Page 48. Oh.
Whoops.
Thanks for your patience as I get back on schedule. Did you hear that Miles & Honesty in SCFSX!, the comic I worked on with Kazimir Lee, won a Lambda Award this week?
O Human Star
by Blue Delliquanti
MORE OF BLUE’S STUFF
Page 48. Oh.
Whoops.
Thanks for your patience as I get back on schedule. Did you hear that Miles & Honesty in SCFSX!, the comic I worked on with Kazimir Lee, won a Lambda Award this week?
Sulla just noped out of that situation.
While at university, I took a restroom break from a late-night project at a computer lab. I took two steps into the restroom and heard, at 1am, a woman wailing with her hands over her mouth three stalls down. She was gasping and doing her best to stifle her sobs. I turned on my heel and nearly dashed back to the lab. She didn’t need an audience and having been there before, I knew there was nothing I could do. Things happen, yo.
I was walking to the student union building one night in when I was in college when I saw a woman ahead of me crying as she walked. No one else around, no way to avoid her because she was walking very slowly and I wasn’t. Then I realized I knew her — friend of a friend, briefly had a class together, etc. — so I couldn’t really just brush past her like I didn’t know her, even if I wanted to. So I decided that my dinner at the cafeteria could wait, and asked her if she was okay, if there was anything I could do for her.
Our 34th wedding anniversary was nine days ago. Things do, indeed, happen.
Ohhh this is so heartbreaking, poor Sulla.
Seeing a parent cry is really difficult—especially if you are a still child. You have this expectation they are together and they are your “rock” so if you see them lose control it feels like an apocalypse. This must be 100x more complex and intense given Sulla finally got the body she needed and moments ago felt complete peace and elation.
On a different note, I love how her character design has evolved. Her features have softened up quite a bit (which actually works well given the younger age she changed—but more importantly—she was able to have pretty much any kind of body), but she kept her amazing nose.
Oh no. This is during/after Brendan taking down old photos of Sulla, isn’t it? If she’s not yet aware of the romantic relationship, she might think the tears are about something entirely different. Especially if Brendan’s unwise remark that he should know her gender identity better than she does has got stuck in her mind. :(
Rereading, realising I assumed that Brendan’s tears were simply because he was talking to Al and started missing him badly. Overlooked the possibility that it WAS partially due to the unexpectedness of Sulla’s gender transition. Fascinating.
That second panel really captures that specific feeling when you’re excited and then you get something that’s a punch in the gut, and your face falls.
Auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!!
This is as always such an emotionally complex situation — it’s heartbreaking that Sulla getting to transition and be herself and look like she wants to is something that makes Brendan sad, he probably feels horrible about it, he KNOWS she’d take it like a slap to the face to know how hard this is hitting him, hence not showing his sadness in front of her, but also he’s respecting Al by not telling her the real reason why he’s so attached to the memory of Al and to her looks, but of course she’s going to read it a different way and think *she* is upsetting him by being herself and/or that he doesn’t actually accept her…
(aaaaaaaand then, the present time situation.)
Ah, Blue, you’re so good and so nuanced and so heartbreaking all the time with these things!
Oh… No words.
Ouch. This is so raw. Again, really cool that this story shows both Sula’s and Brendan’s struggles. And I had no idea that Mr. Sterling was *still* struggling with dysphasia so strongly; I had incorrectly assumed otherwise.