd enough.

Matt is improvising and to some extent panicking, but the possible real nature of their relationship, and the degree to which both of them are in denial about it, is ... an interesting question. But it's Matt who's building a house of cards in a stiff breeze just now.

Of course, at this rate, they'll end up having a serious conversation about their relationship, which Does Not Happen in this comic — so I imagine that Gary and Peggy will finally make it back from the front door next strip.

And I was right. But anyway, yes, I laughed out loud at this one.

Gary may have made himself seem like that ex-boyfriend.

The pattern of the conversation doesn't quite make that work for me.

Anyway, new SDB. I really hope that this is going to lead to a plot development, and not just another Dillon/Ruby/hunky guy joke — maybe the fact that Julian is from Dillon and Ray's home town is significant?

I don't know why, but this particular strip just seemed really bad to me.

If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say it's the speed/lack of ceremony at which this presumably new character is introduced.

And the fact that, for the joke to work, Julian had to be standing right at the door when Dillon's mother called.

It feels like a poorly done Here We Go Again!.

Why can't the other strips be as entertaining as SOTR?