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Batman’s gay, because his favorite food is Lobster Thermidor. *Proceeds to write lots of Batman/Superman/Robin slashfic! While Wonder Woman commentates and gives suggestions.* XD
so am i the only one imagining that Ryan’s sun-bleached bloodless corpse is still just kinda lying there on the steps three days later and people are casually stepping over it and kinda shoving it out of the way and such?
Nah, Ryan’s soul is a dried-up, desiccated husk with no nutritional value whatsoever. Only the consumption of a fresh, innocent soul could have given Mary so much vivacity. I’m sticking with puppies until I learn otherwise.
Unless even bacteria, protozoans, and fungi hate him and won’t stoop to consuming his body. In which case he’s slowly mummifying.
“I may be microscopic, but I have standards.”
I foresee Ryan to have crawled to Desanto headquarters for help and he’ll be there until his body is discovered next election. Robin missed him because she was too busy being angry Leslie didn’t come to support her.
New running joke: Every so often, someone wonders out loud what ever happened to Ryan. Fast cut to his pile of bones behind a shrub. Everybody shrugs, and figures he just got away.
….. except for the stuff like heavy usage of flannel and rainbow imagery? I mean, Becky’s obviously overdoing it here, but there’s still lots of symbols and signals on a… cultural level? Group identity level? … and Becky wants to dive into the deep end of that, but she doesn’t know what they are.
All that stuffs optional though right. Like you could be really into muted grey and brown industrial images and whatever the opposite of flannel is (silk maybe?) and still be a lesbian.
Well, yeah, but Becky clearly doesn’t just want to be lesbian. She is, and she knows that – what she wants it to embroil herself into the heart of lesbian culture; she just doesn’t actually have any familiarity with it.
Gawd, is it possible that she doesn’t even know about femme and butch? I’m torn between wanting her to find out all the history, and keeping her ignorant of such outdated stereotypes so she can find her own style.
Yeah, I’ve always had mixed feelings about that. I mean, I realized I was gay, to a degree (still somewhat in denial) when I was maybe thirteen? But all I knew about lesbianism was like, “there are lesbians who PLAY SOFTBALL and RIDE MOTORCYCLES and BUILD CANOES! And then there are lesbians who are SO HOT and hAVE SEX EVERY DAY ALL THE TIME! An they practice WITCHCRAFT! And then there’s, like, Ellen DeGeneres.”
And, while I wouldn’t recommend Orphan Black to thirteen year olds due to the extreme violence, having a bisexual female protagonist who’s skilled at escape artistry, conning people, social savvy, and trying to forge a tough resilient spirit without becoming too hard-hearted to be a good mom? Who is trying to figure out if there is a good or evil outside of protecting yourself and your family? And a lesbian secondary character who is pretty chill, loves science, has “West Coast” politics, is chronically ill, falls in love, and is the moral center of the show? Not to mention at least three other recurring LGBT characters, none of whom fit stereotypes?
It would have been reassuring. You can have a found family, with other LGBT people in your family, without trying to conform to aspects of a stereotype that don’t fit you well.
Er, in other news, I’m very, very excited for Orphan Black’s season premiere tonight, can you tell?
Fortunately nowadays we have the internet and hopefully kids can find a lot more varied lesbian representation out there. Like, we have actual lists of lesbian love stories in YA and comics. We have webcomics! Webcomics are so full of gay, it’s amazing. My all time favorite girls love story is a free-to-read webtoon (Always Human, if you’re interested). And, like, we have Steven Universe. And Korra.
Granted, Becky was never allowed to look for any of that so she probably has no idea what lesbians are like. The idea of what a lesbian is like that her community taught her must be so full of prejudices that she knows that it can’t be true, but she has no other frame of reference. And Leslie is a pretty chill person, who as far as we’ve seen is not super into the community. Is Becky found one of our full-queer, flashy pride queer communities, I bet she’d be wearing leather jackets with rainbow and axe bottoms and speaking strictly in slang in no time (although she might find it all a bit frightening). I mean, she already has the haircut.
Yup, she’s on the edge of community, real community of which she lost because of her church’s bigotry.
And the queer community has community, has history, has spaces she can hang without feeling alien to the culture around her, has that strength and purpose she craves. And at the moment, Leslie is the main entry point to all that in her mind.
Plus, this is part of being herself. Herself is an excited baby gay learning pride in her identity and craving love, acceptance, and culture. That’s a valid way to be oneself.
yeah I suppose she’s like “no, don’t just give me love and support, I already get that from my straight friends! What I need from you specifically is a sense of identity and belonging to a community!!!”
Please, everyone knows most lesbians make a new character around Level 7 or 8 anyways. Level progression past there is either overpowered or tedious and favors magic-based lesbians to a ridiculous degree.
It’s mages that get that? I always thought it was a cleric thing. At least that’s what the clerics on TV seem to claim: that the hurricane, earthquake, plague, whatever was brought on by lesbians and gays. I figured it was a power supplied by divine authority….
I kind of wonder if we are actually going to go down this road I get why Becky is all so excited like WOO LESBIAN TOAST but its wearing pretty thin, especially in this strip. She is only really seeing Leslie as a “Grown up Lesbian” and it would be nice for her to see that, idk, people can just be people. At first I kind of dismissed the “bah this is too straight for me” stuff as Becky being happy with coming out and being all excitable which is why its was ok to be a bit jerky, but here its pretty much “wow you live in this totally different world from all those straight people, what kind of breakfast is super gay that I can have??”
I think basically I just want Becky to chill. Its cool Becky. You can be a lesbian and still like things that straight people like
It’s not being happy, it’s taking pride in what you were so painfully and powerfully rejected for because the other option is sinking into depression.
Let Becky have her lesbian toast. Especially if you’re straight, and don’t understand that Becky has, in fact, literally been told, violently, by society, since long before she was able to accept that she was Different, that she is not in fact allowed to like anything but the things straight people like.
She’s rejecting straight-people-stuff because straight-people-stuff rejected her first, and literally the worst she’s saying about it is that straight-people-stuff is uncool.
BBecky was also raised in an ultra conservative extremist christian household. Sometimes Christian extremists have creative ideas about what kinds of foods, clothes, and behaviors make people gay. Its probably not her fault if she thinks Any of that is based in fact
She’s a baby gay, figuring herself out for the first time, exploring what that means, finding pride in something that literally was the catalyst of everything in her old life rejecting her besides Joyce and her sister (church, home, dad, school, community). Let her be a baby gay, let her go overboard on being a happy young queer person. Bob knows we don’t make enough spaces for young queer kids to do that and Bob also knows that we allow cis allo straight folks to vomit their identities twenty-four seven without question, even normalizing it as the default.
People don’t realize how aggressively pervasive Straight culture is, because they’ve been raised with it as normal. It feels strange to hear people talking about Lesbian Toast, about Nonbinary Haircuts, to see folks who are explicitly labeling and claiming things for their identities, only because we’ve all become thoroughly numb to cisheterosexism.
Folks want to complain about Becky “being jerky” about “straight things” without even realizing that they are upset to be told that toast isn’t just (straight, cis) toast.
They want to complain about Becky vomiting her identity all over the place, while meanwhile there are color-coded clothes for babies that say shit like “LADIES’ MAN” on them.
We are not the ones pushing our identities on anyone else. We’re just pushing back, and Becky is pushing back so gently.
I mean, I don’t know Torra, but I’m feeling this mainly because I *am* gay, you know?
Just, I feel like I don’t need another straight guy writer’s opinion about what is or isn’t important to young lesbians struggling with coming out. Judging solely on the Korrasami avatar, I’m guessing Torra is WLW too.
And, like, all the “WOO! Lesbianism!” and “lesbian culture” stuff really alienated me when I was first coming out. And it definitely delayed my coming out to myself as well. Because I knew being gay would mean that I would never exactly be able to fit in at home anymore (though my parents are not overtly homophobic, I still have not come out to my family).
But unlike Becky, it was also painfully clear to me that I could not fit into lesbian / LGBT culture either. I couldn’t fake it till I made it. I had no urge to immediately run out and get an undercut. And these kinds of “empowering” storylines often made me feel worse. I’m not enough of one thing or the other to fit in anywhere.
Torra’s thing, that you can literally have any hobby, be part of any class or cultural group, be part of any religion or be non-religious (I’ve mentioned before that finding the Episcopalian church was incredibly healing for me), be of almost any political alignment, wear any clothes, eat any food, be disabled, and still be genuinely, truly gay? THAT is what helped me come out, and seek out other wlw.
If you’re gay, then any breakfast you eat can be gay breakfast.
If you were immediately accepted into the first LGBT community you found, congrats. But I wasn’t, because I couldn’t fake the parts of myself that seemed to be required to be accepted by the official LGBT clique in undergrad. I still don’t have very many LGBT friends, although I do have some, and it’s incredibly lonely.
I wish more LGBT people in my area were like Torra. It feels like high school here: same number of arbitrary cultural rules to follow to fit in and be accepted, just the specifics are different.
Yeah, I hear ya. There’s a part of me that legit feels I’m not “bi enough” because I fail to meet some arbitrary standards. Hell I remember a gay dude here who gave me shit because he decided I wasn’t being appropriately queer enough for him.
Like, I don’t want to begrudge the idea of queer culture to those who need it and find empowerment in it, but for me tranquility came when I was able to say that I was bi without, like, thinking it made me something other than what I was before.
heh, yeah, I’m an outlier in enough ways that I just expect to be an exception to everything. Sometimes it’s really useful, when I’m close enough to pass as whatever’s most convenient, but other times… yeah, there’s the self-doubt and confusion, the trying not to flirt with girls because I’m not even sure if I’m “bi enough” or if they’ll be mad at me for not being a lesbian or knowing what I want… and then there’s the small irritations like always having ink/pencil on my hand (and smudged writing) in school from being left-handed. and the traumatizing stuff involving loud noises that other people somehow consider “fun”.
and the fact that I have the house to myself for a few days, and find myself thinking of myself in the plural, how it’s kinda fun to be just “us”. like, is that me, or did I just pick it up from the DID talk here? does it matter? and does it matter that I might have ocd? is it worth looking into that, or will I not find anything new? do I even have it, or just something similar because all my little compulsions I can mostly keep under control? do any of my doctors secretly think I’m a hypochondriac?
fuck, life is *confusing*. I’m glad becky at least gets to skip that uncertainty.
I mean, some political alignments actively hate you more than others, but sure.
“If you were immediately accepted into the first LGBT community you found, congrats.”
Nah. I was too busy being terrified to be openly Different or too “into” LGBTQIA+ culture, because my friend group was made up entirely of “we’re all a little bi, but you take your interest in girls way too far by actually wanting to date one” folks. They made me feel like I was already Too Loud, Too Obnoxious, Too Obvious, so I never wanted to make that somehow worse by actually going to a Pride event, or a GSA meeting, or any of it.
(I actually came out as gay first, and it took me a much longer time to accept that I could be bi instead of having to be a secret straight faking-liar who had never really been into girls. General bi erasure, the cultural pressure to Choose straight or gay, and also my shitty lesbophobic and also biphobic friend group probably all contributed to that.)
I’ve never had Becky’s experience either. Because I was too busy being terrified of being somehow Too Gay to actually even attempt to join any groups of any kind.
And while you feel like Becky’s experience is everywhere and you never saw any messaging that told you it was okay not to change who you were, I actually saw nothing except “being gay just means I like boys/girls instead of girls/boys, nothing else about me is at all different” messaging. I saw nothing but singular gay characters, whose only friends were all straight people plus a significant other if they were lucky, who were completely isolated from any concept of “LGBTQIA+ culture”.
All I saw or heard while growing up was the Respectability Politics line of “we’re just like straight people except for who we date”, which gave me the distinct, distinct impression that only weirdos who were Way Too Into Being Gay thought we had any kind of culture.
And that was just as isolating for me.
Now I feel like I have a peer group of LGBTQIA+ people, but only because I happened to luck into LGBTQIA+-friendly online scenes and then we gravitated towards each other. I’m not out at work, I don’t even know what the local organizations are, and I occasionally feel like a freak for having never been to a Pride.
There’s no one right narrative for this stuff. What you find alienating is exactly what I needed, and what I found alienating was what you needed.
I’m in my thirties, and I still need Becky’s story, “another straight guy’s opinion” or not. I would honestly love to know what media you’re consuming where you’ve seen this so much that you’re tired of it, because DOA is the only thing I’ve ever watched or read with enough queer characters to form multiple pairings.
I mean, some political alignments actively hate you more than others, but sure.” Which is exactly why I used the word ‘almost.’ I’m not politically ignorant, and I wish you wouldn’t imply that I am with your brusque “sure.”
“I would honestly love to know what media you’re consuming where you’ve seen this so much that you’re tired of it, because DOA is the only thing I’ve ever watched or read with enough queer characters to form multiple pairings…”
It’s hard for me to hear that and not hear that you disbelieve me or think I’m lying / exaggerating. I mean, what am I supposed to say to that?
What I got from fictional tv and movies was that no queer / LGBT people exist, ever, at all. I never saw a show like you describe, with a partnered lesbian or WLW character who is part of a larger cast. Not saying they don’t exist, but I really hadn’t seen any until quite recently.
What I got from reality shows (Project Runway, Miami Ink, Perez Hilton MTV, etc) was a lot of gay dudes, and some lesbians, straight up being mean and verbally bullying people. But, also making cool art? And sometimes being there for each other? So that was…confusing.
What I got from the LGBT section of the library was 1) a lot of erotica, which I found intimidating, albeit interesting
2.) I read Dykes to Watch Out For, some David Levithan stuff, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, a lot of LGBT poetry (Andrea Gibson, Mark Doty, Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou), and memoirs and biographies by LGBT activists
3). a lot of coming out YA stories which made coming out seem like a mandatory act of bravery that will inevitably change / ruin your life, but it’s okay because you’ll end up with a found family of a bunch of LGBT people
What I got from my friends in high school were yuri / yaoi manga, which my friends often read to make fun of. But also maybe two of them were queer but in denial / closeted?
And many of those books were great! They were very important, both culturally and to me personally. (Also, except for the erotica, they were mostly by LGBT writers).
But what I found in real life was a bunch of people at my college’s PRIDE who considered me uncool and excluded me for, well, not fitting in in ways I can’t fake, and straight people in other groups who find my being wlw uncomfortable. Not entirely, not all of them, and I have a few LGBT friends who are not cliquish. But…it’s not great.
And I wish I could hand my other wlw peers all these memoirs of fully-fleshed-out gay people who don’t conform to any “types” and manage to have close friendships and relationships with each other that are profound and complex… and not dependent on your hairstyle or whether or not you recognize the band name they dropped.
FIRST: I’m not going to say you’re imagining things, because that would be incredibly rude, but the tone you’re hearing in my comments is not the tone with which I wrote them.
Like, that’s not what I meant by that “sure”. What I meant was, “I agree with what you say to this point, but I feel the need to make this clarifying statement before I am able to process the rest of your post.”
And I meant that I was SINCERELY interested in what media you had watched / read growing up. So I was hoping you would respond with a list? Genuinely.
I’m going to start with “Buffy” for my part, where Willow comes out while simultaneously rejecting the larger Wiccan scene (and Wicca is inconsistently a metaphor for lesbian culture throughout the show), and has her girlfriend Tara, but neither of them are ever seen even acknowledging that there are other LGBTQIA+ people in the world. (Riley is seen helping put up a post for a group for lesbians to meet; Tara and Willow never are.)
Then there’s a bunch of shows like Pretty Little Liars (I vaguely remember a few shows in this same vein when I was growing up), or House; sitcoms with “very special” episodes about a gay character that just exist to demonstrate that the main cast are good allies. Shows like Deep Space Nine that feature a couple of episodes where two women kiss but are staunchly apolitical because they want to show that in the future no one cares anymore.
And then there’s Queer as Folk and The L Word but I didn’t watch QAF until I was well out of my teens and I still haven’t seen TLW; nor do I plan to, knowing what I do about its lone bi character.
That’s the media I grew up with: where we were on the edges, sometimes allowed to be main characters but always surrounded by and indistinguishable from straight people.
Like I said — it sounds like what I found alienating is what you needed to hear (that it’s okay to not have your sexuality be a major component of your identity), but I needed and still need stories like this, where it IS a major component and that’s okay.
Both these things reflect reality! Both of them are important.
I feel like you’re calling me shallow and were implying I must have led some kind of perfect queer life, and you feel like I’m calling you a liar, but I think that we are both wrong about the other. I think we are hearing hostility because this is kind of a painful conversation, rather than because hostility is there.
As yet another straight guy, I dunno how much my opinion is gonna be worth on the matter, but to me at least, this hasn’t really come across as Willis’s idea of of what’s important for coming out, or “the right way” to come out.
It just seems like it’s the way that makes the most sense for Becky, considering her loud, exuberant personality, and her stifling, repressive upbringing. Joyce’s floor is filled with openly bi girls, and none have been shown to have rainbows exploding out of them to the extent that Becky does, but the narrative really doesn’t seem to be suggesting that Becky’s way is better or worse than theirs. It’s just more Becky.
This may or may not have to do with the fact that Dina’s room is Amber’s room, which in turn could have invited complications from the fact that *redacted* *redacted* *redacted* after *redacted* *redacted* and *redacted* the *redacted* to the *redacted*.
It also occurs to me that “Steve with cereal” pages are used in QC to build suspense and/or delay when some critical event has happened but hasn’t be resolved. Coincidence or was it in Willis’ mind when he was writing the alt-text?
I strangely in love with this moment. She’s been taught her whole life that homosexuals are somehow fundamentally different and is still trying to get a handle on the fact that the only difference is who they wanna smooch.
noooooo *falls to her knees* *scrubs at her hands* will these hands EVER be clean??? *scrubs harder* I SWEAR I ONLY MEANT TO LOOK AT A BOY ONCE. it’s not my fault. *sobs harder* i knew i should have ran away from home the day my mom started shipping me with the son of one of her best friends. will my SOUL ever be free of this thrice-damned heterosexual vanilla
Polysexual is a term for attracted to multiple genders and can be an umbrella term for all such sexualities. It can also be used more individually for being attracted to multiple genders but not necessarily just two like bisexuality or ALL like pansexuality.
Nah, polyamorous is people who, well, practice or would want to be practicing polyamory. Polysexual is a contrast to monosexual, so, gay or straight. I believe it came about as an umbrella term for like bisexual and pansexual and people who are only into one sex but either gender or the reverse or whatever. Basically, just, people who are neither a zero nor a becky on the kinsey scale, in some way or another.
Yeah I just saw that the comment you were responding to pretty much actually already said everything that I said and most of that comment was wholly unnecessary uh sorry
Ooh, so I guess I finally found out a term for what I am… I have been wondering about this for a while. If I can fall in love with any gender (male, agender, genderfluid…) except those who identify as a woman, that means I’m polyromantic? Because I believe panromantic is being able to fall in love with ALL genders, no exceptions.
Do note that the generally accepted definition of bisexual, within the bisexual community, is not “attracted to two genders” but either “attracted to at least two genders” or “attracted to both your own (homo) and other (hetero) genders.” Many, many bisexuals are into non-binary people in addition to men and women.
The Bisexual Manifesto of 1990 was very explicit about this. We didn’t choose the word “bisexual”, it was created by Straight people, just like all these other words (“pansexual” is also reclaimed, it was originally another word for hypersexual), and it has been reclaimed.
Non-bi people don’t get to redefine “bi” over the protests of bi people, or to declare that cis bisexual people are any more inherently transphobic than any other cis people.
Also, it’s friggin dangerous to declare that ply* and pan people are inherently not transphobic; as cis people, transphobia is something we have to keep on guard for, not something for us to reassure ourselves we Aren’t because we picked a different label for our multi-spec sexuality.
(I identify as both bi and pan, which is where my weird pronouns come from.)
* Polynesian people are trying to reclaim “poly” as an identity for themselves and polysexual folks are encouraged to use ply as a shorthand instead. You’ll also sometimes see polyamorous shortened to polya.
This is how I identify the terms personally. I also want to note that who you are attracted to is something personal and that being sexually attracted to people of the same sex or of a different sex or cis people or binary people does not make you homophobic/transphobic/bigoted/close minded. We cannot control who our bodies and minds want. There is also a big difference between romantic and sexual, meaning love can occur between two people even when one or both do not feel sexual attraction or wish to engage in sexual activity. For example, an asexual person could be homoromantic.
Asexual: does not experience sexual attraction. It’s presence does not effect the likelihood of developing romantic feelings for a person or having a preference on romantic partners. Can preform sexual acts for the pleasure of their partner. Rather or not urge to masterbate is present or not and at what level varies.
Gray Asexual: experience sexual attraction in low levels which are negatable or which are only present under special circumstances or one who feels they fall in the gray area between asexuality and sexuality. It’s presence does not effect the likelihood of developing romantic feelings for a person or having a preference on romantic partners. Rather or not urge to masterbate is present and at what intensity varies.
Demisexual: can only develop sexual attraction after developing an emotional bond. The type of romantic attraction varies from person to person.
Polysexual: sexually attracted to most genders, but not all. Gender does play a part in attraction. May or may not include male, female, transmale, transfemale, intersex, gender fluid, two spirit, agender, third gender, or gender queer depending on the individual.
Pansexual: sexually attracted to people. Gender is not a factor (or such a small factor as to be negatable), only the personality of the individual.
Queer: sexual preferences cannot be easily defined with known terms.
A few other terms…
Polyamorus: a person who is romantically involved with more than one person at the same time. May or may not include a sexual relationship. Seriousness of each relationship varies (example: an individual having a wife, a boyfriend, and a fuck buddy). The point at which each relationship begins, progresses, and ends is independent of the others (example: breaking up with a boyfriend would not cause the relationship to end with a wife or fuck buddy. Going out on a date with a new person wouldn’t either). Partners may or may not be emotionally supportive when issues occur in life and/or with another partner. Consent and openness is a big part of it.
Polyfidelity: an exclusive romantic and/or sexual relationship between more than one person. Sexual and/or romantic activities are confined to the group and all members of the group are equal. When a breakup occurs or when there is the possibility of a new partner, it effects and involves the entire group.
Monogamy: when one is romantically and/or sexually involved with only one person at a time.
Romantic attraction: when one desires romantic contact with another person, bonds with another person, and/or experiences romantic love towards another. Gender preferences vary (panromantic, polyromantic, biromatic, homoromantic, heteroromantic, demi-panromantic…). Aromantic is the absence or negatable level of romantic attraction. Gray-romantic is when romantic attraction is between aromantic and romantic.
– “Trans male” and “trans female” are not separate additional genders. Trans men are just men and trans women are just women.
– Intersex is not a gender, although some intersex people absolutely feel that it impacts their gender in unique ways, and there ARE genders specific to some intersex people. But an intersex person might be a woman, a man, might or might not consider themselves trans, might be nonbinary, might be two-spirit, etc.
– Nobody’s saying that we cis people have to date trans people, because NO trans person wants to date a transphobic cis person. (They’re not that into us!) But, because trans is not a gender, and there is no one way that trans women look, blanketedly stating “I’m not attracted to trans people” is no more valid as a dating preference than “I’m not attracted to people of X race”.
Like, the only thing all trans women have in common is being trans, and if you find transness itself somehow unilaterally unattractive — if you would see a beautiful goddess of a woman, and then lose interest upon learning she’s trans — then yes, you’ve got some bigotry there. Up to you on whether or not you work on it.
Hath not a queer eyes? Hath not a queer hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a straight is?
(the question of whether/how much Shakespeare intended Shylock to be an actually sympathetic character, as modern readings often make him, has been a matter of Some Debate* over the years.)
“Something that wasn’t murder”
You mean like a double-suicide between two horny teenagers? Honestly, the story is better off without the title characters.
Namely, ‘holy shit you two, you let this fucking feud get so out of hand that at least three kids from your houses died, enough is enough – also, the prince lost two family members because he let this fuckery stand for so long without ever actually doing anything about it.’
like Romeo and Juliet didn’t kill themselves to solve their problems, they killed themselves because they thought they had no other recourse in order to be with each other. just two kids who wanted to be together. the tragic irony is that they could’ve been together if everyone would have gotten their heads out of their asses for like five minutes
and i mean like whatever, you can find them both as annoying as you want, but they still got a right to live and be with the people they want to be with.
Yup, without the feud, without them feeling trapped and scared and hunted, this is a mundane teenager puppy love story, one of a brief explosion of lust and crush that probably would have faded after a time.
But the outside condemnation makes it a whole thing, makes it deadly, makes those simple stories of love and lust and teens getting together into something poisoned and deadly.
And in many ways that’s very directly applicable to youth today, especially queer youth. The more our society condemns kids who come out being in puppy love with same gendered people in their lives, or kids realizing their real gender, or kids realizing they’re ace or aro.
The more we make it feel to those kids that they have no one they can talk to about this and no real options to try and make it work in the long run, you get these same tragedies of lost kids who deserved to have their chance to just be kids growing up and figuring stuff out.
@Cerberus, I love that point of identification with the play, it’s not one I’d thought about before. (Maybe in that context, it’s also worth noting that a not-insignificant amount of scholars are pretty sure Shakespeare was hella bi, at a time when it was, if I recall correctly, very much illegal.)
I think Romeo and Juliet is kind of a parody of what it’s usually perceived as. It’s not some tragic love story – it’s an idiotic misunderstanding that could have been resolved in like five minutes if people communicated openly. And THAT’S the tragedy.
The heroic Jillian Keenan (heroic for her outspoken opposition to violence against children in a culture in love with it) said something similar to this in her book Sex With Shakespeare, as well as pointing out that really, what Romeo and Juliet are consumed by is not love but lust – Romeo begins the play obsessed with another girl and sights on Juliet because of the complicated thought process of “…!! Girl! Pretty!” Friar Lawrence’s whole “these violent delights have violent ends” bit is usually perceived as the stuffy old order trying to stomp out Twue Wuv or whatever…but in the case of Ro-Ro and Jules its pretty close to the truth. You think their relationship would have lasted practically any time at all if they hadn’t kilt demselfs? I doubt it.
It is mostly lust and definitely teenage puppy love and they never got the chance to really know each other beyond the rush of New Relationship Energy and endorphins. And that’s what makes it all the more of a tragedy. These two kids feeling so trapped because of the societal reaction to their growing something of a relationship that they saw death as the only option to cope with it.
With less pressure surrounding it, with space for the kids to be kids and see where that potent cocktail of chemistry went, this would have been mundane and likely, like most HS romances, ended eventually in time as the NRE faded.
The condemnation is the tragedy. Not that they were the greatest love story in all of history. But that they were two kids who dug each other who felt doomed and at threat because of that simple crush.
Pretty much. Also because a Friar felt like playing Chessmaster.
They go to him asking for help because they know if they’re found by their families, at least one of them will probably be MURDERED. They figure they can’t be killed by their families if they’re married because killing family is heinous and much as their families hate each other, they PROBABLY won’t stoop that low.
The Friar agrees to this rushed plan because he wants to marry them to force an end to the feud without regard for what happens to those kids.
Tybalt is going around looking for a fight with Romeo because he saw him crashing the Capulet’s party last night (which his uncle TOLD him ‘Nah, leave him alone, I’ve heard he’s a good kid and he’s not hurting anything’). Romeo won’t give him what he wants because he just married Juliet and he wants to wait to explain it to Tybalt (presumably with the rest of their families). MERCUTIO is the one starts shit because he’s an angry hot head who won’t listen when Romeo says ‘Eh, forget about it’ and he thinks he won’t get in trouble because he’s related to the Prince. He thought wrong and dies, and so Romeo lashes out in grief and takes on Tybalt, leading to his exile.
The Friar told both of them just to wait a bit for tempers to cool and then he can get Romeo back so they can explain everything and get Romeo pardoned. Unfortunately, her dad picks this time to go primo Asshole (and yes, even by the standards of the day, he’s being an asshole and we’d be expected to think so) and so they need a quick plan to make her wedding to Paris not happen. Rather than say ‘Fuck this shit, I’m going to the Prince to sort this mess out NOW’ like a responsible adult should have, the Friar goes with his fake death bullshit which causes Paris’, Romeo’s and Juliet’s very real deaths.
The problem here isn’t these are two stupid kids, the problem here is those two stupid kids never even had a fighting chance because their families won’t calm the fuck down and listen to them.
One of the interesting things about Shakespeare is that he was essentially an activist for the idea that marriages could be out of love and choice rather than necessity and political calculation.
Like, that’s what so many of his works are about. Young passion being treated as valid rather than something to suppress and put aside for one’s “duties” to one’s family and the dowry system. Forced or politically calculated marriages being usually seen as an antagonistic force that can destroy everything if enforced.
So the idea that kids could just be in puppy love with each other, sleep with each other outside of marriage, and just be dumb kids exploring these attractions was a radical notion he was hard-selling and which was likely a small part of why plays at that time were often shut down for “moral” reasons.
Like, he was essentially the Rebecca Sugar of his time, making a space for the celebration of non-normative love and identities.
Legit? Some people have gotten close to it, but they’re ignoring some really nerdy stuff here. What he was thinking was to deconstruct the contemporary format of a comedy, and also make a play about how blood feuds are a Bad Idea. The tragedy isn’t that Romeo and Juliet make a bad decision- it’s that because of a blood feud, the only recourse they have is to make a series of bad decisions that coupled with bad luck wind up killing them.
So like, the way an Elizabethan play worked (generally), the “climax” was right around the middle of the play. You have a rising action, where everyone sets up the situation that the play is about and where people could, at any time, change course and do something different from what they had initially planned on doing. Then the climax, which is really the last point at which anyone could possibly change the course of the play, usually people make big decisions here. And then the falling action, which is pretty much just “all the consequences of your actions are happening now and there’s really not much you can do about it”. So like in Macbeth, you have the rising action of him wondering if he should maybe kill any of these people, the climax of him killing some people, and then the death spiral where he murders increasingly more people in a desperate scramble to maintain his position he got by murdering people, before finally being killed by an angry dude whose family he murdered. Actions, bigger actions, and then consequences all the way down. In a comedy, it might look more like “A love quadrangle runs into the forest full of fairies > fairies drug the love quadrangle in an attempt to fix it > desperate scramble to fix the fact that the fairies drugged the wrong dang people and now the quadrangle is worse than ever, ending with the CORRECT people being drugged this time”. Setup, big action, consequences.
The fun thing about Romeo and Juliet is that, for the entire rising action, the play is SET UP like a comedy. The opening is some dudes making sex jokes, the lovestruck Romeo is the butt of jokes for being obsessed with some random Rosalind lady, there’s a party with costumes that disguise everyone’s identity, the protagonists fall in love despite some WACKY IMPEDIMENT and then have to hide that from people. Oh, and there’s a saucy nurse making more sex jokes. Right up until Mercutio dies, this is almost entirely a straight comedy; and even in his death, right up until he curses BOTH sides of the family feud conflict, he’s making jokes about how he’s bleeding out on the floor. And then the falling action comes together; Romeo now has to murder Juliet’s cousin Tybalt for murdering Mercutio, so then the prince has to banish Romeo, Juliet’s dad finally decides she NEEDS to marry the county Paris (because he is not aware she’s now already married), she fakes her death to avoid that, Romeo’s buddy rushes to tell him that Juliet has died and gets there before the messenger can deliver the “she’s just faking chill out” message, HE kills himself, she wakes up in a tomb with her dead husband on top of her and stabs herself AND THEN THE PRINCE MAKES EVERYONE STOP HAVING THEIR STUPID BLOOD FEUD THAT JUST KILLED TWO CHILDREN DANG GUYS.
So, there you go. That’s what Shakespeare was thinking about Romeo and Juliet, and why it’s a terrible goddamn play to make high schoolers read, since without knowing about the contemporary comedy tropes he’s flipping around, and given that every filmed performance I know plays the comedy down entirely, it’s a boring god damn play that makes no sense.
The kids weren’t stupid- there was nothing they COULD have done to change the course of their story once they got married, and especially not after Tybalt dies. Juliet is a 13 year old girl who has disobeyed her father big time by marrying someone he most certainly wouldn’t approve of. Now he wants her to marry some other dude, which she CAN’T do, because she is already married. She can’t tell him that, because he reacts violently enough to her not wanting to marry this other dude, like, in the next week. And she can’t tell him no without explaining why, for that same reason. He, like, disowns her until she agrees to marry him THE NEXT DAY. Which leaves very little time for much of any plan to be put into action. So the only thing anyone can think of, to avoid this huge and unavoidable problem, is to leave the situation altogether; but she’s a 13 year old girl from a rich family. If she just runs away, they’ll definitely go looking for her and be Very Upset. If they think she’s dead, there’s no search, she can do whatever she wants. A messenger WAS sent to Romeo to tell him all this.
And romeo’s cousin that runs to tell him of her death just thought he was helping, so that Romeo would be able to, like, see her one last time or whatever. I think the messenger’s horse also got injured or something. So bad luck means he misses that pretty important information. I GUESS it could be construed that Romeo and Juliet killing themselves as a result of the shit going on is them being stupid teenagers, but it’s not like Juliet would have ever had any kind of life to go back to. Her dad would definitely disown her for real, the guy she would have had to marry is dead now (Romeo kills him too…) so she’s damaged goods that’s gonna have a major problem marrying again now that no one’s lined up and she’s a complete disgrace and all that. So it’s really just ROMEO that did a stupid, and hey, the most recent love of his life died and he’s (not explicitly stated, but implied to be) a teenager, also his best friend died because he got in the way and he’s murdered, like, 2 people in the last two days. He was having a tough week.
Yup. Which is why I feel like modern adaptations would do better to make it a queer love story than trying to tell it straight, because that best captures that sense of feeling trapped and on the verge of disownment for daring speak truth to one’s love.
Capulet doesn’t just try to force her to marry some guy she doesn’t know and she can’t because she’s married – even accounting for the time period, JULIET IS TOO FUCKING YOUNG for children. And her dad’s reaction to that is to freak the fuck out, put hands on her, and tell her he will bodily throw her in the street to either starve or become a prostitute…..because she’s not ready to marry someone she doesn’t know, doesn’t like, is too young for, will probably not survive marrying (since he wants kids NOW and that’s likely to kill Juliet) and for crying out loud, her cousin just died! There’s a million reasons not to marry him even before Romeo gets dragged into this mess.
@BBCC who i can’t respond to because comments have gotten too nested, yeah, she IS really young for the time period actually, where (besides political marriages) I think the average age of marriage was actually like 18? But that’s not a reason to disobey your father, in the setting or context. You mostly just gotta hope your dad doesn’t want you to marry someone when you’re 13, I guess? (just reread it, and her dad INITIALLY wanted to wait until she was 15 or 16, but like, then all the murders began, and then he thought that getting married might cheer her up because isn’t that what every girl dreams of? And then she disobeyed him and he lost his shit and that doesn’t really change anything but I like precision) But Juliet definitely sleeps with Romeo and teenagers are just as capable of impregnating other teenagers as adults are, so, like… no, I think the bigger problem (in Juliet’s mind, not, like, in the reality of marrying off 13 year olds to grown ass adults) is that he’s a complete stranger and she’s in love with someone else and bigamy is illegal.
I mean 13 year olds (14, I guess, by the time she’d possibly be giving birth?) shouldn’t have kids. I just don’t know if that would have factored into anything in the play, at the time. And if a modern interpretation wanted to raise that point, they’d have to show Romeo using a condom or something because otherwise it wouldn’t make a ton of sense. Or make them queer, actually, a la Cerberus’ suggestion.
This sounded like I was playing devil’s advocate or arguing against the idea that her marrying Paris would have been a bad idea, but I’m really not trying to, I just REALLY like talking about Shakespeare. And I really like this play now that it’s the Madoka Magica of Elizabethan theater, and not, like, a bizarre and confusing un-romantic love(?) story.
I just want everyone to forget that time they had to read it in high school and come at it again with a perspective that isn’t tainted by years of people for some reason thinking that double suicide is romantic, because there’s all this complexity there buried under the famous quotes I swear
this.
the modern reaction to it proves, if anything, that teenagers still don’t know nothin’ about love and/or how to deal with hormones making their nethers warm and blood all fizzy.
Yes, but just because the father has a legal right to demand something doesn’t make it the right thing to do. And yeah, even for the time, setting her up with Paris falls under ‘bad idea’ because, while that’s not a concern Juliet raises, at the time, yeah, audiences knew that 13 year old having a baby = probably not a good idea. That’s why even in younger alliance marriages, the idea was that it was probably a good idea to wait for babies until the mom was old enough that she probably wouldn’t die (assuming that consummating the marriage didn’t knock her up I guess). Her dad deciding to go against his earlier inclination and wait to get her engaged when she was like 15 or 16 (and presumably it’d be a while until she was actually married) to ‘Y’know what, screw it, let’s marry her off RIGHT FUCKING NOW’ is SUPPOSED to look like he’s a pride driven asshole, and Paris is supposed to look skeevy as hell. That’s not something that’d be different in historical context. Especially since the average age for getting married was around 21 (rural/peasant girls married from late teens to early 20s and city girls tended to marry around early to mid 20s – nobility is marrying earlier not because it’s an appropriate marriage age, but because they have alliances to seal, and even they tended to wait to be around 15 or 16 because, again, younger girls typically didn’t survive birth).
Juliet may not be supposed to disobey her father, but even in historical context, her dad and Paris are being dicks.
I mean she’s allowed to be at a twelve. This is perfectly normal, she’s still figuring out what being a lesbian means to her so she’s imitating a role model.
She’s still on the high of the euphoric rush that she no longer has to deal with that toe-shaped gun-wielding psychopath of a father and can now be herself. I think she deserves to cut her some slack for now.
More than that. Her situation is getting steadily less dire. She’s got a (somewhat unstable) job, and now her homeless situation has improved from “illegally crashing in a friend’s dorm where the school could kick her out if she’s caught” to “crashing on the couch of an awesome sympathetic role model”.
Are you telling us that Becky might, at some point, wind up not being a dire lesbian? Well, I hope she can roleplay well enough to justify the stat drop.
well gee and here i thought it was a complex trait that develops from a combination of genetic, epigenetic, and developmental factors and therefore probably can’t be traced to a single unifying evolutionary cause
Your FACE is a complex trait that develops from a combination of genetic, epigenetic, and developmental factors and therefore probably can’t be traced to a single unifying evolutionary cause
This hair is Leslie’s best hair. Its powers are cosmic. She uses it to vanquish evil, bring clarity to lost souls, and empower worthy apprentices. (You know, like by giving them a couch, or feeding them toast.)
Does that make their use of the f-slur for a homosexual male after hugging more or less problematic? Also, does that make all of Keanu Reeves’ other characters gay or bi as well? Because aside from John Wick I can totally see all of Keanu Reeves’ characters as bi or gay, especially Neo seeing as he has better chemistry with Morpheus than with…I think her character’s name was Serenity but I’m not entirely sure.
The Matrix Trilogy is a giant metaphor for being trans and coming out and Neo’s arc especially follows this with only the villains using “Mr.” or Neo’s deadname and all of Neo’s friends using the chosen “real” name. Additionally, Neo is giving various visual cues to signal being trans-feminine, including going to work in that early scene with what looks like hastily smeared off lipstick.
Given the central metaphor, it’s heavily likely Neo was supposed to be interpreted as a trans woman and thus her relationship with Trinity would be a queer one.
Yup. The bar was so very low for Robin and if she had just stopped at the bar or had been more willing to own what she did there, she could very much have still had Leslie in her life.
it’s not lesbian conversations it’s lesversations
it’s not lesbian food it’s lesood
it’s not lesbian plaid it’s leslaid
it’s not lesbian memes it’s lesmes
I do wonder what it’s going to be like when religion comes up. Despite growing up in very similar religious environments, Leslie (if she’s the same as her Shortpacked counterpart) and Becky have come at the issue of the environment which oppressed them differently.
I think we are in for a great discussion when that happens. So far Becky has not had the opportunity to discuss religion without having to thread very carefully.
It is definitely not platinum blonde. That’s the almost white shade . Joyce’s exact shade is hard to tell (sandy, maybe), but it’s definitely not platinum.
This is the part where I chuckle at the handle for Eastwood’s character in Good/Bad/Ugly being “Blondie.” Still, since almost everyone else in the movie are dark, tanned Italians “Mexicans”…
That would be something Robin would also complain about not having. Of course, she’d insist Leslie is her lesbian for entirely heterosexual two women having sex. One of the women being gay.
YESYESYESYES!!! I have never been more excited about a DOA strip! Except the one in which they first met, I suppose. But more glorious gay teen and mentor shenanigans!!
Is anyone else a little upset that it feels like Kitty Pryde’s been getting the short end of the stick since the third X-men movie came out? Or is that just me imagining that Kitty Pryde’s been getting the short end of the stick since the third X-men movie came out?
Kitty Pryde being marginalized and replaced by Movie Rogue plus Jubilee then Pixie is only important to a very small subsection of X-men fans–specifically the best kind.
Didn’t really care for the Star-Lord bit, but as someone who started reading X-Men around the time she first joined, I adored seeing her as “Professor Kitty”, running the school and mentoring the time-lost original X-Men.
She’s now back from space and leading an X-team.
But yeah, she didn’t get a lot of attention in the movies.
Compared to which other female character? The X-Men movies have been roundly terrible for female characters. Storm, Jean, and Rogue all got one incredibly mousy personality to share between them; Mystique got reduced from a supervillain in her own right and a huge queer icon to a toy that Erik and Charles pass between them, whose queerness was so deeply buried that her actress expressed shock and amusement at the idea; Emma Frost too was reduced to a side kick for a dude; Angel was picked as the only traitor in the group and then also killed off; Jubilee was conveniently a few feet behind her friends just in time to avoid having to be a main character; poor X-23 in X-2 was a brainwashed victim who still had to die in a horrible way after getting a grand total of 0 lines; …
And then there’s the way they re-imagined Storm’s origin story so that one of the most powerful mutants in the franchise owes that strength entirely to a random fucking dude she decided to follow mindlessly.
Like.
“Worst treatment in the X-Men movies” is a serious contest between every single female character in them, with men of color faring no better.
Kitty Pryde’s probably glad she’s in so little of the franchise, to be honest.
Wow, can I copy paste your comment to show to my friends why I can’t swallow any of the X-men movie franchise? I suppose if one never read any of the comics has very low standards because they are superhero movies, one can stand them, but as it is, I can’t.
((Mild content warning: passing reference to famous homophobic slaying))
“Okay, so, have you seen the Matrix?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, one gay faction is super-closeted, pretending to be straight, and bash on gay people so hard with anti-queer laws and rules and persecution because they’re in denial or simply want no one to guess that they’re queer too.”
“Ooookaaaay….”
“Those are the Agents, and if we’re not willing to fight and be out, that side can take us over. But otherwise, the rest of us just want to live our lives and not get strung up on barbed wire for it.”
“Wow! Who would have thought you could turn a movie like The Matrix into some sort of LGBT metaphor like that!”
Hey, the rest of us can’t help that they stumbled into some really powerful imagery. What are they gonna do, claim appropriation and hog all the fun symbolism for themselves?
um if u want to use christian symbolism u have to be born again sweetie it doesn’t matter that we literally conquered the world and send missionaries out to every corner we haven’t conquered yet so that christian ideology is literally unescapable gonna talk the talk gotta walk the walk why dont you bring your coleslaw to the potluck this wednesday
…From now on, every single bit of content I create will contain appropriated Christian symbolism, entirely devoid of context or meaning, just because I think it looks neat.
I’ve found that a straight rewatch of NGE isn’t the best experience. I’d totally take a full-tilt academic course on the series and watch it under that context, but from a pure entertainment perspective I’d skip Evangelion.
Hey, if they try, then Judaism and Zoroastrianism get to claim that Christianity is appropriating symbolism from them. (Judaism gets the entire Old Testament, and some of the New Testament via Pharisees, meanwhile Zoroastrianism was the first religion to really come up with the messianic idea, which the Jews adopted during the Babylonian exile, and Zoroastrianism also gets dibs on having well developed ideas of heaven, hell, and a final battle between good and evil where good wins, which, again Judaism and Christianity took a lot of influence from)
@Bagge: let’s not confuse the aggressive Jesus symbolism in the new movies with the character’s actual origin as an allegory for Jewish immigrants’ struggle to “pass” in America when the character was first created.
…sorry, but given common usage of “eating” specifically in regards to lesbians, my brain is just overloading with all sorts of sexual innuendo about “Lesbian Breakfast”.
Can Mike pop in to make a few off-color jokes, so we can all laugh and then hate him?
Hmmm. I’m guessing that after Amber came back to the room with blood on her hands Dina and Becky helped her hide the body, and then things got kinda awkward for all three of them so Becky took up Leslie’s offer.
That would be amazing! Becky is eager to learn all about this stuff and would make the ideal student for it and a few well-chosen books could go a long way.
Heh, that’s what I used when I was in my baby queer phase. Read literally every comic back when Allison Bechdel used to have it all on her site and still have her early run books.
Well of course Leslie has no breakfast cereal. That would have been too on the nose for all this stalling. Well played, Willis.
I can only assume how confusing the past few updates must be for someone who stumbled across the DoA main page for the first time. The strip itself looks like a basic light-hearted comedy, but the comments are full of, “Aah! No! Why?! Stop toying with us, you monster!”
Of course Leslie has no breakfast cereal. Robin baked it all into “muffins” three days ago.
And, yeah. If they do what I do when I find a new comic and read the last week of strips before jumping back to the beginning, they’re in for a massive tonal shift.
“Hmm… Looks like a light slice-of-life comedy… with a brutal murder… what in Sithrak’s name am I reading?”
But he’s never used a time skip quite like this before. The others have been jumping over time when nothing much happened to get to the resolution of a plot arc that needed a few days in world, but couldn’t wait months of real time – Joyce going home the weekend after the happy fun gun times, for example.
There we had closure on Ross & Becky before the jump. This time, everything’s up in the air. We’ve had the drastic incident and we jumped away in the middle. We don’t know how it ended. We don’t know how anyone else reacted or even if they know what happened.
Small wonder if people are thinking we might go back and see.
Given that Danny, Joyce and Becky are all chipper days later Amber and Dorothy are at the very least fine and safe. It’s unlikely that Amber killed him or she’s in police custody given how badly that would alter her character’s presence in the comic.
I think Danny has no idea what happened because he’d be beside himself with worry even outside Amber’s physical health given what he knows about her mental state. It’s likely he finds out about it either this or next storyline.
Tautology aside, there is nothing wrong with it. Breakfast pizza exists for a reason, after all, and your classic “breakfast foods” (scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, pork sausage, etc.) aren’t exactly the healthiest things on Earth, anyway.
I remember being very, I dunno, open about it online? I tried to insert it wherever I could because I didn’t quite believe I was bi yet, so I tried jumping up and down about it enough times to actually, IDK, believe it? I remember not at all being confident about my attraction to men until I started ingraining it into myself that it was real and valid.
I’m a total shut-in so being out about my bisexuality on the internet was basically the equivalent of screaming from a rooftop.
I did a very similar thing with trans and ace. Slowly easing to just inserting it into my online statements and thrilling whenever someone else came out sharing those identities in the threads. Online was literally the first place I came out to on almost all of my identities.
Hell, I’m currently still a little like this. Looking up from my bed, my little room divider currently has 3 giant flags hanging off it. One ace, one trans, and one queer.
Hey, Cerberus, I dunno if you’ve seen it already, but Pride-Flags on deviant art makes the PRETTIEST FLAGS OMG. They also do polyamory pride stuff for folks in polyamory to use at their own pride events, but most of it is LGBT+ pride.
Aren’t they just? There’s also a couple accounts on tumblr called pride-color-schemes and ask-pride-color-schemes if you’re interested in that (apparently they sometimes post there first).
Totally. Here’s how my baby gay phase went: I was a boyish bi atheist science geek who believed in evolution in a religious conservative town growing up. I may or may not have spent a good decade where I made a significant number of choices in my attire, hair and general way of being in the world as a giant two-fingered salute to that culture back in my baby queer days.
Rainbow everything. Unnatural hair colors banned at school? Natural refers to things that exist in reality, jerks, lookit me and my purple hair. Oh, you want me to get rid of my purple hair? OKAY! It’s blue now. Banning “distracting dyed hair”? OKAY! I’LL SHAVE IT ALL OFF! Hey, you told me to get rid of it, I’m just doing what you told me. See how much of a distraction a bald kid is running through the damn school. Banning shaved heads on girls? I will protest that to the school board as gender discrimination. Banning shaved heads in general? Okay, I will grow it out, and next I will use flurescent hair putty. What? My hair isn’t dyed, after all. You’re banning all products that make hair a “distracting” color? Time for a mowhawk. It’s not completely shaved after all. Banning cuts taller than a certain height or with shaved parts? time to spike it out to a ridiculous length. Banning cuts that make hair ‘distracting’? TIME TO PAINT PRIDE FLAGS ON MY CHEEKS. NOTHING IN THE DAMN RULE BOOK SAYS JACK SHIT ABOUT MAKEUP AND QUEER PEOPLE ARE A PROTECTED GROUP AS OF LAST YEAR FIGHT ME ASSHOLES I WILL WIN THIS BECAUSE I AM MORE STUBBORN THAN YOU.
It was a phase. One in which I generally looked as though I’d lost a fight with a lawn mower and then fell in a vat of highlighter ink. And generally tried to make myself as obnoxiously difficult to ignore as possible – not cuz I wanted attention but more as a “I’m here and you can’t make me leave” thing. So yeah. Adult me has unbent a bit from that (I don’t view people who like the color with disdain anymore) but my hatred of wearing all things pink stuck. As did my hatred of having long hair.
But yeah, I never literally shouted “Hey everyone I’m a lesbian!” but I did go through a “HEY EVERYONE I’M QUEER” phase, and I totally know where it comes from.
I enjoyed reading this so much. You go girl! Also, candy hair rocks! I’m in my 30s and rocking blue peek a boo bangs myself. I love blue, purple, silver, and things with both blue and green, but I’m not a fan of pink or orange. The color I most disdain is yellow. YUCK!
My hatred of pink comes from the fact that I don’t actually identify as girl and didn’t actually want to be a girl from a young age… so my folks of course shoved me at all things pink and princess and girly. I’m not sure what I -do- ID as on the gender front (definitely I am some flavor of transmasculine, but am I full-on trans dude or because I feel an urge to Do Girl once a year or so and wear a dress does that make me more genderqueer? I dunno), but I know for damn sure ciswoman ain’t it.
Not so much badass as powered by spite at the time. It was all a “Fuck you, I won’t let you know you broke me” play. A lot less brave and a lot more pissed off. Which is still how I do things most people think of as brave: Something pisses me off, I do the thing with a ‘fight me assholes’ attitude, everyone around me congratulates me for bravery and I’m all, “… no? I’m just pissed off. That’s different.”
Cuz to me brave is the person who has something to lose and takes action anyway knowing fully well what the consequences will be. Chelsea Manning is brave – I’m just a hothead.
Still, that spite could surely have been directed in other, safer directions. There’s always somebody to punch down at, but you swung upwards. Brave or not, I still think it’s worthy of a bit of admiration
Prediction. Becky’s going to go a bit caretaker on Leslie. I’m guessing that Right-Thinking-Fundie-Family raised her with all the womanly domestic skills, so in exchange for stocking her fridge Leslie’s going to get some cleaning and home-cooked real food.
and i mean she’d have experience from…probably…living with her suicidal mom….
…
oh god i don’t know if i want this pain or not. but i am pretty well sure that whatever becky makes from now on is going to be somehow, unmistakably, gay
this is what food coloring and edible glitter is for, people, chop chop
i mean the culture is that what the mom can’t do the oldest daughter steps up to do. and becky has got to be not-in-the-greatest-place regarding that, so. it might be harder to do than just doing it. if her mom was depressed for a while it probably would’ve been hard for her to do basic stuff, or even teach it. so…on the one hand, instills a sense of competence and self-reliance. on the other, so much can be too much.
so. i mean. reclaiming those skills is going to have to be a work in gayclaimation. let’s pippi longstocking these chores, motherfudgers
What does Becky thinK? There is a specific brand of food — Purina ‘Lesbi-Chow®’, similar to ‘Puppy Chow’ — and when you add water it makes its own vaginal juices?
Given that everyone else is opening up with a positive happy moment, I have a nasty feeling that the last “check-in”s are going to be with Ruth, Amber, and Dorothy who will be in extreme distress as a counterpoint to all the happy.
Actually I remember Amber’s mom getting a character model on Mother’s day so I think what happens is that she comes down to IU to check on her daughter.
Does it count if the pieces are all different colors? Lucky Charms are the only cereal with actual rainbow pieces; it would be a shame to exclude Trix and Froot Loops.
Oh my God if I saw a cereal box called “br’O’s”, where the box features a buff dude with a pink popped collar giving a thumbs-up, I *might* have to buy that cereal.
I check back to their bar talk and her hair looks like it did back then, so yeah I think so. Doesn’t matter what you think of the hot chick now, hot chick says you look cute with your hair a certain way you do your hair that way. I hope it actually does help her get a girlfriend because that would have a funny thing to mention next time she meets Robin.
Panel 1: Oh, this panel is breaking my damn heart. Like, here Becky is, waking up in a proper house, her long time running and hiding finally drawing to its intense end, where she can just sleep until the afternoon like any other teenager and not have to worry about what steps she needs to do to remain more or less hidden.
And the way Leslie comes in greeting her… It’s like a stereotypical mom, which makes sense as Leslie in a way is adopting her, but that’s the part that breaks my heart. We know how hard the loss of her mom sat with Becky. How desperate she is to create family after the last of her birth-related family rejected her. And here she’s getting that.
Not just sisters, but a mom. And a cool lesbian mom who shares her identity and knows all sorts of cool things about a culture she was literally banned from knowing anything about and is super smart and is super nice and offers all sorts of help.
This is Becky’s dream right here. This is a fantasy she would never have dared express for fear that it would be transgressing some cosmic boundary to want. The beginning of healing so many deep wounds and a safe space for that.
And it’s so beautiful to see Becky get that after having for so long to just be happy for whatever scraps her closest friends could cobble together for her.
And it’s beautiful for Leslie too. We don’t know if she shares this trait with her other world counterpoint, but otherworld Leslie wanted very much to be a mother. To raise children and make a home for them.
And if this Leslie shares that trait, then she’s getting that here, because realized it or not, she’s essentially adopted our little runaway here and filling that role. And for both of them, this nice domestic moment in a nice house is not something either would have dreamed of at their lowest most homeless points in their lives.
Panel 2: Oh Becky, that hurt will dissipate in time and dinosaur cuddles, but also yeah, dark humor helps when you’re recovering from a fresh trauma. Hell, I still use dark humor a lot of the time to talk about that time in my life where everything went sideways. It helps blunt the sting.
And that face, so happy. This is probably the first morning she hasn’t woken up slightly anxious that her little piece of happiness she’s carved could all be taken away again. She’s got her rock of a bottom to ensure she won’t fall through the world again and she’s got the edifice of the connections she’s made. Slowly, surely, she’s reclaiming a life for herself where she doesn’t have to always be running. Where she can just be happy and gay and enjoying all the small things in life like lesbian toast.
I’m legit hoping that panel 2 means Becky still holds something of a torch for Joyce. I though that was a really interesting storyline and I was sad when it seemed like it got dropped.
I’m pretty sure she does. She’s trying not to and she loves her dino girlfriend with all her heart, but Joyce was her first big gay crush. It’s hard to forget that.
Yeah I wanna see Becky struggle with that and eventually come to realize it’s okay for her to have lingering feelings for Joyce, because none of that changes how she feels about Dina.
Kinda like how Danny had to learn that his attraction to Ethan’s glorious man chest was okay for him to have, and that being attracted him wouldn’t ruin his life.
Yeah, I think mononormativity makes it really hard for kids to learn to be okay with multiple attractions and accepting that that doesn’t necessarily mean anything if they don’t want it to.
And I see that as being a great arc for Becky (and what I think we’re currently seeing), seeing how her feelings for Joyce don’t discount or diminish her absolute adoration of her dinosaur girlfriend.
Very personal opinion: it’s a tricky thing and varies a lot with the individual. I absolutely agree there’s a lot of pressure and normativity there, but on the other hand, a lot of people at this age (and older!) are still figuring out how relationships work with just two, and there’s something to be said for “don’t try to run before you can walk.” I’ve seen some people try the poly thing because they think they (and everyone else in the group) can handle it (and, uh, no), or because they’re just terrible at setting boundaries or saying “I’m not comfortable with this.”
But I suppose that’s all part of the marvelous process of learning through trial and error and experience, even though some of it ends up being really really painful.
Oh, I would agree. Poly is hard and kids have a lot less tools for navigating that than adults will have. But the thing where kids are encouraged to beat themselves up or desperately try and read the runes on having feelings for two people at once is really unhealthy and needs to end.
We need to teach kids, yeah, you can be attracted to multiple people, that’s not the end of the world, you don’t have to pursue that if you don’t want. It doesn’t mean anything about the relationship you do have and isn’t actually detracting or taking away from that relationship.
I dunno, in an ideal world, I would love for a real comprehensive sex education, consent and abuse recognition, and sexuality/relationship modeling unit to be standard in MS and HS rather than the patchwork bare-bones thing we have now.
I always at least try and slip in consent and abuse recognition at the very least, but it’s way less than I’d like.
Like, the first and foremost thing polyamourous people fight for is trust. I think we as a group believe that people in a relationship really need to trust each other. When we try to be in monogamous relationships, what hurts us more often isn’t that we can’t make out with that other person we have a crush on, it’s more that we have to hide our feelings and pretent, to that person we suppsedly are super close to, that we have no feelings at all towards other people. We are forced to lie to people we love, and often to ourselves, about what we are feeling, because in traditional monogamy the very feelings are wrong. And we feel like we can’t be trusted, because in traditional monogamy, having feeling towards other people is already a betrayal. That’s what hurts more.
People don’t need to be polyamourous but damn, they need to be able to acknowledge their own and each other’s feelings without guilt, without letting those feeling break the trust. Our culture should change, even in monogamy, to allow people to feel what they feel.
Panels 3-4: Let’s all be frank. If we’re some flavor of queer, there was very very likely a point in our lives where we were exactly like this. Rainbow everything, wanting to make everything in our lives reflect that, eager anticipation of that first Pride march and the euphoria of living our identities with full knowledge of what they were.
And in my mind that state is a beautiful thing. For many of us, the years before we figured things out were miserable. Years of feeling like we didn’t fit into the world, feeling like we were wrong, maybe even, depending on the environment, that we were sinful or unclean or bound for hell because of it all.
And then you figure it out, it all clicks and you learn that not only is what you are a thing, but you have community, others like you who know all about what it feels like to be that way, who get it implicitly and have works and stories and community that reflects that.
Like, it’s hard to describe for someone who is used to community being there since birth, but there is so much power to figuring out that the thing that made you feel like a diseased freak actually has a name and people who share that and people to support you.
And it’s easy to feel so much pride and gratitude to that. To have that feel like a rebirth and want nothing more than to crawl inside that community forever and never let go. To let that identity flow through everything you touch to make up for the gaping maw of nothing that you had before.
As a teacher, I see so much beauty in that moment of self-discovery, of those first tentative steps towards genuine pride, of fostering spaces where kids can feel safe to go 11 like Becky here and see that expression of pure joy on them as the weight of having to pretend to be something they aren’t fade away.
It’s honestly what sustains me the most, because I never got to have that growing up, only finding the queer community and my place in it in late college.
And it’s also beautiful to teach some of them the history and names of queer history, because so few of them know it, even with the internet. Few of them know about Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson at Stonewall, about Brenda Howard and Donny the Punk and the first Pride, about Gilbert Baker and the birth of the flag, about the Lesbian Avengers, about the Plague Years, about ACT-UP, about the fight for marriage equality. Our history, even our modern history is so frequently erased for them.
And I think that’s what Becky is most craving here. That connection to a history and a culture and a community. One that was literally barred from her and declared Satan.
Like, yeah, there’s no “one way” to be queer. We can be anything we want, present any way we’d like. We don’t even need the culture if we don’t feel it works for us. But for Becky, just figuring out what the other ways even are is something she craves and I’m excited to imagine Dumbing of Age in 2350, where Leslie takes Becky to her first Pride.
I certainly went through this stage, and it’s a shameful memory because I eventually realized that my friends were embarrassed about it. No one found my going overboard charming. Today’s strip is painful for me to read because of the old wounds it reopens.
Panel 5: Leslie in fussy mom mode is giving me life right now.
Panel 6: This is beautiful in so many ways, not just because of Becky in full baby gay awe of someone who’s been through the trenches as it were, but because of Leslie here.
Leslie is a lesbian teacher in the middle of Indiana. We know she grew up under a hateful religion and hateful parents, was homeless, and has had to scrap and claw this little piece back from the ever-loving brink. So she may not have had much opportunity to be looked to like this from a baby gay. Someone who looks up to her as some wise jedi master simply for what she survived.
And heck, to even be seen as an elder as she is canon in her late 20s, early 30s.
And I sympathize with her. I’ve been in her position with the excited baby gay wanting to know everything and not being sure what part of one’s life experiences count as “sage advice” or not. And this is likely one of the first times she’s had to be in this particular position given the excitement she had to meet Becky and support her. Which is super powerful.
There’s something immensely powerful about being able to help a kid who is essentially who you were as a kid, to help them avoid the pitfalls you fell into, give them the support you didn’t have and we know Leslie sees a lot of herself in Becky given their similar environments of raising. But this can also be daunting, because you feel like a mess who only just escaped hell and now folks are acting like you have knowledge and experience to give and are listening with eager ears. I think Leslie will rise to the occasion, but I definitely feel her hesitancy here.
But yeah, in general, this is all such a beautiful moment and I’m so happy for these two and the parent-child relationship they are forming.
yeah, I can definitely see the “oh, wow, I’m the last person you should be asking for ‘wisdom'” angle. but often that’s not something we get to choose either. :/
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“How about a BLT and Baked Alaska?”
Add some green peppers to that sandwich and you’ve got a deal.
Batman’s gay, because his favorite food is Lobster Thermidor. *Proceeds to write lots of Batman/Superman/Robin slashfic! While Wonder Woman commentates and gives suggestions.* XD
Are you sure that’s not just LEGO Batman?
Because, yeah, he’s totes gay.
I don’t think she can comment much past forplay. She’s from a female only society.
Dontcha mean LGBLT?
… Lettuce…. guacamole…. bacon…. …… what’s the second L?
Man, now I’m hungry.
Everyone knows LGBT stands for Lesbian Gay Bacon Tomato.
so am i the only one imagining that Ryan’s sun-bleached bloodless corpse is still just kinda lying there on the steps three days later and people are casually stepping over it and kinda shoving it out of the way and such?
Nah, Mary consumed it’s essence and it aged a thousand years and crumbled to dust.
That’s why she was so chipper.
*its
*itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini
That she wore for the first time today.
it’sa important ta get yr gramma’ right
Trust me, my Gramma was *never* right.
…MONTY PYTHONS FLYING CIRCUS!
that DOES explain a lot
Nah, Ryan’s soul is a dried-up, desiccated husk with no nutritional value whatsoever. Only the consumption of a fresh, innocent soul could have given Mary so much vivacity. I’m sticking with puppies until I learn otherwise.
But that would mean she did something good. Of course she might have done it for all the wrong reasons like Mike.
Nah, you’re not the only one.
I am now
“Worst. doormat. ever. my shoes *still* aren’t clean.”
Nah. By Day 2 at the latest there would be serious complaints about the stench of rotting rapist.
Not to mention the stray dogs eating the corpse. Actually the second might just take care of the first. Do they have buzzards in Indiana?
Yes, and coyotes, too.
Unless even bacteria, protozoans, and fungi hate him and won’t stoop to consuming his body. In which case he’s slowly mummifying.
“I may be microscopic, but I have standards.”
I foresee Ryan to have crawled to Desanto headquarters for help and he’ll be there until his body is discovered next election. Robin missed him because she was too busy being angry Leslie didn’t come to support her.
Oh, wait. Is Robin STILL standing out there?
New running joke: Every so often, someone wonders out loud what ever happened to Ryan. Fast cut to his pile of bones behind a shrub. Everybody shrugs, and figures he just got away.
some predators have come and eaten ONLY the butt, like they do the roadkill deer in our area
“when we said we wanted to see more eating ass in the slipshine comics this is not what we had in mind…”
Stray Mutt Eats A Ryan, coming to a Slipshine near you.
They do that since the butt is the easy way inside the skin. But human skin is easy to get inside, so they can eat him whole in a short time.
Wow, I think that finally cured me of my fantasy of being reincarnated as a wolf or coyote or something.
Man, now he’s gonna be all covered in leaves and mud and whatnot. Just a hassle, he is.
Or he’s just straight up blocking the door. Ruining peoples education. Ryan the ruiner.
I hope Leslie takes Becky grocery shopping and Leslie has to explain to Becky to look with her eyes, not with her hands
Does Becky not know that being a lesbian is basically just being yourself?
Until very recently, she was allowed to be neither! It’s an exciting time.
….. except for the stuff like heavy usage of flannel and rainbow imagery? I mean, Becky’s obviously overdoing it here, but there’s still lots of symbols and signals on a… cultural level? Group identity level? … and Becky wants to dive into the deep end of that, but she doesn’t know what they are.
All that stuffs optional though right. Like you could be really into muted grey and brown industrial images and whatever the opposite of flannel is (silk maybe?) and still be a lesbian.
Definitely optional, yes.
Just like Joyce’s D&M fangirl wardrobe choices were optional.
Well, yeah, but Becky clearly doesn’t just want to be lesbian. She is, and she knows that – what she wants it to embroil herself into the heart of lesbian culture; she just doesn’t actually have any familiarity with it.
Gawd, is it possible that she doesn’t even know about femme and butch? I’m torn between wanting her to find out all the history, and keeping her ignorant of such outdated stereotypes so she can find her own style.
You can be a lesbian in a tailored suit. In fact, I understand it’s encouraged.
Tailored suits are encouraged for everyone—at least by me. Seeiously, who doesn’t look good in a well fitted suit?
no one that’s who
Me. I look like a cube.
But still, a well tailored cube.
Yeah, I’ve always had mixed feelings about that. I mean, I realized I was gay, to a degree (still somewhat in denial) when I was maybe thirteen? But all I knew about lesbianism was like, “there are lesbians who PLAY SOFTBALL and RIDE MOTORCYCLES and BUILD CANOES! And then there are lesbians who are SO HOT and hAVE SEX EVERY DAY ALL THE TIME! An they practice WITCHCRAFT! And then there’s, like, Ellen DeGeneres.”
And, while I wouldn’t recommend Orphan Black to thirteen year olds due to the extreme violence, having a bisexual female protagonist who’s skilled at escape artistry, conning people, social savvy, and trying to forge a tough resilient spirit without becoming too hard-hearted to be a good mom? Who is trying to figure out if there is a good or evil outside of protecting yourself and your family? And a lesbian secondary character who is pretty chill, loves science, has “West Coast” politics, is chronically ill, falls in love, and is the moral center of the show? Not to mention at least three other recurring LGBT characters, none of whom fit stereotypes?
It would have been reassuring. You can have a found family, with other LGBT people in your family, without trying to conform to aspects of a stereotype that don’t fit you well.
Er, in other news, I’m very, very excited for Orphan Black’s season premiere tonight, can you tell?
Orphan Black and Lost Girl: Canada bringing bis representational awesome. I… I really should live in Canada.
Fortunately nowadays we have the internet and hopefully kids can find a lot more varied lesbian representation out there. Like, we have actual lists of lesbian love stories in YA and comics. We have webcomics! Webcomics are so full of gay, it’s amazing. My all time favorite girls love story is a free-to-read webtoon (Always Human, if you’re interested). And, like, we have Steven Universe. And Korra.
Granted, Becky was never allowed to look for any of that so she probably has no idea what lesbians are like. The idea of what a lesbian is like that her community taught her must be so full of prejudices that she knows that it can’t be true, but she has no other frame of reference. And Leslie is a pretty chill person, who as far as we’ve seen is not super into the community. Is Becky found one of our full-queer, flashy pride queer communities, I bet she’d be wearing leather jackets with rainbow and axe bottoms and speaking strictly in slang in no time (although she might find it all a bit frightening). I mean, she already has the haircut.
@Oz, thanks for the recommendation, I hadn’t heard of Always Human before
Yup, she’s on the edge of community, real community of which she lost because of her church’s bigotry.
And the queer community has community, has history, has spaces she can hang without feeling alien to the culture around her, has that strength and purpose she craves. And at the moment, Leslie is the main entry point to all that in her mind.
Plus, this is part of being herself. Herself is an excited baby gay learning pride in her identity and craving love, acceptance, and culture. That’s a valid way to be oneself.
yeah I suppose she’s like “no, don’t just give me love and support, I already get that from my straight friends! What I need from you specifically is a sense of identity and belonging to a community!!!”
She’s only a Level 1 Lesbian and perceives Leslie as a Level 20.
Please, everyone knows most lesbians make a new character around Level 7 or 8 anyways. Level progression past there is either overpowered or tedious and favors magic-based lesbians to a ridiculous degree.
The Lesbian Wind Mage build in particular. Whoever thought it was a good idea to give them the power to summon hurricanes at will?
Hey, Lesbian 3.X is still better than Lesbian 4e. They took all the cool lesbian options and turned them into samey archetypes, for that one.
Truth.
It’s mages that get that? I always thought it was a cleric thing. At least that’s what the clerics on TV seem to claim: that the hurricane, earthquake, plague, whatever was brought on by lesbians and gays. I figured it was a power supplied by divine authority….
Naw, it’s women in tight, revealing clothing generally; being lesbian just makes the storms worse.
I kind of wonder if we are actually going to go down this road I get why Becky is all so excited like WOO LESBIAN TOAST but its wearing pretty thin, especially in this strip. She is only really seeing Leslie as a “Grown up Lesbian” and it would be nice for her to see that, idk, people can just be people. At first I kind of dismissed the “bah this is too straight for me” stuff as Becky being happy with coming out and being all excitable which is why its was ok to be a bit jerky, but here its pretty much “wow you live in this totally different world from all those straight people, what kind of breakfast is super gay that I can have??”
I think basically I just want Becky to chill. Its cool Becky. You can be a lesbian and still like things that straight people like
I’m gay and I’m currently eating lesbian instant noodles. Ha HA!
Would lesbian instant noodles be known as Ramyn?
It’s not being happy, it’s taking pride in what you were so painfully and powerfully rejected for because the other option is sinking into depression.
Let Becky have her lesbian toast. Especially if you’re straight, and don’t understand that Becky has, in fact, literally been told, violently, by society, since long before she was able to accept that she was Different, that she is not in fact allowed to like anything but the things straight people like.
She’s rejecting straight-people-stuff because straight-people-stuff rejected her first, and literally the worst she’s saying about it is that straight-people-stuff is uncool.
BBecky was also raised in an ultra conservative extremist christian household. Sometimes Christian extremists have creative ideas about what kinds of foods, clothes, and behaviors make people gay. Its probably not her fault if she thinks Any of that is based in fact
Heh. Also true.
But there’s as reason why a lot of people in the comments are going “#SAME” and “IT ME”. This is a part of the process of coming out.
This.
She’s a baby gay, figuring herself out for the first time, exploring what that means, finding pride in something that literally was the catalyst of everything in her old life rejecting her besides Joyce and her sister (church, home, dad, school, community). Let her be a baby gay, let her go overboard on being a happy young queer person. Bob knows we don’t make enough spaces for young queer kids to do that and Bob also knows that we allow cis allo straight folks to vomit their identities twenty-four seven without question, even normalizing it as the default.
Yeah. Especially that last part.
People don’t realize how aggressively pervasive Straight culture is, because they’ve been raised with it as normal. It feels strange to hear people talking about Lesbian Toast, about Nonbinary Haircuts, to see folks who are explicitly labeling and claiming things for their identities, only because we’ve all become thoroughly numb to cisheterosexism.
Folks want to complain about Becky “being jerky” about “straight things” without even realizing that they are upset to be told that toast isn’t just (straight, cis) toast.
They want to complain about Becky vomiting her identity all over the place, while meanwhile there are color-coded clothes for babies that say shit like “LADIES’ MAN” on them.
We are not the ones pushing our identities on anyone else. We’re just pushing back, and Becky is pushing back so gently.
I mean, I don’t know Torra, but I’m feeling this mainly because I *am* gay, you know?
Just, I feel like I don’t need another straight guy writer’s opinion about what is or isn’t important to young lesbians struggling with coming out. Judging solely on the Korrasami avatar, I’m guessing Torra is WLW too.
And, like, all the “WOO! Lesbianism!” and “lesbian culture” stuff really alienated me when I was first coming out. And it definitely delayed my coming out to myself as well. Because I knew being gay would mean that I would never exactly be able to fit in at home anymore (though my parents are not overtly homophobic, I still have not come out to my family).
But unlike Becky, it was also painfully clear to me that I could not fit into lesbian / LGBT culture either. I couldn’t fake it till I made it. I had no urge to immediately run out and get an undercut. And these kinds of “empowering” storylines often made me feel worse. I’m not enough of one thing or the other to fit in anywhere.
Torra’s thing, that you can literally have any hobby, be part of any class or cultural group, be part of any religion or be non-religious (I’ve mentioned before that finding the Episcopalian church was incredibly healing for me), be of almost any political alignment, wear any clothes, eat any food, be disabled, and still be genuinely, truly gay? THAT is what helped me come out, and seek out other wlw.
If you’re gay, then any breakfast you eat can be gay breakfast.
If you were immediately accepted into the first LGBT community you found, congrats. But I wasn’t, because I couldn’t fake the parts of myself that seemed to be required to be accepted by the official LGBT clique in undergrad. I still don’t have very many LGBT friends, although I do have some, and it’s incredibly lonely.
I wish more LGBT people in my area were like Torra. It feels like high school here: same number of arbitrary cultural rules to follow to fit in and be accepted, just the specifics are different.
Yeah, I hear ya. There’s a part of me that legit feels I’m not “bi enough” because I fail to meet some arbitrary standards. Hell I remember a gay dude here who gave me shit because he decided I wasn’t being appropriately queer enough for him.
Like, I don’t want to begrudge the idea of queer culture to those who need it and find empowerment in it, but for me tranquility came when I was able to say that I was bi without, like, thinking it made me something other than what I was before.
heh, yeah, I’m an outlier in enough ways that I just expect to be an exception to everything. Sometimes it’s really useful, when I’m close enough to pass as whatever’s most convenient, but other times… yeah, there’s the self-doubt and confusion, the trying not to flirt with girls because I’m not even sure if I’m “bi enough” or if they’ll be mad at me for not being a lesbian or knowing what I want… and then there’s the small irritations like always having ink/pencil on my hand (and smudged writing) in school from being left-handed. and the traumatizing stuff involving loud noises that other people somehow consider “fun”.
and the fact that I have the house to myself for a few days, and find myself thinking of myself in the plural, how it’s kinda fun to be just “us”. like, is that me, or did I just pick it up from the DID talk here? does it matter? and does it matter that I might have ocd? is it worth looking into that, or will I not find anything new? do I even have it, or just something similar because all my little compulsions I can mostly keep under control? do any of my doctors secretly think I’m a hypochondriac?
fuck, life is *confusing*. I’m glad becky at least gets to skip that uncertainty.
<3 Exactly.
I mean, some political alignments actively hate you more than others, but sure.
“If you were immediately accepted into the first LGBT community you found, congrats.”
Nah. I was too busy being terrified to be openly Different or too “into” LGBTQIA+ culture, because my friend group was made up entirely of “we’re all a little bi, but you take your interest in girls way too far by actually wanting to date one” folks. They made me feel like I was already Too Loud, Too Obnoxious, Too Obvious, so I never wanted to make that somehow worse by actually going to a Pride event, or a GSA meeting, or any of it.
(I actually came out as gay first, and it took me a much longer time to accept that I could be bi instead of having to be a secret straight faking-liar who had never really been into girls. General bi erasure, the cultural pressure to Choose straight or gay, and also my shitty lesbophobic and also biphobic friend group probably all contributed to that.)
I’ve never had Becky’s experience either. Because I was too busy being terrified of being somehow Too Gay to actually even attempt to join any groups of any kind.
And while you feel like Becky’s experience is everywhere and you never saw any messaging that told you it was okay not to change who you were, I actually saw nothing except “being gay just means I like boys/girls instead of girls/boys, nothing else about me is at all different” messaging. I saw nothing but singular gay characters, whose only friends were all straight people plus a significant other if they were lucky, who were completely isolated from any concept of “LGBTQIA+ culture”.
All I saw or heard while growing up was the Respectability Politics line of “we’re just like straight people except for who we date”, which gave me the distinct, distinct impression that only weirdos who were Way Too Into Being Gay thought we had any kind of culture.
And that was just as isolating for me.
Now I feel like I have a peer group of LGBTQIA+ people, but only because I happened to luck into LGBTQIA+-friendly online scenes and then we gravitated towards each other. I’m not out at work, I don’t even know what the local organizations are, and I occasionally feel like a freak for having never been to a Pride.
There’s no one right narrative for this stuff. What you find alienating is exactly what I needed, and what I found alienating was what you needed.
I’m in my thirties, and I still need Becky’s story, “another straight guy’s opinion” or not. I would honestly love to know what media you’re consuming where you’ve seen this so much that you’re tired of it, because DOA is the only thing I’ve ever watched or read with enough queer characters to form multiple pairings.
There’s no one right narrative for this stuff. What you find alienating is exactly what I needed, and what I found alienating was what you needed.
Yep. black&white thinking is usually a bad idea.
I mean, some political alignments actively hate you more than others, but sure.” Which is exactly why I used the word ‘almost.’ I’m not politically ignorant, and I wish you wouldn’t imply that I am with your brusque “sure.”
“I would honestly love to know what media you’re consuming where you’ve seen this so much that you’re tired of it, because DOA is the only thing I’ve ever watched or read with enough queer characters to form multiple pairings…”
It’s hard for me to hear that and not hear that you disbelieve me or think I’m lying / exaggerating. I mean, what am I supposed to say to that?
What I got from fictional tv and movies was that no queer / LGBT people exist, ever, at all. I never saw a show like you describe, with a partnered lesbian or WLW character who is part of a larger cast. Not saying they don’t exist, but I really hadn’t seen any until quite recently.
What I got from reality shows (Project Runway, Miami Ink, Perez Hilton MTV, etc) was a lot of gay dudes, and some lesbians, straight up being mean and verbally bullying people. But, also making cool art? And sometimes being there for each other? So that was…confusing.
What I got from the LGBT section of the library was 1) a lot of erotica, which I found intimidating, albeit interesting
2.) I read Dykes to Watch Out For, some David Levithan stuff, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, a lot of LGBT poetry (Andrea Gibson, Mark Doty, Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou), and memoirs and biographies by LGBT activists
3). a lot of coming out YA stories which made coming out seem like a mandatory act of bravery that will inevitably change / ruin your life, but it’s okay because you’ll end up with a found family of a bunch of LGBT people
What I got from my friends in high school were yuri / yaoi manga, which my friends often read to make fun of. But also maybe two of them were queer but in denial / closeted?
And many of those books were great! They were very important, both culturally and to me personally. (Also, except for the erotica, they were mostly by LGBT writers).
But what I found in real life was a bunch of people at my college’s PRIDE who considered me uncool and excluded me for, well, not fitting in in ways I can’t fake, and straight people in other groups who find my being wlw uncomfortable. Not entirely, not all of them, and I have a few LGBT friends who are not cliquish. But…it’s not great.
And I wish I could hand my other wlw peers all these memoirs of fully-fleshed-out gay people who don’t conform to any “types” and manage to have close friendships and relationships with each other that are profound and complex… and not dependent on your hairstyle or whether or not you recognize the band name they dropped.
FIRST: I’m not going to say you’re imagining things, because that would be incredibly rude, but the tone you’re hearing in my comments is not the tone with which I wrote them.
Like, that’s not what I meant by that “sure”. What I meant was, “I agree with what you say to this point, but I feel the need to make this clarifying statement before I am able to process the rest of your post.”
And I meant that I was SINCERELY interested in what media you had watched / read growing up. So I was hoping you would respond with a list? Genuinely.
I’m going to start with “Buffy” for my part, where Willow comes out while simultaneously rejecting the larger Wiccan scene (and Wicca is inconsistently a metaphor for lesbian culture throughout the show), and has her girlfriend Tara, but neither of them are ever seen even acknowledging that there are other LGBTQIA+ people in the world. (Riley is seen helping put up a post for a group for lesbians to meet; Tara and Willow never are.)
Then there’s a bunch of shows like Pretty Little Liars (I vaguely remember a few shows in this same vein when I was growing up), or House; sitcoms with “very special” episodes about a gay character that just exist to demonstrate that the main cast are good allies. Shows like Deep Space Nine that feature a couple of episodes where two women kiss but are staunchly apolitical because they want to show that in the future no one cares anymore.
And then there’s Queer as Folk and The L Word but I didn’t watch QAF until I was well out of my teens and I still haven’t seen TLW; nor do I plan to, knowing what I do about its lone bi character.
That’s the media I grew up with: where we were on the edges, sometimes allowed to be main characters but always surrounded by and indistinguishable from straight people.
Like I said — it sounds like what I found alienating is what you needed to hear (that it’s okay to not have your sexuality be a major component of your identity), but I needed and still need stories like this, where it IS a major component and that’s okay.
Both these things reflect reality! Both of them are important.
I feel like you’re calling me shallow and were implying I must have led some kind of perfect queer life, and you feel like I’m calling you a liar, but I think that we are both wrong about the other. I think we are hearing hostility because this is kind of a painful conversation, rather than because hostility is there.
Fair?
As yet another straight guy, I dunno how much my opinion is gonna be worth on the matter, but to me at least, this hasn’t really come across as Willis’s idea of of what’s important for coming out, or “the right way” to come out.
It just seems like it’s the way that makes the most sense for Becky, considering her loud, exuberant personality, and her stifling, repressive upbringing. Joyce’s floor is filled with openly bi girls, and none have been shown to have rainbows exploding out of them to the extent that Becky does, but the narrative really doesn’t seem to be suggesting that Becky’s way is better or worse than theirs. It’s just more Becky.
I’m sure she’ll get it sooner or later, but right now let us take joy in Lesbian Padawan Becky.
…is someone else gonna make the cunnilingus joke or do I have to
Not shipping these two, the age difference is a bit Much, but the joke is B E G G I N G to be made.
Well, when I read the first line of the last panel, I missed the “what.” So it turned into “I want to eat YOU”
Glad I wasn’t the only one.
I’m with you on that.
It’s the Steve Martin theory of comedy, kind of comedia interuptus: only imply the punchline and never actually deliver it.
General Organa is watching you sleep.
General Organa is watching you eat.
General Organa wants YOU to buy Organic!
General Organa is watching you get Leia’d.
General Organa protects you from jerk dads at night.
General Organa protects you from her jerk son by day.
General Organa is proud of you for saving this man’s life and choosing to leave the First Order.
General Organa will live forever in our hearts.
General Organa… *can’t go on, weeps*
So…
You better watch out,
You better not cry,
Better not pout,
I’m telling you why:
General Organa is coming to town.
Generally speaking, yes.
Zone tan is watching you fap.
I can only assume that it was necessary for Becky to completely vacate the dorms to resist the overwhelming temptation of hedonistic dinosaur cuddles
you can take the Becky away from the dinosaur gal
but you can’t take the dinosaur facts out of the Becky
or something
Dina made her leave while she constructs a suitable nest and practices her mating dance.
She must dance the lovely dance even more better than a city fairy!
CITY FAAAAAAACE
Super wow!
This may or may not have to do with the fact that Dina’s room is Amber’s room, which in turn could have invited complications from the fact that *redacted* *redacted* *redacted* after *redacted* *redacted* and *redacted* the *redacted* to the *redacted*.
It’s funny that even with all the *redacted*’s, you’re still getting my cerebral gears turning about what’s going on now.
Oooooooor, was it to late for that.
*plays that grunge “Fanny Farmer” song on the stereo*
Is the alt text a reference to Steve’s cereal adventures in QC?
Wouldn’t be surprised.
I assumed so, especially since “Bros, Bros, Bros” is another ongoing QC bit.
It also occurs to me that “Steve with cereal” pages are used in QC to build suspense and/or delay when some critical event has happened but hasn’t be resolved. Coincidence or was it in Willis’ mind when he was writing the alt-text?
Yeah, it seems like Jeph Jacques does that when he wants a “Damn you, Jeph” reaction… Though it seems like Willis is always going for that reaction.
Yaaaay more of these two.
LESBIAN SHENANIGANS!!!
Oh, these are gonna be the most adorable housemates! *Squeeeee*
I suspect Leslie is going to find Becky is more awesome in theory than reality even if she is a wonderfully cheerful baby gay.
I think Leslie is gonna take the role of a parent/older sibling to Becky, and accept her a the teenager she is.
“Help me, Leslie-wan Beanobi, you’re my only hope”
You. You have just won my undying respect and gratitude with this.
And Leslie’s, I think.
*humble bow*
Padawan Becky: Teach me everything, master! I’m not afraid!
Lesbian Jedi Master Leslie: *in Yoda voice* OH! Ye will be! Mmm. YE WILL BE.
HOW HAS NO ONE THOUGHT OF THAT EVER BEFORE
I strangely in love with this moment. She’s been taught her whole life that homosexuals are somehow fundamentally different and is still trying to get a handle on the fact that the only difference is who they wanna smooch.
Fuck that, we’re completely different and also better
Then I’m the best because I’m polysexual and am the best of all of them
Not familiar with the term polysexual, but if you’ve been with one of us straights I’m afraid you’ll always be just slightly tainted with vanilla.
noooooo *falls to her knees* *scrubs at her hands* will these hands EVER be clean??? *scrubs harder* I SWEAR I ONLY MEANT TO LOOK AT A BOY ONCE. it’s not my fault. *sobs harder* i knew i should have ran away from home the day my mom started shipping me with the son of one of her best friends. will my SOUL ever be free of this thrice-damned heterosexual vanilla
Polysexual is a term for attracted to multiple genders and can be an umbrella term for all such sexualities. It can also be used more individually for being attracted to multiple genders but not necessarily just two like bisexuality or ALL like pansexuality.
I thought a polysexual was practicing polyamory?
Nah, polyamorous is people who, well, practice or would want to be practicing polyamory. Polysexual is a contrast to monosexual, so, gay or straight. I believe it came about as an umbrella term for like bisexual and pansexual and people who are only into one sex but either gender or the reverse or whatever. Basically, just, people who are neither a zero nor a becky on the kinsey scale, in some way or another.
Yeah I just saw that the comment you were responding to pretty much actually already said everything that I said and most of that comment was wholly unnecessary uh sorry
Ooh, so I guess I finally found out a term for what I am… I have been wondering about this for a while. If I can fall in love with any gender (male, agender, genderfluid…) except those who identify as a woman, that means I’m polyromantic? Because I believe panromantic is being able to fall in love with ALL genders, no exceptions.
Do note that the generally accepted definition of bisexual, within the bisexual community, is not “attracted to two genders” but either “attracted to at least two genders” or “attracted to both your own (homo) and other (hetero) genders.” Many, many bisexuals are into non-binary people in addition to men and women.
+20000
The Bisexual Manifesto of 1990 was very explicit about this. We didn’t choose the word “bisexual”, it was created by Straight people, just like all these other words (“pansexual” is also reclaimed, it was originally another word for hypersexual), and it has been reclaimed.
Non-bi people don’t get to redefine “bi” over the protests of bi people, or to declare that cis bisexual people are any more inherently transphobic than any other cis people.
Also, it’s friggin dangerous to declare that ply* and pan people are inherently not transphobic; as cis people, transphobia is something we have to keep on guard for, not something for us to reassure ourselves we Aren’t because we picked a different label for our multi-spec sexuality.
(I identify as both bi and pan, which is where my weird pronouns come from.)
* Polynesian people are trying to reclaim “poly” as an identity for themselves and polysexual folks are encouraged to use ply as a shorthand instead. You’ll also sometimes see polyamorous shortened to polya.
This is how I identify the terms personally. I also want to note that who you are attracted to is something personal and that being sexually attracted to people of the same sex or of a different sex or cis people or binary people does not make you homophobic/transphobic/bigoted/close minded. We cannot control who our bodies and minds want. There is also a big difference between romantic and sexual, meaning love can occur between two people even when one or both do not feel sexual attraction or wish to engage in sexual activity. For example, an asexual person could be homoromantic.
Asexual: does not experience sexual attraction. It’s presence does not effect the likelihood of developing romantic feelings for a person or having a preference on romantic partners. Can preform sexual acts for the pleasure of their partner. Rather or not urge to masterbate is present or not and at what level varies.
Gray Asexual: experience sexual attraction in low levels which are negatable or which are only present under special circumstances or one who feels they fall in the gray area between asexuality and sexuality. It’s presence does not effect the likelihood of developing romantic feelings for a person or having a preference on romantic partners. Rather or not urge to masterbate is present and at what intensity varies.
Demisexual: can only develop sexual attraction after developing an emotional bond. The type of romantic attraction varies from person to person.
Polysexual: sexually attracted to most genders, but not all. Gender does play a part in attraction. May or may not include male, female, transmale, transfemale, intersex, gender fluid, two spirit, agender, third gender, or gender queer depending on the individual.
Pansexual: sexually attracted to people. Gender is not a factor (or such a small factor as to be negatable), only the personality of the individual.
Queer: sexual preferences cannot be easily defined with known terms.
A few other terms…
Polyamorus: a person who is romantically involved with more than one person at the same time. May or may not include a sexual relationship. Seriousness of each relationship varies (example: an individual having a wife, a boyfriend, and a fuck buddy). The point at which each relationship begins, progresses, and ends is independent of the others (example: breaking up with a boyfriend would not cause the relationship to end with a wife or fuck buddy. Going out on a date with a new person wouldn’t either). Partners may or may not be emotionally supportive when issues occur in life and/or with another partner. Consent and openness is a big part of it.
Polyfidelity: an exclusive romantic and/or sexual relationship between more than one person. Sexual and/or romantic activities are confined to the group and all members of the group are equal. When a breakup occurs or when there is the possibility of a new partner, it effects and involves the entire group.
Monogamy: when one is romantically and/or sexually involved with only one person at a time.
Romantic attraction: when one desires romantic contact with another person, bonds with another person, and/or experiences romantic love towards another. Gender preferences vary (panromantic, polyromantic, biromatic, homoromantic, heteroromantic, demi-panromantic…). Aromantic is the absence or negatable level of romantic attraction. Gray-romantic is when romantic attraction is between aromantic and romantic.
A couple of points:
– “Trans male” and “trans female” are not separate additional genders. Trans men are just men and trans women are just women.
– Intersex is not a gender, although some intersex people absolutely feel that it impacts their gender in unique ways, and there ARE genders specific to some intersex people. But an intersex person might be a woman, a man, might or might not consider themselves trans, might be nonbinary, might be two-spirit, etc.
– Nobody’s saying that we cis people have to date trans people, because NO trans person wants to date a transphobic cis person. (They’re not that into us!) But, because trans is not a gender, and there is no one way that trans women look, blanketedly stating “I’m not attracted to trans people” is no more valid as a dating preference than “I’m not attracted to people of X race”.
Like, the only thing all trans women have in common is being trans, and if you find transness itself somehow unilaterally unattractive — if you would see a beautiful goddess of a woman, and then lose interest upon learning she’s trans — then yes, you’ve got some bigotry there. Up to you on whether or not you work on it.
By our powers combined!
Remember when Joyce learned Ethan was gay, and she was like, “but you look normal.” This was their environment.
Hath not a queer eyes? Hath not a queer hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a straight is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die?
Wait, for a number of reasons I don’t think I want to be quoting that particular line from that particular character.
(oh my god William Shakespeare was a pre-Silicon Valley Silicon Valley Ironic-Bigot Hipster)
(the question of whether/how much Shakespeare intended Shylock to be an actually sympathetic character, as modern readings often make him, has been a matter of Some Debate* over the years.)
(*massive understatement)
It would be nice if we could get Shakespeare’s true thoughts on a lot of things. For example, Romeo and Juliet; what was he thinking?
gothic
also like “DAMN PEOPLE what if we could solve our problems with something that WASN’T MURDER”
“Something that wasn’t murder”
You mean like a double-suicide between two horny teenagers? Honestly, the story is better off without the title characters.
….But without the teenagers you lose the point.
Namely, ‘holy shit you two, you let this fucking feud get so out of hand that at least three kids from your houses died, enough is enough – also, the prince lost two family members because he let this fuckery stand for so long without ever actually doing anything about it.’
what BBCC said.
like Romeo and Juliet didn’t kill themselves to solve their problems, they killed themselves because they thought they had no other recourse in order to be with each other. just two kids who wanted to be together. the tragic irony is that they could’ve been together if everyone would have gotten their heads out of their asses for like five minutes
and i mean like whatever, you can find them both as annoying as you want, but they still got a right to live and be with the people they want to be with.
^ This.
Yup, without the feud, without them feeling trapped and scared and hunted, this is a mundane teenager puppy love story, one of a brief explosion of lust and crush that probably would have faded after a time.
But the outside condemnation makes it a whole thing, makes it deadly, makes those simple stories of love and lust and teens getting together into something poisoned and deadly.
And in many ways that’s very directly applicable to youth today, especially queer youth. The more our society condemns kids who come out being in puppy love with same gendered people in their lives, or kids realizing their real gender, or kids realizing they’re ace or aro.
The more we make it feel to those kids that they have no one they can talk to about this and no real options to try and make it work in the long run, you get these same tragedies of lost kids who deserved to have their chance to just be kids growing up and figuring stuff out.
@Cerberus, I love that point of identification with the play, it’s not one I’d thought about before. (Maybe in that context, it’s also worth noting that a not-insignificant amount of scholars are pretty sure Shakespeare was hella bi, at a time when it was, if I recall correctly, very much illegal.)
I think Romeo and Juliet is kind of a parody of what it’s usually perceived as. It’s not some tragic love story – it’s an idiotic misunderstanding that could have been resolved in like five minutes if people communicated openly. And THAT’S the tragedy.
The heroic Jillian Keenan (heroic for her outspoken opposition to violence against children in a culture in love with it) said something similar to this in her book Sex With Shakespeare, as well as pointing out that really, what Romeo and Juliet are consumed by is not love but lust – Romeo begins the play obsessed with another girl and sights on Juliet because of the complicated thought process of “…!! Girl! Pretty!” Friar Lawrence’s whole “these violent delights have violent ends” bit is usually perceived as the stuffy old order trying to stomp out Twue Wuv or whatever…but in the case of Ro-Ro and Jules its pretty close to the truth. You think their relationship would have lasted practically any time at all if they hadn’t kilt demselfs? I doubt it.
It is mostly lust and definitely teenage puppy love and they never got the chance to really know each other beyond the rush of New Relationship Energy and endorphins. And that’s what makes it all the more of a tragedy. These two kids feeling so trapped because of the societal reaction to their growing something of a relationship that they saw death as the only option to cope with it.
With less pressure surrounding it, with space for the kids to be kids and see where that potent cocktail of chemistry went, this would have been mundane and likely, like most HS romances, ended eventually in time as the NRE faded.
The condemnation is the tragedy. Not that they were the greatest love story in all of history. But that they were two kids who dug each other who felt doomed and at threat because of that simple crush.
Pretty much. Also because a Friar felt like playing Chessmaster.
They go to him asking for help because they know if they’re found by their families, at least one of them will probably be MURDERED. They figure they can’t be killed by their families if they’re married because killing family is heinous and much as their families hate each other, they PROBABLY won’t stoop that low.
The Friar agrees to this rushed plan because he wants to marry them to force an end to the feud without regard for what happens to those kids.
Tybalt is going around looking for a fight with Romeo because he saw him crashing the Capulet’s party last night (which his uncle TOLD him ‘Nah, leave him alone, I’ve heard he’s a good kid and he’s not hurting anything’). Romeo won’t give him what he wants because he just married Juliet and he wants to wait to explain it to Tybalt (presumably with the rest of their families). MERCUTIO is the one starts shit because he’s an angry hot head who won’t listen when Romeo says ‘Eh, forget about it’ and he thinks he won’t get in trouble because he’s related to the Prince. He thought wrong and dies, and so Romeo lashes out in grief and takes on Tybalt, leading to his exile.
The Friar told both of them just to wait a bit for tempers to cool and then he can get Romeo back so they can explain everything and get Romeo pardoned. Unfortunately, her dad picks this time to go primo Asshole (and yes, even by the standards of the day, he’s being an asshole and we’d be expected to think so) and so they need a quick plan to make her wedding to Paris not happen. Rather than say ‘Fuck this shit, I’m going to the Prince to sort this mess out NOW’ like a responsible adult should have, the Friar goes with his fake death bullshit which causes Paris’, Romeo’s and Juliet’s very real deaths.
The problem here isn’t these are two stupid kids, the problem here is those two stupid kids never even had a fighting chance because their families won’t calm the fuck down and listen to them.
All of this!
It also reflects very different understandings of love and romance in Shakespeare’s day than ours.
One of the interesting things about Shakespeare is that he was essentially an activist for the idea that marriages could be out of love and choice rather than necessity and political calculation.
Like, that’s what so many of his works are about. Young passion being treated as valid rather than something to suppress and put aside for one’s “duties” to one’s family and the dowry system. Forced or politically calculated marriages being usually seen as an antagonistic force that can destroy everything if enforced.
So the idea that kids could just be in puppy love with each other, sleep with each other outside of marriage, and just be dumb kids exploring these attractions was a radical notion he was hard-selling and which was likely a small part of why plays at that time were often shut down for “moral” reasons.
Like, he was essentially the Rebecca Sugar of his time, making a space for the celebration of non-normative love and identities.
Shakespeare Universe and yon Magical Gems XD
i love all of this
Legit? Some people have gotten close to it, but they’re ignoring some really nerdy stuff here. What he was thinking was to deconstruct the contemporary format of a comedy, and also make a play about how blood feuds are a Bad Idea. The tragedy isn’t that Romeo and Juliet make a bad decision- it’s that because of a blood feud, the only recourse they have is to make a series of bad decisions that coupled with bad luck wind up killing them.
So like, the way an Elizabethan play worked (generally), the “climax” was right around the middle of the play. You have a rising action, where everyone sets up the situation that the play is about and where people could, at any time, change course and do something different from what they had initially planned on doing. Then the climax, which is really the last point at which anyone could possibly change the course of the play, usually people make big decisions here. And then the falling action, which is pretty much just “all the consequences of your actions are happening now and there’s really not much you can do about it”. So like in Macbeth, you have the rising action of him wondering if he should maybe kill any of these people, the climax of him killing some people, and then the death spiral where he murders increasingly more people in a desperate scramble to maintain his position he got by murdering people, before finally being killed by an angry dude whose family he murdered. Actions, bigger actions, and then consequences all the way down. In a comedy, it might look more like “A love quadrangle runs into the forest full of fairies > fairies drug the love quadrangle in an attempt to fix it > desperate scramble to fix the fact that the fairies drugged the wrong dang people and now the quadrangle is worse than ever, ending with the CORRECT people being drugged this time”. Setup, big action, consequences.
The fun thing about Romeo and Juliet is that, for the entire rising action, the play is SET UP like a comedy. The opening is some dudes making sex jokes, the lovestruck Romeo is the butt of jokes for being obsessed with some random Rosalind lady, there’s a party with costumes that disguise everyone’s identity, the protagonists fall in love despite some WACKY IMPEDIMENT and then have to hide that from people. Oh, and there’s a saucy nurse making more sex jokes. Right up until Mercutio dies, this is almost entirely a straight comedy; and even in his death, right up until he curses BOTH sides of the family feud conflict, he’s making jokes about how he’s bleeding out on the floor. And then the falling action comes together; Romeo now has to murder Juliet’s cousin Tybalt for murdering Mercutio, so then the prince has to banish Romeo, Juliet’s dad finally decides she NEEDS to marry the county Paris (because he is not aware she’s now already married), she fakes her death to avoid that, Romeo’s buddy rushes to tell him that Juliet has died and gets there before the messenger can deliver the “she’s just faking chill out” message, HE kills himself, she wakes up in a tomb with her dead husband on top of her and stabs herself AND THEN THE PRINCE MAKES EVERYONE STOP HAVING THEIR STUPID BLOOD FEUD THAT JUST KILLED TWO CHILDREN DANG GUYS.
So, there you go. That’s what Shakespeare was thinking about Romeo and Juliet, and why it’s a terrible goddamn play to make high schoolers read, since without knowing about the contemporary comedy tropes he’s flipping around, and given that every filmed performance I know plays the comedy down entirely, it’s a boring god damn play that makes no sense.
The kids weren’t stupid- there was nothing they COULD have done to change the course of their story once they got married, and especially not after Tybalt dies. Juliet is a 13 year old girl who has disobeyed her father big time by marrying someone he most certainly wouldn’t approve of. Now he wants her to marry some other dude, which she CAN’T do, because she is already married. She can’t tell him that, because he reacts violently enough to her not wanting to marry this other dude, like, in the next week. And she can’t tell him no without explaining why, for that same reason. He, like, disowns her until she agrees to marry him THE NEXT DAY. Which leaves very little time for much of any plan to be put into action. So the only thing anyone can think of, to avoid this huge and unavoidable problem, is to leave the situation altogether; but she’s a 13 year old girl from a rich family. If she just runs away, they’ll definitely go looking for her and be Very Upset. If they think she’s dead, there’s no search, she can do whatever she wants. A messenger WAS sent to Romeo to tell him all this.
And romeo’s cousin that runs to tell him of her death just thought he was helping, so that Romeo would be able to, like, see her one last time or whatever. I think the messenger’s horse also got injured or something. So bad luck means he misses that pretty important information. I GUESS it could be construed that Romeo and Juliet killing themselves as a result of the shit going on is them being stupid teenagers, but it’s not like Juliet would have ever had any kind of life to go back to. Her dad would definitely disown her for real, the guy she would have had to marry is dead now (Romeo kills him too…) so she’s damaged goods that’s gonna have a major problem marrying again now that no one’s lined up and she’s a complete disgrace and all that. So it’s really just ROMEO that did a stupid, and hey, the most recent love of his life died and he’s (not explicitly stated, but implied to be) a teenager, also his best friend died because he got in the way and he’s murdered, like, 2 people in the last two days. He was having a tough week.
Yup. Which is why I feel like modern adaptations would do better to make it a queer love story than trying to tell it straight, because that best captures that sense of feeling trapped and on the verge of disownment for daring speak truth to one’s love.
Capulet doesn’t just try to force her to marry some guy she doesn’t know and she can’t because she’s married – even accounting for the time period, JULIET IS TOO FUCKING YOUNG for children. And her dad’s reaction to that is to freak the fuck out, put hands on her, and tell her he will bodily throw her in the street to either starve or become a prostitute…..because she’s not ready to marry someone she doesn’t know, doesn’t like, is too young for, will probably not survive marrying (since he wants kids NOW and that’s likely to kill Juliet) and for crying out loud, her cousin just died! There’s a million reasons not to marry him even before Romeo gets dragged into this mess.
As I’ve heard it, and repeat(ed):
“All the joy in the play dies with Mercutio. From there, it’s just a grim march to the horrible end.”
@BBCC who i can’t respond to because comments have gotten too nested, yeah, she IS really young for the time period actually, where (besides political marriages) I think the average age of marriage was actually like 18? But that’s not a reason to disobey your father, in the setting or context. You mostly just gotta hope your dad doesn’t want you to marry someone when you’re 13, I guess? (just reread it, and her dad INITIALLY wanted to wait until she was 15 or 16, but like, then all the murders began, and then he thought that getting married might cheer her up because isn’t that what every girl dreams of? And then she disobeyed him and he lost his shit and that doesn’t really change anything but I like precision) But Juliet definitely sleeps with Romeo and teenagers are just as capable of impregnating other teenagers as adults are, so, like… no, I think the bigger problem (in Juliet’s mind, not, like, in the reality of marrying off 13 year olds to grown ass adults) is that he’s a complete stranger and she’s in love with someone else and bigamy is illegal.
I mean 13 year olds (14, I guess, by the time she’d possibly be giving birth?) shouldn’t have kids. I just don’t know if that would have factored into anything in the play, at the time. And if a modern interpretation wanted to raise that point, they’d have to show Romeo using a condom or something because otherwise it wouldn’t make a ton of sense. Or make them queer, actually, a la Cerberus’ suggestion.
This sounded like I was playing devil’s advocate or arguing against the idea that her marrying Paris would have been a bad idea, but I’m really not trying to, I just REALLY like talking about Shakespeare. And I really like this play now that it’s the Madoka Magica of Elizabethan theater, and not, like, a bizarre and confusing un-romantic love(?) story.
I just want everyone to forget that time they had to read it in high school and come at it again with a perspective that isn’t tainted by years of people for some reason thinking that double suicide is romantic, because there’s all this complexity there buried under the famous quotes I swear
this.
the modern reaction to it proves, if anything, that teenagers still don’t know nothin’ about love and/or how to deal with hormones making their nethers warm and blood all fizzy.
Yes, but just because the father has a legal right to demand something doesn’t make it the right thing to do. And yeah, even for the time, setting her up with Paris falls under ‘bad idea’ because, while that’s not a concern Juliet raises, at the time, yeah, audiences knew that 13 year old having a baby = probably not a good idea. That’s why even in younger alliance marriages, the idea was that it was probably a good idea to wait for babies until the mom was old enough that she probably wouldn’t die (assuming that consummating the marriage didn’t knock her up I guess). Her dad deciding to go against his earlier inclination and wait to get her engaged when she was like 15 or 16 (and presumably it’d be a while until she was actually married) to ‘Y’know what, screw it, let’s marry her off RIGHT FUCKING NOW’ is SUPPOSED to look like he’s a pride driven asshole, and Paris is supposed to look skeevy as hell. That’s not something that’d be different in historical context. Especially since the average age for getting married was around 21 (rural/peasant girls married from late teens to early 20s and city girls tended to marry around early to mid 20s – nobility is marrying earlier not because it’s an appropriate marriage age, but because they have alliances to seal, and even they tended to wait to be around 15 or 16 because, again, younger girls typically didn’t survive birth).
Juliet may not be supposed to disobey her father, but even in historical context, her dad and Paris are being dicks.
Christ, I had no idea my opinion on Romeo and Juliet would provide so much discussion fodder.
Becky, no. Becky, you’re at a 12 again.
I mean she’s allowed to be at a twelve. This is perfectly normal, she’s still figuring out what being a lesbian means to her so she’s imitating a role model.
Well, the last time she checked she was closer to a 26, so this is toning it down considerably
…i thought that was what the refrance and assumed the original number was twelve
now i remember she said “twenty-four, twenty-five”
oops
Funny, I thought The Wizard of Oz was what the refrance. I must be really behind the times. At least Joyce identifies as a friend of Dorothy.
Why is everybody trying to re-France? Is it some sort of reference I don’t get?
Look up Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.
Becky identifies as a Friendly-Rival-Of-Dorothy.
She’s still on the high of the euphoric rush that she no longer has to deal with that toe-shaped gun-wielding psychopath of a father and can now be herself. I think she deserves to cut her some slack for now.
More than that. Her situation is getting steadily less dire. She’s got a (somewhat unstable) job, and now her homeless situation has improved from “illegally crashing in a friend’s dorm where the school could kick her out if she’s caught” to “crashing on the couch of an awesome sympathetic role model”.
Are you telling us that Becky might, at some point, wind up not being a dire lesbian? Well, I hope she can roleplay well enough to justify the stat drop.
Dina’s sexy powers were so overwhelming they caused Becky to magically teleport to Leslie’s apartment.
is Robin looking through the windows with a haunted expression? Has she stayed three days? Has she eaten? Doesn’t she want lesbian toast? o-o
Yes they caused Becky to travel forward in time, Dina is that powerful.
so thaaaaat’s why we had a three-day timeskip
Robin’s butt has fused to the sidewalk. Not Ryan has fused with the stairs.
Yup. Becky has slept for three days. She has missed as much time as us.
Oh cool, she’s moved in.
I have in on good authority that queers can absorb nutrients through flashes of light! It’s their evolutionary advantage.
well gee and here i thought it was a complex trait that develops from a combination of genetic, epigenetic, and developmental factors and therefore probably can’t be traced to a single unifying evolutionary cause
Your FACE is a complex trait that develops from a combination of genetic, epigenetic, and developmental factors and therefore probably can’t be traced to a single unifying evolutionary cause
Butts has a face? How disappointingly ordinary.
no evidence to support this claim exists at this time
Butts have cheeks, quid pro quo
hmmmm what a difference between these two. like them both though.
I love Becky’s enthusiasm and humour. It must be tough work staying positive for her.
Also, is that Leslie’s bedhead, or did she take Robin’s hairstyling advice?
I think she did, I suspect she’s actually been awake since it was still morning.
If nothing else, Robin was 100% correct about her hair looking cute like that.
they both have great hair right now, that was like the first thing i noticed
Becky looks so completely adorable in panel 4. I just want to smoosh her
This hair is Leslie’s best hair. Its powers are cosmic. She uses it to vanquish evil, bring clarity to lost souls, and empower worthy apprentices. (You know, like by giving them a couch, or feeding them toast.)
now opening for Wyld Stallyns…LESBIAN TOAST
i always shipped bill and ted
or at least figured they were probably jackin’ each other off in that time machine
y’know, whatever
Yeah, those princesses were the least convincing beards ever.
Does that make their use of the f-slur for a homosexual male after hugging more or less problematic? Also, does that make all of Keanu Reeves’ other characters gay or bi as well? Because aside from John Wick I can totally see all of Keanu Reeves’ characters as bi or gay, especially Neo seeing as he has better chemistry with Morpheus than with…I think her character’s name was Serenity but I’m not entirely sure.
Trinity.
It is worth noting that Keanu Reeves has played a lesbian, not that many people noticed.
When was this?
The Matrix Trilogy
wut?
The Matrix Trilogy is a giant metaphor for being trans and coming out and Neo’s arc especially follows this with only the villains using “Mr.” or Neo’s deadname and all of Neo’s friends using the chosen “real” name. Additionally, Neo is giving various visual cues to signal being trans-feminine, including going to work in that early scene with what looks like hastily smeared off lipstick.
Given the central metaphor, it’s heavily likely Neo was supposed to be interpreted as a trans woman and thus her relationship with Trinity would be a queer one.
How much do you know about Lana and Lilly Wachowski?
… I may have gotten hyper obsessed right after Lana first came out because she was the first big big celebrity to come out…
… huh. I’d reinterpreted Trinity as being a trans man.
…. I need to rewatch that movie. Though I’m pretty sure I still won’t be savvy enough to catch a tenth of the context.
Yay, lesbian roommates! Dreams do come true.
They’re gonna be gal pals! Gals who are pals. Take that, Robin.
Becky is living Robin’s dream.
And all it took was to be respectful, show basic decency and be in genuine need, and not actively working against everything Leslie stands for.
Yup. The bar was so very low for Robin and if she had just stopped at the bar or had been more willing to own what she did there, she could very much have still had Leslie in her life.
Laverne and Shirley?
If there really was gay food it’d probably taste a lot more fabulous than straight food.
Skittles.
Probably also Oreos.
It’s really generous that the gay people share their food with everyone else.
Rainbow cake too, naturally
Gayke.
rainbow macaroni and cheese
So who was responsible for changing the red ones from cherry to “theoretically strawberry”?
Fish tacos.
Okay, but those are just an objectively tasty meal, kid jokes aside.
Jokes still aside, depends on the quality of the fish (and other ingredients). You’re not gonna get great eats from Taco Bell.
You take that right the fuck back, you.
I’m gonna start selling lesbian bread, bread in the shape of two girls doing it!
Gay bread will also be available.
Coming soon to erotic bakeries wherever!
*insert cookie pun here, or other places if you feel like it*
“And that’s the way the lesbian cookie crumbles.”
I suspect men will be your main clientele.
Okay while I know Becky’s being genuine she’s sounding exactly like my friend right now and I think that’s hilarious. She’s so enthusiastic I love it.
Also good to know this worked out. Hope to see how she and Dina are doing.
Man this update was good enough I almost forgot my searing anxiety Willie Davis David Willis you stop this right now
That’s the key – get us all to forget so he can drop that other shoe.
The most authentically written gay character ever. Certified, 80% of my conversations ho exactly like this.
LESBIAN conversations… sorry, I was caught up.
let’s make this like the jeans meme (jeme)
it’s not lesbian conversations it’s lesversations
it’s not lesbian food it’s lesood
it’s not lesbian plaid it’s leslaid
it’s not lesbian memes it’s lesmes
I do wonder what it’s going to be like when religion comes up. Despite growing up in very similar religious environments, Leslie (if she’s the same as her Shortpacked counterpart) and Becky have come at the issue of the environment which oppressed them differently.
In the meantime, LESBIAN SLUMBER PARTY!
I think we are in for a great discussion when that happens. So far Becky has not had the opportunity to discuss religion without having to thread very carefully.
That Rey poster looks fucking pissed.
Joyce is blond ? She always looked more bright color brown to me.
No, she’s a bright colorful Brown. Close but different.
It’s probably a bit easier to wrap your mind around if you consider her original appearance, in which she was a silver blonde: http://walkypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Joyce_Brown
That said, her current appearance seems to straddle the line between blonde and auburn- here’s a real world coloration to consider as an example: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/52/83/8c/52838cd1fa9b12a78d5927af087aa7c2.jpg
I also always thought of Joyce’s hair as light brown, but it appearntly counts as “platinium blonde” so…. *Shrug*
(See also Girl Genius’ Agatha Heterodyne’s hair, I always thought she was a redhead, but that hair is appreantly “strawberry blonde”)
It is definitely not platinum blonde. That’s the almost white shade . Joyce’s exact shade is hard to tell (sandy, maybe), but it’s definitely not platinum.
This is the part where I chuckle at the handle for Eastwood’s character in Good/Bad/Ugly being “Blondie.” Still, since almost everyone else in the movie are dark, tanned
Italians“Mexicans”…“i want to eat what YOU eat”
“pussy?”
“…. I’m just kidding you, I’m as desperate for my dry spell to end as anyone.”
Also, am I the only one who foresees the next strip to be Robin (still not wearing pants) banging on the window going, “THAT’S MY COACH! I LICKED IT!”
I could also see Robin playing the homeless angle–only for Leslie to get REALLY angry because she’s not.
Wow, I misspelled Couch. I feel dumb. Me not earn English Masters. Me caveman.
You could have at least misspelled it the FUN way >:/
That would be something Robin would also complain about not having. Of course, she’d insist Leslie is her lesbian for entirely heterosexual two women having sex. One of the women being gay.
What’s the fun way?
“Cooch”, I’m guessing.
Has to be ‘cooch’. Which would definitely be fun for licking.
If Robin was trying to press Leslie into being Robin’s life coach then this was a happy accident.
Doubtful. From a narrative logic standpoint, Leslie needs some space to breathe as a character before another confrontation with Robin.
Still works given that Becky is turning to Leslie as her coach here.
YESYESYESYES!!! I have never been more excited about a DOA strip! Except the one in which they first met, I suppose. But more glorious gay teen and mentor shenanigans!!
Yeah, Becky is definitely going full-force with exploring her identity.
“So, how does it work? One gay faction wants to take over the world to protect us and the other wants to integrate us?”
“Huh?”
“Sorry, I didn’t have any sources for gay culture so I just sort of made up my own ideas from the X-men.”
“Kitty Pryde is awesome.”
“Who?”
“I feel so old.”
Is anyone else a little upset that it feels like Kitty Pryde’s been getting the short end of the stick since the third X-men movie came out? Or is that just me imagining that Kitty Pryde’s been getting the short end of the stick since the third X-men movie came out?
Kitty Pryde being marginalized and replaced by Movie Rogue plus Jubilee then Pixie is only important to a very small subsection of X-men fans–specifically the best kind.
To all of you, read comics!
If nothing else, read comics for the absolutely ADORABLE proposal Star-Lord gave Kitty.
And Kitty as Star-Lord
That’s a good suggestion. If anyone wants a recommendation, Boom! Comics is currently producing a really good Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series.
Didn’t really care for the Star-Lord bit, but as someone who started reading X-Men around the time she first joined, I adored seeing her as “Professor Kitty”, running the school and mentoring the time-lost original X-Men.
She’s now back from space and leading an X-team.
But yeah, she didn’t get a lot of attention in the movies.
Didn’t get to read enough of her space adventures to comment, but that proposal was absolutely precious.
If they ever make an Xcaliber movie, maybe then she’ll have a moment to shine.
Compared to which other female character? The X-Men movies have been roundly terrible for female characters. Storm, Jean, and Rogue all got one incredibly mousy personality to share between them; Mystique got reduced from a supervillain in her own right and a huge queer icon to a toy that Erik and Charles pass between them, whose queerness was so deeply buried that her actress expressed shock and amusement at the idea; Emma Frost too was reduced to a side kick for a dude; Angel was picked as the only traitor in the group and then also killed off; Jubilee was conveniently a few feet behind her friends just in time to avoid having to be a main character; poor X-23 in X-2 was a brainwashed victim who still had to die in a horrible way after getting a grand total of 0 lines; …
And then there’s the way they re-imagined Storm’s origin story so that one of the most powerful mutants in the franchise owes that strength entirely to a random fucking dude she decided to follow mindlessly.
Like.
“Worst treatment in the X-Men movies” is a serious contest between every single female character in them, with men of color faring no better.
Kitty Pryde’s probably glad she’s in so little of the franchise, to be honest.
Wow, can I copy paste your comment to show to my friends why I can’t swallow any of the X-men movie franchise? I suppose if one never read any of the comics has very low standards because they are superhero movies, one can stand them, but as it is, I can’t.
((Mild content warning: passing reference to famous homophobic slaying))
“Okay, so, have you seen the Matrix?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, one gay faction is super-closeted, pretending to be straight, and bash on gay people so hard with anti-queer laws and rules and persecution because they’re in denial or simply want no one to guess that they’re queer too.”
“Ooookaaaay….”
“Those are the Agents, and if we’re not willing to fight and be out, that side can take us over. But otherwise, the rest of us just want to live our lives and not get strung up on barbed wire for it.”
“Wow! Who would have thought you could turn a movie like The Matrix into some sort of LGBT metaphor like that!”
“i thought the matrix was about christianity!”
Christians think everything is about Christianity.
Given all the Jesus symbolism in almost every movie nowadays…. they’ve got a point.
Hey, the rest of us can’t help that they stumbled into some really powerful imagery. What are they gonna do, claim appropriation and hog all the fun symbolism for themselves?
um if u want to use christian symbolism u have to be born again sweetie
it doesn’t matter that we literally conquered the world and send missionaries out to every corner we haven’t conquered yet so that christian ideology is literally unescapable 
gonna talk the talk gotta walk the walk 
why dont you bring your coleslaw to the potluck this wednesday
Well, sure, but a lot of it is completely intentional. Things like Harry Potter, Aslan, Ironman, Superman…
…From now on, every single bit of content I create will contain appropriated Christian symbolism, entirely devoid of context or meaning, just because I think it looks neat.
that’s how we get things like neon genesis evangelion!!
As far as I understands it, that’s pretty common in Japanese media
https://www.quora.com/Are-Christian-symbols-and-images-used-in-Japanese-movies-and-anime-like-Buddhist-symbols-are-used-in-Western-media
ye this is what i have heard
“That’s how we get things like Neon Genesis Evangelion!”
Cool, so there’s literally no downside. Get in the fucking robot, Moses.
i’ll admit i’ve never actually watched neon genesis evangelion
the next thing on my anime watch list is cowboy bebop and i’ve been putting that off for like seven years now
I’ve found that a straight rewatch of NGE isn’t the best experience. I’d totally take a full-tilt academic course on the series and watch it under that context, but from a pure entertainment perspective I’d skip Evangelion.
Hey, if they try, then Judaism and Zoroastrianism get to claim that Christianity is appropriating symbolism from them. (Judaism gets the entire Old Testament, and some of the New Testament via Pharisees, meanwhile Zoroastrianism was the first religion to really come up with the messianic idea, which the Jews adopted during the Babylonian exile, and Zoroastrianism also gets dibs on having well developed ideas of heaven, hell, and a final battle between good and evil where good wins, which, again Judaism and Christianity took a lot of influence from)
Ahh, Cowboy Bebop. We actually used to walk to the video store and rent that. Dubbed. I feel old now ;p
@Bagge: let’s not confuse the aggressive Jesus symbolism in the new movies with the character’s actual origin as an allegory for Jewish immigrants’ struggle to “pass” in America when the character was first created.
@Li: True. I was talking about the latest movies.
Zoelogical, y’all know that Christian symbolism was, um, appropriated from other religions, right? Sweetie?
yeah i know
it’s a white culture thing
…ok a british-inspired white culture thing
fair
Well, Noir played heavily with Christian symbols.
(Anybody else who totally read it as a love story?)
Heh. Same guy a week later: “So wait, you’re saying there was some queer subtext to Bend it Like Beckham? I’m not seeing it.”
I remember when we watched that in my high school English class. That subtext was explicit enough that kids kept turning and looking at me.
+1
…sorry, but given common usage of “eating” specifically in regards to lesbians, my brain is just overloading with all sorts of sexual innuendo about “Lesbian Breakfast”.
Can Mike pop in to make a few off-color jokes, so we can all laugh and then hate him?
Right there with you!
Ah, Becky, living the life of the fresh gay.
As apposed to a spoiled gay?
Well, everything has worked out supernaturally well for Becky since she arrived. Even the run-in with her dad ended up going in her favor.
when you’re gay you don’t spoil, you just mature
Spoiler alert.
at every darn tootin opportunity
It’s afternoon and Dina hasn’t come to reclaim her Becky? Something’s wrong!
Hmmm. I’m guessing that after Amber came back to the room with blood on her hands Dina and Becky helped her hide the body, and then things got kinda awkward for all three of them so Becky took up Leslie’s offer.
Leslie, just give her a copy of your gender studies textbook to read. Becky’s pretty darn studious.
That would be amazing! Becky is eager to learn all about this stuff and would make the ideal student for it and a few well-chosen books could go a long way.
Or maybe every issue of Dykes to Watch Out For.
Heh, that’s what I used when I was in my baby queer phase. Read literally every comic back when Allison Bechdel used to have it all on her site and still have her early run books.
This… is not a healthy mentality XD
Lots of that going around in this comic.
This is pretty low on that spectrum.
It’s like “The Empire Strikes Back” except Luke and Yoda are lesbians.
Who’s the third voice in the room, that Becky wants to tell Leslie that she’s totally ready?
The General Organa poster.
… yes.
Well of course Leslie has no breakfast cereal. That would have been too on the nose for all this stalling. Well played, Willis.
I can only assume how confusing the past few updates must be for someone who stumbled across the DoA main page for the first time. The strip itself looks like a basic light-hearted comedy, but the comments are full of, “Aah! No! Why?! Stop toying with us, you monster!”
Of course Leslie has no breakfast cereal. Robin baked it all into “muffins” three days ago.
And, yeah. If they do what I do when I find a new comic and read the last week of strips before jumping back to the beginning, they’re in for a massive tonal shift.
“Hmm… Looks like a light slice-of-life comedy… with a brutal murder… what in Sithrak’s name am I reading?”
What, no quiche?
They’re lesbians, not stupid, stupid rat creatures.
You win.
Are we still jumped 3 days ahead? Has Becky been staying with Leslie for 3 days?
Ooooooooor TWO days.
And one night with Dina, in a dinosaur costume.
We may never now.
These posts have been confusing me.
Why would the ‘three days later’ be a flash forward (a technique Willis has never used in DoA) and not a time skip (which he has used extensively)?
It wouldn’t be.
But he’s never used a time skip quite like this before. The others have been jumping over time when nothing much happened to get to the resolution of a plot arc that needed a few days in world, but couldn’t wait months of real time – Joyce going home the weekend after the happy fun gun times, for example.
There we had closure on Ross & Becky before the jump. This time, everything’s up in the air. We’ve had the drastic incident and we jumped away in the middle. We don’t know how it ended. We don’t know how anyone else reacted or even if they know what happened.
Small wonder if people are thinking we might go back and see.
Given that Danny, Joyce and Becky are all chipper days later Amber and Dorothy are at the very least fine and safe. It’s unlikely that Amber killed him or she’s in police custody given how badly that would alter her character’s presence in the comic.
I think Danny has no idea what happened because he’d be beside himself with worry even outside Amber’s physical health given what he knows about her mental state. It’s likely he finds out about it either this or next storyline.
“I want to eat what you want me to eat”
Yeah…..ehm… Good Day folks!
Good night, everybody!
there is nothing i can say about that which would not tarnish my dignity
What is so wrong with pizza at 8am in the morning.
Tautology aside, there is nothing wrong with it. Breakfast pizza exists for a reason, after all, and your classic “breakfast foods” (scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, pork sausage, etc.) aren’t exactly the healthiest things on Earth, anyway.
The Breakfast of Champions!
What I love is some straight person is going to complain and all I can think is “I may have had this conversation with my friends before”
Becky is every baby gay right now and it is the most bestdorable thing ever.
Yup, I’m betting if we asked all the queer folks on the comment thread if they were like this when they first came out, half of us would say yes.
Put me in the “yes” column.
I remember being very, I dunno, open about it online? I tried to insert it wherever I could because I didn’t quite believe I was bi yet, so I tried jumping up and down about it enough times to actually, IDK, believe it? I remember not at all being confident about my attraction to men until I started ingraining it into myself that it was real and valid.
I’m a total shut-in so being out about my bisexuality on the internet was basically the equivalent of screaming from a rooftop.
I did a very similar thing with trans and ace. Slowly easing to just inserting it into my online statements and thrilling whenever someone else came out sharing those identities in the threads. Online was literally the first place I came out to on almost all of my identities.
Hell, I’m currently still a little like this. Looking up from my bed, my little room divider currently has 3 giant flags hanging off it. One ace, one trans, and one queer.
Hey, Cerberus, I dunno if you’ve seen it already, but Pride-Flags on deviant art makes the PRETTIEST FLAGS OMG. They also do polyamory pride stuff for folks in polyamory to use at their own pride events, but most of it is LGBT+ pride.
Oooh, pretty.
Aren’t they just? There’s also a couple accounts on tumblr called pride-color-schemes and ask-pride-color-schemes if you’re interested in that (apparently they sometimes post there first).
Totally. Here’s how my baby gay phase went: I was a boyish bi atheist science geek who believed in evolution in a religious conservative town growing up. I may or may not have spent a good decade where I made a significant number of choices in my attire, hair and general way of being in the world as a giant two-fingered salute to that culture back in my baby queer days.
Rainbow everything. Unnatural hair colors banned at school? Natural refers to things that exist in reality, jerks, lookit me and my purple hair. Oh, you want me to get rid of my purple hair? OKAY! It’s blue now. Banning “distracting dyed hair”? OKAY!
I’LL SHAVE IT ALL OFF! Hey, you told me to get rid of it, I’m just doing what you told me. See how much of a distraction a bald kid is running through the damn school. Banning shaved heads on girls? I will protest that to the school board as gender discrimination. Banning shaved heads in general? Okay, I will grow it out, and next I will use flurescent hair putty. What? My hair isn’t dyed, after all. You’re banning all products that make hair a “distracting” color? Time for a mowhawk. It’s not completely shaved after all. Banning cuts taller than a certain height or with shaved parts? time to spike it out to a ridiculous length. Banning cuts that make hair ‘distracting’? TIME TO PAINT PRIDE FLAGS ON MY CHEEKS. NOTHING IN THE DAMN RULE BOOK SAYS JACK SHIT ABOUT MAKEUP AND QUEER PEOPLE ARE A PROTECTED GROUP AS OF LAST YEAR FIGHT ME ASSHOLES I WILL WIN THIS BECAUSE I AM MORE STUBBORN THAN YOU.
It was a phase. One in which I generally looked as though I’d lost a fight with a lawn mower and then fell in a vat of highlighter ink. And generally tried to make myself as obnoxiously difficult to ignore as possible – not cuz I wanted attention but more as a “I’m here and you can’t make me leave” thing. So yeah. Adult me has unbent a bit from that (I don’t view people who like the color with disdain anymore) but my hatred of wearing all things pink stuck. As did my hatred of having long hair.
But yeah, I never literally shouted “Hey everyone I’m a lesbian!” but I did go through a “HEY EVERYONE I’M QUEER” phase, and I totally know where it comes from.
I enjoyed reading this so much. You go girl! Also, candy hair rocks! I’m in my 30s and rocking blue peek a boo bangs myself. I love blue, purple, silver, and things with both blue and green, but I’m not a fan of pink or orange. The color I most disdain is yellow. YUCK!
I don’t mind yellow.
My hatred of pink comes from the fact that I don’t actually identify as girl and didn’t actually want to be a girl from a young age… so my folks of course shoved me at all things pink and princess and girly. I’m not sure what I -do- ID as on the gender front (definitely I am some flavor of transmasculine, but am I full-on trans dude or because I feel an urge to Do Girl once a year or so and wear a dress does that make me more genderqueer? I dunno), but I know for damn sure ciswoman ain’t it.
Dang! You were a totally badass kid!
Not so much badass as powered by spite at the time. It was all a “Fuck you, I won’t let you know you broke me” play. A lot less brave and a lot more pissed off. Which is still how I do things most people think of as brave: Something pisses me off, I do the thing with a ‘fight me assholes’ attitude, everyone around me congratulates me for bravery and I’m all, “… no? I’m just pissed off. That’s different.”
Cuz to me brave is the person who has something to lose and takes action anyway knowing fully well what the consequences will be. Chelsea Manning is brave – I’m just a hothead.
Still, that spite could surely have been directed in other, safer directions. There’s always somebody to punch down at, but you swung upwards. Brave or not, I still think it’s worthy of a bit of admiration
The subtext of Becky not being able to believe her luck… about having a couch to sleep on… is heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time.
Prediction. Becky’s going to go a bit caretaker on Leslie. I’m guessing that Right-Thinking-Fundie-Family raised her with all the womanly domestic skills, so in exchange for stocking her fridge Leslie’s going to get some cleaning and home-cooked real food.
oooooooh that’d be fun
and i mean she’d have experience from…probably…living with her suicidal mom….
…
oh god i don’t know if i want this pain or not. but i am pretty well sure that whatever becky makes from now on is going to be somehow, unmistakably, gay
this is what food coloring and edible glitter is for, people, chop chop
I suspect you’re right, especially because Becky is feeling super grateful and so is going to want to do lots of things in response to that.
i mean the culture is that what the mom can’t do the oldest daughter steps up to do. and becky has got to be not-in-the-greatest-place regarding that, so. it might be harder to do than just doing it. if her mom was depressed for a while it probably would’ve been hard for her to do basic stuff, or even teach it. so…on the one hand, instills a sense of competence and self-reliance. on the other, so much can be too much.
so. i mean. reclaiming those skills is going to have to be a work in gayclaimation. let’s pippi longstocking these chores, motherfudgers
What does Becky thinK? There is a specific brand of food — Purina ‘Lesbi-Chow®’, similar to ‘Puppy Chow’ — and when you add water it makes its own vaginal juices?
Okay, what’s wrong with my original comments?
Oh, that one goes through. Is the browser just being weird on me, today?
Did you try to post something with multiple links? The spam filter doesn’t like those.
I absolutely did not. It was a simple comment to the effect of “The thing you said is a bit strange.”
Now I look like a fucking madman, and what I meant to say in the first place is completely invisible. Might as well lean into it.
She led a completely sheltered life in a conservative bubble. Or you know she’s joking around.
For the love that is all holy…what happened with Amber?
She’s started up a restaurant, serving exclusively pork a la Ryan.
She hasn’t put much long-term planning into it.
Does she sing to the knife she used to cut him up with?
well, with the price of meat what it is, when you get it, if you get it…
Good, you get it.
Hey, have y’all tried the priest? It’s bloody delicious!
Imagine I was using the “I understood that reference”-reaction gif.
Barbaqued pulled ryan
Even for the love of all unholy. I’m actually curious.
Given that everyone else is opening up with a positive happy moment, I have a nasty feeling that the last “check-in”s are going to be with Ruth, Amber, and Dorothy who will be in extreme distress as a counterpoint to all the happy.
I’m not entirely sure. Amber only got a new character model in late April. It’s possible we only see her in July, unless she’s Amazi-Girl right now.
Actually I remember Amber’s mom getting a character model on Mother’s day so I think what happens is that she comes down to IU to check on her daughter.
Become her lesbiwan but be careful not to fall to the straight side of the force and destroy everything lesbi that you cherished!
“all my cereals must have rainbows. Must ask notorious cereal specialist Dina, best girlfriend ever”
Does it count if the pieces are all different colors? Lucky Charms are the only cereal with actual rainbow pieces; it would be a shame to exclude Trix and Froot Loops.
You are terrible at this whole “lesbian” thing Leslie.
Wow! What a lovely avatar!
Is it from something?
I believe it’s from an anime called Yuru Yuri
It is, it’s Chinatsu and she represents my primary interests: pink, gay, and kind of mean.
Don’t be fooled. The girl in the Avatar has eldritch hair that devour everything.
Oh my God if I saw a cereal box called “br’O’s”, where the box features a buff dude with a pink popped collar giving a thumbs-up, I *might* have to buy that cereal.
Does Leslie have bedhead still (it is apparently afternoon, after all) or is this her trying to do it up all nice like Robin suggested?
I check back to their bar talk and her hair looks like it did back then, so yeah I think so. Doesn’t matter what you think of the hot chick now, hot chick says you look cute with your hair a certain way you do your hair that way. I hope it actually does help her get a girlfriend because that would have a funny thing to mention next time she meets Robin.
Foreigner – “I want to know what love is” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raNGeq3_DtM
You have your own isle ya know? Hidden away from the straight people. I know it! I’ve heard about it. And I read about it on the internets.
City:
https://satwcomic.com/chako-paul-city
Seems legit!
I have it ok the highest authority that lesbian toast is best toast.
Lesbian gluten free toast, however, cannot escape the fact that it is made of gluten free bread, no matter how lesbian it is
House of Lesbians, the new DoA spin-off!
Becky will soon realize we’re all human. I wish more people would understand that.
Becky, you did not wake up next to your girlfriend. Clearly, you are not living in sin enough and need to take lessons.
Or get a dinosaur tattoo.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Oh, this panel is breaking my damn heart. Like, here Becky is, waking up in a proper house, her long time running and hiding finally drawing to its intense end, where she can just sleep until the afternoon like any other teenager and not have to worry about what steps she needs to do to remain more or less hidden.
And the way Leslie comes in greeting her… It’s like a stereotypical mom, which makes sense as Leslie in a way is adopting her, but that’s the part that breaks my heart. We know how hard the loss of her mom sat with Becky. How desperate she is to create family after the last of her birth-related family rejected her. And here she’s getting that.
Not just sisters, but a mom. And a cool lesbian mom who shares her identity and knows all sorts of cool things about a culture she was literally banned from knowing anything about and is super smart and is super nice and offers all sorts of help.
This is Becky’s dream right here. This is a fantasy she would never have dared express for fear that it would be transgressing some cosmic boundary to want. The beginning of healing so many deep wounds and a safe space for that.
And it’s so beautiful to see Becky get that after having for so long to just be happy for whatever scraps her closest friends could cobble together for her.
And it’s beautiful for Leslie too. We don’t know if she shares this trait with her other world counterpoint, but otherworld Leslie wanted very much to be a mother. To raise children and make a home for them.
And if this Leslie shares that trait, then she’s getting that here, because realized it or not, she’s essentially adopted our little runaway here and filling that role. And for both of them, this nice domestic moment in a nice house is not something either would have dreamed of at their lowest most homeless points in their lives.
Panel 2: Oh Becky, that hurt will dissipate in time and dinosaur cuddles, but also yeah, dark humor helps when you’re recovering from a fresh trauma. Hell, I still use dark humor a lot of the time to talk about that time in my life where everything went sideways. It helps blunt the sting.
And that face, so happy. This is probably the first morning she hasn’t woken up slightly anxious that her little piece of happiness she’s carved could all be taken away again. She’s got her rock of a bottom to ensure she won’t fall through the world again and she’s got the edifice of the connections she’s made. Slowly, surely, she’s reclaiming a life for herself where she doesn’t have to always be running. Where she can just be happy and gay and enjoying all the small things in life like lesbian toast.
I’m legit hoping that panel 2 means Becky still holds something of a torch for Joyce. I though that was a really interesting storyline and I was sad when it seemed like it got dropped.
I’m pretty sure she does. She’s trying not to and she loves her dino girlfriend with all her heart, but Joyce was her first big gay crush. It’s hard to forget that.
Yeah I wanna see Becky struggle with that and eventually come to realize it’s okay for her to have lingering feelings for Joyce, because none of that changes how she feels about Dina.
Kinda like how Danny had to learn that his attraction to Ethan’s glorious man chest was okay for him to have, and that being attracted him wouldn’t ruin his life.
Definitely!
Yeah, I think mononormativity makes it really hard for kids to learn to be okay with multiple attractions and accepting that that doesn’t necessarily mean anything if they don’t want it to.
And I see that as being a great arc for Becky (and what I think we’re currently seeing), seeing how her feelings for Joyce don’t discount or diminish her absolute adoration of her dinosaur girlfriend.
Very personal opinion: it’s a tricky thing and varies a lot with the individual. I absolutely agree there’s a lot of pressure and normativity there, but on the other hand, a lot of people at this age (and older!) are still figuring out how relationships work with just two, and there’s something to be said for “don’t try to run before you can walk.” I’ve seen some people try the poly thing because they think they (and everyone else in the group) can handle it (and, uh, no), or because they’re just terrible at setting boundaries or saying “I’m not comfortable with this.”
But I suppose that’s all part of the marvelous process of learning through trial and error and experience, even though some of it ends up being really really painful.
Oh, I would agree. Poly is hard and kids have a lot less tools for navigating that than adults will have. But the thing where kids are encouraged to beat themselves up or desperately try and read the runes on having feelings for two people at once is really unhealthy and needs to end.
We need to teach kids, yeah, you can be attracted to multiple people, that’s not the end of the world, you don’t have to pursue that if you don’t want. It doesn’t mean anything about the relationship you do have and isn’t actually detracting or taking away from that relationship.
I dunno, in an ideal world, I would love for a real comprehensive sex education, consent and abuse recognition, and sexuality/relationship modeling unit to be standard in MS and HS rather than the patchwork bare-bones thing we have now.
I always at least try and slip in consent and abuse recognition at the very least, but it’s way less than I’d like.
There you go again, being all sensible and expecting other people to be the same. That’s crazy talk!
Frankly, that sounds really really good. Any ideas how that syllabus/curriculum/whatever the US calls it would look?
I’m loving this conversation.
Like, the first and foremost thing polyamourous people fight for is trust. I think we as a group believe that people in a relationship really need to trust each other. When we try to be in monogamous relationships, what hurts us more often isn’t that we can’t make out with that other person we have a crush on, it’s more that we have to hide our feelings and pretent, to that person we suppsedly are super close to, that we have no feelings at all towards other people. We are forced to lie to people we love, and often to ourselves, about what we are feeling, because in traditional monogamy the very feelings are wrong. And we feel like we can’t be trusted, because in traditional monogamy, having feeling towards other people is already a betrayal. That’s what hurts more.
People don’t need to be polyamourous but damn, they need to be able to acknowledge their own and each other’s feelings without guilt, without letting those feeling break the trust. Our culture should change, even in monogamy, to allow people to feel what they feel.
Panels 3-4: Let’s all be frank. If we’re some flavor of queer, there was very very likely a point in our lives where we were exactly like this. Rainbow everything, wanting to make everything in our lives reflect that, eager anticipation of that first Pride march and the euphoria of living our identities with full knowledge of what they were.
And in my mind that state is a beautiful thing. For many of us, the years before we figured things out were miserable. Years of feeling like we didn’t fit into the world, feeling like we were wrong, maybe even, depending on the environment, that we were sinful or unclean or bound for hell because of it all.
And then you figure it out, it all clicks and you learn that not only is what you are a thing, but you have community, others like you who know all about what it feels like to be that way, who get it implicitly and have works and stories and community that reflects that.
Like, it’s hard to describe for someone who is used to community being there since birth, but there is so much power to figuring out that the thing that made you feel like a diseased freak actually has a name and people who share that and people to support you.
And it’s easy to feel so much pride and gratitude to that. To have that feel like a rebirth and want nothing more than to crawl inside that community forever and never let go. To let that identity flow through everything you touch to make up for the gaping maw of nothing that you had before.
As a teacher, I see so much beauty in that moment of self-discovery, of those first tentative steps towards genuine pride, of fostering spaces where kids can feel safe to go 11 like Becky here and see that expression of pure joy on them as the weight of having to pretend to be something they aren’t fade away.
It’s honestly what sustains me the most, because I never got to have that growing up, only finding the queer community and my place in it in late college.
And it’s also beautiful to teach some of them the history and names of queer history, because so few of them know it, even with the internet. Few of them know about Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson at Stonewall, about Brenda Howard and Donny the Punk and the first Pride, about Gilbert Baker and the birth of the flag, about the Lesbian Avengers, about the Plague Years, about ACT-UP, about the fight for marriage equality. Our history, even our modern history is so frequently erased for them.
And I think that’s what Becky is most craving here. That connection to a history and a culture and a community. One that was literally barred from her and declared Satan.
Like, yeah, there’s no “one way” to be queer. We can be anything we want, present any way we’d like. We don’t even need the culture if we don’t feel it works for us. But for Becky, just figuring out what the other ways even are is something she craves and I’m excited to imagine Dumbing of Age in 2350, where Leslie takes Becky to her first Pride.
I certainly went through this stage, and it’s a shameful memory because I eventually realized that my friends were embarrassed about it. No one found my going overboard charming. Today’s strip is painful for me to read because of the old wounds it reopens.
That’s on them, not you. There’s nothing wrong with having that overwhelming pride in yourself when you’re figuring things out.
Seconding what Spencer said.
Your friends are jerks for having been ashamed of you. You are not a jerk for having been like this.
Leslie should get to liking pesto and tortellini.
Panel 5: Leslie in fussy mom mode is giving me life right now.
Panel 6: This is beautiful in so many ways, not just because of Becky in full baby gay awe of someone who’s been through the trenches as it were, but because of Leslie here.
Leslie is a lesbian teacher in the middle of Indiana. We know she grew up under a hateful religion and hateful parents, was homeless, and has had to scrap and claw this little piece back from the ever-loving brink. So she may not have had much opportunity to be looked to like this from a baby gay. Someone who looks up to her as some wise jedi master simply for what she survived.
And heck, to even be seen as an elder as she is canon in her late 20s, early 30s.
And I sympathize with her. I’ve been in her position with the excited baby gay wanting to know everything and not being sure what part of one’s life experiences count as “sage advice” or not. And this is likely one of the first times she’s had to be in this particular position given the excitement she had to meet Becky and support her. Which is super powerful.
There’s something immensely powerful about being able to help a kid who is essentially who you were as a kid, to help them avoid the pitfalls you fell into, give them the support you didn’t have and we know Leslie sees a lot of herself in Becky given their similar environments of raising. But this can also be daunting, because you feel like a mess who only just escaped hell and now folks are acting like you have knowledge and experience to give and are listening with eager ears. I think Leslie will rise to the occasion, but I definitely feel her hesitancy here.
But yeah, in general, this is all such a beautiful moment and I’m so happy for these two and the parent-child relationship they are forming.
yeah, I can definitely see the “oh, wow, I’m the last person you should be asking for ‘wisdom'” angle. but often that’s not something we get to choose either. :/
Will not be happy till hat comes back
Huh, Becky’s obviously been using someone’s phone.
I wasn’t aware lesbians had dietary habits that differed from anyone else. What has Becky been reading?
Please Leslie, help her learn how to just be. This is getting grating.