Folks, if you’re seeing a messed-up page, it’s because you have a bad version of this site’s style sheet from Tuesday stuck in your cache. You need to get rid of that and get the real, current one that doesn’t look crazy.
Shortpacked! by David Willis
Toys are serious business.
Convention appearances:
Calgary Expo Calgary, AB: April 26-28
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
Multiplex
Sorcery 101
Templar, AZ
The Transformers Wiki
Hail to the Slash
80 page GIANT
Axe Cop
The Book of Biff
Butt-Taco
Comics Curmudgeon
College Roomies from Hell!!!
Diesel Sweeties
Dinosaur Comics
Dr. McNinja
Dresden Codak
Fans!
Fleen
Gastrophobia
Girl Genius
Girls with Slingshots
Goats
Hark, a vagrant
Hijinks Ensue
Intrepid Girlbot
Legend of Bill
Medium Large
Not Invented Here
Octopus Pie
Overcompensating
Penny Arcade
PhDcomics
Power Nap
Questionable Content
Real Life
Rob and Elliot
Bad Machinery
Schlock Mercenary
Sheldon
So Far Apart
Something Positive
Two Lumps
Wapsi Square
Wonderella
Wondermark
Frumph.NET
Sorcery 101
Templar, AZ
The Transformers Wiki
Hail to the Slash
80 page GIANT
Axe Cop
The Book of Biff
Butt-Taco
Comics Curmudgeon
College Roomies from Hell!!!
Diesel Sweeties
Dinosaur Comics
Dr. McNinja
Dresden Codak
Fans!
Fleen
Gastrophobia
Girl Genius
Girls with Slingshots
Goats
Hark, a vagrant
Hijinks Ensue
Intrepid Girlbot
Legend of Bill
Medium Large
Not Invented Here
Octopus Pie
Overcompensating
Penny Arcade
PhDcomics
Power Nap
Questionable Content
Real Life
Rob and Elliot
Bad Machinery
Schlock Mercenary
Sheldon
So Far Apart
Something Positive
Two Lumps
Wapsi Square
Wonderella
Wondermark
Frumph.NET
Tags
amber
animated
batman
botcon
conquest
conventions
dark of the moon
david willis
dinobot
drew
duncan
ethan
faz
galasso
generations
gijoe
guest strip
hamsters
homosexuality
jacob
jesus
joe
justice league
ken
leslie
malaya
megatron
merch
mike
ninja rick
nipple
optimus prime
politics
religion
robin desanto
ronald reagan
roz
sdcc
sg ravage
shattered glass
star wars
tni strips
transformers
transformers prime
ultra car
©2005-2013 David Willis | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑
I rescind yesterday’s feeling bad for Malaya.
Why? For being honest with herself on this one?
for being a college lesbian that never attended college.
and yeah, I didn’t really dislike her as a character until today.
So questioning your sexuality is only ok if it turns out you’re gay?
I think the complaint is that she dated Leslie for a fairly long time and Leslie didn’t know she was questioning and experimenting with her sexuality. Personally – I never had a hard time figuring that yeah, I’m totally gay, so I don’t know what Malaya’s going through. So I don’t have a strong opinion on this.
Ah, but this is Willis-time. Its only been more like a week for the characters, here.
Wrong. It’s not DOA time, it’s Walkyverse time. Walkyverse proceeds on a path concurrent with the real world, except for protracted plot lines. Following these protracted plot lines, the universe plays catchup. Thus, you can generally date an event to the start of its particular plot-arc in the archive.
The more you know!
I feel like I’m Learnin’ on a Wish.
@letterhead I love your comment.
No one condemns Leslie and says “I hate her,” even though we have no idea how many YEARS she strung along her fiance (and then four months her husband) before admitting her sexuality. I hate the Malaya character (because I think she adds nothing to the comic), but I totally understand that she thought she was into girls because she couldn’t get with guys, and so when she finds out she’s straight it’s kind of a ‘damn. Huh, well then.’
For not being lesbian.
For not lying to Leslie and stringing her along FOR ALL ETERNITY.
For doing things that were funny when Mike, Ethan, or Robin did them.
For making a decision that makes Leslie, the perfect paragon of righteousness, unhappy.
For existing.
For being a new character in the comic.
For being a racial minority who is not a good example.
I actually don’t mind Malaya, and hope she stays with the cast and gets more development, so I can see the dislike for all the more vitriolic commenters. But that’s just weak, dude. Let’s take it from the top, shall we?
For not being lesbian.
I think if you look back at her previous appearances, you’ll find that her detractors were not huge fans of her well before today’s strip. Her attitude was earning her ire from the very beginning.
For not lying to Leslie and stringing her along FOR ALL ETERNITY.
No, no, I think stringing her along for a few months was plenty bad enough. No need for overkill.
For doing things that were funny when Mike, Ethan, or Robin did them.
Which ones? Robin did once deceive Leslie about her sexuality, true, but it wasn’t portrayed as particularly humorous (Leslie ran off in tears, and Robin was furious at Ethan for hurting her). Mike treats characters similarly like dirt, but no one denies he’s an asshole. Hell, it’s in his character bio. Mike is an asshole. How is calling Malaya a bitch any less acceptable? They can both still be entertaining. And I can’t see any connection to Ethan whatsoever.
For making a decision that makes Leslie, the perfect paragon of righteousness, unhappy.
Leslie is a flawed, complex character. She is a bit of a doormat, has a bad relationship with her parents, can be easily tempted into doing things she knows are wrong by appealing to her lust, and shows willingness to do morally questionable things like sell CPRs to please Galasso or force Robin into making out with her by law. In other words, she’s human. We’re upset that she’s unhappy because we like her and relate to her, not because she is flawless.
For existing.
Her roommate Arnold and pet Iguana were dubbed fan favorites almost immediately, and even Leslie’s mom got a lot of praise. We’re generally pretty well disposed to people around here, regardless of their importance. Existing is not a problem with us.
For being a new character in the comic.
We like Ken and Jacob fine.
For being a racial minority who is not a good example.
We like Ken and Jacob fine. Also Robin. And Faz. And Roz, though she annoys some people as well. A large portion of this cast is a minority in some way or another, and they are all flawed people.
…I think your sarcasm detector may be broken on this one.
Could be. It’s late.
I don’t like Malaya because she doesn’t really add much.
And she’s annoying as hell.
Agreed, but I think she’s supposed to represent the slacker-entitlement/hipster generation achetype. It explains the entitlement issues, her dislikinging the notion of having to pay for a place to stay, and her motivation to annoy and discredit anyone who has made something of their lives.
Uh…
Ahahahahahaha
I second that emotion!
Third. ahahahahaaaa
This is why I love Malaya, as a fictional character.
Ooh! Clitblock!
(is that the appropriate feminine form?)
Guilded Age teaches us that the correct term is “boxblock”.
Clitorference!
I prefer “minge-pinched”
That sounds painful
I personally always thought it was “twatblocked”
I’ve always heard “Clam Jammed”
I believe cockblocking for lesbians would be a Beaver Dam
that sounds more like a condemnation. “I BEAVER DAMN YOU!!!!”
TwatBlock is the one I’ve heard most often
Lol at this conversation
Clam Jammed is what I’ve always heard.
In australia i believe we call it fanny-trap
… Not related to the notorious V. Dentata, I presume?
You seriously did not just say that, Malaya. You did NOT just say that.
Yes she DID.
Damn you Willis, DAMN YOU. You’ve seriously outdone yourself this time.
Finally, Shortpacked gets a cast member who’s sexuality ISN’T non-normative.
You’re right. Amber? Galasso? Ronnie? Ninja Rick? Faz? Roz? None of them are straight.
Oh wait, you’re an idiot.
Galasso doesn’t really count, he doesn’t even understand the concept of sexuality so he has yet to be classified of anything. Also Rick and Faz at least attempted gay sex of their own will.
I guess it depends on what you mean by “normative.”
If you mean “straight”:
Galasso doesn’t understand the concept of gender. And even if he did, he’s an expy of Norman Osborn, and only sees females as tools to sire the next Green Gob– er, Galasso.
The SP! version of Ronald Reagan admitted he was bisexual in a pep talk he gave to Robin.
Ninja Rick might be straight, but he’s also hopeless. As far as we know his “sword” has only penetrated Faz, and by accident at that. Of course, this could just be because Rick is super secretive about his sexual conquests, he is a ninja after all.
In spite of his attempts to cast himself as the next Don Juan, Faz has, by his own admission, only ever been with men.
And all of those are tertiary characters at best, while Ronnie was effectively written out of the strip.
Even so, if you *don’t* mean “straight”:
Amber has never been in a healthy relationship with anyone and is probably too emotionally damaged to ever start. She gets off on tormenting MIKE ferchrissakes. 0_o
Roz is a professional slut, a self-professed cam-whore. That’s neither mean nor median behavior.
And of the males above, probably only Ronnie (who isn’t technically a Shortpacked! character, and is no longer in the strip) counts in this regard. Galasso for obvious reasons, Ninja Rick because he’s one of those “mai waifu” white otaku freaks, and Faz because of his unchecked narcissism.
Ronald Reagan never said he was bisexual. That is a weird thing to claim!
Actually, Rick and Faz slept together on purpose first. People always seem to forget about that little event.
God, Malaya is just the worst. You’d really say that out loud in front of her, now?
Uh, yes, and that’s what Les likes about her.
I thought Les was under the impression that Malaya was at least Bi. Then again she did pursue Robin who reveals herself as Straight With An Exception.
BWA HAHAHA HA HA HA HA
omigosh. I’m dying, here. *tear
Well played, Malaya, well played. Mike would be proud.
OMG Malaya is The Unborn Amber+Mike spawn sent back from the Future to destroy Shortpacked.
Oh Malaya. Not one redeemable quality.
Other than her pure awesomeness.
Indeed. If she had some, it would be a redeeming quality.
Well… She does have a great rack.
Okay, fine, she just has that redeeming quality. Or… those two redeeming qualities… but that’s it! Boobies will not stop the rage!
Boobies will not stop the rage? Then the rage dont deserve my respect.
The funny thing, she really *doesn’t* have a great rack. If Leslie’s mother hadn’t immediately agreed, I’d have thought that it was the first inanity to pop into a stunned mind. As it is, I was shocked to see Leslie say it.
*Leslie* has a great rack. Maya’s is nice, but the personality package behind it is so disgusting that any physical attributes are hard to notice. (Which is ironic, as it usually works out the opposite way in real life.)
Are you suggesting that being a lesbian would have been a redeeming quality?
No, not leading a good person of the same sex on unless you were positive that you were at least bi would have been a redeeming quality.
But how was she supposed to figure it out, without trying out dating with someone she was attracted to?
BTW, Malaya, I don’t think you should rule out the possibility of being bi just from one kiss. It could just be that Leslie isn’t a very good kisser, or that the chemistry just isn’t there with this one particular woman. I’ve kissed people of both genders where the sparks didn’t fly — it didn’t mean I’m not bi, it just meant that the “magic” wasn’t there with those particular individuals.
Another possibility, of course, is that she may have built up unrealistic exceptations for that first kiss, which (by the time it finally happened) poor Les just couldn’t live up to.
BTW, I still don’t care for Malaya, but after the last couple of strips, I’m willing to see where character development takes her (i.e., now that she’s received some).
How about “I think I like you, I’ve never been with a another woman before and I’m not sure if I am gay or not, but I’d like to try.”?
Hell that’s honesty and speaking your mind.
I don’t remember; were we ever actually shown if Malaya actually mentioned her orientation to Leslie?
Nope.
But that was mostly in response to people going on with “How else was was she supposed to find out?” by giving a reasonable way of telling Leslie that she didn’t know if she was or not.
It is possible they did have such a discussion though, we’ll see. But i doubt it.
Actually, she started pursuing Leslie just to mess with Robin. Pretty much a psycho bitch kind of thing to do. I think Leslie’s problem is that she’s attracted to psycho bitches.
Being able to speak her mind IS a redeeming quality. It’s just also a double edged sword.
Agreed, it is a redeeming quality – unfortunately the quality of the mind that is outspoken is irredeemable it seems.
well, isn’t THAT a twist
Balrog DID say that Malaya is straight and has had lots of boyfriends, so I always thought this was at least a possibility.
Makes sense now that we’re here but I did not see it coming at all. Shame to find a romantic connection only to discover that on a sexual level you’ve got nothing.
To be fair, Willis did his level best to make Zangeif look like an idiot.
I thought his name was Zangief.
I can’t remember every possible spelling of Dhalsim’s name.
I swear this is the only Walkyverse meme I enjoy.
I always saw T.Hawk as more of a straightman than a dummy in his interactions with the rest of the cast.
It took me many, many seconds to realize you weren’t talking about some LOTR demon I had not noticed in the comic.
Or Arnold’s screen name or something.
Wah wah wah WAAAAAAAAAAAAH.
But no, seriously, I’m glad I wasn’t quick to feel sympathy towards her just yet. This oughta be good wherever it goes from here.
WOW I reserved hating Malaya until just this very moment. WOW
Malaya…how could you? : (
DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT FUCK.
If I’m going to play around with a straight girl she better tell me she’s straight from the get-go.
At least this explains why Leslie hasn’t been able to score.
How could she? Are you kidding? It’s what she does.
Seems like she didn’t realize she was straight until just now.
What the eff?
My mind, she is blown. A non-gay character?
Malaya’s going to be the Token Straight now?
Dude, Amber’s getting married to a guy and having his baby.
But that doesn’t automatically make her straight, unless you are declaring Amber’s straightness to be your Word of God.
I might destroy you.
She did say once that she’s the only straight person she knows…
It’s the word of god, herself, and her actions…. so she’s probably a lesbian too. (Note that Willis didn’t say anything about Mike during all this. I STILL BELIEVE!)
Mike is whatever you don’t want him to be.
In that case I sure do hope that in Dumbing of Age we never see any Mike x Ethan, I sure would hate that.
Yes that would be simply awful and cause mental trauma.
Let the Amber/Malaya shipping begin!
She just hasn’t been introduced to Sal yet. Everyone is gay for Sal.
Really Ethan and Leslie are the only truly gay characters. Robin’s really a Leslisexual. Mike’s sexuality is mostly dependent on what will mess with people the most. Amber is straight, Galasso is asexual, Galasso’s daughter is generally hetero but bisexual in a porno/stripper kind of way, Jacob is hyperhetero, Faz is sexually flexible but self identifies as straight, Ninja Rick likes the chicks, and Ken is straight, too. Having a handful of actually gay characters and a bunch of characters who are queer friendly doesn’t make “everyone gay.”
…I don’t think it works like that, Malayas. O_o
Worked that way in reverse for Ethan.
Didn’t it also go that way with Robin? Or does that not count due to the fact she was never with anyone beforehand?
Ah, but Robin isn’t gay. She’s “straight – with an exception.” In addition, Robin has been with a (single) man before, and though it was during a cadurbury egg cereal blackout preventing her from actually remembering it, I believe we’ve seen Robin exhibit enough attraction to men (and, other than with Leslie, non towards women) to establish that she is indeed straight “with an exception”, as she said to someone (I’m forgetting who) 25-200 strips ago.
To Malaya, I believe, faceclone.
No, I think it was Ryu, because he was insinuating they date to get back at Les for the whole Transformes 3 thing.
Speaking from someone with experience. I think Robin is just… she loves who she loves.
Also, I’d like to point out that she also stated she had a crush on Amber. This was an arc, remember? Where Mike and Amber move out? Yeeeaaahhh… There was also things Joe commented about with Robin.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d classify Robin as bi. You can’t have AN exception if there are at least three in your character’s history. Of course, she can choose how she wants to identify herself, but she’s also a fictional character.
Female sexuality tends to be more complex. But it was shown that Robin has at least more than one exception (she was crushing on Amber before). So I think when she said “an exception” she was just taking a baby step (kind of like some, but not all, girls who identify as bi in college).
But there seriously are straight girls who just have “an exception” and lesbians married to men who are say the same thing (see Erika Moen). Female sexuality tends to be less binary and more confusing than male sexuality.
PS- I like it that I’m a robot.
Why would male sexuality be any less ambiguous?
It isn’t that female sexuality is more complex than male, it’s that society trains men to deal with sexuality in a certain way and women in another. It’s never okay for a guy to actually have real feelings, while for a woman it’s pretty much their job. I’d wager that if gender roles were reversed, we would find exactly the opposite.
Also, the stigma attached to female homosexuals is generally less than that attached to males (Assuming the women are generally considered attractive, since it ties in to a ludicrous fantasy). To men anyway. I can’t really speak for how women feel about them.
Maybe I should’ve said “tends to be expressed in a way that is more complex”? Women are more likely to have had female partners, but less likely to identify as being homosexual. I’d be surprised if reporting error doesn’t factor into some of these differences.
“It isn’t that female sexuality is more complex than male, it’s that society trains men to deal with sexuality in a certain way and women in another.”
Nature/nurture. You’re not actually disagreeing with R, just giving it a societal explanation. I don’t know the whys, but I would agree with R that women tend to have a more fluid approach to sexuality than men. On the “nature” side, it’s interesting to note that when testosterone levels are increased in test subjects, men and self-identified lesbians tend to become more focused on their primary gender of attraction, while self-identified straight women tend to become more attracted to both genders. (For the record, I heard this on a podcast – Radiolab, I think – but I haven’t been able to find confirmation elsewhere.)
Joyce SO doesn’t count.
To be clear it was in the movies(transformers 3 I believe) when ken went like ‘too bad you’re not straight or we could go out and make them(Malaya and Leslie) jealous.’ ‘I am straight, with an exception’ sadfaces.
Jeese guys. Without your shortpacked trivia how do y’all expect to pass the test?
“Worked that way in reverse for Ethan.”
And for Leslie.
Princess Leia, technically.
If Malaya is making a joke, it’s a pretty sick, twisted one.
Can’t all be Robin
Thank God for that
Frankly, as sad as it might make leslie to have this fall apart after all that, they never felt right for each other IMHO.
As long as this conversation doesn’t end in a helicopter crash!
When I saw the ‘if you’re seeing a messed up page’ comment below, I thought it was in reference to Malaya….
Hehe. Yeah, my style sheet is just fine, and this is still a little messed up.
i was like thank goodness its still thurs…NOOO! i have to wait ’til monday to find out what happens next. well played willis, well played
B|
oh, and yeah I’m seeing a messed up page. The thing below the comic jpg is covering the last quarter of the comic and everything to the right is squashed together.
Just hit refresh. At least, it worked for me.
Shift+Refresh if that doesn’t work. Forces a cache-clear.
Holy Mood Whiplash Willis!
I can feel the readers newfound sympathy for Malaya disappearing fast!
It’s all according to his Master Plan. Once he’s got us fully under his thrall, he’ll use us to TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! D=
Unless SOPA stops him of cause.
I disagree; I still have sympathy for Malaya. It sucks to be in that situation. And as she said herself, Leslie had been as straightforward as Malaya, she would have saved herself years of pain.
What situation? The situation where she played lesbian just to screw with Robin for long enough that she started to believe it herself, only to be forcibly reminded of the truth once things started to actually get physical?
Wait. Since when was that the situation? We’ve had absolutely no indication that Malaya was trying to screw with Robin. This is very clearly a girl who was trying to experiment with the same sex.
Malaya hasn’t really done anything wrong. She jus happened to realize that she was straight at the worst possible moment.
The worst possible moment would be when Leslie realized she was gay.
Malaya’s moment was merely unfortunate.
…now watch as Leslie is so surprised that she crashes the helicopter in a classic Willis angst-fest.
well i hate her now, well not hate but seresoly blarg bitch move DX
why is that a bitch move? she clearly felt like she was attracted to leslie, turns out she wasn’t.
why is that a bitch move? she clearly felt like she was attracted to leslie, turns out she wasn’t.
good point, still i dont like her.
First Robin, then Malaya. Why does Leslie keep falling for people who aren’t sexually attracted to her? Why do I want them to succeed?
Next up: Ethan
Pretty sure Robin IS attracted to Leslie — it’s why she tried so hard to get Leslie back at first.
The only reason why she banged the dude before hand was because she wanted to see if it was what she needed — if you remember when Malaya first came back in, Robin tapped that in a way to “steal” her lesbian back.
Robin wasn’t initially attracted to Leslie, she was using her. It was quite some time before she even liked Leslie in the fashion that people are used to.
What I thought you were saying is that Robin isn’t attracted to her at this current point, from what I read. I’m sorry for misreading.
You know, Leslie probably wasn’t too focused on kissing her back … with the whole “flying the helicopter and all”.
Helicopters can have autopilots, you know.
Just because the ‘copter has an autopilot, doesn’t mean that it was on.
I came to the comments to see if anybody else imagined an imminent BOOM CRASH
I did but I probably came to late to this party
I actually knew a girl who tried dating another girl a couple of times. She figured she was 75% straight, had just exited a disastrous relationship with a dude, and thought she’d try her luck.
Didn’t work for her. She told me that she hasn’t totally abandoned the notion that she’s a little bi, but now it’s more like 90% straight.
But she was absolutely clear with her date from the get go that this was just an experiment, and not to expect anything. Malaya’s a bitch, and if she respected Leslie half as much as she implied in the last strip, she would not have been honest with her from the start.
Of course, Robin flat out pretended to be gay to Leslie in an attempt to snare Ethan, so it’s not like she was much better when it came to this. Still, she didn’t lead Leslie on for months and was quite upset when Leslie’s feelings were hurt.
Please note, Robin legitimately CARES about Leslie.
It should be obvious by now that Robin ISN’T straight. She’s stupid, but she loves Leslie and has on multiple occasions gotten down licky-licky style with her.
Robin with the dude was an experiement and she enjoyed it if I remember correctly, but that doesn’t mean she’s not into Leslie.
Is there no middleground here? Lesbian or Straight…. Robin’s definitely bi, or she loves who she loves. (Mike doesn’t count, he went for whatever fucked with people more. Mike is just… mike.)
Yes, that’s my point. Both Robin and Malaya feigned attraction to Leslie. Robin to get in Ethan’s pants, Malaya (I’m guessing based on what we know) because she wasn’t sure if she was straight or not, and wanted to find out.
It was an insensitive move for both of them. But whereas Robin clearly DID care about Leslie’s feelings (she was very upset when Ethan Anti-Outed her, breaking Leslie’s heart), Malaya seems rather dismissive, and just flat-out bluntly stated “Sorry, turns out I’m not into you after all”.
Robin is a thoughtless ditz, but clearly never intended to hurt Leslie. Malaya strung her along for months, and should have been well aware of what she was doing.
“Accidental bitch who felt remorse” > “Conniving bitch who should know better”.
I’m also going to point out that sexuality isn’t something people can just… magically figure out in a few months, some people are lucky and it’s clear as day for them.
But I’m gonna take the stance that yeah, Malaya pulled a dick move (I’ve been in Leslie’s position) — but it’s a really really hard thing to realize, sexuality, I mean.
Malaya thought she could make it work, but she couldn’t. I… think Leslie IS partly at fault here. Leslie didn’t just ask her what she felt — if SHE was straight or if she had any problems with her sexuality.
We know for a fact that Leslie… sucks at communicating — it was an error on both parties, I guess.
wow, I should not be typing this and trying not to fall asleep, sorry.
That may very well be so, but if I’m recalling correctly, Malaya is the one who initiated the flirting all around by showing an interest in Leslie when she first arrived at Shortpacked! It was apparantly harmless questions at first and then full blown attempts to seduce her i.e. changing in front of her and getting Leslie to massage her “pulled” muscles (all after asking her type of girl).
Leslie (or any dude in the same situation) had no reason to believe she was not being advanced on, and when Leslie made a move on Malaya at the Transformers movie (the whole making out suggestion), Malaya response was a positive one. Leslie had no reason to suspect Malaya might be unsure of sexuality when she was making such adamant advances.
You’re right, very much so.
Right now? I’m chalking it up to 100% miscommunication and Malaya just… figuring out her sexuality and simply reaffirming that she’s not interested in that sort of thing from Leslie.
thanks for reminding of this, though. Haha.
I’d like to add that I don’t hate Malaya. She’s the type of person that everyone has met at least one of. It’s not that she’s a “bad” or “evil” person. It’s that she comes across as very selfish. What will really impact her overall character is how she handles this situation now that she has come to the realization that she is not in fact a lesbian.
Personally, I hope she still shows Leslie the admiration and (friendly) affection she has been giving her. This will show that she is not only a person who speaks her mind, but is completely honest and genuine about what she is feeling and truly means what she says.
After all, doesn’t that remind anyone of someone else that Leslie fell for?
Oh, yes definitely. Honestly, I’m in the same boat as you. I don’t hate Malaya right now, but… she’s not a character I like right now. However, I DO admire her for the fact that she’s willing to even TRY and be a better person.
(I also basically said a rehash of what you did a while a go down the page, haha)
“Accidental bitch who felt remorse”?
Well remorse for sure, but when you string her through a facade of a relationship for an intended period of time, and then after you start to (GASP) like them as a person you knowingly and willingly continue to manipulate them towards your goals at their expense, I don’t know if we can play the accidental card.
She felt remorse that Leslie got hurt for sure, but not for her actual actions. I believe the term for that is being sorry that you got caught.
And you know when you get right down to it remorse is worth its’ weight in fucks I don’t give. Especially with someone like Robin where we know full well that regret won’t stop her from doing it again next time. Apologies are worthless, and when push came to shove all she did to make up for it was buy herself a clean conscience before proceeding to make the same mistake repeatedly and consistently straight into present day.
I’m really not seeing where in Robin’s premeditated (as much as anything is for her) manipulation of a stranger there’s a redeeming attribute. Yes, they did eventually go on to make a cute couple, and there was happiness to be found, but that doesn’t make anything alright about what she did back then.
*Extended period of time. Must have not been paying attention to the spell-check.
Yeah, I think saying “she loves who she loves” is probably closest.
Hahaha. Man , I love how almost everyone in the comments are all like “Oh man, Malaya’s such a bitch, there’s no redeeming features to her” now, but whenever Mike’s pulled similar moves it’s all “Haha, Mike’s awesome.”
Yeah, and Mike does it on purpose, as opposed to Malaya, who at least apparently thought she was gay.
You noticed that too? She’s evil for being straight! She’s straight and not AMBER!
Prepare yourself for rationalization why Mike is better than Malaya!
Also I don’t see how this changes what Malaya said last strip, but apparently it does because apparently thinking you’re a lesbian, but realizing you’re not one is awful and a sign of how horrible Malaya is…
Yeah, my reaction was much less “oh noes Malaya is awful” and more “just because THAT lady didn’t work for you doesn’t necessarily mean you’re straight…”
I think it’s perfectly fine to go on a date to find out whether a person turns you on. Why’s everyone jumping down her throat?
Because she led Leslie on, pure and simple. Leslie just had her heart broken once. Malaya should have been honest from the beginning to keep it from happening again.
But as pointed out – sexuality is not something that is simple. Malaya seemed to have confused the fact that Leslie is nice (something Malaya doesn’t seemed to be accustomed to) for romantic attraction and thus assumed she was a lesbian who was attracted to her.
It seems unintentional and the whole “she led her on” thing seems to be inspired by Malaya hate rather than what actually happened!
We do tend to judge people based on past experiences with them, and until this week Malaya has done nothing to earn any of my sympathy whatsoever. I will freely admit that I’m prejudiced in this matter. A character I don’t like has just hurt a character that I do. Anger is a natural response. I’ll try to reserve judgement until we know more about Malaya’s thought process, intentions, etc. through this whole thing, though.
I’d have to say it’s because of what Jellomonster123 below just said – Malaya’s cruelty is much easier to villianize…
It’s not really fair to her, but it’s worse because Mike’s there. It shows that they have a double standard – and having a double standard is a bad thing so they jump through loops to prove that Mike deserves love and to be cheered on.
I like Mike and I don’t really know how I feel about Malaya, but I HATE people who can’t acknowledge their own double standards and try to paint others as wrong about them when others point out the double standards – all for the sake of not having to think about their own faults…
People have said it before- we like Mike because he’s a larger-than-life character. His meanness is so over the top that it’s funny. Malaya is more realistic. I can guarantee that most Malaya-haters have met someone like her in real life, and that colors our perceptions.
If I was in any way computer-savvy I’d link to the Refuge In Audacity and Crosses The Line Twice pages on TVTropes.
You’re basically saying “we know we’re wrong, but fuck that – we don’t wanna be. Malaya’s worse because she’s more realistic!”
I get refuge in audacity, but Mike is a worse person than Malaya…
Wait – this is off argument, but I just realized… I am a Malaya…
I’m bitchy, rude, selfish, and insult people all the time…
Life has dealt me one to many harsh blows and painful situations and I just don’t know any other way to react to people – it’s be an ass or be to shy to speak to people…
I don’t think I’m wrong, but I need to step out of this debate – it’s gotten to personal for my tastes and I don’t want to start getting invested in this character and putting my own problems over hers…
I’m gonna bow out too. It’s too late at night to think straight and I’m gonna say something stupid any second now. Goodnight.
Wait, what? It is totally and completely impossible for someone to have a legitimate reason for liking Mike and hating Malaya, simply because Mike is a dude it must be because there’s some sort of double-standard? Now, I don’t hate Malaya, especially not with the vitriol of some others here, but that logic seems screwed up.
For once, can we all agree to disagree and not start a flame war, please?
And for the record, I don’t like Mike as a person, I like him as a character. He’s absolutely awful, but he does make me laugh.
They never said the double standard had anything to do with Gender and/or sex.
I know someone like Malaya in real life, and she’s awesome. Her unrepentant pessimism and honesty are consistently hilarious and insightful.
I find people like that just plain unpleasant and toxic to be around. Yeah, life sucks, we get reminded of it everyday. I don’t need another unsolicited voice reinforcing that.
I prefer my own methodology for going through this B rated adventure called life. Be the an optimistic pessimist. Know that everything can and will go wrong in the worst possible way but still hope for and rejoice when things actually go well.
I don’t like Malaya, but I don’t really… not like her? As someone who’s been in Leslie’s position before, yeah, it’s kinda a dick move. Mike does it on purpose and most of the crap he does IS unrealistic. Malaya? Everyones met their own little Malaya — she’s just, easier to villainize, because of just that. We’ve all met someone like her.
Sooo, that’s my little piece.
Oh and notice that they are mad that Malaya said exactly what was on her mind – the thing that Leslie just said she liked about her – admit-ably lacking in manners, but she could have led Leslie on and her her feelings further – something that doesn’t cross Malaya Haters minds at all – it’s just more about how evil she is!
Basically she was damn from the start – hold off breaking up with her and she’s either “making it worse” or “disproving the one good thing Leslie pointed out”; do what she did and she’s “intentionally” breaking Leslie’s heart…
Isn’t ironic that everyone is totally against forgiving her and find any excuse to hate her well her whole shtick seems to be seeking forgiveness, but having trouble (heck being a downright failure at) changing (something that isn’t easy for anyone).
I’m gonna just +1 this.
It’s a dickmove, but. She did say what she’s feeling, which is what Leslie liked about her.
I also guess that people seem to forget that sexuality isn’t something that people just figure out over night.
+2 to this. Yeah, sexuality and relationships are sooooo easy to figure out. All you have to do is try hard enough, right? Malaya should have thought of absolutely everything that could have gone wrong ever, and dictated those terms to Leslie in advance.
How dare Malaya be honest about her feelings of confusion! The nerve!
+3!
You do realize that some of us who hate her hate himas well, right? Mike is not universally loved. Though at least he tends to just hoiver in the background and come out foir a punchline. If she did the same she’d prtobably be a lot less hated.
I don’t really care about today’s development. It doesn’t change much really. It’s their first date, not Malaya’s fault that Leslie made a huge deal out of it. She’s not responsable for Leslie’s baggage or how she chooses to handle it.
I only use Mike because he is usually liked by the people who hate Malaya; my argument will stands as things Malaya does arn’t all that horrible compared to Mike.
As mentioned – I like Mike!
Another person she is compared to is Robin – who has been shown to be quite bad herself, but loops are jumped through in order to prove she is faultless. (Not that I hate Robin either)
I guess I haven’t made my feelings clear about Leslie – I feel bad for her of course. This is terrible for her, but personally I’m glad it cuts off here – I don’t think Malaya was a good match for her…
I just think that Malaya is capable of being redeemed – if not in her haters eyes than in the stories eyes. It’s just that if that was to happen it doesn’t matter how – her haters would still hate her. She could save orphans from a burning bus and solve world hunger and they’d roll their eyes and twist it into something evil…
There is a point in which disliking a character turns from sensible to – WAY TO INVESTED! A lot of the hate towards her seems to have taken this turn; she doesn’t seem that much worse than anyone else – except she’d rude to everybody else…
Except Ethan – Ethan is a perfect stud – I mean gentleman. I love him with every fiber of my being – I mean we should all love him – uh with every fiber of our beings? Heh-heh…
It is riddiculous the way some people insist on practically marrying their opinions about characters. I’d happily change my mind about Malaya if she got some character development or proved herself sympathetic. I was starting to this week, in fact. Too bad most people are so stubborn.
Clearly, Mike is the superior Mike.
More seriously, though, whenever Mike acts like a jerk, it’s delivered by Willis in an over-the-top manner that makes it comical. He’s also really clever about how he goes about it. Mike is comic relief.
Malaya, on the other hand, is played as a straight character, and so her antisocial behavior is significantly more aggravating. She isn’t comic relief, she’s just a bitch.
Mike does it to a comedic level so it doesn’t seem real.
Someone set us up the bomb!
Oh, Malaya you so crazeh.
Am I missing something? I don’t see why Malaya is such a bitch right now.
She was bi-curious, decided to give the same sex a try and she gave Leslie an HONEST shot. She was really trying to like Leslie romantically and sexually and to have Leslie like her back.
I suppose everything hinges on what she says NEXT (Friday cliffhanger? Damn you, Willis!), but sometimes relationships plain don’t work out for legitimate reasons and I don’t think either person needs to be labelled a bitch when that happens.
She could’ve ran it past Leslie that she wasn’t 100% sure about her sexuality earlier. Give a little heads up.
Still, this is might just as an unpleasant revelation to Malaya as it is to Leslie. She was probably banking on being bi pretty hard.
It’s their first date. First dates exist as experiments to see if you actually like the person in question.
Leslie thought they were dating for a while now, if I remember correctly.
Is this their first date? When Amber was all, “You hit that yet?”, that left me with the impression that they’ve been going out for some time now, but hadn’t taken things to a physical level.
It’s fine that Malaya wasn’t sure of herself, but she had to have known Leslie was an experiment. And Leslie really ought to have been tipped off on that ahead of time as well.
Yeah! I think it’s OK to go on a few dates to see whether somebody turns you on. If you find out that they don’t, it’s best to tell them super-soon.
Malaya never claimed to be experienced with women.
Her conclusion is foolish, but it’s not mean or bitchy.
Well, I guess we could call her homophobic, maybe? Dunno. Her skin is brown, and so people condemn her for things Ethan did? Nah, the regular prejudices don’t seem to fit.
Kind of a dick move there, Malaya.
AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh my gosh, Malaya.
She…she lacks tact. Yes. Yes, that’s it. Tact.
“On Earth, we have–”
“Had.”
“–this thing called ‘tact’.”
Sorry, first thing that sprang to mind.
That’s because you’re a frood who really knows where his towel is.
Wow, I’m not getting the Malaya hate. She liked this girl. She thought she might be attracted to this girl. She thought it might work. As it turns out, she was wrong. That’s unfortunate, but it’s not like they’ve been dating for months or years or something and she was leading Leslie on and then she was like, actually I’m straight. This is clearly their first time even kissing. It’s really not that big of a deal, especially when you consider that on the same page Leslie was talking about how she got married to someone of a gender she wasn’t attracted to.
The little sticking out the tongue to indicate “ick, that wasn’t fun” is probably some of why people are filing this one under “dick move”. Not a nice thing to do while within sight of the person who just did the kissing.
She was tasting.
She must’ve had too much garlic for dinner then. XD
She liked this girl. She thought she might be attracted to this girl. She thought it might work. As it turns out, she was wrong.
Did she, though? She’s always been straight, according to her roomie (who ought to have at least some clue); she’s never shown any sign of being attracted to women at all before, and even now, she didn’t perk up until (it seemed to me) she thought she could annoy Robin by hitting on Leslie.
So far as I could tell, her going after Leslie was entirely just a way of annoying Robin. If she manages to “get” Leslie, she “wins”.
That is a completely dick move. And she’s carried it a lot further and longer than I’m sure she was ever intending, for whatever reason (she actually does kind of like Leslie and doesn’t want to hurt her, or she just doesn’t know how to break it off, whatever)– but now she’s hit a point where she can’t fake it anymore. At all. Because– guess what, surprise– she’s straight.
I am 100% not surprised by that.
And I think that, especially when it was RIGHT on the heels of Leslie saying what she did about not speaking up soon enough, she wasn’t actually being a horrible bitch, so far as the whole “Guess I’m straight” thing goes. But I do think she’s been using Leslie, and I don’t like that.
Is she better/worse that Robin/Mike/whoever? Meh. Probably not, but she’s the unlikable newcomer to a cast we’ve been friends with for years, so why wouldn’t we dislike it more when she acts like this than when they do? Honestly, if it was Robin, we’d probably all laugh and make good-natured comments about how she’s screwed up, but there wouldn’t be as much “OMG Robin’s a bitch!!” because, well, we know her and love her and that does make a difference.
But Malaya’s been a selfish jerk right from Day One, so why would we like her?
I used to hate Malaya too, but somewhere along the line I just got really bored by her. I don’t like her as a character, she’s just an ignorant, selfish cow, and I just don’t like seeing her there. She’s wasting space that could have been used by more interesting characters. I can’t wait for her to eventually be fired/quit.
I feel bad for Leslie, though. I hope this ends up with Leslie getting back together with Robin.
Where the hell is she, anyways? We haven’t really seen her in forever.
She pulled a reverse-Ethan!!!!!
That was my first thought too!
It is in perfect accord with everything we’ve seen about her that Malaya would believe she was lesbian and try to hook up with the one person she seems to respect, only to realize at the last moment that she actually is straight. Well done Willis, well done.
Also cue this exchange next Monday:
Robin: Hondo, it looks like you still have a chance!
Ken: Really?
Robin: Nope!
But, but…. I don’t WANT a chance with her…
Whoops…
MALAYAAAAAAAAAA
Damn if only if only there was some other somewhat abrasive woman who was into chick at the store.
Um, why are people angry. Leslie was just going on about how she should have come out early in her marriage. And so Malaya did exactly that. Furthermore, this is the inverse of the line Ethan used on Robin long ago. Nobody antagonized him for it.
Double standard.
Exactly – it’s the most sicking thing about the hate towards Malaya. If they just hated her then it’d be fine – that is perfectly normal!
Their hate makes them twist ever action and word she says into something evil and cruel – you’d think she was the unquestioned villain of Shortpacked!
Or as I’m sure it will be renamed if her haters get their way “Malaya the Flat-Villain Caricature Who Shits on all that is Good vs Mike the Noble”
We could always call hem racist and anti-woman? Naw.
I don’t exactl like Malaya, but I can’t fault her for this strip.
I dislike Malaya and Mike about as much.
Hating takes energy I’m not going to bother wasting on comedic fiction.
That said, today’s punchline was hilarious.
Okay, where on earth are you finding this shit? You keep raging about this like everyone is so prejudiced and evil for hating her, over and over and over.
A) I don’t think anyone’s called Mike noble, just funny. He’s a caricature, more like a cartoon character, while everyone’s probably met a Malaya at some point. And you must have ignored the comments pointing that out every single time you brought this “double-standard” up.
B) This is something that is going to hurt a character who is kind to everyone, almost all of the time. People LIKE Leslie. They don’t want her to be sad.
C) Hey, here’s a shocker – when you act like a bitch 90% of the time, people are going to just think everything you do is bitchy. It may not be entirely fair, but who exactly set up these expectations?
+1. Up until her little speech, last strip, Malaya has showed little to no inclination towards becoming a better person. And that’s giving her the benefit of the doubt about being honest in what she said. A benefit I’m not entirely sure she’s earned. Actions, as they say, speak louder than words.
It’s pretty damn tactless, but what she did is not the most horrible thing in the world. That said this is not the same thing that happened with Ethan AT ALL. Ethan never professed any attraction to Robin- Robin forced herself on him, remember? That would be why Ethan didn’t get any flack for that- he didn’t do anything wrong in any sense.
Seconded. Was there any reason to feel vitriol towards Ethan at that point?
And throughout all that I can only be worried about the helicopter…
My thoughts exactly. Whatever happens next, I only hope the helicopter doesn’t have to suffer for it.
Ken might have a shot after all.
As the only Malaya fan in the world…
Yeah, no competitions.
Totally.
Leslie liked Malaya because she’s a upfront bitch, so she acted on those qualities Leslie liked, and found out she wasn’t a lesbian. Ha, Irony.
Damn you Willis! Shortpacked is fast approaching Futurama for number of mood whiplashes per story.
DAMN YOU WILLIIIIIIIIIIS!!!!
… I can has Robin & Les back pls?
ha! I’m thinking you’ll either get it in 10 strips, or 100. That said, Willis is rather unpredictable.
The unpredictability being that he doesn’t do twists. So you could reread past strips to see if he’s dropped any hints.
Seconded!
As much as I don’t like Malaya, this strip didn’t make her any worse in my eyes, no more than yesterday’s made her any better.
From the very beginning, Malaya has never showed a bit of concern for the feelings of those around her, unless she was being deliberately cruel. She sneered at Ken for the job he’d just taken while she shamelessly sponged off him and her other friends for rent, she sneered at Ethan’s hobby, and now she’s tactless about “coming out” to Leslie. So what else is new? If you look back at yesterday’s strip, even her version of tenderness is all about her.
I’ll believe Malaya has hidden depths when we see some hint, any hint, that she cares about someone else’s feelings more than her own. Or at all, really.
^This. Another pretty good indicator of her not caring – that little “ick, that wasn’t fun” tongue she’s sticking out in the second to last panel. If she really cared about Leslie’s feelings, she wouldn’t be doing that while very much within Leslie’s sight. =\
This is a terrible analogy, but…
If you were eating something you thought you’d like, but turned out you didn’t, wouldn’t you make a face?
It’s… wow, that sounded worse than I meant it. Yet, I really believe that. It’s who she is, she’s not pleasant, but at least she’s truthful to herself.
About the tenderness…. Well, think of it this way. She wants to be a better person for Leslie, she wants to be able to make herself someone that Leslie can go “Yeah, that’s my friend(/girlfriend).”
From my point of view, it shows a lot of depth — because everyones version of “depth” is vastly different. Some people are increasingly self-centered, hell, EVERYONES even a little bit self-centered.
Malaya is human, she’s not nice and very tactless, but at least she is/was willing to try to be better for someone else and at least she can ADMIT IT.
I’m sorry, I see that a lot on this thread, and I don’t really understand it. How is “I know I’m an asshole; that’s just who I am, take it or leave it” a virtue?
Funny how she only actually behaves like this better person when Leslie is actually around to see.
Bottomless selfishness is not a positive version of “depth”.
The second piece you quote? Your witty refutation of it is actually essentially the textbook definition of how people who are in relationships with people who make them want to be people act. That is the fundamental point of the dynamic.
The thing is, if Malaya wanted to be a better person for Leslie, she’d be trying to be that way even when Leslie’s not around to see it. She just wants to have Leslie be able to see it, to draw her in further. If one is truly attempting to better oneself for the sake of another, it shouldn’t matter if the other is physically present or not. So this one ends up getting related back to the third point – her “betterment” is of the selfish variety. “I want to be a better person around you, because it’ll make you want me more and thus I get something I want.” It goes from selfish and veers straight into “unconscious manipulation”, even. =\
You make me want to be a better person, does not equal, being a better person. It equals trying to be a better person, usually when that person is around. Considering Malaya is all of what, 21?, expecting her to satisfy the ideal of the possible definitions of the phrase rather than the standard is unreasonable and at minimum requires justification.
I had a girlfriend at 21 that inspired me to be a better person, and did what I could to have that personal growth not be contingent on her proximity to my person. Hell, I had it start at 19, and I could sometimes be more selfish and self-centered than Malaya. So, no, it’s not unreasonable in the least.
A lot of the surprise and shock at this comes from an unfortunate double standard in which we think “once gay, always gay,” where a heterosexual person can always “go gay” at any time, but a homosexual person has no choice but to rampantly pursue their own sex. There is no wiggle room for bi-curious people who prefer heterosexual relationships, or even somebody who seems to change/come out of a reverse closet after a long time.
I may not reply to your comments as often as I shoould but damn you make some interesting points.
I’m literally crying a little for Leslie right now. Oh bb you poor thing T_T having this happen when you’re actually out on a date with someone you like and have been seeing really, really hurts.
Am I the only one who is concerned that they might run into something while they are kissing?
Maybe. I’m kind of thinking it might be the best of all possible worlds. Unfair of me, I know.
Ouch, poor Leslie. Smooched her straight.
(I know that’s not what really happened, fyi. ;P)
Or is it?
Dammit, I’ve been literally laughing out loud for almost minute now and I still can’t stop XD
Mayala rocks!
Its a good thing that Leslie can still drive straight while showing Malaya that she is.
Bet Amber wishes she could give kisses like that to Ethan.
At least this finally answers the question as to whether Malaya is gay or not because that has been confusing me for too long.
….I don’t know wheter to be angry that she did that to her…..or happy that this ship is sinking
HA! This is what happens when you build up something in your head before actually checking to see if it works, reality smacks you in the face and crushes your expectations.
I may hate Malaya but that’s soley based on her personality, I see no problem with today’s strip. She met someone she thought she was into, gave it a shot and was honest about it immediately when it didn’t work. Unless she’s callous about it afterward she’s not doing anything wrong.
So you guys are saying that someone can’t be curious? It’s possible, I suppose.
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with being curious. It’s just that it was pretty obvious from the start that what Malaya was really curious about was how much she could screw Robin over.
Oooookay, well, didn’t see that coming.
I love how you made people feel sympathy for her for 24 hours and then immediately had her do something to get people to not like her again.
That said, one could argue that Leslie doesn’t have much room to complain, given her past. It sucks for her, but at least Malaya told her as soon as she knew instead of leading her on just to be nice.
It’s funny, it seems like I’m having the exact opposite reaction as everyone else in this strip. I’m feeling sorry for both Malaya and Leslie. Well, for Leslie, it’s obvious why, but I get the feeling Malaya really wanted to love Leslie by this point. At first, I think she was just doing it for the hell of it, but I think Malaya has grown to really like Leslie and wishes she would feel something romantic/sexual for her, but she doesn’t.
Of course, this is all speculation. She could just be a dick. But I’d like to think not.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha Oh god Malaya is the best character ever. It’s been a while since this comic has literally made me laugh out loud.
^- Now this was my reaction.
So I guess it’s bad that I found this strip to be pretty funny, huh? Probably just as bad that I’m somewhat fond of Malaya. Still . . . Sucks for Leslie.
I guess my reaction to the comic would best be summed up as, “Hahahah-Awwwwwww.”
Wow. The moment that you realize that you’re arguing with people you’ll never meet over the love lives of fictional charaters at one in the morning and see how pathetic your life truly is kinda sucks, doesn’t it?
I’m not realizing it, I’ve known for awhile.
Nah. This moment passes too.
Getting worked up over fictional characters is something unique to humans.
How do you know?
I don’t know about Mongoose, but I get all my info from the dolphins.
Dolphins experience PSL?
If you can prove that, you will make scientific history.
Not surprised in the least. I spent forever trying to work out Malaya’s orientation when she was first introduced, and her being a lesbian was just too easy. I WAS surprised that she genuinely liked Leslie, however.
That said, things went on so long that I was starting to accept that I was wrong about Malaya, so this still had an effect on me. Well played, Willis.
I don’t understand all the hate. So she figured out she wasn’t gay after all. Big fuckin deal. I thought you guys liked Malaya! Did I miss something in previous strip?
My theory on the subject is this: Many of her fans waited for her to display something really good about her to prove her haters wrong.
They were willing to give her plenty of breaks despite her mostly unpleasent personality in part cos he is a cute looking asianish girl.
She showed signs of improving in the last few comics and even feeling sorry for her…
…then she decides out of the blue that she’s straight and hurting Leslie in the process.
This was the last straw for many of her pervious fans.
I, myself, see things this way, if I can put up with Mike, Faz, Roz and many of the other stars of this comic, I can deal with Malaya.
Fair enough, but Faz’s obnoxiousness has made him the strip’s butt monkey, and even Mike takes a beating occasionally (sometimes in the service of greater assholishness, but still). I’d like to see Malaya (and Roz, for that matter) suffer for their nastiness once in a while like the fellas do.
So if Malaya lost her Karma Houdini status, you might think a bit better of her.
She’d definitely irritate me less.
Man, fuckin’ breeders, am I right?
+1
Doesn’t this comic basically take place in real time? Haven’t they been seeing each other since the Transformers premiere back in June? Malaya may have genuinely liked Leslie and genuinely been considering a romantic relationship with her and yeah she can’t make herself gay but she absolutely had plenty of time to figure this out so I’m not cutting her any slack over this. If she were a better person she would have never let it go this far and that’s what my issue is with Malaya. She may have thought she cared about Leslie but obviously not enough. I don’t think she ever considered for a second not going after Leslie unless she was sure she could give her what she deserved. Ultimately all Malaya cared about was what Leslie could be for her. Then again this whole Leslie/Malaya thing has always felt forced to me and I think they were both sort of using each other for similar reasons. Malaya wanted a “fresh start” and Leslie wanted to get over Robin. What it comes down to for me though is that it’s easier to forgive and pity Leslie because Leslie has not been the obnoxious, selfish and immature individual Malaya’s been since day 1. Overall though I don’t find myself hating Malay over this. I just think she needs to do a lot of growing up.
The hate is not because Malaya decided she wasnt’ into girls after all. The hate is because she said that right to Leslie’s face, right after their first kiss. It’s a pretty jerkass way to break up with someone.
So Malaya should have kept silent and strung Leslie along rather than break it off at first realization. Okay!
Seriously, did you read Leslie’s dialogue?
The point isn’t that she should have lied to Leslie; the point is that she should have told her the truth in a way that wouldn’t be a slap in the face and a sword to the heart.
She said it at the WORST time possible, in a way that completely disregarded Leslie’s feelings and probably hurt her quite a lot.
There may not be a painless way to tell her, but there sure as Mike were plenty better ways than that!
The Ass-Hat.
She is wearing it.
I hope Malaya isn’t really straight after all. Stupid, I know, but I can’t help hoping these two end up together. A huge fight ensues after this incident, and they end up making angry passionate love, much to the surprise of both of them.
I know, not gonna happen.
The funny thing is that I always hated Malaya.
Now that she is no longer “extremely-plot-convenient”, I don’t hate it as much…
Which seems to work the other way around for the general audience.
Before this revelation (even with all her flaws and character-shallowness), people seemed to like her because of her “plot-convenience-ness”.
But now that she’s been discovered to be straight (in other words, no longer that plot-convenient) people started to focus on all her flaws which were clear from minute 1.
It seems my taste is different from most of you:
* I like things which slowly come together in ways I don’t expect. I love to be surprised. I love when the authors make me feel like a child who has been out-smarted.
* You seem to like predictable and overly-done stories.
BTW: I didn’t see that one coming. AT ALL.
I hate ass-kissers, but in this case I feel obligated to be one.
You are great Mr.Willis, really great.
You can tell it’s a good twist when there’s already 137 comments within about an hour of the strip being posted
Wait, she’s straight? How is this possible? This is still a David Willis comic, right?
Nobody is really straight. You’re either gay or you’re in denial.
Huh, I hate Malaya as a person more than ever, but as a character, she just got interesting. Odd. I’m not sure how to handle this.
Once again, comment section has me confused. Yesterday I was all about how Leslie was totally right about there not being much to like about Malaya, and everyone else was feeling sorry for her. Today, everyone’s saying that Malaya’s a terrible person for doing this to Leslie, and I’m thinking it’s justified.
Doesn’t seem like she was dating Leslie to hurt her or mess with her. She just had a little girl crush, but moving it to a physical level, even something as simple as a kiss, just didn’t gel. It happens. Yeesh. Sexuality is a fluid thing for a lot of people. She likes Leslie (who doesn’t?), she thinks Leslie is cute (who doesn’t?), but she just doesn’t like kissing her. Surprise.
would have been nice if malaya had mentioned to leslie that she was exploring her sexuality and that she’s only been with guys previously. in the 6 months they’ve been going out, it would have been nice for leslie to hear that nugget of information.
True. That said, though, it would be nice if people in general were that open and honest about their behavior and motivations for same, but most of us aren’t. We just aren’t, for all sorts of reasons. Malaya’s far from unique in that regard.
Why should it be so surprising that a fictional character can’t be counted upon to do something that a lot of actual human beings don’t do either?
I’m actually kind of disturbed that this scene brought out a hate reaction from the readership. (Especially since it gave so many of the haters exactly what they wanted.) Malaya seemed pretty open about at least implying that she was new to the whole crushing on a girl thing. The possibility of merely being bi-curious was always there, it just didn’t seem likely. And when someone’s in that kind of position you can’t just expect them to already know the answer.
Malaya seemed to honestly believe she had a sexual attraction to Leslie. Being mad at her for this is like being mad at every confused teen who tries to explore and discover themselves. It’s unfair to be mad over the it over them discovering they’re not actually gay or bi. Frustrated if you’re the gay/bi person they tried, sure. But not mad.
Wow, muddled grammar in that second paragraph. My apologies.
OUCH.
Understandable of course (having a bit of a crush doesn’t always mean someone’s really attracted to that gender), but poor Leslie.
I think that Malaya came on to Leslie to spite Robin, didn’t she. And Robin tried to get Leslie ‘back’ with her Laya in slave outfit. It was appricated but didn’t work. Leslie faced up to Robin and broke it off clean? Thats when Leslie started reciprocating Malaya’s advances seriously.
As far as Malaya being horrible for deciding she’s not gay, thats not bad IMO. It’s her timing that stinks-Leslie was opening up to her, and Malaya being true to her nature thinks only of her feelings. She could have waited a bit and let Leslie down a bit easier.
as far as comparing Mike and Malaya-how can you? Maylaya is selfish, rude and thoughtless. Mike is never thoughtless-he knows exactly what he’s doing and why. Maylaya may be a bitch, but as noted: Mike is a force of nature.
I don’t think Malaya was motivated by spite, and why should she have had to feign a sexual orientation she isn’t until “the right time”? She shouldn’t be in any way obligated to pretend she felt anything in their kiss when she didn’t, and if anything, it was good that Leslie was let down QUICKLY before she had any chance to get further attached to the idea of dating Malaya.
Poor Leslie… No more of that awesome rack for her…
malaya felt some kind of attraction to leslie before she knew about her past with robin. i don’t remember if she started hitting on leslie before she learned about it though. i’m not a fan of malaya, but i know that her going out with leslie was not spiteful. if anything, it was only a bonus.
hahaha holy shit
I am deriving FAR more amusement from all the people who ever thought Malaya was anything but a terrible person than I am from the comic itself.
Yes, I *am* fuelled by hate, how did you know?
Anyone else think that this might have all been just a big fake-out on Malaya’s part, from the beginning? And that this was the punch line, as it were? The payoff?
“She’s a lot of fun to mess with.”
…………………………
Well, something’s messed up, but it’s not the page…
FALLOUT. INTERESTING. IS.
This has to be the most epic character-troll of all-time.
“Oh, I hate that Malaya so much! She’s just so crass!”
“Argh! Why does Leslie have to like her! What can she possibly see in her!”
“Well, okay, maybe Leslie will be a good influence on Malaya. You know, I can kind of see this working. After all, if Amber and Mike can get along.”
“Yeah, I think I’m actually starting to warm up to this idea. Malaya isn’t so bad after all.”
Today’s comic
“…………………………………………………………. WILLIS!”
I’ve got to be seeing a messed up page. That was…not right.
Interesting… I see a lot of “I hate you, Malaya!”, and not very much “Aw, poor leslie-bean….”
Also, In hindsight I can’t believe I missed the pun in Leslie’s name. Or that her parents did.
At least three distinct things happen in this page. Kudos for high page density!
Ha. I’m sure this has already been brought up, but what’s funny about this and why this makes Malaya a bitch, is that she’s been apparently leading Leslie on, but without Leslie’s or our knowledge.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t they make out at the movies? I think they did. And if this comic is to be believed, that means Malaya didn’t really care for it. But she apparently figured maybe it takes time to be attracted to girls. She DIDN’T tell Leslie that she wasn’t really feeling the make out sessions, she kept it to herself thinking it’d just happen over night.
Come this comic, and another near make out session. She stops midway and basically throws up a “damn, guess I’m straight after all.” Incredibly insensitive to leslie who’s still sitting right there and can hear everything she’s saying. As if that comment couldn’t hurt anybody else since Malaya herself was only testing waters. Completely unaware of anybody else’s feelings(which has actually been demonstrated in the past, example: her stocking all the Transformers toys, thus not allowing Ethan to, and basically insulting them and everything they are and what he loves right to his face after doing so, as well as calling Amber fat, even though she’s pregnant and pretty much automatically gained weight).
And yes, I like Mike. I like Mike for the same reasons I like the Joker. The Joker does horrible, terrible things to people. But he does them with such glee and in such a god-like, larger than life, cartoonish way that it becomes funny and enjoyable, exactly the same way Mike does things. Malaya’s just a bitch. There’s nothing larger than life about her, except maybe her ego.
But yeah, this has probably already been discussed, but I felt the need to type it all out.
You’ve said Malaya is a bitch many, many times. I hardly see a need for it. In fact, it’s getting rather tiresome.
Yeah I don’t really care. Several other people have also said exactly same many, many times.
Perhaps the error is mine, but I fail, after a great deal of examination, any evidence of Malia leading Leslie along. What I see is someone who thought they were interested in someone, experienced physical but not true emotional intimacy, and then at the moment that this took place, realized that proceeding any further would in fact constitute leading her along. Now unless you have experience with bisexual relationships, I believe I can quite fairly conclude that you are speaking without an ounce of actual knowledge on this matter, and as I do have personal knowledge in this area, I would kind ask you to either provide some kind of convincing argument, or admit that you are wrong.
“Damn, guess I’m straight after all.” Says to me that she knew very well she might not be at all attracted to Leslie or girls in general. Meaning she was just hoping she’d become attracted to Leslie and/or girls in general. Instead of doing the mature thing and telling Leslie that she’s unsure of her sexual attractions to Leslie beforehand, she just blurts it out after, from what I recall is their second kiss, “Damn, I guess I’m straight after all.” Which, yes, is leading her on. Giving Leslie the impression that Malaya was sure of her sexuality, whether she was bi or gay, and giving Leslie no reason to doubt it, while all the time seeming to question it herself.
But since these characters aren’t at all real, Willis can assign any kind of backstory or reasoning or flashback at any time that he wants. Which really renders ANY explanation WE come up with moot, unless somebody happens to guess correctly.
And, frankly, I’d like to ask you if you could be just a touch less condescending. Thank you.
1. Malaya offered no evidence of her sexuality which you can cite.
2. It demeans me to cite such a source, but the urban dictionary defines leading on as the following:
It usually means that a girl or guy is behaving in a teasing or sexy way that dupes someone (or several people) into thinking that they will be willing to have sex and/or a relationship with them, but at the last minute they back out of the deal and don’t go through with it
This relationship fails to satisfy those conditions on every level save failure.
3. I have no intention of altering my tone until you do me the kindness of actually addressing my point: that people who are unsure of their sexuality actually make mistakes, and that as you cast it, making a mistake constitutes leading someone on. As I see, you have neither the evidence, nor the experience to make such an argument nor a claim. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not all opinions are equal on all matters. And in the absence of evidence or experience, you are neonate who is arguing out of their depth, in which case I am not being condescending as condescension, like arrogance, is only present in the presence of the assumption of an incorrect assumption of variance. As of yet, I see no reason to believe my assumption is incorrect.
*wibbles*
…Willis, you have killed me. ALL THESE FEELS.
(also I’m a little surprised that they didn’t kiss before? I was under the impression that they were going to at the transformers movie)
Gah… ; ^ ; I was hoping Malaya would finally be able to enter a relationship with someone she really liked and who liked her.
Darn…
If only Leslie had some Mentos beforehand, it might have worked out for her.
kiss test = more accurate then gay-dar.
I’m just loving the accusations of double-standard here. The hate is clearly because Malaya is a woman and…um….not gay? We hate her for being not-gay? Or is it the sudden orientation switch? We’re supposed to hate Ethan now? I’m confused.
So I’ll tackle the difference between her and Mike first. Mike is impossible. Nobody here has never met a Mike, or suffered the effects of being around him, because the guy just doesn’t exist in real life. Therefore, it’s easier to laugh at his antics from a distance, and therefore also easier to support him when he tries to do the right thing–we haven’t suffered for his antics, so it’s easier to feel for him.
But anyone who’s been through high school knows a Malaya. We’ve all felt the sting of feeling weird or stupid because of something this person said, or irritated because they won’t shut up about how stupid you are or your hobbies are with no real insight behind their burns, just hate. And because we all, to an extent, have been hurt by someone like this before, it’s a lot harder to excuse their faults. It’s basically the difference between hating the villain of an action cartoon and hating the villain of a teen drama.
(I also suspect there’s a bit of “new bias” in there, the event by which the longer a work goes on the more any new element is either met with indifference or hate regardless of logic. I’ve seen this a lot.)
Oddly, despite sharing in this experience, I don’t hate Malaya. Would a “hey I might not be gay just a head’s up” been nice? Yeah. But that’s not really a great foot to start a relationship on, because the emphasis gets put on the experimentation (however unintentionally) and the fact that Malaya might genuinely like Leslie as a person despite the incompatible parts being an issue. She’s been a massive bitch, sure, but I can’t find much in her relationship with Leslie to fault. (I was also hoping the inevitable fallout would be over Leslie being a sci-fi fangirl, but whatever.)
As for “Oh, Ethan pulled this and no one hated him DOUBLE STANDARD”, Ethan didn’t pull this. Regardless of sexuality, he made it perfectly clear that he had no interest in Robin. At all. It was only once Robin forced herself on him that he figured out he was gay. There’s no fucking parallels here. Leslie was clearly interested in Malaya and had clear reason to believe Malaya was interested back.
In short–there are plenty of legit reasons to hate Malaya, and trying to simplify it to “Oh just because she’s a WOMAN” does that hate a disservice. Not everything is about gender issues, people, not even in comics.
I do agree, there are plenty of reasons to legitimately hate Malaya. And I do not think it’s gender that adds to the hate she’s getting for this page. But I’m still disgusted that so many people are using this as an excuse to rage at her when the behavior seems perfectly reasonable in this case. Congratulations! People are raging at a confused youth who thought she might be gay. It’s not like she was pretending to be for popularity or trendiness, she’s not the dreaded “college lesbian!”
To rephrase, I’m not saying “you hate her because she’s a straight chick!?” I’m saying, “you hate her because she was confused about her sexuality!?”
Yeah, I agree in this instance the rage is undeserved, but more irritating is people acting like it’s sexist of us not to hate Mike and Ethan because of the parallels.
I don’t like Malaya because she’s annoying as hell and kind of a jerk.
Mike is a jerk, but it’s in a good way.
As in, he’s actually funny.
I dunno, maybe she’ll work things out with Leslie in next week’s strips… though most probably not.
And yeah, I can get that she thought that she might be gay, or at least bi, but there are better ways she could have handled that.
That said: ALL OF MY HATE!
And it will me very funny to see what Robin and Amber’s (who seems to have migrated to the role of Leslie’s best friend at the store) reactions to this potentially horrible breakup will be.
Like, I know that Robin and Leslie probably won’t get back together at this point, I mean I’d like them to but at this point it might just do them both more harm than good.
Next comic: A single panel with the helicopter near the top, passenger door ajar. rest of the panel showing Malaya plummeting downward.
To be nice, they are allowed to be over water.. or a tuna fishing boat…
Since when do straight people ever use the term breeder? What’s next, trying to convince me that the term “het” will ever come from someone who is? Come on Willis, you’re really straining credibility here.
Since when do straight people ever use the term breeder?
Actually, I’ve seen it more often used by the “I never want kids” crowd than the “my sexual orientation will never result in kids” crowd.
Yes, breeder is used by the childfree community, straight and otherwise. I am childfree and not heterosexual…and I don’t use the term.
And what’s wrong with calling straight people het?
Nothing is wrong with it, it’s just straight people don’t use the word.
erm, I use it a lot. (Mostly in the context of fandom shipping, but still.)
I would imagine it was a double-usage. She used it because she very likely never wants kids, and probably because she thought Leslie, being a lesbian, would call a het-pairing that’s going to have kids, “breeders” (“breeders” having the most negative connotations possible here, going by how Leslie actually stopped smiling when Malaya said it.) That’s why she used it, she was showing her disdain, thought she might be into women, and was trying to “get in good” with Leslie. Where’s the strained credibility, exactly?
Best strip in months. We’ve all been played, and it was hilarious.
Been there. Awkward.
…so after all the attempts at getting close to Malaya, all the affection she threw Leslie’s way… the fact she ignored a guy who has shown immense interest in her…. she was never even sure she was gay? Damn… I’m really looking forward to Malaya explaining WHY she thought she was gay all this time.
Her not liking Ken =/= her not liking guys.
Who’s Ken? I’m fairly sure they were referring to Sagat…
Who’s Sagat? I thought his name was Ibuki.
I’m not saying it does, but Ken pretty obvious and even through she’s not interested in him, she did do a good job of being oblivious and/or ignoring it. Not to mention, she’s not shown any attraction to anyone but Leslie.
Ethan had sex with Conquest and Amber, and knowingly let Robin continue with her crush without dealing with it even after he realized he was gay. I presume you will demand his head as recompense?
No… why would I demand that? I’m not demanding anything. I just want to know why Malaya thought she was gay. What events or situation made her concerned with it, and emphasis on it so much that she seemed to not consider anything else for the longest time. She seemed really certain for the longest time.
Besides Ethan is different from Malaya. We already know what the deal with Ethan was. He was such a man-child and his fixation on toys so intense, that frankly, he wasn’t even aware of his own sexuality or sexuality in general it seemed. He needed Robin to say “you’re supposed to be gay” before he realized anything about himself.
In both situations with Conquest and Amber, he didn’t have any feelings for them romantically. One was done for a job promotion and the other to make Amber feel better. His own personal emotional feelings didn’t really factor in very much for him. As for Robin’s crush on him, I thought Ethan tried often to dissuade Robin’s crush on him, but she kept at it. He can’t control her feelings.
And on what information, considering her newness to the comic, do you make any informed statement about Malaya?
Following the train of your logic, we can conclude the following:
1. In the absence of information, such as a back story, assume the worst.
Umm… what are you talking about? Where do you get the idea that I’m assuming the worst about Malaya’s backstory? What “train of logic” are you talking about? Aren’t you taking this a bit too seriously?
All I said is I want to know what Malaya’s reasoning for thinking she might be gay is. That means “I want to know what her backstory is.” I’m not comparing her to Ethan because we know what Ethan’s backstory is. Until the next comic, we didn’t know what Malaya’s backstory regarding her sexuality was. Hence why I said in my first comment “I’m really looking forward to Malaya explaining WHY she thought she was gay all this time.”
I wanted to learn more about why Malaya thought she was gay.
Malaya is hilarious! My favourite character!
…what.
Out of all the characters in the strip, you choose her? Not that there’s anything wrong with liking an underdeveloped character or anything, but seriously? I like Ninja Rick more than Malaya, and he only shows up once every month or two.
She brings the spirit of old!Mike back, I feel. From back when he was cool.
This will be Leslie’s reaction:
“…”
“…Suddenly I know how my ex-husband felt. Ouch.”
OOOOOH that would be a good line for her to use, I wonder if Willis used it in his next comics.
I dd not see that coming, As others have pointed it this revelation doesn’t make much sense considering her past behaviour.
In Malaya’s defence, Robin was similar to this too. When Robin first seriously started ‘courting’ Leslie (like when she brought her a House), Robin was, and I believe still is, unsure of her sexuality. However she made an effort all the same. What is going to be important here, is not Malaya’s reaction in this comic, but what she does Next.
Which barring the chance of a Weekend story comic, is next Monday, Earliest. Well Played, Mr Willis, well played, Indeed…
no, next week we get to see if amber decided to go to in-n-out burger for dinner.
Which is why I said next Monday, Earliest. As that’s that earliest, Likely, opportunity for this to continue. But as you say, next Monday, and even the entire week, could easily be Amber at the In ‘n Out, or Ethan practicing Batman jokes…
Heck. Yes. In-n-Out Burger.
You know…this is Leslie’s problem in a nutshell.
Because of her background, she’s come to value (maybe even fetishize) openness and frankness – to the point where people who are considerate of others and weigh their words carefully can actively turn her off. Robin’s an inconsiderate jerk? SWOON! Roz is not? BURN HER! Malaya doesn’t care if what she says hurts people? KISS ME YOU FOOL!
The problem, well…The problem is that this means Leslie keeps falling for jerks. She was the only character besides Robin who didn’t like Roz, because she was “fake” – but to Leslie, the people who aren’t fake are often those who don’t care if they hurt others.
The problem is that Roz is indeed fake. She panders for attention with whatever means she thinks will work, and her empathy is limited to figuring out what will work. There has to be a happy medium between Robin and Malaya the inconsiderate assholes, and Roz the attention whore.
Ouch. Jesus!
Oh thank God.
I’m having flashbacks to my horrid attempts at dating in high school right now. Gee, thanks… /sarcasm
If you need yo reload the stylesheet, go here http://www.shortpacked.com/wp-content/themes/comicpress-shortpacked/style.css and hit reload on that page. Then reload this page and everything should be fine.
Although I like the new theme, I have to say I’ll miss the old one. It had so much more character to it, it wasn’t your average generic layout…
Well, Dhalsim will be overjoyed to know he still has a snowball’s chance in Hell.
No, he doesn’t.
He’s still got a better chance than Ninja Rick. XD
I beg to differ. Malaya’s own comment about him (to Ultracar) could easily be read as indicating she would consider him in a new light if he (basically) grew a pair.
Until then, he’s stuck himself in the “perpetual nice guy” mode that basically becomes a doormat forever in the “friend zone.” Presuming the glimpses we’ve seen of him really do indicate he’s just a nice, relatively normal guy, and not a secret axe murderer or something.
Damn!!!
word to the wise, Malaya. Don’t piss off the Helicopter piolot whe your that high up.
“Sorry, Leslie, I’m not gay.” (shove) AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhh…….(whistling)……THUD
XD
Perhaps Malaya is a lesbian when she’s drunk, like how Mike is nice. Get her a martini stat!
But she had a bottle of Jack a couple of comic strips ago, so if anything, Malaya is more likely to be Lesbian Sober and Straight Drunk.
I actually feel for Malaya here.
I think I’m starting to ‘get her.’
She’s so frustrated with the men she’s dated, she wanted to be gay in the hope the grass was greener in the other dating pool. (Double metaphor, GO!)
Look at her face in that last panel. She’s genuinely upset it’s not working on that level.
You’re probably right, but if you are, she was fooling herself. If all of her past relationships were bad, then she needs to look at the common factor, not hope that said factor works better with someone with different plumbing.
… Because that is what most people do?
Either that, or get caught in a never-ending series of unhappy relationships.
Poor Leslie can never catch a break. At the very least, she has a lot of interesting relationship stories to tell.
I admit that I only read half the comments. Maybe sometime more recently the worm turned.
But I am *amazed* at the vilification for Malaya. (Though I shouldn’t be.) Poor girl just got trapped in a family battle and betrayed by her girlfriend, and now that she tries to show her feelings to the one she cares for with a kiss, she finds that her own biology isn’t on her side. A single glance at the facial expressions in this strip (particularly panel 3) proves she isn’t being false or malicious about this. The girl just doesn’t get to have nice things; she ain’t got no luck at all.
And yet it’s all hate hate hate hate Malaya. Sigh. I’ll be over at DoA if anybody needs me.
I’m sure that’s what she’s telling herself. One wonders if she’ll ever realize how many “nice things” might come to her if she didn’t treat everyone and everything with reflexive disdain.
Somehow this “logic” never seems to apply to Mike.
His relationship with Amber began in blackmail and descended into abuse, and is still pretty dysfunctional. He works two jobs, both in retail, and the only time he takes any visible joy in anything is when he’s drunk. What “nice things” does he have?
He also takes visible joy in seeing other people be aggressive and violent. (Assuming wood counts as ‘visible joy’.)
She didn’t do a damn thing to bring this on herself, and yet observe how it’s her fault. She has never treated Leslie poorly, yet look how she has treated everyone and everything with reflexive disdain.
Malaya: evil even when she isn’t.
Fair enough. Still, if she didn’t treat everyone and everything that wasn’t Leslie with relexive disdain, she wouldn’t be counting on Leslie to be the one “nice thing” in her life.
Malaya’s simply an annoying character.
Bang. That’s why everyone hates her. Including me.
She’d be less villified and more likeable if she could ever admit that she’s not nearly as “awesome” as she thinks. Pretty simple.
asdfgh FUCK.
DAMMIT WILLIS WITH YOUR WEEKEND CLIFFHANGERS
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa SHIT.
The REAL “dick move” of this strip is Willis exposing how broken many of his readers are, on levels even THEY haven’t realized yet.
And yes, _I_ think he did it on purpose.
I especially love how the Malaya-haters have suddenly completely overlooked Leslie (who they love sooooo much)’s “amazing rack” comments of two panels ago. Yeah, “Leslie never hurts anyyone,” YOUR FAT ASS.
God Job, Willis. You Miked ‘em, and most of ‘em still don’t get it.
Am I the only one whose thoughts focused more on “DON’T KISS SOMEONE WHO’S PILOTING A HELICOPTER!” than the actual plot twist of the page?
If you would look between the back-and-forth about Malaya, you would indeed see that you are (not) alone.
Monday’s strip will open with a single panel of an explosive helicopter crash. Wednesday will be a funeral. (Nothing Tuesday – not a storyline week.)
Oh, and Friday will be everyone visiting Malaya at the hospital.
I am actually in agreement here. “Malaya, I hope you weren’t planning on living out the evening…”
I think I understand how this happens.
Malaya hates everyone.
So when she sees someone who doesn’t immediately trip all of her irritator flags, she immediately assumes it must be true love.
I think Malaya actually DID like Leslie. We see her telling other characters about what a great person she thinks she is, and she clearly holds the woman with some sincere regard. I just think she liked her as a person that much, and was confused about her sexuality, so she went for it confusing her emotional crush for a sexual one. I don’t think she MEANT to string Leslie along like she did.
Either way, she clearly now has to hook up with Ninja Rick.
I think Cammy would be a better idea. Let us not forget – Ninja Rick has psychotic episodes. Not even Mike is that much of a Very Bad Idea.
Well, I must say I wasn’t expecting that, at least Malaya is honest enough to say it now, rather than to lead Leslie on, or more accurately her brain/mouth filter is not working, as usual. Also, kissing while flying a helicopter is a really good way to crash said helicopter.
Very unexpected
Ninja Rick, You’re up! GO, NINJA RICK, GO!
Also, having only skimmed the comments has anyone pointed out that Malaya coming to terms with her heterosexuality while trying to begin a relationship with Leslie is eerily similar to Leslie coming to terms with her homosexuality? Far be it for me to defend Malaya, but you can’t really time personal epiphanies well. In the same way, Leslie still wants to be her mom’s Good Girl, perhaps Malaya really wants to be a Lesbian and kept up her relationship with Leslie out of denial which she’s only now starting to get over.
Just a thought.
Call me naive, but I figured a kiss was rather gender-neutral. Face lips usually taste & feel the same, whether male or female.
Nononononono.
I know it depends on the person, but when you’re really into someone, a kiss feels intoxicating, amazing and you can just get drunk on it.
I kissed a girl and I liked it.
I kissed a guy and it was kinda scratchy…
… The stubble?
MALAYA. You will DIE.
(Calms down a bit.)
Okay, sorry, just…I was starting to like her a little, but now this…just sucks. And Leslie is so sweet. And I can’t believe she was that unclear about her intentions. I am so very disappointed in her.
Her intentions were to be Leslie’s girlfriend. Her body’s intentions are another matter, and has been scientifically proven quite thoroughly, aren’t her fault.
That is, of course, assuming she’s actually straight. One kiss means rather little (and Leslie may have been distracted – I FREAKING HOPE she was distracted!), and every other reaction Malaya has had to Leslie has been rather more carnal than I expect from a straight girl. If I recall correctly, it was lust-at-first-sight.
If Leslie wasn’t distracted during the kiss, that helicopter is in a lot of trouble.
I like Malaya a lot more after this, since it shows her being more than just Leslie’s rebound girl. This was bound to happen from the start anyway since she originally decided to chase Leslie only after being chided by Robin not to.
Sure part of me thinks, “Poor Leslie”, but it is infinitely better than being in a relationship with someone who doesn’t love you like that. Trust me its no fun trying to be intimate with someone who is only faking the attraction.
Will the two of them be BBF? Probably not, but that kind of thing happens in real life…
I don’t believe Malaya is being a bitch here. It might seem that way if you only take into account her reaction in the end. But just look at how the situation was set up.
In the very first panel, Leslie unknowingly tells Malaya that it’s better to know sooner than later. Lest she end up increasing the emotional stakes. While simultaneously praising her for being so outwardly spoken.
Given the green light, Malaya does exactly as she was told. She made the move to determine how she felt, rather than stringing Leslie on any further. And she spoke exactly how she felt. And what she said indicates that she’s disappointed. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next. But I get the sense that she really did like Leslie.
I’m pretty sure she just kissed Leslie to say “stop talking, I know what you mean, I love you.”
It’s merely unfortunate that Leslie had just siphoned extra gas into the copter’s fuel tank moments before.
It’s official now, David Willis is the greatest troll in the universe.
…does this mean Malaya might end up with Bison after all?
After seeing all of the variant spellings for M-A-L-A-Y-A in comment treads and this one in particular, I propose that we develop a new alternate spelling: Muhleiyer.
Man, I just feel so bad for Leslie. It sucks seeing a genuinely good, decent person getting crapped on. I just want her to be happy.
“Genuinely good, decent person” who is pursuing a relationship with another person based solely on their physical attributes.
I hope that copter crashes…with Leslie grabbing the only parachute.
Totally seconded. Please, Willis! Please!
Helicopters don’t tend to fly at a high enough altitude to make carrying a parachute worthwhile, so most of them don’t do it. You’re flying low enough that you’d have to deploy the chute instantly if it’s going to do any good, and that brings up a whole ‘nother bunch of issues with the rotors and the slipstream from them, and… yeah, it’s generally seen as safer to go down with the ship and hope for the best.
This comment contains 100% of your RDA of Boring Helicopter Trivia.
And here is the character development I was asking for a few days ago.
Once again Malaya proves her status as the anti-Robin. Or is it inverted-Robin? Either way it is more proven than ever.
I don’t hate this.
Yeah, it sucks for Leslie and I’d be either devastated or pissed in that situation (been in similar ones). At the same time though, I can’t help but feeling like this is the best possible ending for this situation. At least Malaya is being honest with Leslie and herself about her sexuality; and she’s telling Leslie in a blunt way – something Leslie just said she liked about her.
And like many people pointed out, this is the reverse of what Leslie did and kind of like what Ethan did (though granted, Ethan wasn’t in a relationship at the time…per se…). Sexuality is a weird thing, and sometimes we learn things about ourselves as we go.
I feel sorry for both of them – it’s really a rotten situation for them. Maybe they can at least be friends since they do seem to get along well.
Yay! Score one for Ninja Rick!
-airfox
As for myself, I don’t hate Malaya because of these events. My antipathy toward her based on her previous behavior, however, means that I have very little sympathy for her at this point.
Now I am hoping with all my heart that helicopter doesn’t crash… Leslie is an expert though but this won’t be a happy flight…
Now this is something I wasn’t expecting…
Well, this isn’t exactly unexpected. Queen Super Bitch Her Whoresomeness Malaya did go after Leslie as a way to spite Robin, after all.
But hey, if she’s not gay, that means Ryu’s dreams have not be utterly dashed.
I really dont hae Malaya anymore than I did before. I just dont care about her. I feel sorry for Leslie though. Poor poor Leslie. Hopefully her friends can cheer her up, and she and Robin can become friends again.
Also mandatory Malaya is a bitch, I hope she dies etc. etc.
You know Malaya would be a great Supervillain. She would say all the right (wrong) things to the heroes and make them depressed, and win easily every time. Suck they joy and happiness out of everything.
You’re right. She should hook up with faz and use him to destroy everyone.
Mike to the rescue! …because that’s his job.
job= soul sucking, that is
Well, I think I called this on the 3rd or 4th comic Malaya appeared in.
You know, at first I was super-angry at Malaya, too. But then I thought about it, and this is exactly what she should have done. This was the best possible point for her to bring it up… right after Leslie pointed out what an awful mistake it was to let a relationship go too far because her sexuality didn’t line up with the relationship.
After careful consideration, I also feel sorry for Malaya, because you can see in this strip, more than any other, the disappointment that it isn’t going to work because _she actually *likes* Leslie_ and wanted to make this work.
But she can’t. And she has to be a big girl and deal with it, even though she knows it’s going to suck.
So between these last two strips, after some consideration, I have decided to give Malaya a chance. Maybe she’s not so bad after all.
Maybe.
I actually have to wonder. I wonder, does she actually like Leslie, or does she like that Leslie is nice to her? After all, that’s not quite the same thing. One is a good thing, the other is kind of selfish. And so far, selfish is pretty much all we’ve seen from Malaya. But you’re right, there is the chance.
Straight like her Jack!
Perhaps I am confused, but last time I checked leading someone one, would be the exact opposite of making the frank and open confession that ones bisexuality was not in fact what one thought it was. It would instead be to continue on in the previous manner, maintaining a charade to avoid, “hurting” the other person.
I also find it interest that when Ethan realized he was gay, after having sex with Conquest and Amber, the latter of which was hardly an admirable act, and then became aware of Robins crush on him, rather than sit down and talk to her about, he just let her continue one, leading her on. Yet no one as I recall, condemned him for this behavior.
I don’t think it can be said that Malaya is a pleasant person, but I can’t recall her ever lying or using anyone for any reason. If I recall she expressed, in the company of no one, a physical attraction to Leslie when she first saw her, so the argument that she was running from bad relationships with men specifically does not to me hold that much water.
And as for Leslie’s heart being broken. If Leslie has invested her hopes, dreams, love and so on into so young a relationship, to the point that this breaks her heart, then frankly I think that she is as much at fault for her broken heart as Malaya is. Considering the fact that everything that has happened since she came to her parents house has given me the impression that she never brought Robin there, I think her laudable desire to seize the reins of this relationship springs not from hope for its potential but fear that she is making a bad decision and thus that she needs to go all in quickly so that it doesn’t fall apart from inertia. Lots of people do that. It doesn’t work and it isn’t a good idea.
Frankly, I find the outright poisonous reaction to Malaya here to be disturbing and confusing, and I challenge any of you to explain your position with comic by comic citations bereft of any justifications based on your personal reactions.
“I also find it interest that when Ethan realized he was gay, after having sex with Conquest and Amber, the latter of which was hardly an admirable act, and then became aware of Robins crush on him, rather than sit down and talk to her about, he just let her continue one, leading her on. Yet no one as I recall, condemned him for this behavior.”
Seriously, unless you are actually REPLYING to someone saying “It’s OK when Ethan/Mike did the same thing”, can you guys stop with this “you all have a double standard!” bullmess? It is seriously one of the dumbest fallacies, since most of the time you’re not even talking to the same people.
Pointing out implicit hypocrisy is not a fallacy. If the accusation of leading along is being made, with much hue and cry, and another character can be clearly shown to have done exactly that, without much hue and cry, a double standard exists. While we may disagree, and indeed you might simply consider me incorrect, it is not a fallacy by any meaningful definition of the word.
I would also, in the spirit of your response, ask that you actually respond to what I said rather than dismiss it as flatly incorrect and irrelevant, neatly sidestepping the matter of having to construct a counter argument.
There is no “hypocrisy” here. Ethan *never* “led her on” – Robin just continued to let herself believe there was hope for her to be with him. Those are two distinctly and very different things.
You know what, you’re right. Ethan did not take positive action to encourage Robins crush. But as I said, the absence of positive action is not the same thing as the presence of negative action. That is the very heart of the matter. Allowing someone you work with to nurse an impossible infatuation for months on end and doing nothing to squelch it is “leading them on”. This is not a matter of hypocrisy or equivalency between the characters. Their actions, as they are people, fictional people, but still people, are distinct, the issue is the hypocrisy and lack of equivalency of the majority of people present here. Mounting a defense of Ethan is simultaneously missing the point and proving it. Anyone here who is willing to say that if they were in social proximity to two people who were in the situation Ethan and Robin were and that they wouldn’t characterize it as leading someone on is either a fool, a sociopath, or a liar. And frankly, inverting the phrase to apply here is only borderline misogyny because there is nothing specifically sexist about it, only metaphysically.
Wether or not you like Malaya, hat Malaya, or represent the Neutral Planet at Doop, Malay has displayed a completely provable lack of malice towards Leslie, and an equally provable goodwill towards her. Citing Ken, who is has so far served as the means to introduce Malaya as a character, try to convince her to go out with him in a pathetic high school way, and provide street fighter punch lines as a reliable resource for information about someone who has been fairly clear about their disdain for him is the kind of stupid thing people do when they have already made their decision and just want something to justify it to others. So I’m going to do this comic by comic:
Both sides start with ten points.
1. Malays displayed immediate interest in Leslie, prior to her opportunity to annoy Robin by being interested in Leslie.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/02-the-new-girl/dhalsim/
Those accusing Malaya of leading Leslie on subtract 1 point.
2. At first opportunity, Malaya takes advantage of her relationship with Leslie to annoy Robin.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/02-the-new-girl/yoink/
Those defending Malaya subtract 1 Point.
3. Robin approaches Malaya, and is both verbally and socially the aggressor.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/02-the-new-girl/deserve-2/
Those accusing subtract 1 point.
4. Malaya specifically mentions her feelings for Leslie as being separate from anything having to do with Robing or anyone else who is not Leslie or Malaya.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/02-the-new-girl/deserve-2/
Those defending Malaya add 1 point.
5. Malay then immediately switches back to her budding dislike for Robin and connects her relationship with Leslie, on some level, and in the interest of fairness, connecting it on any level is sufficient.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/02-the-new-girl/deserve-2/
Those defending subtract 1 point. Those accusing add 1 point.
6. Malaya makes her Leslie’s fun to mess with comment in what she assumes is solitude. The sort of thing one does not do when one is planning a charade relationship.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/03-fishin-chicks/namebadge/
Those accusing subtract 1 point.
7. Robin continues the rivalry, not Malay, challenging her, not the other way around.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/03-fishin-chicks/namebadge/
Those accusing Malaya subtract 1 point.
8. Malaya display a disinterest in the conversation, and her response to Robins attack is not of the type that would be given by a knowing heterosexual.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/03-fishin-chicks/thirtyone/
Those accusing subtract 1 point.
9. When she gets home and talks to Arnold, Malaya smiles and describes Leslie as nice, smart and cute.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/03-fishin-chicks/tree/
Those accusing subtract 1 point.
10. Arnold does not treat her comments as absurd or unusual.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/03-fishin-chicks/tree/
Those accusing subtract 1 point.
11. Malaya pursues physical intimacy with Leslie on two separate occasions, once at the store, and again when the group see transformers.
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/03-fishin-chicks/newhope/
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/03-fishin-chicks/exception/
Those accusing subtracts 2 points.
The score is 9 in favor of Malaya being innocent of wrong doing and 3 against, based solely on those strips. I decided to stop when I got to 11 and hadn’t run out of evidence. Every single one of the major points made about Malaya aside from the single one that she herself confesses to, her abrasive personality, is refuted by these strips. Malaya objectively be said to not have been leading Leslie on.
Robin was very insensitive to various warnings about Ethan. Leslie was trying to figure Malaya out. I hope Leslie is at the maturity level of not being broken-hearted by someone who was doing a dance at a line of ambiguous friendship (she had discussed being unsure of Malaya’s intentions). It’s probably a crush to the ego a bit, as every rejection is, but I’d be surprised if the character who is often the most level headed one of the bunch was that emotionally committed to a girl who was just acting friendly to her. Most lesbians of a certain age approach non-lesbian identified women with caution (sure some of them are bi, others just like attention).
I actually like Malaya. Still.
Cuz what you want to be doing is distracting the helicopter pilot with kissing and emotional baggage mid-flight.
One aspect of the Malaya hatred I find interesting is this idea that she only got together with Leslie to piss off Robin.
The question I wan to know is why they believe Malaya hates Robin SOOO much that she is willing to waste a great deal of time hooking up with Leslie to piss her off.
Do they believe that Malaya and Robin have a previous history that has yet to be shown?
It makes no damn sense at all, especially since Malaya treated Robin with INDIFFERENCE before her interest in Leslie gave her the incentive to treat Robin as an enemy. Mostly it doesn’t make sense because Malaya doesn’t seem to have a devious bone in her body. Like Leslie says, what you see with her is what you get.
Except that she was still questioning her orientation throughout the relationship. But I guess that’s not the kind of thing you bring up if you want to give things a fair chance to develop.
After David Willis’ last super-twisty story, I’m reluctant to make any declarations about this one until it’s over (“Mike and Amber were pretty much always doomed”).
The way things look right now, Leslie’s basically been put into the same position that her husband was in when she came out to him… you don’t want to be hateful, but DAMN that’s a lot of emotional investment to just throw away. (Okay, not quite: it’s not like Les and Malaya got to marriage.) This could tax even her saintly patience, especially if she still has some unresolved frustration from her last relationship.
“WHY THE *FUCK* DOES EVERYONE I LOVE WAIT UNTIL JUST THE RIGHT MOMENT TO LEAVE ME FOR *MEN???”* (helicrash)
Still, the attraction to Les seemed so genuine that I can’t write it off quite yet. Especially since introspection hasn’t really been shown as one of Malaya’s strengths, overall. A kiss can feel “not right” for other reasons, especially since M still has reason to doubt that Leslie’s attraction to her is really deep enough for it to work.
There’s also the dark-horse possibility that Malaya does see that Les is just trying to talk herself into loving Malaya, and is now “throwing” the relationship rather than spend months with someone who’s just not into her. Or maybe, maybe, this is a test that’ll prove Leslie has deeper feelings for her after all. We’ll see soon enough.
(Not REALLY soon enough, but we take what we can get.)
As a lesbian, I don’t think I would hold a girl who was questioning her orientation deciding that she’s really straight against her at all. Most of us lesbians have gone through a “don’t know what’s going on” period, and it wasn’t fun times by all and we tend to have some amount of empathy. Also, all of the lesbians I know would rather be with other lesbians (or bisexual women) than have a straight girl be in a relationship with us. I’ve been told that straight girls are bad in bed. I’ve only seen that sort of an attitude have been the men I dated before I came out. I was trying to be bi and all of them point-blank asked that I date a man after them or at least not leave them for a woman.
Also Robin didn’t leave Leslie for a man, their (Les and Robin) relationship became very dysfunctional because of cheating, but Robin certainly isn’t with whats-that-guy’s-name, nor did it seem like she even intended to be with him long-term. She just wanted to try sex with him.
All this is true, and I’m sure that Leslie would agree with it if she had a little while to process it. I’m thinking more of the immediate reaction.
One of the few problems with people like Leslie is that you can’t always tell when they’re repressing things. As far as we’ve seen, Les has never expressed anger with Robin except for the most momentary flickers. Maybe she really is that forgiving. Maybe she got all her anger out off-panel. Or maybe Malaya’s just set herself up to get it passed on to her.
It’d be ironic, right? The one time Malaya didn’t actually DESERVE an angry outburst…
—————————
Thinking this over more, I guess there was nothing in Malaya’s earlier actions that indicated a sexual attraction on her end. She liked making Leslie melt, and she called her hair pretty in their first meeting, but she keeps stressing everything she likes about Les *except* physical attributes. In some people this is a sign of depth, in Malaya it may have been a sign of trouble.
There was no cheating. Robin, while on her bender, brought up all the things she’s given up for Leslie, who then broke up with her as she felt she was preventing Robin from being happy. The major hurt feelings came from the fact that Robin went on to bang a dude and display the video publically. No Cheating.
I like Faz more than Malaya. Does that make me weird? No, seriously. Faz is awesome. Just started reading the strips a few days ago and spent the last 12 hours reading the archives.
No, I know! Faz can hook up with Leslie! That would be absolutely hilarious.
Nah, we have yet to see a positive side of Malaya, as her “honesty” is pretty much abusive behavior or a pissy attitude. Granted Faz doesn’t have much of a positive side either, but he occasionally suffers for his actions. Once we see Malaya fall and evolve, I think she will be better received. Though she may just evolve into a Sandslash and nobody will care just the same.
What if Malaya’s “straight” comment is just to get Leslie back for the “amazing rack” comment two strips back.
Leslie’s monologue in this strip sounds to me (and possibly to Malaya) like backpedaling. I’m sure Malaya is wondering (as I was) why Leslie didn’t say any of this to her mom. After all, if Les is looking for approval, wouldn’t this be more likely to get it, rather than saying the only thing she thinks special about Malaya is her boobs?
Let’s face it, Leslie hurt Malaya’s feeling (I’m not sure she has more than one), and Malaya has been shown before to be something of a bitch, and very good at saying just the right thing to make someone feel like shit.
Of course, I could just be overthinking this, and it could be that Malaya’s just realized she’s straight.
Why can’t it be… you know… just what it appears to be on the surface? Malaya was feeling very close to Leslie, was feeling like this could be the start of a better relationship than she’d had ever before, but when she moved in for the specifically erotic stuff, it just didn’t work for her? She’s young, she’s got some maturity issues, she’s “louder, ruder and more selfish,” but that doesn’t mean she set out to break Leslie’s heart like some sort of villain.
(Of course, the ironic bit could be months from now, when Malaya realizes she *does* swing that way… just not with Leslie… and hijinks ensue.)
HEY! GUYS! SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT WHATEVER YOU’RE DISCUSSING.
Leslie’s eyes got all…filled with white in the first panel. THERE’S SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG HERE! WHY DOES NO ONE ELSE WORRY ABOUT THIS!? IS NOBODY CALLING A DOCTOR!?
No. It went away by itself.
Over 400 comments.
My goodness, you really managed to polarize the troops with this one, Willis.
Frankly though, major TL;DR.
It doesn’t matter if you love or hate Malaya, her appearances sure does generate lots of interesting comments.
Funny story: this is pretty much exactly how I broke up with my first (and only) boyfriend. My exact words were “I think I’m a lesbian,” delivered right after he finally worked up the nerve to kiss me.
Then we sat in excruciating silence until my dad came to pick me up.
well, she could’ve said that earlier.
You know, I dislike Malaya as much as a lot of other readers seem to, but this moment actually isn’t one of the ones that makes me hate her. She thought she loved Leslie and was open to the possibility of being bisexual, but it turns out that she’s just straight. It’s not like she did it to hurt Leslie on purpose, and I’m sure it was just as much of a shock to her as it was to Leslie. Malaya’s an obnoxious, rude, nasty person, but in this instance, I really don’t think she did anything cruel.
Biiiiiiiiiiiiiii- You know what. That’s it Malaya. Back on the list. I thought you were better than that so I took you off, but you’re going right back on. You are now number two on the list of bitches. -__- Now kick her ass Leslie.
And no I am not putting her back on the list just because she realized she was straight. She’s going back on the list because of how she said it. D:<