[0529] This Is Not The End
└ posted on Monday, 18 November 2013, by Novil
- Zoey: — That’s just terrible, Larisa. I’m so sorry for you.
- Larisa: You have to look on the bright side, Zoey. Misery has always run in my family. Maybe I can finally break the cycle!
- Larisa: If Michelle hates you now, do you want to sit next to me in class for the time being?
- Zoey: No, it’s not like that. She doesn’t know that I like girls.
- Larisa: I don’t quite understand. You did kiss her, right?
- Zoey: Yeah, that was really stupid of me. But she bought my excuse. I told her that I…
- Caption: Meanwhile in Michelle’s house.
![[0529] This Is Not The End](/comics/2013-11-18-0529-this-is-not-the-end.png "[0529] This Is Not The End")
Leomon wrote:
On Sunday too.
Clue Fairy must be using the postal service.
Yeah, looks like somebody smacked Michelle upside the back of the head with a clue-by-four. Right now her mind is probably full of “OhmygodZoeykissedmeshelikesmelikesmedidilikeitshouldilikeitwhatdoido?!?!”
Michelle kissed a girl and she doesn’t know if she liked it.
What if Larissa isn’t talking about actual misery, but about being miser-y? That is, being like a miser. Completely implausible, and incorrect grammar, but an interesting thought anyway.
@ Mr_Nabby:
“Misery has always run in my family” – I wonder if her problem is depression? Her father’s painings (and her happy counter-paintings) might push in that direction.
I had a thought just now- If we assume that Larisa’s secret is a genetic illness, what would make her hopeful that se might break the cycle of misery?
Maybe it could be that there has been recent advances in the field of medicine that makes it possible for her generation to get proper treatment from an early age?
On a completely unrelated note; I realised that there has almost been a year since the last Under a Killer Balloon episode.
My guess is that Episode 2(The Fire Girl?) will return in early 2014, just around the same time when the new Tex Murphy game is supposed to be released.
@ Norman:
Ah, thanks. ‘demons’ and possible depression and all. OTOH the family itself seems functional from the little we see there, though I suspect Larisa is closer to dad than mom; I was worried about cycle of abuse or something.
Maybe her pills are psychiatric, not body-medical?
Michelle’s thinking, “Oh, shit, there goes my perfect record.”
Michelle realizes that she’s bi and she’s starting to prefer GIRLS. XD
@ hola:
What disgust? She only said she shouldn’t publicly kiss, and not on the mouth.
Has anyone maybe thought this secret has to do with Larisa’s mother? It would make sense. Just think about it for a minute. I don’t buy into a “condition”. But family matters tend to stay hidden.
Meanwhile at Mitchell’s house she is now mentally scared for the rest of her life the end
Michelle’s brain going to ‘blue screen of death’ in 5…4…3…2…1….
OK three things could be going through her head rite now
A.she’s having a homophobic panic
B.she upset because she doesn’t know how too face Zoe after that.
C.After a day of thinking about what happened, she feeling as if the kiss, felt rite
Luke wrote:
Yeah… the new systems is totally screwed up. I’ve completely stopped reading or writing comments on youtube. Not that I did much of both before, but still more than none.
On to the comic: Still people being bitter about us not learning Larissa’s secret? I do understand it somewhat, sure. But did it ever occur to them, that this is not some cheap cop-out or attempt to troll readers? That the overall (and existing for quite a while) storyline demanded for Zoey to be in the know now, but (equally important) for us not to be at this particular point?
As for Michelle, I’m quite curious how this will play out in the future. Will she rat out on her friend? Question her own sexuality? Ask a person she deems wise for counsel? Go to Disneyland? All of the above? Possibilities are pretty much open at this point.
I do love that last panel though! 😀
Rachel wrote:
I was thinking that only one of Larisa’s current parents was her natural parent..? Is Ivan a step-dad??
@ AckAckAck:
As right as you are, there’s also the possibility that Michelle -IS- attracted to girls, but disgusted by it – while I freely admit relative ignorance of these matters, aren’t plenty of people scared by and/or uncomfortable with their sexuality, especially when there’re pressures in their life that encourage homophobia?
@ ekimmak:
True dat
… Michell is just trying to think. Think how she can get her virginity back.
@ Iron Ed:
Novil has confirmed that Ivan is Larisa’s biological father.
-Meanwhile in Michelle’s house, we find said person slowly losing her mind.
Everyone’s saying “don’t make Michelle turn gay”, but this is yet another instance of the Internet thinking only in terms of “straight or gay”. Who’s to say Michelle isn’t bisexual and was in denial about it/hadn’t quite realized it until Zoey kissed her? Personally I’m hoping that Michelle and Zoey do end up together – they’d be so cute! – but I realize that’s probably overly optimistic.
Silly Name wrote:
Wow. Hate to be redundant, it pretty much speaks for itself, but: Awesome comment.
finally finished the archives. now i catch myself saying “WOO!”
I’d like to believe that Michelle just played it cool but then she was actually horrified at such an awkward moment. Michelle realizing a sudden lesbianism is too cliché and unlikely at the same time (let’s be honest: if this happened in real life, what would be the chances they both were lesbians without knowing). It’d be cool, for a change, to see a situation like this develop in a conflict where things get awkward between zoey and michelle, as michelle isn’t a lesbian herself.
Was Zoey wearing cherry chapstick?
Why would you go on youtube and comment? It’s just flame war after flame war after shitstorm.
@ Luke:
Maybe she told her that she’s suffering from a rare communicable disease that causes sudden uncontrollable urges to kiss nearby people, regardless of their gender?
@ Jonathan:
I kissed a girl just to try it / hope my boyfriend don’t mind it…
@ Silly Name: That was beautiful.
This strip was fantastic and mostly makes up for what you did last strip.
*grumble grumble powerful enemy lost some power grumble*
I find it amusing that so shortly after the Gunnerkrigg crossover, BOTH of these comics are undergoing a homosexual discovery of young women AT THE SAME TIME!
Coincidence?????
…yeah. Probably.
@ Deko:
I vote Lag!
What we fail to realize, is that so-called “little” things like that kiss. Can take a carefully raised-child’s-life…and just toss it into an emotional bender!
Natural my foot….*
*- Easily offended, please ignore this grumpiness of a religious guy who pities one of the “Top three”(Christianity…not-mine-by-the-way) which has now picked up a new Bully called G-rights. While the media neglects E-rights…the oldest btw.
Lukkai wrote:
Case.and.Point!
@ hola:
OR, here me OR maybe she does have some feelings for her more than a friend, but when you are in high school, middle school and popular you tend to put up a giant front. So many girls in grade school will pretend not to be into something they really like for the sake of their popularity. I know its a lame example but look at the fairly odd parents where trixie, the most popular girl in school liked something as simple as comic books but could not indulge in them because of her status.
Michelle quietly whispered to herself…
“I kissed a girl.
AND I LIKED IT.”
I’m not sure if Michelle’s look is one of terror/shock, or of anger. And since this is the last of this storyline, for now… I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Yep,im totally sure she knows nothing.
Zoey: “I told her that I laid my eggs in her chest and they’ll bust out through her rib cage any day now.”
By what Larisa said, “Misery has always run in my family.”, we can infer that whatever her secret is, it has a history that goes back generations.
Baro wrote:
The odds? About one in ten, give or take. About 10% of people are gay, and at this age most will probably not know it yet.
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Am I the only one here still wondering Larisa’s secret?
Norman wrote:
Taking into account the gaunt appearance of her father and the pills she takes on the quiet, her secret indeed may be a severe illness that recurs in her family, maybe hereditary, and has to be suppressed by periodical medication intake. If so, another dispute with the principal about “drug abuse” at school would be one of her minor problems.
But we also know that Novil’s work, too, is full of surprising plot twists, hence in the end he may come up as well with something completely different.
That last panel…lmao
*meanwhile Dazed and Confused is playing*
WJS wrote:
Yeah, 10 % is the chance that any one person about whose sexuality you don’t have any Information yet could be gay. The chance that two childhood friends that became friends before they discovered their sexuality by chance turn out to be both gay is 1/10 * 1/10 = only 1%. Maybe a little higher if you factor in that kids who develop a bond of friendship with each other before puberty might share some social factors that correlate with a higher chance of turning out gay, but still the chance that two same sex childhood friends randomly discover that they are both gay and fall in love with each other is very small.
Michelle’s expression in the last panel looks rather like a mixture of being ashamed and weirded out by the fact that her best friend might be lesbian and into her and if so, that she had been incredibly insensitive towards her with her casual verbal abuse of “lesbos”.
I’m rereading this arc, so I’m not sure if this comic has been posted yet, but maybe it’s Larisa’s Wolfram syndrome?