One Perfect Moment: Menage A 3

[akodo_rokku]

If you're not familiar with Menage A 3, it's a deliciously raunchy and nerdy little webcomic by french-canadian cartoonist Giselle Lagace. And today's strip is certainly a perfect moment for one of its stars, Zii.

She wants revenge on a kid who was trolling her. And this is how she gets it.





I believe the kids call that "ownage."

Comments

[torberg]

And not only is Zii wearing "mom's" bathrobe, "mom" is wearing Zii's t-shirt.

[turtlefu]

Um, ew.
Seriously, ew.
This is not okay. He was trolling her. She slept with his mom. That is going way overboard.
I read the webcomic, and steadily and steadily I am disliking Zii.

[dorksidefiker]

You're not alone.

[mercia]

May I chime in with a hearty and heart-felt "THIS"?

Seriously, she's like a rabid little pitbull. On LSD. She's not amusing, she's just petty and spiteful and has all the foresight of a mayfly.

[shadur]

She's far from the only unlikeable character in the series, and /all/ of them seem to enjoy walking all over the nominal protagonist whenever they want something, then drop him the moment they get distracted and leave him to deal with the fallout.

The moral of the strip seems to be that if you're a girl and pretty, the world will forgive you for being an amoral selfish bitch, and if you're a nice guy the world will reward you by making you a doormat.

[merrickm.livejournal.com]

It's not like Gary is any better in terms of his intentions. He's pretty much solely motivated by his libido just like everyone else in this. The only difference is the creepy things Zii attempts are actually successful.

[turtlefu]

I beg to differ. Gary is not "soley" motivated by his libido.
He's the most level headed one of the cast, and he realizes how crazy Zii is.
He's well meaning, whereas Zii is just selfish.

[nothingbutcake]

IA. Gary is super Nice Guyish. It's gross.

[shadur]

I dunno, in this particular arc (and it's not the only example) he seems to be more concerned with trying to keep things from becoming an absolute disaster than with any kind of libido.

[blunderbuss]

This isn't Giselle's only strip that had this problem. The last chapter of Cool Cat Studio had Belinda and Liz act like selfish assholes (Liz especially) but still got away with happy endings when the strip finished. It's getting really damn annoying.

[mullon]

Yeah, this has just gotten creepy now.

[proteus_lives]

Much motto.

[liara_shadowsong]

Yeah, I'm starting to seriously dislike Zii. Like, a lot. She's... kind of messed up. I'd link to the Magnificent Bastard page on TV Tropes, but then there would be people blaming me for the site having eaten a day out of their lives. If I knew someone just like her IRL, I'd avoid her or him like the plague. Ew.

[shanejayell]

Yeah, that's getting creepy.

I'm hoping it's revealed as a con, later.

[tohofuhai]

Oh Zii you mother****er.

[long_silence]

Oh dear god.

Not cool Zii. That's going too far.

[q99]

Well, on the one hand, yea, as a 'revenge' it's overboard. On the other hand, it's not like the mom minded, they're two consenting adults.

[gargoylekitty]

This.

[xammax]

Its only revenge. Its like if someone fucked your Mom just to piss you off... its wrong.

[q99]

I presume she wouldn't have done this if she didn't find the mom attractive, and again, two consenting adults, and no-one's hurt.

While it is no doubt *weird* for the guy, he looks more shocked than pissed off, and if she had never let that info out it'd just be a girl who spent a night with his mom to him. I would put this more in the "intensely awkward" pile than 'wrong' per say.

[arilou_skiff]

Did the mom know she was only having sex with her for revege?

Not that she'd NECCESARILY care, bu it's kind of scummy otherwise.

[q99]

Hm, that's a question. And how much of it was 'only' too.

[psychopathicus_rex]

The way I read it, it's not so much 'revenge' - or rather, not JUST revenge - it's a shift in the power structure. I mean, before this the kid had the power, because he was a heckler on the internet - she can get mad, but what's she gonna do to him, right? It's the internet, the ultimate anonymous refuge - he can just fold his tents and slip away, laughing like crazy. Here, though, she's not just someone to be annoyed without fear of retribution, she's his mom's girlfriend - he doesn't DARE piss her off or she'll tattle to his mom, and he'll be in big trouble. It's not just 'ha ha, I slept with your mom, how'd ya like THAT?', it's 'ha ha, I slept with your mom, and I OWN you now, you little bastard. One step out of line, and your ass is mine'. The fact that his mom appears to be quite happy with the relationship, and that it appears to be reciprocal, is just icing on the cake.

[q99]

Yea, I think that's a pretty good reading.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Sankyoh.

[darkblade]

That strikes me as far more manipulative and wrong. If it was just a one time thing and ended there then it would still skeevy but is not as bad actively manipulating both the Mother and her son on a long term basis.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Except that she's not necessarily manipulating anybody - there's no particular evidence, at least not in this strip, to suggest that she's conned the mom into doing anything she doesn't want to. On the contrary, she seems positively giddy - she's obviously just had a night of really incredible sex, and seems to be showing genuine affection towards her new paramour. And Zii seems to be reciprocating. She may have gotten into this through impure motives, but now that she IS into it, she doesn't have to do anything nasty - all she has to do is keep up a regular relationship with the mom, which she seems perfectly willing to do, for as long as it lasts. Meanwhile, the kid will be forced to show at least a modicum of deference towards her, which is a complete 180 from his previous position of internet troll, and will be kept in a constant state of nervousness about what she's going to do next - and she needn't even actually DO anything, that's the clever part; all she has to do is imply that she MIGHT. She needn't do anything untoward at all - the kid will torture himself. Zii's got her revenge, the mom's got a new girlfriend, and the kid will hopefully be cured of his trolling habit. It's really rather ingenious.

[turtlefu]

You clearly don't see how:
Zii wants to get revenge on this kid
Finds mom attractive
sleeps with mom to satisfy herself AND get revenge on the kid
is extremely manipulative, overboard, and mean-spirited.

If she didn't have any "unpure" motives, then she wouldn't have smugly revealed herself to him in the last panel.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Oh, SURE she has unpure motives - she wants revenge on the kid, that's obvious; I'm just saying that she's getting it through ascending to a position of power over him - his mom's new girlfriend, who he'd better not mess with - as opposed to just doing it so she can go 'ha ha, I slept with your mom', as others have been implying. I'll grant you that I don't know the comic itself very well, but that's what my impressions were.

[megami18]

Well, I just went and read this entire series! Can't believe I hadn't heard of it before.

Oh, and I thought that this was great. I didn't take it that Zii was sleeping with the kid's mom out of revenge. I just thought it was Zii doing what Zii does best -- seeing something she likes and taking it. The rest was just icing on the cake?

[stolisomancer]

I'm sure things happen in this webcomic that involve something other than the left side of the second panel, but I'm reasonably sure they must be irrelevant.

[ian_karkull]

The internet is serious business.
Also, this reads like someone's weirdly specific masturbation fantasy.

[halloweenjack]

I was a big fan of Lagace's Cool Cat Studios back in the day, but... I tried getting into this, and it reads like it's being ghostwritten by Chuck Austen.

[shatners_bassoon]

She really should stick to co-creating with T Campbell - I thought they did great stuff on Penny and Aggie.

[stubbleupdate]

Right... read it all now

[philippos42]

Yeah, this was yesterday's strip. It was put on tvtropes's "Crowning Moment of Awesome" the day it came out. It also inspired one of the fastest-growing threads on the site forum, with fans chiming in to say they couldn't believe Zii had actually banged the kid's mom. ("I banged your mom" is the kid's sig on a forum where he trolled Zii--this is her revenge.)

Some (like me) were just shocked. Partly because of how they cut to it; this was the previous strip:

At this point, all we knew is that Zii had gained entry to the kid's house, not what form her revenge would would take.

Some were delighted. A few were really offended. Big to-do.

[cmdr_zoom]

She and Ryan Sohmer "Rayne Summers" should date.

[tsunamiwombat]

Yeah, I tried to read this, but it just turned out to be a webcomic about hot chicks walking all over some nebbish with a souped up libido. Except for the loving gay couple that actually seem concerned about their freind, I couldn't find any characters I really identified with.

[turtlefu]

"loving gay couple"
Who, Matt and Dillon? You mean the couple with one who cheats with kinky sex, and the other is just plain annoying.

The whole strip BEGAN by them not caring about Gary's feelings (also known as having sex on his drawing board, and then buying him a new one only to do it again.)

[shadur]

Don't forget the part where the crazy Japanese girl mistakes the cross-dressed Dillon (I think it was) for Gary's girlfriend and forces Gary (who isn't gay, isn't interested in Dillon at all, and whose stammering attempts to explain the above to a furious Yuki) to "treat her right" by kissing and making out with "her"...

And Dillon, who has been fantasizing about Gary more than once, decides that if he can't get an honest loving kiss from Gary, having Gary be forced to make out with him is an acceptable substitute -- and never mind the fact that his "friend" Gary is hideously uncomfortable with the whole situation and clearly being forced on threat of violence.

Also note that so far I don't believe /anyone/ involved has bothered to apologize for their part in it to Gary.

Gee, why can't we all have such great friends that are so considerate of our feelings?

[shadur]

Here is the start of that particular humiliation and discomfort conga for Gary.

All Dillon has to do is let up the act for FIVE BLOODY SECONDS when he realizes that Gary isn't having a good day, but...

[stubbleupdate]

Having read the one after this, it's pretty much a power play