Page 52. Can’t be.
I’m livestreaming tonight at 8 pm CST. Join me then as I start drawing the next page!
O Human Star
by Blue Delliquanti
MORE OF BLUE’S STUFF
Page 52. Can’t be.
I’m livestreaming tonight at 8 pm CST. Join me then as I start drawing the next page!
I want to give her all the hugs. :(
Turns out so does Al
Sulla, nobody is what they were created to be. That doesn’t make them wrong.
Well shit. There goes all of my precious bodily fluids again.
“one of the most advanced robots”? I’d say the most advanced robot, more advanced that many humans.
Well, I assume she’s including present company, to be fair to Al.
HUG HER >:(
Shocked to find my eyes all wet!!
Alastair Sterling doesn’t even want to be Alastair Sterling, Sulla. Its okay!
Al also was pressured to conform to society’s image and Sulla wawas lucky enough to break free from it.
You said it, exactly.
Oh, my heart.
So heartbreaking….
Sulla, it is okay for you to not literally be your parents.
Also, can we resolve the whole “dad” thing? Every time Sulla refers to Brendan by his first name or calls herself an experiment, my heart breaks a little more.
Er, I’ve been calling my parents by their first names since ages, and I’ve heard it interpreted as a sign of distance, coldness, whatnot. I’d like to be the judge of that.
It’s ok for something in a comic to be a narrative element, JJ.
To be fair, individual cases and all that. I know a lot of people who refer to their abusive parent by their names and their non-terrible parent by their relationship… title (I guess?).
And I know people who do the exact reverse of that. The abusive parent is the one with just a relationship title. “My father” can seem pretty goddamn ominous in that case, let me tell you, let alone the most upsetting utterances of “dad”….
Myself, I call my parents, both of whom are awesome, by their first names, and always have. Our specific family culture holds their first names in reverence, and their title was last used when I was an ungrateful teen trying to put sting in my epithets, something I grew out of fast. So yes, definitely, individual cases. Personally glad she gets to call Brendan what he should be called, and not some random title.
NOOO oh my gosh this is the last page for now!!!! I can’t take this. Oh, God.
Tell her she’s wrong AL, tell her she may have started out as a copy of AL, but she turned into something unique, something wonderful. That because of her AL and Brendan are getting a second chance.
The trouble is … Alastair Stewart, despite having the body of a “hot dad” … wasn’t. It’s shown obliquely but Alastair Steward was not male. It’s not entirely clear that they were female, though Sulla indicates that might be the case. Alastair Stewart was trained and trained HARD that it wasn’t OK for Alastair Stewart to be anything other than a male, with all the significators of being a male: the mustache, the well-trained body, etc.
That gender construction came through very strongly for Sulla without the force of whoever was Alistair’s parents/guardians … but for the version who has the most complete, well-reconstructed memories, this is waking up … rebuilt … into the WRONG body all over again.
And Al hasn’t really processed that and gotten past it. So I can understand if he doesn’t reassure Sulla. He doesn’t understand it himself.
I love how naturally all the explosive revelations ended up coming together. I wonder how much of this is Sulla reacting to having suddenly learned that for all that Brendan did to make sure she got a childhood, she was originally supposed to be a resurrection of his *romantic partner*.
I wonder how often she relives Brendan’s misguided ‘I think I’d have a better sense of what you’re supposed to be’.
Ah. Two days from finding the comic to catching up. I’m in for a rough adjustment XP
Sulla feeling like she failed to be what she was created to be…..this is the first time a story has ever fully evoked the feelings I had when I realized I was trans.
And in some ways this bit’s not even really about transness, funny enough? I greatly appreciate that her being trans in this context is pretty much a plot device to instigate a distressing revelation that she wasn’t as her creator intended, hence creating a beautiful and gut-wrenching metaphor for being trans <3 Like, even if neither she nor Al were trans, she'd have had the revelation eventually from Brendan's grief. But using trans-ness to instigate really ties it together in a way that's….well. It's beautiful. Thank you Blue.
No you are not Al, Sulla. You had the glorious opportunity of an upbringing that involved acceptance and love away from societal BS so you didn’t feel self hate and self represssion.
I had a pretty rough childhood. Been very lucky in spite of it. Got a lot of outside help (including therapy) before and while I had a child. Seeing her grow up and share some of my idiosyncrasies without the child abuse and extreme bullying at school (she is homeschooled but does a lot of group extracurriculars with other kids) has been very cathartic. She turned 10 this year. 10 was an extra terrible time in my life. I was expecting to be triggered about my past, but instead I marvel at how healthy and happy she is. Meanwhile, I realized I am, too—even with the scars. It helped me find courage to make some big changes to become more of who I am supposed to be.
Wow, dang… Very happy for your and your child, in spite of all that. Best of luck to you both!
This is lovely. Thank you for sharing.
this so rough to read, please hug her you two. tell her she’s perfect and wonderful and *not Al* and she doesn’t have to be.
Sulla’s issue reminds me of what a friend once told me:
“Try to walk away from the stuff that didn’t work, when you were 12, or in your teen years. Walking away from that stuff is ok.
The reason that the film, Edward Scissor Hands [R] is identifiable to people is-
Edward Scissor Hands is about that time we went through in our teens, when everything we touched, just SHATTERED.”
We all go through this period, and that is so ok.