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O Human Star
by Blue Delliquanti
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I think I get what she means. This is why I never wear my glass eye.
Lucille still steadily climbing the ladder from “pretty cool character” to “I LOVE YOU SO MUCH”. The ladder isn’t long enough, she’s still climbing up up up and doesn’t look about to stop.
Also I like that serving lady.
That woman’s got FIRE in her! Yay, Lucille!!
I’m actually not supposed to be reading during class, but while I was working on my own comic (On Microsoft word, so its okay) during my downtime I decided to read today’s update XD
I’m going to go out on a limb(I know, sorry) and say Lucille was probably born missing some pieces. People who have lost pieces want them back. Lucille wants to make her own, her way, her own golden and personalized scary beautiful way, so people see not just a hand but an IRON WILL. Deny me a hand? Well, I will reach out with this extension of my mind and touch the universe anyway. O human star, burning without a flicker, perfect flame, bright and resourceful spirit.
that was beautiful, man..
I’m a little incoherent but Blue this page is EVERYTHING.
Part of why I love this page: It makes me think of Alison Lapper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Lapper
“When she was fitted with artificial limbs, she experienced them only as an attempt to make her look less disconcerting instead of actually helping her. So she abandoned them and learned to live without external aids.”
One of the thing that attracts me to prosthetics as a subject is that they make bare the difference between bodies as an aesthetic offering to others and bodies as a functional part of the self. They clarify the line between what one needs and what others desire. They are objects that can either court or resist objectification.
Lucille’s arm is functional and elegant and it is completely hers. It exists only for her and not for others. I think many women, ablebodied and amputees alike, would sometimes like this to be true of their bodies.
It gets more complicated when we also include the aspect of “aesthetic offering” to SELF. Self is not necessarily concerned with function only. We usually want to live in good-looking homes with god looking cars, gardens etc. and not just for the neighbours’ sake. Likewise body is also a place of habitat for the self. Making it beautiful does not mean it’s only for the enjoyment of others. Tricky bit is everyone understands “beautiful” differently. I think if it’s your body, well it should be your understanding of beautiful that guides it. But not the logic of “I’ll make myself look startling and disconcertig” so that people don’t go touching without permission”.
Yes, for women beauty is almost always constructed as something done to please others, rather than the self. So the reaction to that can take the form of “protective coloration” – something deliberately startling or disconcertingly outside the status quo.
Reclaiming beauty as someone for one’s own enjoyment and not for others can be hard, especially for people with disabilities whose appearance is constantly being commented upon/policed. See comment below about Alison Lapper, for whom “beauty” initially was located in uncomfortable and unusable prosthetics. I’d say she has reclaimed beauty on her own terms.
Reminds me of Aimee Mullins!
http://www.incluime.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/17453390_aimee_mullins_id.jpg
So this has happened before. Alot. I agree with others she is showing that her disability does not disable her. She has other means at her disposal than those that most are born with. But I also suspect this stance also relates to the fact that woman just aren’t on an equal playing field. A man in her position prolly would have come to this point even sooner. The fact she is standing where she is testifies to her intelligence and strength of will. But for every man like Brendan who sees her as an equal there are…those who see something else. Those who would expect her to trade on her…charms rather than her capability.
Oh gods, the political correctness, it burns it burns! Lucille is showing a lot of skin for someone who should know better. Your appearance is always a message when overlaid upon a given situation. This was supposed to be a business formal occasion I would hope, not a flirting cocktail dress wearing party. If you wear clothing that is designed to make people notice your body ( in particular showing lots of skin) please don’t get bitchy when it has exactly the effect it was designed for. If Lucille did not want such a informal reception, perhaps she should have worn something more appropriate for a business woman and less appropriate for pleasure. I would say the same thing to a man who wore tight or sexually provocative clothing or shorts and short sleeves to a business meeting, no matter how nice the legs or muscular the arms, it isn’t appropriate.
Clothing is a language with its own rules and grammer. It also sets the tone of communication. Uniforms especially. Everything about them means something specific and speaks volumes about your accomplishments, intent and character. If you ignore this language and feel your self expression, sexuality, or sense of ‘fun’ is more important to you than the collaboration you are supposed to be pursuing, then you might as well be wearing a big sign that says “Look at me, never mind what we are here to discuss, it isn’t as important as looking at my body.”
Cocktail parties are a form of interrogation/torture. They are being stressed a bit precisely to see where they are weak. Lucille is a little bit touchy still and Brendan is uncomfortable. So they are sending a message along the lines of “Deal with Al, he’s the grownup.”
In the future, these bozos probably wish they had paid more attention to the man who runs the world: Brendan Pinsky.
Yes you’re right, what a mistake for Lucille to wear an outfit that shows off the prosthetic legs that she designed at a semi-casual gathering with the people who are funding the opportunity for other people to wear these same prosthetics. It’s like she expected a roomful of adults who are knowledgable about prosthetic limbs to view and appreciate the design of her prosthetic limbs without them to violating the social rule of “bad touch,” a rule, I will point out, most people learn in kindergarten.
If she really wanted to avoid inappropriate leg touching, she should have ditched the dress and worn jeans and a argyle sweater, because that will 100% guarantee that she won’t face inappropriate behavior from a person in a position of providing her important and unique opportunities – so says me, the author, who wouldn’t know anything about how this happens to women in the real world, and only chooses to introduce it in the narrative because POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Blue, your comments need a like button so I can like your comment here ^^^. Needs to be a way to ban people who use terms like political correctness from even reading good comics like this.
PS lol like women don’t get harassed when wearing a pants suit or whatever.
THANK YOU BLUE.
This is really well done, Blue. They are showing the money men what they are investing in, and that they are professional enough but only Al has the schmoozing experience. I can’t tell if Gramps was fondling her leg, inspecting the merchandise, or planning to adopt her; certainly he is the least threatening of the bunch if this was a planned ploy.
Now the investors have a benchmark; Lucille and Brendan are not going to be pushed around. Lucille handles them like boys at a high school dance, and Brendan stares at them as if they are clueless(“Yes, it’s a vest, so what?”). They are not the ones to talk to first. You want results? Deal with Al, who is a veteran of this variant of the Great Game. He won’t be pushed either and may even push back, but he’s in charge of this enterprise.
And slightly-off topic, as my hair grays and I find my damn back starting to stoop, I can tell you that you will be old a long time and young for a short time, and that you should enjoy good looks while they last. I looked like a rock star at 25; now I look like a mossy rock. As you say, Luce could have easily dressed down. Instead she is knocking their eyes out and tempting them to inappropriate moves when they expected to be in charge. “How good are these prosthetics? Wow! THAT good. How did we get so far off-balance?” I bet they try working on Brendan next. They can’t figure him out either. And Al is an iceberg, mostly out of sight and staying cool.
She is not tempting them. Gibson’s inappropriate behavior is uncalled for and it’s nobody’s fault but his own. I appreciate you commenting in a respectful manner, but come on, guys, this isn’t an Ian Fleming novel.
So I’m overestimating them? Oh well. The future is going to hit these guys like a ton of bricks. In other words, Our Gang is finding out more about the money men than the money men are learning about them.
. . . right, because they still think this is going to be about making robot soldiers instead of defeating death and transfiguring mankind.
BTW, censor me remorselessly if I start to drag the discussion somewhere you don’t want it going. I have a hide like a rhino about stuff like that.
Wrong. She must wear a bedsheet, like a trick or treater who decided they wanted to be a ghost at the last minute and threw one over their head!
I love the lecture. If it was me I’d just kick someone’s IP address into the sea cause a guy who thinks a woman “requesting not to be fondled” is POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD is a guy I want nowhere near me or my work. But publicly ridiculing him is even sweeter.
Jesus Christ, what Blue said. What the fuck is wrong with OP.
Lucille LITERALLY SAYS in the last panel: “I want people to LOOK at my arm … I don’t want it to be something they … FONDLE.”
Why do people have such a problem understanding that being invited to look =/= being invited to touch?
While clothing certainly does influence perception and looking casual/sexy may for some onlookers make it more difficult to see you as a “professional” (not that it should) – it IN NO WAY gives people permission to put their hands on your legs.
Even if you are about to pay millions for one, you should be more respectful of the one attached to the inventor!
I just love this inherited coolness in character…because appearances are deceptive and attitude is sexy :) Thanks sharing!
Blue, how is the feedback from Lucille’s prosthetics? Can she feel the glass she is holding, or does she do a VSE(visual surveillance of extremities) to see where she is stepping? Because if she can FEEL a pat on the leg, that was 200% more out of line than it should have been(also she’s a genius). We know Sulla can feel, but she doesn’t have a meat interface.
Also the timing is great – by now everyone has seen that “catcall video,” which is like the poster child for OMG what is WRONG with people?
Blue, I’m also thinking a lot here about how you are positioning different kinds of body politics – of people with disabilities, of transgender people, of women – as being interconnected and informing each other. That’s pretty brilliant.
This is one of the coolest things happening in webcomics right now, and I’m not sure why it hasn’t gotten more attention. Mankind is on the verge of jumping out of its meat-puppet bodies and becoming immortal, and stuff like gender and appearance will be nearly irrelevant(but oh, the way Sulla looked at that boy!). And yet we still see people who are stuck in the mud when they should be soaring to the stars. Ad Astra, Per Aspera.
Cool your jets. As any person with disabilities can tell you, we’re not about to abandon our meat-puppet bodies any time soon.
What we ARE doing is figuring out what kinds and shapes of meat-bodies are considered acceptable. That’s where I’m looking for progress.
I like that Sulla and Lucille come up on opposite sides of the question. Sulla wants to be thought of as a girl and so doesn’t share that she’s a robot. Lucille: “I want people to look at my arm and understand why it’s like that.” Um, but, do we know what happened to Lucille that she needs prosthetics?