![[1022] Replacement Challenge](/comics/2018-09-17-1022-replacement-challenge.png "[1022] Replacement Challenge")
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There are four strips remaining in this story arc, and they’ll be among the best ones!
- Larisa: The last challenge is about smooching! The better kisser wins!
- Sandra: What?! You can’t be serious!
- Larisa: Are you ready?
- Sandra: Yes, but…
- Larisa: Zoey wins!
- Sandra: Say what?!
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I didn’t expect this, I didn’t want this, but nonetheless this is good stuff.
Confidence is everything in kissing. Confidence, and use of tongue.
Given what Larisa knows, I feel like this challenge was rigged.
Oh wow. Holy.
Zoey looks impressed with herself.
@ BadRoad:
+1 (there should be a way to like comments lol)
The remaining four strips are about how everyone except Taylor caught mono at the pool.
Aww, Zoey finally got someone to smooch
well, to be fair, zoey had an unfair advantage here – not that anyone aside from larissa knows. also, i absolutely LOVE the reactions of the boys, landon in particular.
Larisa looks a bit surprised at Zoey’s um, aggressiveness? She’s puttin’ her back into it. Is Zoey attracted to Larisa at all, or is her focus solely on Michelle?
Cloud looks like he’s gonna have a heart attack, and Landon is worried he better up his game.
Landon, are you still not used to it? Good strip, and I think the comments will be ecqually entertaining
LAUGHED. OUT. LOUD.
That’s my girl!
Wait, did Larisa design this specifically to give Zoey the win? Of course the lesbian would kiss a girl better.
erejnion wrote:
That would be too simplistic. More likely it’s that Zoey has had to spend more time fantasizing of late, so it was easier for her to pretend Larissa was the one she really wanted to kiss than it was for Sandra to do that.
So is this the point where Larisa realizes she’s Bi? She seems to be enjoying kissing Zoey a lot more than she expected to. Landon seems a little worried, could it be that he is expecting Larisa to decide that Zoey is a better choice (she is)?
(personally, I think the much more hesitant kiss between Larisa and Sandra is cuter but Cloud in the background ruins the effect.)
Why do I get adds for white hoodies splashed with fake blood with the inscription “I’m fine” on them? Were the models standing too close to Cloud, perhaps? 😀
Well, I’d be more surprised if this wasn’t the final challenge.
Also, I like how they demonstrate the differing qualities of the two different kisses by displaying the “smooch” onomatopoeia differently between Larissa’s kiss with Sandra and her kiss with Zoey.
(Also, Cloud, you’ve seen Larissa kiss Sandra before. Although, seeing them kiss in bikinis must add to the nosebleed factor)
I know wonder if it is the winner or loser who has to do something publicly humiliating. Knowing Larissa, it could easily go either way, or both ways.
“Zoey wins!”
In this moment, I am ecstasy.
Now hang on, I was pretty sure there were two judges?
Surely enough, disregarding orientation, Zoey has better body language than Sandra, especially since she didn’t give ANY space for Seeoahtlahmakaskay 😛
Also, Michelle, get the camera!!! 😀
@ Esha:
Taylor ran out of there so fast she didn’t even get her name in the tags.
Larisa does indeed seem to have deliberately chosen an event she knew Zoey would win. I wonder whether this will tie into the “Why did Michelle vote for Sandra and not Zoey” conundrum that hasn’t been explained.
@ Salisria:
You’re glossing over the fact that a more or less strictly heterosexual person would naturally be quite uncomfortable with the idea of kissing someone of the same sex, even if it’s part of a competition and even if they didn’t have anything resembling a “you should only kiss your love interest” moral value. A homosexual or bisexual person would no such discomfort. Add to that the fact that Sandra had been put on the spot with no time to psychologically prepare herself, and it’s more than plausible that her kiss objectively SUCKED because her discomfort about engaging in homosexual activity leaked over into the way she’s kissing Larisa.
Booo. We want Larisaball!
Good on yer, Zoey.
I just want to point out how awesome the “kissing as extreme sport” tag is. And given that tag, Larisa’s inclinations, and Zoey’s orientation, I’d say it’s pretty likely that the next few strips are along similar lines.
Clearly a tongue-in-cheek first place. Afterwards should be fun.
As predicted, the spectators win.
The look on Taylor’s face…she knows about Zoey. So she knows the contest is virtually unwinnable for Sandra. So she’s going to rule this a tie, which, as the backup contest, makes the whole thing a tie. Probably the best result for everybody.except Taylor, who doesn’t get to serve as jury or executioner. Pity.
Cloud’s hair needs a “sproing” sound effect.
I dunno, I think Sandra’s hesitation is less about kissing a girl as it is hesitation about kissing the mouth the beholds that insanely creepy tongue.
I would argue that the winner is the audience in this contest.
This was completely unexpected, and completely amazing.
Of course, Zoey’s expression in the last panel is great, but I want to point out her expression in the second panel. This thoughtful look at an uncertain Sandra really is an interesting response.
Fanservice, yay!
I don’t know about this. In my opinion it’s too easy to rule “she is a lesbian, so she must be better at kissing a girl”. Several factors come into this:
– experience. Sandra has much more experience at kissing. Kissing a boy, yes, but still I think this point is a win for her.
– relationship. Sandra and Larisa are best friends, Zoey and Larias are kind of enemies. Sure, the “friend zone” is seldom a place for sexual tension, but is the “enemy zone”? Hm, perhaps.
– “hunger”. Of course Zoey is far hungrier for kisses than Sandra, who can kiss Cloud whenever she wants.
– sexual orientation. Clear win for Zoey on this one.
Okay, I yield, Zoey had the upper hand here. 😉
It’s a good thing for Cloud that the middle of his swimsuit is flat black. ;D
I think the challenge needs to be redone. Taylor, despite being Zoey’s friend, has been… painfully impartial, to say the least. She would be a much better judge.
Might I refer to the water polo strip?
Maybe Sandra should ask the referee to verify it…
…did Larisa do that for Zoey?
I’m DEFINITELY with Sandra here.
“SAY WHAT?!?”
I would’ve expected a fire related thing.
@ Crestlinger I saw what you did there, Carlos.
@ Paeris Kiran:
Unless Taylor is completely biased towards Sandra, that wouldn’t do much for her. It is undeniable that Zoey’s technique was much better than Sandra’s. Honestly there should be more of it.
Oh yeah, Larisa totally set it up for Zoey to win … even if she seem a bit surprised by Zoey. Maybe Larisa did it to allow Zoey a chance to smooch without reveling her secret … plausible deniability. “But Michelle, I had to kiss her like that! I didn’t want to but I had to beat Sandra.”
Maybe she did it to show Zoey that Michelle didn’t betray her, as she thinks, somehow. That the kids will use this competition as a learning moment , to learn to accept things in a more mature way, to accept each other and grow up into more responsible and caring adults.
Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
This is all a smart part of succubus’s plan of world domination through smooches and fire.
So young, yet so evil. 🙂 Well done, Larissa, freak outs all around (although not yet in the comments, surprisingly). Not sure how Zoey achieves long-term happiness, but fingers crossed.
Poor Landon. He hasn’t been in the comic at all for two and a half months, and hasn’t appeared in this storyline for five months, and now he’s back, he has to watch his girlfriend kissing someone else.
Peya Luna wrote:
The fact that Zoey is a closet lesbian and Larissa knows about it could have played out both as an advantage as well as a disadvantage. On the one hand, it is an advantage for delivering a good kiss if you are actually attracted to the person you are kissing and don’t generally consider it weird for you to kiss a person of the same gender. But on the other hand, especially for a closet lesbian like Zoey who is ashamed of those feelings, it adds a whole new level of awkwardness, especially if the person she has to kiss is someone she usually dislikes as a person – and that Larissa knows her secret makes it worse, since Zoey has to be afraid that Larissa would tease her and call her out on having a secret crush on her if she performs too passionately. For Sandra on the other hand, it might be weird to kiss a girl, but it is without any doubt just a demonstration of technique and a dare challenge to overcome the weirdness. Plus Sandra probably had more practical experience in kissing by now than Zoey, given that she has a steady boyfriend and Zoey hasn’t. So no, the challenge wasn’t really rigged, it all came down to how daring and confident Zoey would act in that very awkward situation.
All-Purpose Guru wrote:
Judging by the spray out of his nose, his blood pressure is at least several atmospheres – it’s a miracle he’s even alive.
a slight reminder
Also notice how Zoey pulls Larisa in for the kiss and then looks so proud of not just winning, but also of creating such a work of art of a kiss and in a way that suggests that she does things like this all the time, but not in a way that demeans the skill required to perform the act itself.
This again? Really?
sigh…
As if kissing someone of the same sex isn’t cheating, and as if every boy likes girl to girl action
Does this comic even have something to say anymore?
Here I thought we would get some clever (and possibly funny) way that those two could start to respect each other (not becoming friends as that would be a huge cliché), and we get this!
And everyone who disagree with me, please do, defend that you like to see thirteen year olds making out… that’s seems to be this comics only theme as of lately
I found the reactions of Cloud vs. Landon to be interesting. Cloud didn’t feel threatened by his girlfriend kissing another girl; quite the opposite: he was turned on by it. Landon was clearly NOT happy with his girlfriend kissing another girl; he looked jealous (in the denotative sense that he felt something was at risk of being taken away from him).
This is interesting because Cloud’s is the more “stereotypical” male reaction, but also because the two relationships are actually of sorts where you’d expect the reactions to be reversed: Cloud and Sandra are, in theory, more romantically/emotionally connected than physically (not saying they don’t find each other attractive, but their relationship started and is based in that kind of connection); Landon and Larissa are theoretically in a purely physical relationship (up to and including Landon being psyched up by and fine with the notion that he’s just Larissa’s boytoy).
In theory, a purely physical relationship suggests that seeing your partner make out with another potential partner you two could share would be a turn-on. While an emotional bond would suggest that you’d feel a loss or betrayal at such things.
I suppose there’s room to argue that the thought of it as purely physical makes Landon worry about being replaced, while Cloud doesn’t have that worry due to his trust in Sandy and in his relationship with her’s solidity. However, I can’t help but wonder if Landon’s insecurity reveals that he’s NOT just fine with it being purely physical, and actually has serious feelings for Larissa.
Eh? It’s probably the confidence, Sandra looks embarrassed, Zoey was more pro-active judging from Larisa’s expression. Anyway, the succubus-in-training hath spoken! Time to move on.
Of course Zoey wins. Sorry, Sandra, no way were you winning this last test.