[1006] The End Of The World
└ posted on Monday, 23 July 2018, by Novil
There is a new poll in the voting widget in the left sidebar:
- What is your all-time favorite story arc?
- Zoey: I lost at minigolf! This can’t be happening!!
- Michelle: Relax, Zoey, it’s not the end of the world.
- Zoey: This is the end of the world! Now I have to win all three remaining games or I’ll lose against… nerdzilla!
- Zoey: WAAA-HAAA It’s just not fair!
- Michelle: At least you’re such a good sport about losing.
- Zoey: Very true. My regal demeanor is what separates me from the riffraff.
![[1006] The End Of The World](/comics/2018-07-23-1006-the-end-of-the-world.png "[1006] The End Of The World")
Why yes I am. Thank you for noticing.
She’s elegance
She’s grace
She’s Miss United States
On a side note, I know she’s technically the ‘bad guy’ of the comic, but each and every strip just makes me love her more and more.
Take every compliment you can, there might not be any additional ones…
Pretty certain Zoey will win the next two events — ensuring a Sudden Death playoff.
That ratchets the suspense up to the point where she and Sandra agree to a round of Larisaball.
Unless Larisa, who is Sandra’s BFF, picks a ‘habits of raccoons’ quiz for the finale.
NewEraOutlaw wrote:
On a side note, I know she’s technically the ‘bad guy’ of the comic, but each and every strip just makes me love her more and more.
Yeah, I feel the same. She ain’t that bad honestly. Just a bit missguided.
Zoe is also a paragon of self-awareness.
Careful there, Zoey. Only you can prevent Shaken Michelle Syndrome.
Speaking as a retired middle school teacher, Zoey’s behavior is perfectly normal–for her age. She will eventually outgrow it and everything will be fine. But right now she’s driving everyone crazy! Zoey, stop it!
Is Zoey supposed to be a bully? Like, it seems that she gets bullied more than anyone else in this comic
@ Edda:
I hope she wins the last one as well but of course, what’re the chances of that happening?
Three more minigames ? By the time they finished, the park is closed and all other characters have gone home already.
So 3 out of 5? Sandra only needs to win another one.
Finally Zoey shows herself to be a teenage girl.
She’s getting cuter and more loveable.
Time for her to win a game or two.
Maybe Sandra and Zoey will find out they can get along.
@ tofei:
Fingers crossed she doesn’t 😛
I think their mind has started to decay…
Three more games? It doesn’t clarify if it’s minigolf or if there’s going to be 3 rounds of a different, third game. I know, wait, but this might be the part where the writer pulls something crazy. There’s always that point where you have to decide if you want a seat in the front row, or the farthest, back row….
Sarcasm undetected.
Brijeka Vervix wrote:
I don’t know enough about Zoey’s normal behavior to judge if she’s a bully (she very well may be but from what we can see she’s rather bad at it) but I think our protagonists see enough cause to bully her (back?). She is rather self-absorbed, of course, and a bit megalomaniacal (whether or not that is enough reason to bully her is certainly up for debate) but doesn’t seem to be (much) more than just annoying/embarrassing.
In the end, I’m fine with flawed protagonists who think they have enough of a reason to “put her in her place” and I certainly don’t expect this arc to end in a “bullying is harmless fun for you and all your friends” type of message.
Poor Michelle. She should see a doctor to make sure you hasn’t sustained a concussion or intracranial bleeds from that shaking (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4049539, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1725330, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4878289) not unlike the more commonly identified Shaken Baby Syndrome.
@ Evilbob:
Cloud’s head is stuck in a bottle. She’ll be fine
@ Brijeka Vervix:
Everyone’s the hero of their own story. Although this time she’s kind of brought it on herself.
To all indicating that Zoey’s a sore loser.
Actually Sandra isn’t any better. It just happens that she won the last two events.
(And not entirely be using only fair means …)
I’d say they each deserve the other one as a frenemy 😉
@ Raen:
Hardly
Brijeka Vervix wrote:
Really? Have you reread the comics tagged Zoey? She is constantly bullying people for the sole reason that she considers them uncool and weak – “nerds”, “weirdos”, “uglies”, maybe she’s even racist since she also bullies Luna, though that may be a coincidence and more due to her ugly poor people’s clothes than to her being a Latina. Just a few comics ago we have seen Zoey literally walk over Sandra while Sandra was having a panic attack. Also, she tends to treat her friends more like minions than like true friends, she is awfully arrogant and full of herself.
Admittedly, she does get some serious repercussions from Larissa that are sometimes out of proportion and can well be labeled as bullying themselves – Larissa is a bit of a bully herself, but the reason why we forgive her more easily is that she doesn’t pick on the weak. Zoey loses to Larissa and now to Sandra several times, so I guess she is presented as an ineffective bully, but that is because she is a “villain” in a PG 13 Cartoon, she’s bound to lose. E.G. Gargamel is a very bad wizard, because he constantly looses to a gang of pathetic little blue gnomes, but that doesn’t make him less evil.
@ someguy:
As a matter of fact, I actually have and you will find that of the 54 strips featuring Zoey, she bullies another cast member 3 times, she makes banter with another cast member 3 times (with 5+-1 of these being uncomfortable truths and thus not really bullying) whereas she is bullied/treated unfairly at least 9 times.
She was not racist to Luna in the slightest.
Michelle’s betrayal of Zoey’s trust in the election chapter and Larisa’s homophobic remarks following Zoey kissing Michelle were not counted since I was not sure if these were deliberate ‘attacks’ but I still believe that they caused Zoey undue stress.
Now Zoey will win the next two games, and the last will be a tie or end without a clear winner.
@ someguy
Gargamel was actually a very skilled wizard, he just tended to be very cowardly in the face of any sort of authority and was completely fixated on his specific goal almost to the exclusion of everything else, but the few times he managed to put those tendencies aside he was frighteningly competent. For example, the time his stepfather Balthazar (whom he actively feared) injured Azrael, Gargamel proceeded to lay out a completely one-sided magical beatdown on him.
Still doesn’t excuse being constantly humiliated by annoying three-inch-tall living garden ornaments, though.
@ someguy:
Have you? Zoey is seen bullying far less than Larisa, who, might I add:
– Made her eat her homework by pureeing it in a blender
– Offered to set her magazine on fire when she’s doing little more than sitting down and crying
– Broke into her home and turned off her heat
– Took pictures of Zoey without her consent and taped it on a board to suggest that she’s a descendant of worms
All of Zoey’s bullying amounts to tittering at people. One can count the diving board incident, I suppose, but to me, that’s more of a gag to show that she really doesn’t care for Sandra rather than being harmful. Larisa, on the other hand is FAR more malicious – she seems to go out of her way to physically assault Zoey or do damage to her personal property. I can easily argue that Larisa is far worse of a bully than Zoey ever was in the entire comic.
Hell, even the writers acknowledged this in a strip, where Zoey says: “Why should I tell you, of all people? All you do is bully me!”
Also, that whole ‘bullying Luna who happens to be a Latina is racist” is complete nonsense. Zoey made absolutely no disparaging comments about her race whatsoever. She picked on her dress.
As for the way Zoey treats her friends….er, no. Not once have I ever seen Zoey boss them around like minions. Michelle and Taylor seem perfectly independent on their own, with the latter even being openly snarky towards her, and Michelle being the object of her affections.
One thing you have to understand is that Zoey is the ‘straight man’ (so to speak) in a comic full of weirdos. Her commenting that some of the characters are acting like dorks is a pretty accurate description of the cast. It’s like calling Squidward a bully for having to deal with Spongebob.
Oh, and by the way. Zoey is actually seeking help to NOT be a bully. There’s that too.
Yeah, I REALLY don’t think you’ve properly read the comic.
@ NewEraOutlaw:
For the record, I already did concede that Larissa bullies Zoey back in a comical over the top way that is ultimately way worse than what Zoey does (but more easily forgiven because she picks the arrogant wealthy parents’ kid who started the bullying instead of a weaker victim and because it is less realistic and therefore taken more as cartoon antics than as the serious assaults they would be if someone did anything like that in real life) and I already said that she isn’t necessarily racist, but maybe bullies all poor girls who have to wear ugly second Hand clothes regardless of their race (which isn’t very much nicer, though). Maybe Zoey triggers me because I know and have been victim to bullies like her (both male and female) in my real life youth. Zoey is a less exaggerated character than Larissa and acts more like a real life school bully does.
As for Zoeys relationship to her friends – she clearly wants admirers and supporters, though her friends don’t always comply with that. She even explicitely states that she expects Michelle to be at least her “minion” if she cannot be her lover.
Of course anyone is entiteled to his or her own opinion, but I daresay if you like Zoey that much and consider the MCs to be that much worse, your opinion of the characters most likely isn’t conform with Novil’s intentions. Zoey is clearly meant to be an antagonist, albeit a human one and not a cartoonishly evil baby kicking puppy dog eating villain.
@ Edda:
I don’t know how, but you evidently read the next page before it was released.
@ Brijeka Vervix:
I dunno. I think Cloud’s a special case. Any child of Ye Thuza’s is a special case…@ Brijeka Vervix:
I dunno. I think Cloud’s a special case. Any child of Ye Thuza’s a special case.
@ someguy:
You know, it’s never specified if Zoey’s parents are wealthy or not and even if they are, that doesn’t make her a more justifiable target for bullying, especially the insane stuff that Larisa does to her. Now it might be insane but it definitely does happen and you cannot simply over look it. I’ve had brushes with a bully at school who actually burnt a house down and that was a whole level above garden variety school bullies. You could actually say that Larisa is an under exaggeration of reality.
Now with the ‘minions’ thing, I think that it is reasonable for Zoey to expect such levels of support from her BFF and she would probably do the same for her. In fact she probably believes that there is a mutual agreement between them to support each other like I hope there is between me and my friends. Unfortunately, like in Zoey’s case, my experiences indicate otherwise :'( (and being betrayed like that really hurts btw)
Also Zoey wasn’t bullying Luna because her clothes were ugly and second hand but because she wore the same clothes for several days in a row.
I’m beginning to suspect that even if Michelle were into girls, she probably still wouldn’t date Zoe.