I love the Cybersix references here! I absolutely loved that show! Of course when I watched it here in Canada it was on at odd times of the day. And yes, I could see Leslie cosplaying as Adrian. Now I actually want to see that 🙂
Ha, I used to watch it and loved it! I’ve found the episodes on YouTube for my daughter (who is eight) and she loooves it! She thinks Cyber6 is the absolute kickass best–although she did question fighting in heels. <3
The problem wasn’t just in the airing; if I recall there were some difficulties with production too, since it was like, made by a japanese studio for a canadian company for airing in america?.
The vast majority of strips do end in punchlines. The ones that don’t end with dramatically significant panels (i.e.: Becky kissing Joyce, Amber kicking Blaine in the face, Walky’s quiet little “no” to Dorothy’s plea to everyone to not treat her as perfect, etc.)
It’s both adorable, and is getting the relationship established between these two characters who have only recently met.
And while it might not seem super dramatic, getting casually mommed by Leslie is kind of a big deal for the previously homeless girl who lost her original family
IMO, The punchline is that Leslie is trying to get Becky to realize that no, just because she is a lesbian, doesn’t mean she knows how to tie a tie. Becky has a lot of misconceptions about lesbians and seem to view them as being a monolithic singular personality/type, rather than having just as much variety as anyone else.
The problem is that Leslie did know how to tie a tie, and she can’t stop herself from helping. (Though her ability to tie ties is not because she is a lesbian, it is just because she happened to know).
It is basically like if it was a girl talking to a gay man and was like “Hey can you help me put on my makeup?” “Do you assume I can put on makeup just cause I’m gay?” “…” “Ok, fine I do know how to put on makeup, but it isn’t because I’m gay.”
I thought that wearing skinny-ties is very common for n00b lesbians, so that Leslie’s knowledge was related to being queer. She wants to undo Becky’s misconceptions, but to her chagrin, this particular generalization was right.
–How do so many men not know how to tie ties? They’re the ones wearing them (for the most part; more so that us women tying them for them, anyways)! O.o
It’s a patriarchy thing. Doing stuff is “women’s work”, so why bother learning it and letting it pollute your proper manliness when you can have the woman creature who lives in your house do it.
Though all that said, I pretty much was the go-to person to help my ex tie all her ties when she wanted to have a butch night out on the town.
I think it’s from our brain development in pre-K, and then emphasized tons in our culture. Citations needed, but here is my understanding as a pre-K person (and not as a developmental neurobiologist).
In pre-K, when we’re deeply learning what we’re good at… on average, and so far, little girls have had more brain development in fine motor skills, and little boys have had more brain development in gross motor skills. (I believe they both catch up to each other later, just that the order in which we learn these two is along gender lines.)*
So, in pre-K:
Little fiddly tactile stuff = usually girls are the best at it.
Big body movement = usually boys are the best at it.
We are not in Pre-K anymore, and we could’ve probably all caught up to each other years ago, but that idea persists, that girls are better at fine motor skills, and boys are better at gross motor skills.
Then, it’s totally supported and practiced when girls do beading and boys do sports.
*(To my knowledge, studies on this only measure presumed-cis boys & girls. Sorry trans & NB people; Science has just figured out you exist, I hope they are excited to start actually representing you soon.)
Tying ties is a fine motor skill, so girls must be magically better at it.
Two reasons I can think of: We pretty much universally hate wearing them, so we don’t learn how (or we learn and suck at it since we never wear the things). Second, someone else tying the tie can see what they’re doing, where a dude trying to tie his own has to tilt his head to try to see what’s happening while staying out of his own light.
I’d just as soon never wear one again, and I can usually get it right on the third or fourth try.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had when IRC chats were a shiny new thing with someone in Hong Kong. He was convinced that all Canadians were tall, blue-eyed blondes. I tried hard to convince him we weren’t; but that did fall a bit flat when I had to admit I was a tall, blue-eyed blonde myself, haha.
Do like my brother did, I tied his tie for his high school grad, he left the knot in. Thirty years later, it is still tied, he just slips it over his head and tightens it.
My dad never taught me because he passed away before I moved on from clip-ons. I was taught by the father of a girlfriend. I’m no expert but I do a fair job. My daughter actually wears my ties more than I do for cosplay and to just turn heads at her highschool and I have to tie them for her.
So did mine, and I’m a woman and not a lesbian. I guess it’s less common for women to need to know, in places where there aren’t school uniforms. I grant it’s the only context in which I *have* needed to know.
Neither can I. There’s one Hanging in my closet that’s permanently in a loose windsor, just in case, but I’ve worn it maybe twice? One advantage to working around machinery!
I’ve learned it from diagrams and my dad, because there was once I time I wanted to partake on HP-events and dress up as a Ravenclaw.
It’s not difficult – but it’s also not exactly easy either (it can look so wrong, sometimes)
I’ve had it as part of my muscle memory for decades now. My only complaint is that I learned the half-Windsor knot (back when tie sizes ranged from ‘wide’ to ‘very wide’), and a thicker knot would be more suitable with today’s tie dimensions.
(I bought The 85 Ways To Tie a Tie a while back, and I think I’m going to play with some knotting patterns.)
I wonder if Becky is wondering why they’re shopping in a (seemingly) straight supermarket. Shouldn’t they have a magical island one with riding kangaroos and Greek iconography?
Wait, am I thinking of Themyscira or the supermarket? So hard to tell.
in a world where skillset is measured by grinding…the one true Girlfriend approaches, the most lesbian of them all…we can say with assurance that those hips most definitely do not lie
Even though I know how to tie a tie, I still sympathize with Becky here. That damn piece of clothing can be frustrating, but the pain’s worth it to look fantastic.
And it works too. Whether she’s serious about it or not, Becky kinda lives in the magical fantasy Lesbian world. Leslie is more realistic, and maybe a bit too much. They kinda need each other 🙂
eh. it’s all in how you pair it. like what Becky’s got going on is good because it’s complementary plaids. they clash enough to draw attention, but not enough to be distracting or an eye-sore. also it’s kinda subtle, you wouldn’t realize they’re different plaids until you look closely. and the main plaid is broken up by the solid block of the vest. sometimes fashion is about having a lot going on, but just so that it’s interesting to look at
anyways this is definitely a New Look, i can’t see old!Becky wearing this while in the closet. i am headcanoning that Joyce and Becky went gay!shopping in order to find the items of most Gayness so Becky can have kind of a wardrobe, and that Joyce’s yellow plaid was bought in solidarity
That was a MST3K reference, specifically from the episode “Time Chasers” in which the lead male and female meet up in the produce section and at one point she’s wearing two different (clashing, light-pink) plaids, about which Crow T. Robot makes the above comment. I wasn’t actually commenting on her apparel, which I do rather like.
lmao i don’t get that reference. although on consideration the ‘naked robot’ thing should have been a clue. i guess it would not surprise me to have a naked robot reading this webcomic? weirder people have done this thing i am sure
but honestly i just took the opportunity to ramble about my interests and went with it, i deeply enjoy fashion
i mean, technically, an AI would probably count as a naked robot since it neither has a body or clothes. and if an AI was reading this webcomic i would have to say that it had good taste? welcome to humanity, AI. it’s okay: none of us understand us either.
i’ve gotten…so much better at cheap yet classy fashion over the last few months….i love target. and cheap thrift stores. in my area target donates their unsold merchandise to thrift stores which is . the best.
At the clothiers if you ask they might have a booklet on the various styles and how to tie them. (My sister gave me a bunch of ties for Xmas once and included the booklet. I guess I still have mine somewhere but it’s misplaced. haven’t needed it for a while.)
I get the distinct feeling that Becky is still insisting on that for the sake of comedy and she doesn’t quite mean it. I mean, I could be wrong, but Becky does know how you can’t go smooch the first chick you dig.
I guess it’s just easier for her to be her zanny, joking self. Classic Becky.
I’d wonder if she is kinda in between, half joking, half seriously trying to figure out how dating outside of a church context works. If it is like that, she gets a reasonable response, if it isn’t, she has the “I was only joking” cover.
Yup, she’s genuinely baffled by how dating works and so defaults to rom-coms, but she also knows that how she got with Dina didn’t follow a rom-com script.
I think it’s cute when that Becky/Dorothy thing happens, precisely because she recognizes how close Dorothy and Joyce are, how seldom it’s come up, and how good, how sincerely Dorothy takes “believing in people of her choosing”.
We get to see the traces of it once in a while (like a few strips back), but I think Becky’s handling it incredibly well, which is part and parcel of how she’s built to land on her feet.
Agreed! Becky’s jealousy is, in it’s own way, validating. Also, except for joking about it being weird, she never judged Joyce for being friends with an atheist.
I also love how Becky’s and Dorothy’s relationship is evolving. She clearly is part of Becky’s adopted family, and it is adorable.
the grocery store must be in walking distance from their home, which makes it slightly less creepy. also more understandable that leslie didn’t have any groceries? ngl if i had a grocery store right around the corner…well, actually, i do, but i’m not the only member of my household so i don’t slack off on groceries as much as i would if i was the only member of the household
I’ve got, not one, not two, but THREE grocery stores within 3 minutes walking distance from my home, my fridge is never anywhere near full. I plan for 2-3 days ahead and only buy that much, that also means I hardly ever have to throw anything away.
There are some subtle distinctions. The way I read Becky is that she is a brat rather than a rebel in this interaction. There is a lot of posturing and play-acting, but what she really wants is to establish the mom-daughter dynamic. Just look back to her babbling at Leslie teaching her the ways of a lesbian.
So I expect her to mouth of and talk back and snark and lean on boundaries (which is a real important can of worms right now), but not actually work deny Leslie’s seniority. In fact, she is desperate for Leslie to HAVE that seniority so she can lean back in the comfort of being the goofy one, when someone more sensible look after her.
it was my hichschool experience (12 years ago now) that if you needed ur tie tied, odds were about 3:1 that a random girl could do it for you vs boy. no correlation to orientation tho, but possibly with being in band. anyone else see this reversal?
suddenly my mind wanders into “i wonder if this was the girl equiv of the backrun” like here let me do this helpful platonic thing for you but also get all close and touchy. man i wish i could say ppl get less akward after highschool, but i think they just supress it more
Tying a tie on someone else is a very different skill from tying it on yourself. Leslie probably learned it helping her husband, or brothers if sh had any.
Yep, last time I had to help someone else tie a tie, I had to put it on my own neck, tie it, loosen it, lift it over my head and then give it to them. Because I cannot tie a tie on someone else, the motions are too different.
Okay, but what does Leslie think about the lady by the broccoli? It’s good odds she’s at least bi, in this comic, and at worst, she’s straight but flattered.
Bee-tee-dubz, my girlfriend got me this phone for our anniversary, so any weirdness in future comments be blamed on adjusting to it. Also, those Pokémon have never been less safe.
The absolute worst case scenario is the lady pitches a fit, gets Leslie kicked out of the store, and makes a huge internet fuss about predatory lesbians harassing people in grocery stores.
IRL, a couple of weeks ago, I intuited that a guy I’d met socially a few times was interested in me (I’m also a guy). I told him basically “I intuit that you may be interested in me. If so, I’m straight but flattered and totally cool with it. Want another hug?”
He started talking around it in very general terms. It took half an hour of conversation, with me reassuring him several times that I was cool with it, before he would admit that yes, he had actually been attracted and interested in me.
And we’re in the same (large) social group, and it’s in general one of the safest groups I can think of for non-straight-cis people to be open about being themselves, and we’re in the California Bay Area! Both he and a (female) friend of his told me I was unique (their word) in not reacting very badly.
So that’s a reality check. Apparently it’s still that bad.
And a second reality check. If a guy hits on a woman who’s not interested in him, everyone expects her to deal with it gracefully at least – and for her safety, she should make sure his ego doesn’t get hurt.
Whereas if a guy even admits to being interested in a straight guy, it seems that in our ***’d up society, it’s common for the straight guy to physically attack the guy who dared offend him in this way.
This reality is broken. Can I have a different one, please?
Well, if String Theory is correct then the odds are high that at least one reality exists where humans all respect and love each other and we’ve solved all of our problems. If that’s any consolation.
Becky, I’m pretty sure looking for people to date in a supermarket gets you weird looks. Then again, that might have just been me.
…
I’m a very socially awkward person alright.
i, personally, would not go looking for people to date in a supermarket, since i would imagine most people there just want to get their business over and done with
however,,, becky is a go getter who makes friends anywhere and found a girlfriend literally within the first week of living with joyce, so i am sure she could do it if she tried
It’s all contextual. Yes, random pick-up efforts in random places can be weird but sometimes (just sometimes) it can work. Everything depends on the people, I guess.
1. Become a gourmet chef, or at least a close, hobbyist approximation of one.
2. Identify certain awesome ingredients that the plebs have no idea are good for anything.
3. Watch for someone grabbing said ingredient and adding it to their cart.
4. Grab some yourself while they’re still around. Strike up a conversation about how you never see anyone else grabbing it.
5. Talk about recipes on the way to checkout. What are they planning to make with that ingredient? What have you used it for yourself?
6. Exchange emails or facebook handles or whatever so you can share recipes.
7. Prepare their recipes, and give them generally positive feedback with a few “have you tried this?” suggestions.
8. Arrange a cooking date together.
9. Bond over your shared hobby and shared meal.
10. Notice that they put ketchup on their steak.
11. Fight scene from Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
12. Repeat from Step 3.
Nope. Don’t have the patience to learn more than the basics of cooking (though I have been told I make a fine calzone from scratch). Also, never seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Also I tried something similar with starting a conversation about barbecue sauce. It…was awkward and strained. I don’t pick up on social cues very well and have trouble communicating properly in public due to Asperger’s. I only communicate hear as well as I do because I can go over what I type five or six times and make little corrections to try and say what I actually mean to say.
Just WHAT kind of item are we talking about? And wouldn’t it take too long for anyone to show up and buy it for you to actually ‘capture’ them getting it?
One of my best friends from secondary school and I became friends because – while she could tie her tie in the morning for some reason she would blank on how to ddo it after PE… She’d be frantically asking for help, and everybody else would be getting themselves changed and brush her off. I’d do up her tie and then we would run late to the next lesson together.
“For some reason” probably means “using a reference that she had in front of her”. It’s an educated guess, made for reasons. Just general reasons, and not in any way reasons that might indicate that I usually have to look up how to tie a tie. That’s just ridiculous.
It’s possible that in the mornings her big sister and her would do their ties together and her sister would talk her through it… (it was part of the uniform)
My dad taught me the easiest way he knew. My husband threw me his tie the other day so I put it on instead of tucking it into my bag – after not having worn one for well over a decade I remembered how to on my second attempt
When I think of cosplay Pearl and tie, I think of bowtie (and tux), but I could be wrong. However, you may have had earned more Pearl Points than I, and there could be one in the prize pouch.
A quick search an incredible number of actual bowties for an SU fan
Leslie never expected to end up with a daughter, especially not a scatty, wild and random late-teenage one. However, a daughter is what she got with everything that entails!
Not really. She didn’t live through the terrible twos and thus will be too patient and permissive.
I mean, yeah, Becky’s her own woman and doesn’t need Leslie’s permission for much, but she’s going to take too many liberties with Leslie’s time and home and Leslie doesn’t know how to put her foot down.
They both have some valuable lessons to learn about boundaries, but I think Leslie will do fine. She has been in Becky’s shoes herself, she has quite some experience with bratty teenagers, and this time it is not a shameless congresswoman she has the hotz for crashing on her couch. Becky will not be another Robin.
She’s a professional teacher. She’s dealt with teenagers before, and we’ve SEEN her put her foot down. Here she’s simply opted to ignore Becky’s insistence on hooking her up and move on to a different topic, which is working so far
The separate topic boundary is also a classic teacher skill. It’s a nice piece of judo that removes the focus from the disruptive behavior into a subject you would much rather cover or spend time in and often times the student doesn’t even notice the setting of the boundary if you’re subtle enough.
Oh, come on Becky. I know you want to learn everything from lesbians, but you also want to n be an undue burden. Right? So sometimes, you should just ask the Internet.
I think it might be akin to Joyce’s “this is knowledge I should not have” reaction. Because she’s still got her fundie sexual ethos, minus the “no queers” aspect. And maybe she doesn’t hold to it as a general principle (don’t know if she’s moved that far), but it still defines her comfort zone.
…
I think her SECOND reaction would be to talk to Joyce about it and see what her face does.
Later that day
Leslie: Becky, are you ok? You’ve been in the shower for a half hour now?
Becky: I need a long cold shower!
Leslie: Why?
Becky: I just discovered there’s porn for lesbians! I don’t want my mom judging me for doing anything involving sex before I get married.
Leslie: Good grief.
This is then followed by an indepth conversation were Leslie enlightens Becky while also stating that there is a water bill Leslie has to pay.
There is not enough cold water in the world to drown that discovery.
But this brings up a curious question. How would Becky want to get married? I mean, would she be satisfied with civil/secular marriage or would she seek some Christian group willing to give her a gay ceremony…
At least she has has a job so she can share the bills with Leslie.
I feel the same thing about Becky forthcoming; she’s as devout and teenage-curious-hormonal as Joyce, with the added facet of Becky’s just-discovered orientation.
The trope “sex is evil and I am horny” applies here.
Sshhh. The less the schools know the better.
…
Also, just made the connection that that may well play a part in the “Catholic schoolgirl” fetish that I personally find weird but hey, two consenting adults doing something safe and sane is not something I’m going to judge them for.
Kinda. There’s certain signals queer folks use to try and notify others that they are queer. So you can have wallet chains, short pixie cuts, undercuts or the standard bisexual haircut, Doc Martens, tank-tops, and yes, plaid. Certain hats, vests and ties can also be used to try and signal butch lesbian.
None of which necessarily mean the person in question is queer, but just that queer folks tend to gravitate to those presentations especially when they are young and freaking out about how to signal to others that they are queer to find community and dates.
Plaid is on the list largely because of the 90s grunge and riot grrl scenes as both were highly accepting to queer women given that a lot of the riot grrl band leaders were openly bisexual and so that sort of morphed into lesbian culture in general.
My dad’s wardrobe has a very old set of pictorial instructions on how to tie several different kinds of ties inside it. At one point in my childhood I gathered my curiousity and stubbornness and figured out one of them.
I don’t remember which one it is, but I do use this knowledge for belts (the kind on sweaters)
and I think I could do it on someone else as well as on myself, I don’t remember it as a set of hand motions, I remember it as a sequence of where the tie goes
(you take one tail and let it hang vertically, then you put the second tail under it so it comes out on the other side, then put it over so it forms a horizontal line over the first tail, then you put it under its own other half leading up to the neck so it’s now in the middle, then you put it under the horizontal line you’d formed above the first immovable tail, forming a knot, then you tighten it)
Sounds like what I think is called a Four-in-hand knot, which I generally remember as “One, two, up, and through.”
And, hey, cool, you’re right; if you’re tying the tail of a long Medieval belt off (or tying a ring belt), it’s the same knot! I hadn’t noticed that, neat.
PSA: Never tie a tie really tight around your neck, always leave yourself some room. It can reduce circulation through your neck otherwise which can strain your eyes later in the day.
Becky (and Joyce) grew up in a community and faith where boundaries were set by one’s parents, and otherwise basically didn’t exist. (For your own good. Really.)
Sometimes I utterly forget that in the US schools with uniforms aren’t very common. I mean I know here in the Uk and Ireland) we all pretty much wore ties because of the belief it got kids ready for the work force.
I have probably worn a tie approximately twice since leaving such forms of education. Even when dressing ‘formally’ for interviews and what not I never wore one. Still could probably do one in my sleep though. I mean I even had to wear a tie in primary school so well over a decade of doing something everyday will do that to you.
Also random note: I wasn’t around for the comic in which Leslie said she had a decade on Becky but: As the shifting timestamp for this comic moves ever forward we move ever closer to the day when Leslies college generational experience is technically the main characters (in terms of technology and political climates they’re in) and that’s kind of trippy in a way.
I know Becky doesn’t know how yet, but they’re so fun to tie! Plus they look SUPER cute when worn casually. And handsome in formal and semi-formal wear. Honestly, I don’t know why men don’t wear ties more often. They’re great!
Eggs aren’t emblematic of a life of forced drudgery, working countless hours at a job you loathe, missing out on time with loved ones, growing bitter and detached, for no reason other than “Society and most media say this is what adult life is like for men. It was this or destroying my body doing manual labor.”
It’s cause she’s trying out a soft butch look. Vests and ties are super in in both the soft butch lesbian youth communities as well as the masc-leaning non-binary youth communities at the moment.
In all honesty, the soft butch look is probably the look I find most appealing when it comes to fashion aesthetics. It’s confident and punkish while at the same time oddly professional. It also draws attention to the body’s core, and helps accentuate body parts not traditionally considered to be attractive feminine wise by our culture like necks, arms, shoulders. The result is I would say a look that works in most situations. It’s a confident and “sexy” look in a way that is not commonly defined as “sexy” by male dominated society.
This has popped up in a recent thread I’ve visited, and I was hoping someone with more knowledge than I might be able to provide a bit of clarity.
Over at the Giant in the Playground Forums, I’ve been participating in a LGBTAI+ questions and discussion thread. In this thread, the phrase “coercively assigned [Gender] at birth” happened to come up, and quickly became the dominant topic of the discussion. Multiple users have defended the use of it, but their reasoning seems a bit lacking, and in come cases has caused further questions.
What I’m wondering is, at what level does the coercion begin? I won’t outright deny there is any, because I can sort of understand that it occurs on some level or other. My confusion is simply where it occurs. The way some users have put it, the doctor who checks the box at birth is the one doing the coercion, but that doesn’t make sense to me, since said doctor is only going off of the newborn’s anatomy. They can’t exactly ask a newborn whether they’re cis or not, after all.
The only level on which I can see coercion happening, at such an early stage in the child’s life (literally the beginning of it), is the systemic/societal level. Society at large tends to favor the gender binary, and I can certainly see that checked box becoming a problem later in life, but isn’t any later coercion up to pretty much everyone but the person filling out the newborn’s paperwork? Again, I’m not trying to downplay the impact an assigned gender can have, I’m only trying to understand where these users are coming from, since they’ve largely failed to elaborate or explain in a way I can understand.
So, the term “CAGAB” was originally used by intersex people to differentiate their experiences from that of transgender people. Intersex people manifest multiple biological sexes, either chomosomally (meaning they’re chimeric) or regarding sex organs.
Not all intersex people are identified as such at birth or at a young age. Famously, Caster Semenya was first discovered to be intersex at the Olympic trials. Assuming and identifying as a woman her whole life, an ultrasound scan revealed that she had undescended testes and a micropenis as well as her visible vagina and breasts.
Ultimately, she decided to continue to identify as a woman and was allowed to compete as a woman in the track and field events.
However, that was a rare happy ending. Most intersex people are coerced into choosing one sex–or, more often, that sex is chosen for them–by undergoing sexual assignment surgery at as early as twelve months, despite the fact that having multiple sex manifestations is not harmful disease-wise. Some intersex people’s sex status is intentionally hidden from them until age eighteen. Some intersex people are forced to use vaginal dilators even prior to adolescence, in order to make their vagina normitavely sized.
This is often traumatic for intersex people, and they frequently develop PTSD. Some intersex people pursue sex reassignment surgery, just as transgender people often do. Intersex people frequently felt that their experience was different enough from non-intersex transgender people, due to the surgical and physical procedures they were forced to endure at a young age, that the term “Coercively Assigned Female (or Male) At Birth” was more apt that the more typical AFAB / AMAB lingo.
Okay, so, but then some trans people objected to the distinction, saying that is needlessly created a hierarchy of people whose true gender was suppressed by surgical means and people whose true gender was suppressed by psychological and sociological means. After all, many trans people also experience PTSD and even commit suicide because their identity is rejected and they are subject to abuse.
These people then also began using the term Coercively Assigned Gender At Birth. This made a lot of intersex activists angry, because they felt that non-intersex transgender people were attempting to take away their term, and intersex people are often shut out of LGBTQIA discussions, so why take away the one foothold they managed to get?
Other non-intersex transgender people try to emphasize allyship, and say that, you know, the goals of having accessible HRT and sex surgery, as well as a reduction of gender-based violence and hate crimes, are ones that transgender and intersex people share. So who gets to use the word coercive?
There isn’t, as yet, a general consensus. Simply numerically, there are fewer intersex people than other kinds of gender minorities, so there are fewer chances for their voices to be heard. I tend to err on the side of respecting the value of the only intersex people I know and save the word “coercively” when talking about intersex experiences only. But, neither intersex nor transgender people are a monolith, so it’s worth taking with a grain of salt.
I really like Assigned Male. Sophie makes really good points that I feel could help people understand things better. (If you have FB, I suggest following her; she’s always getting attacked by jerks and could use the support.)
On the positive side, California at the least has a bill moving through the system to try and end this coerced assignment at birth for intersex kids and allow a non-binary marker to be used or even for parents to request non-binary placeholder until the kid can say for themselves as well as adding a non-binary marker to driver’s licenses and official forms so non-binary folks have more options.
Both my non-binary friends and intersex friends have been excited about it so I’ve been watching it move through the houses with a lot of interest.
although now that I think about it, having it on a driver’s license at all is kinda weird. having hair colour on there is weird too, like, hair dye exists.
As a cis person that tries to be a good ally, thank you for this lesson. 🙂 Now if I ever see anyone upset about use of CAGAB vs AGAB, I’ll know the basic history behind it.
I guess in the meantime I’ll just stick to saying “Assigned [male/female] at birth,” to try to avoid stepping on any toes.
Panel 2: Oh, Becky, boundaries. You’ve been really good on boundaries but you’re getting stuck in the classic “but I want to say thanks” trap of getting hyperfocused on getting someone something without checking in to see if they even want the thing at the moment.
Panel 3: And I like that Leslie rounds on her and the inappropriateness to a degree. Especially as being followed in ways she was not prepared for is likely to be a major trigger given what just happened with Robin and the fact that Leslie was deliberately going to the store to clear her head out a little.
Panel 4: Ah, the soft butch dapper look. Quite a classic.
Panel 5: I love the disparate faces. Becky’s face is less “but you’re a lesbian of course you know”, but more “you don’t…:(?” with a half beg.
And Leslie can’t keep her face straight. She knows she can tie a tie and that part of the reason she knows is likely that she went through her own soft-butch phase in the past.
Though I can feel the desire to not say anything, cause I imagine the specific skill of tying someone else’s tie likely has more connection to the time she spent married than anything else.
Panel 6: I love that these two are slipping into a mother-teenage daughter dynamic and it seems to be working for both of them.
Like, Leslie is still working on establishing all the ground rules, but I think her excitement of giving resources and offering her home is partially because she doesn’t want another young lesbian to go through what she did without family or home. Part of her wants to be a mom, especially if that is consistent from the other world and half-adopting wayward queer youth whose actual parents suck is a queer teacher tradition.
And for Becky, this is a dream. Having a mom figure back in her life. Getting to have a slightly bratty teen years that she saw in sitcoms but was never allowed to have in life thanks to her dad. Having said mom figure be a lesbian who has cool awesome secret lesbian knowledge.
She’s on cloud 9 and definitely getting over-excited, but I fully understand and respect why.
Yup. Leslie is everything Becky ever wanted, and in response she is overdoing her “bratty teenage daughter” persona. I’m sure they will settle to a good dynamic.
My headcanon is that a 20 year old Leslie had a tie-wearing partner named Anna who, despite being dapper as fudge, never learnt to tie a tie.
(Lucky’s Cafe is a real thing. You’re not gonna get in trouble from like copyrights or anything, are you? I don’t know the legal details of this sort of thing.)
As someone that went through the NZ school system, which basically means a uniform and a tie from 13, I really don’t like ties and this was exacerbated when having to wear a tie at work
I now only wear ties for date nights with my wife or at weddings and funerals so I’m a bit bemused at why someone would wear a tie by choice
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“b/c I saw your Adrian Seidelman cosplay, and you weren’t using a clip-on”
(actually it’s Leo’s fault, isn’t it)
ahahahahah I *could* have reused “still doing better than Trump’s handiwork”
fuckin Scotch tape
Man, Cybersix is one property that needs another shot. Network just didn’t know what to do with it, it used to air at like 6 am.
And Leslie would totally cosplay as Adrian.
I love the Cybersix references here! I absolutely loved that show! Of course when I watched it here in Canada it was on at odd times of the day. And yes, I could see Leslie cosplaying as Adrian. Now I actually want to see that 🙂
Ha, I used to watch it and loved it! I’ve found the episodes on YouTube for my daughter (who is eight) and she loooves it! She thinks Cyber6 is the absolute kickass best–although she did question fighting in heels. <3
One of the best animated intros, too.
The problem wasn’t just in the airing; if I recall there were some difficulties with production too, since it was like, made by a japanese studio for a canadian company for airing in america?.
well they DID spend a 26-episode budget on 13 episodes
Her lesbian radar told her so.
Is the store’s uniform also plaid?
Is that…is that even a punchline?
Hell, the alt-text was far more of a punchline than what we got in-strip.
to be fair not every comic has to have a punchline when its a story oriented comic.
The vast majority of strips do end in punchlines. The ones that don’t end with dramatically significant panels (i.e.: Becky kissing Joyce, Amber kicking Blaine in the face, Walky’s quiet little “no” to Dorothy’s plea to everyone to not treat her as perfect, etc.)
This is neither dramatic or funny.
It’s both adorable, and is getting the relationship established between these two characters who have only recently met.
And while it might not seem super dramatic, getting casually mommed by Leslie is kind of a big deal for the previously homeless girl who lost her original family
Your FACE is neither dramatic nor funny.
the punchline is love
That such a Steven Universe thing to say 🙂
😀
it is!!!!!!
on consideration, also kind of an Addams Family thing to say <3
I just can’t stop giggling at their faces in the last two panels, so in my book that’s a punch line.
…or, I suppose, in David Willis’ book… once he has collected the strips in one… you know, I think I messed up this metaphor.
IMO, The punchline is that Leslie is trying to get Becky to realize that no, just because she is a lesbian, doesn’t mean she knows how to tie a tie. Becky has a lot of misconceptions about lesbians and seem to view them as being a monolithic singular personality/type, rather than having just as much variety as anyone else.
The problem is that Leslie did know how to tie a tie, and she can’t stop herself from helping. (Though her ability to tie ties is not because she is a lesbian, it is just because she happened to know).
It is basically like if it was a girl talking to a gay man and was like “Hey can you help me put on my makeup?” “Do you assume I can put on makeup just cause I’m gay?” “…” “Ok, fine I do know how to put on makeup, but it isn’t because I’m gay.”
I thought that wearing skinny-ties is very common for n00b lesbians, so that Leslie’s knowledge was related to being queer. She wants to undo Becky’s misconceptions, but to her chagrin, this particular generalization was right.
I thought most married women know how to tie a tie. Because their husbands often don’t. And Leslie was briefly married to a man as I recall.
Yeah, it’s the only reason I can tie one, ha ha.
–How do so many men not know how to tie ties? They’re the ones wearing them (for the most part; more so that us women tying them for them, anyways)! O.o
It’s a patriarchy thing. Doing stuff is “women’s work”, so why bother learning it and letting it pollute your proper manliness when you can have the woman creature who lives in your house do it.
Though all that said, I pretty much was the go-to person to help my ex tie all her ties when she wanted to have a butch night out on the town.
I think it’s from our brain development in pre-K, and then emphasized tons in our culture. Citations needed, but here is my understanding as a pre-K person (and not as a developmental neurobiologist).
In pre-K, when we’re deeply learning what we’re good at… on average, and so far, little girls have had more brain development in fine motor skills, and little boys have had more brain development in gross motor skills. (I believe they both catch up to each other later, just that the order in which we learn these two is along gender lines.)*
So, in pre-K:
Little fiddly tactile stuff = usually girls are the best at it.
Big body movement = usually boys are the best at it.
We are not in Pre-K anymore, and we could’ve probably all caught up to each other years ago, but that idea persists, that girls are better at fine motor skills, and boys are better at gross motor skills.
Then, it’s totally supported and practiced when girls do beading and boys do sports.
*(To my knowledge, studies on this only measure presumed-cis boys & girls. Sorry trans & NB people; Science has just figured out you exist, I hope they are excited to start actually representing you soon.)
Tying ties is a fine motor skill, so girls must be magically better at it.
I said that in a really longwinded manner.
tl;drl: Females are presumed to be better at fine motor skills, such as tying ties.
This assumption:
– may be based on early brain development.
– is totes cemented by culture
– is dumb.
Two reasons I can think of: We pretty much universally hate wearing them, so we don’t learn how (or we learn and suck at it since we never wear the things). Second, someone else tying the tie can see what they’re doing, where a dude trying to tie his own has to tilt his head to try to see what’s happening while staying out of his own light.
I’d just as soon never wear one again, and I can usually get it right on the third or fourth try.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had when IRC chats were a shiny new thing with someone in Hong Kong. He was convinced that all Canadians were tall, blue-eyed blondes. I tried hard to convince him we weren’t; but that did fall a bit flat when I had to admit I was a tall, blue-eyed blonde myself, haha.
Wait. I’m kinda having a crisis here…
Do women not weat ties?
The punchline is that the Leslie is chafing at Becky’s stereotype of lesbians, yet it is totally accurate in this case.
That. And Becky’s smugness sells it.
I LOL’d. I thought it was cute.
S’okay Becky, I can’t tie a tie either.
I can almost do it. Like, it won’t look right, but you’ll be hard pressed to explain way.
Likely because I wear a tie maybe twice a year. Mutherfuckers need to stop getting married, because I’m getting sick of it.
Why don’t you just skip ahead to the weddings before taking it off?
Do like my brother did, I tied his tie for his high school grad, he left the knot in. Thirty years later, it is still tied, he just slips it over his head and tightens it.
I have a cheat sheet image on my computer for how to do so.
My dad never taught me because he passed away before I moved on from clip-ons. I was taught by the father of a girlfriend. I’m no expert but I do a fair job. My daughter actually wears my ties more than I do for cosplay and to just turn heads at her highschool and I have to tie them for her.
I learned from the internet. Not gonna lie.
I only do it for job interviews.
I can tie a tie.
But I only do Trinity knots.
My high school uniform included a tie (not a clip-on). I can still literally tie one with my eyes closed.
So did mine, and I’m a woman and not a lesbian. I guess it’s less common for women to need to know, in places where there aren’t school uniforms. I grant it’s the only context in which I *have* needed to know.
Neither can I. There’s one Hanging in my closet that’s permanently in a loose windsor, just in case, but I’ve worn it maybe twice? One advantage to working around machinery!
I google it as required.
I’ve learned it from diagrams and my dad, because there was once I time I wanted to partake on HP-events and dress up as a Ravenclaw.
It’s not difficult – but it’s also not exactly easy either (it can look so wrong, sometimes)
just learned and so proud
I’ve had it as part of my muscle memory for decades now. My only complaint is that I learned the half-Windsor knot (back when tie sizes ranged from ‘wide’ to ‘very wide’), and a thicker knot would be more suitable with today’s tie dimensions.
(I bought The 85 Ways To Tie a Tie a while back, and I think I’m going to play with some knotting patterns.)
Leslie! You seem to have the most adorable baby duck following you around!
Becky is best baby duck!
I wonder if Becky is wondering why they’re shopping in a (seemingly) straight supermarket. Shouldn’t they have a magical island one with riding kangaroos and Greek iconography?
Wait, am I thinking of Themyscira or the supermarket? So hard to tell.
I just went to see Wonder Woman again (belated Father’s Day outing with my dad), so now I’m just picturing Amazons at the supermarket.
Diana shows them all the ice cream, and they immediately determine that the outside world isn’t so bad after all.
you have to be a level nine lesbian to unlock the secret lesbian magic supermarket. leslie still has some grinding to do
That’s what she said.
/badumtish
in a world where skillset is measured by grinding…the one true Girlfriend approaches, the most lesbian of them all…we can say with assurance that those hips most definitely do not lie
Well yeah, where do you think xp comes from?
experience
No one has made a Grindr pun yet?
it’s for Her
This is a friendship I like
My mind immediately went to “Plaid Pantry”.
Soooooooo… Is Leslie gonna basically be Becky’s new mom now? Because that would be great
Yes! New mom! Bonnie would approve I hope.
I approve this.
She already snagged herself a new dad and a bunch of sisters and an incredibly
annoyingfun brother. It’s time for a mom!New brother is…..Walky?
Yup! 🙂
Excellent! 😀
Why did I read that in Mister Burns voice….
I too greatly desire them to become as family.
“Family is a choice…Parents and siblings are your relations. Family takes care of one another and helps each other.”
C.L. Stone
I believe that’s exactly what’s happening and I’m so here for it!
God, YES!
I love the interaction between these two so much!
im an adult an i dont know how to tie a tie.
plaid of professionalism™ – perfect and stylish for any job. 😛
Even though I know how to tie a tie, I still sympathize with Becky here. That damn piece of clothing can be frustrating, but the pain’s worth it to look fantastic.
Their dynamic is everything I had hoped for
And it works too. Whether she’s serious about it or not, Becky kinda lives in the magical fantasy Lesbian world. Leslie is more realistic, and maybe a bit too much. They kinda need each other 🙂
Two different plaids? Man, I’m a naked robot and even I know that’s a fashion no-no.
It’s cool, since “her butt looks good in the future.”
I like plaid, but then I’m kind of from the Red Green School of Fashion so…
eh. it’s all in how you pair it. like what Becky’s got going on is good because it’s complementary plaids. they clash enough to draw attention, but not enough to be distracting or an eye-sore. also it’s kinda subtle, you wouldn’t realize they’re different plaids until you look closely. and the main plaid is broken up by the solid block of the vest. sometimes fashion is about having a lot going on, but just so that it’s interesting to look at
anyways this is definitely a New Look, i can’t see old!Becky wearing this while in the closet. i am headcanoning that Joyce and Becky went gay!shopping in order to find the items of most Gayness so Becky can have kind of a wardrobe, and that Joyce’s yellow plaid was bought in solidarity
That was a MST3K reference, specifically from the episode “Time Chasers” in which the lead male and female meet up in the produce section and at one point she’s wearing two different (clashing, light-pink) plaids, about which Crow T. Robot makes the above comment. I wasn’t actually commenting on her apparel, which I do rather like.
On Becky’s apparel, that is. The lead lady from Time Chasers is a fashion nightmare, even by early 90s standards.
lmao i don’t get that reference. although on consideration the ‘naked robot’ thing should have been a clue. i guess it would not surprise me to have a naked robot reading this webcomic? weirder people have done this thing i am sure
but honestly i just took the opportunity to ramble about my interests and went with it, i deeply enjoy fashion
i guess it would not surprise me to have a naked robot reading this webcomic?
Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me either, no joke. Also, while I’m not anyone’s definition of a fashionista, it is a skill I admire in others.
i mean, technically, an AI would probably count as a naked robot since it neither has a body or clothes. and if an AI was reading this webcomic i would have to say that it had good taste? welcome to humanity, AI. it’s okay: none of us understand us either.
i’ve gotten…so much better at cheap yet classy fashion over the last few months….i love target. and cheap thrift stores. in my area target donates their unsold merchandise to thrift stores which is . the best.
Could be worse, could be Plaid Stripes:
http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/File:Plaid_Stripes_ID_S6E9.png
My father-in-law was color blind and would deliberately dress in two kinds of plaid just to see the look of horror on his wife’s face.
Cub scout manuals will teach you how to tie a tie. Or the Internet. ButI just know the one simple knot.
At the clothiers if you ask they might have a booklet on the various styles and how to tie them. (My sister gave me a bunch of ties for Xmas once and included the booklet. I guess I still have mine somewhere but it’s misplaced. haven’t needed it for a while.)
*plays Night Ranger’s “Sentimental Street” on the store’s Muzak*
“Hnngh, fine”
This comic is quality wholesome lesbian content.
“I thought you were more likely to know than I do since I already know I don’t know.”
Becky, no.
You’re doing that “I learned everything about dating from horrible romcoms” thing again. Stop. Please.
Honestly, I would watch the romantic comedy “Broccoli lady”
I get the distinct feeling that Becky is still insisting on that for the sake of comedy and she doesn’t quite mean it. I mean, I could be wrong, but Becky does know how you can’t go smooch the first chick you dig.
I guess it’s just easier for her to be her zanny, joking self. Classic Becky.
I’d wonder if she is kinda in between, half joking, half seriously trying to figure out how dating outside of a church context works. If it is like that, she gets a reasonable response, if it isn’t, she has the “I was only joking” cover.
Yup, she’s genuinely baffled by how dating works and so defaults to rom-coms, but she also knows that how she got with Dina didn’t follow a rom-com script.
“Comedic but not quite meaning it” reminds me of Becky and her “feud” with Dorothy (best new friend) over who Joyce’s best friend is.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/bridges-2/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/rivalry/
Yup. The way I read her, Becky does that A LOT.
“Haha, totally joking… totally not joking.”
Kinda like Walky.
I think it’s cute when that Becky/Dorothy thing happens, precisely because she recognizes how close Dorothy and Joyce are, how seldom it’s come up, and how good, how sincerely Dorothy takes “believing in people of her choosing”.
We get to see the traces of it once in a while (like a few strips back), but I think Becky’s handling it incredibly well, which is part and parcel of how she’s built to land on her feet.
Agreed! Becky’s jealousy is, in it’s own way, validating. Also, except for joking about it being weird, she never judged Joyce for being friends with an atheist.
I also love how Becky’s and Dorothy’s relationship is evolving. She clearly is part of Becky’s adopted family, and it is adorable.
Yeah, I mean, how likely is it that Leslie meets her future wife at a grocery store?
Next Becky’ll be trying to hook Leslie up with some retail worker or something!
To be fair, I actually have picked up ladies while grocery shopping.
Let’s get problematic and ship these two
Let’s not.
They are rapidly developing a surrogate mom and surrogate daughter relationship. WAY more interesting than a romantic ship 🙂
So, a Mom-ship, then.
A Mother-ship?
…maybe.
You two have the best icons for that exchange.
Lets see how far down the rabbit hole goes.
Leslie is best mom!
Becky is best bratty, slighting boundary ignoring teenage daughter!
She sure is
She sure is 🙂
I’m loving their developing suburban lesbian mom and her kid dynamic they are forming.
Now I am imagining the sit-com version…
Who plays the wacky neighbor? Or is Becky already in that slot?
(Sorry.)
Nah, it’s Home Improvement style with the straight-man neighbor. Who is obviously Vivian.
Ooh, diggin’ Becky’s new outfit.
she’s such an adorable baby gay
Becky dresses in style!
Much Flair, Super Fashion. APPRECIATE
…..i like the idea of a cafe called “lucky’s cafe”
Becky come here. I can tie at least 3 decent knots that will let your lesbianness shine!
LESBIAN knots?
Did Becky accompany Leslie to the grocery…. or FOLLOW Leslie to the grocery…
Follow, most likely. which probably makes Leslie a bit uneasy given the recent Robin debacle.
considering that becky doesn’t have a car…
the grocery store must be in walking distance from their home, which makes it slightly less creepy. also more understandable that leslie didn’t have any groceries? ngl if i had a grocery store right around the corner…well, actually, i do, but i’m not the only member of my household so i don’t slack off on groceries as much as i would if i was the only member of the household
I’ve got, not one, not two, but THREE grocery stores within 3 minutes walking distance from my home, my fridge is never anywhere near full. I plan for 2-3 days ahead and only buy that much, that also means I hardly ever have to throw anything away.
niiiiiiiiiiiiice
if i could only figure out how not to throw away spinach
Leslie is JUST THAT stalkable!
Yup. Which is probably why she’s less than thrilled in Panel 3.
Pretty sure modern teenagers just go look up how to tie a tie themselves on YouTube.
Sure, if all they want is a knot rather than – say – a surrogate mom momming for them.
Unrelated: I LOVE Becky’s expression in the last panel.
For sure. Becky can just go to her
computer phonelocal library and look it up. That’s obviously the easy method.Leslie is BEST mom.
Becky is BEST bratty teenage daughter.
Heh, this is such a Robin moment, but Becky pulls it off. Mostly by being the real deal and in genuine need.
Beat you to it, except that last part. 😉
It is worth repeating 🙂
True enough!
Wait, so the bratty teenager WANTS to get wear a tie and have it tied by their parent in public?
Sure, because that establishes their roles AS mom and daughter.
Yup. It’s a dynamic she was denied by the suicide of her mom and her dad’s control and so she’s really wanting to get it right.
Right, but isn’t that what a bratty teenager rebels against?
You can’t rebel against something that isn’t there
There are some subtle distinctions. The way I read Becky is that she is a brat rather than a rebel in this interaction. There is a lot of posturing and play-acting, but what she really wants is to establish the mom-daughter dynamic. Just look back to her babbling at Leslie teaching her the ways of a lesbian.
So I expect her to mouth of and talk back and snark and lean on boundaries (which is a real important can of worms right now), but not actually work deny Leslie’s seniority. In fact, she is desperate for Leslie to HAVE that seniority so she can lean back in the comfort of being the goofy one, when someone more sensible look after her.
Well, the good news is that if Becky ever has to move in with Billie and Sal again, Sal knows how to tie one.
Of course she does. Sal secretly knows how to do anything. Because she’s AmaziGirl!
And because her school uniform had a tie.
it was my hichschool experience (12 years ago now) that if you needed ur tie tied, odds were about 3:1 that a random girl could do it for you vs boy. no correlation to orientation tho, but possibly with being in band. anyone else see this reversal?
suddenly my mind wanders into “i wonder if this was the girl equiv of the backrun” like here let me do this helpful platonic thing for you but also get all close and touchy. man i wish i could say ppl get less akward after highschool, but i think they just supress it more
Tying a tie on someone else is a very different skill from tying it on yourself. Leslie probably learned it helping her husband, or brothers if sh had any.
Is it weird to hope she has brothers, and that all of them are also gay?
Yep, last time I had to help someone else tie a tie, I had to put it on my own neck, tie it, loosen it, lift it over my head and then give it to them. Because I cannot tie a tie on someone else, the motions are too different.
Ha, me too! I thought I could reverse the process, but apparently not. (Another person who went to a girl’s school with ties for the winter uniform.)
Same. I had a friend who needed help on the odd occasion and it was a critical failure for the first few times I tried.
new mom?
best mom
Okay, but what does Leslie think about the lady by the broccoli? It’s good odds she’s at least bi, in this comic, and at worst, she’s straight but flattered.
Bee-tee-dubz, my girlfriend got me this phone for our anniversary, so any weirdness in future comments be blamed on adjusting to it. Also, those Pokémon have never been less safe.
Are you sure it wasn’t a knife?
Jeez, I hope so.
*says woot in response to all of that*
I think you underestimate how much “worse” it can get, but considering Leslie hasn’t even turned around I’d wager she’s not her type.
Unless she’s just leaving it for later…
I’m an optimist, sue me. And she likes broccoli; if a healthy eater isn’t Leslie’s type, she’s missing out on some amazing potential dates.
There… There are definitely worse possible reactions than ‘straight-but-flattered’ in this universe. Like way, way worse.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/deceptress/ (warning: Toedad)
Okay, but what are the odds a random stranger is gonna pull a gun on her for flirting a bit? It’s a grocery run, not a villain arc.
The absolute worst case scenario is the lady pitches a fit, gets Leslie kicked out of the store, and makes a huge internet fuss about predatory lesbians harassing people in grocery stores.
“Damn lesbians, always trying to hit on me when I’m buying produce. I’m gonna go home and blog about this.” – Broccoli Lady, 2017
People blog about waaaay more trivial things.
…… see, saying things like that makes Willis prove you wrong.
Like, you forgot that Leslie could get maced, too. Gay panic and all that.
That is also true.
… it is Indiana…
IRL, a couple of weeks ago, I intuited that a guy I’d met socially a few times was interested in me (I’m also a guy). I told him basically “I intuit that you may be interested in me. If so, I’m straight but flattered and totally cool with it. Want another hug?”
He started talking around it in very general terms. It took half an hour of conversation, with me reassuring him several times that I was cool with it, before he would admit that yes, he had actually been attracted and interested in me.
And we’re in the same (large) social group, and it’s in general one of the safest groups I can think of for non-straight-cis people to be open about being themselves, and we’re in the California Bay Area! Both he and a (female) friend of his told me I was unique (their word) in not reacting very badly.
So that’s a reality check. Apparently it’s still that bad.
And a second reality check. If a guy hits on a woman who’s not interested in him, everyone expects her to deal with it gracefully at least – and for her safety, she should make sure his ego doesn’t get hurt.
Whereas if a guy even admits to being interested in a straight guy, it seems that in our ***’d up society, it’s common for the straight guy to physically attack the guy who dared offend him in this way.
This reality is broken. Can I have a different one, please?
Well, if String Theory is correct then the odds are high that at least one reality exists where humans all respect and love each other and we’ve solved all of our problems. If that’s any consolation.
Ties are such a pain in the neck. Literally so.
But you look pretty damn cool Becky, so I guess it works.
No they’re knot.
Usually its that the shirt collar is too tight. The ties are adjustable, but the buttoned collar isn’t.
I made a bolo tie from an old CPU because I hate neckties. If I have to live in Texas, I’m at least going to take advantage of it.
I hate wearing ties, I have waited all my life for them to go out of fashion. Still waiting.
Becky, I’m pretty sure looking for people to date in a supermarket gets you weird looks. Then again, that might have just been me.
…
I’m a very socially awkward person alright.
i, personally, would not go looking for people to date in a supermarket, since i would imagine most people there just want to get their business over and done with
however,,, becky is a go getter who makes friends anywhere and found a girlfriend literally within the first week of living with joyce, so i am sure she could do it if she tried
It’s all contextual. Yes, random pick-up efforts in random places can be weird but sometimes (just sometimes) it can work. Everything depends on the people, I guess.
There IS a way to do it. Just do the following.
(Disclaimer: this is bad advice.)
1. Become a gourmet chef, or at least a close, hobbyist approximation of one.
2. Identify certain awesome ingredients that the plebs have no idea are good for anything.
3. Watch for someone grabbing said ingredient and adding it to their cart.
4. Grab some yourself while they’re still around. Strike up a conversation about how you never see anyone else grabbing it.
5. Talk about recipes on the way to checkout. What are they planning to make with that ingredient? What have you used it for yourself?
6. Exchange emails or facebook handles or whatever so you can share recipes.
7. Prepare their recipes, and give them generally positive feedback with a few “have you tried this?” suggestions.
8. Arrange a cooking date together.
9. Bond over your shared hobby and shared meal.
10. Notice that they put ketchup on their steak.
11. Fight scene from Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
12. Repeat from Step 3.
Nope. Don’t have the patience to learn more than the basics of cooking (though I have been told I make a fine calzone from scratch). Also, never seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Also I tried something similar with starting a conversation about barbecue sauce. It…was awkward and strained. I don’t pick up on social cues very well and have trouble communicating properly in public due to Asperger’s. I only communicate hear as well as I do because I can go over what I type five or six times and make little corrections to try and say what I actually mean to say.
Just WHAT kind of item are we talking about? And wouldn’t it take too long for anyone to show up and buy it for you to actually ‘capture’ them getting it?
Oh, wait, this has a disclaimer. Nevermind.
Yup. Like, if you want dates, you go places other people are going to be open and looking for dates.
In a grocery store, people are looking for dates, but they are not those kind of dates.
…fine. That was pretty funny.
One of my best friends from secondary school and I became friends because – while she could tie her tie in the morning for some reason she would blank on how to ddo it after PE… She’d be frantically asking for help, and everybody else would be getting themselves changed and brush her off. I’d do up her tie and then we would run late to the next lesson together.
She is also one of the sweetest people I know 🙂
“For some reason” probably means “using a reference that she had in front of her”. It’s an educated guess, made for reasons. Just general reasons, and not in any way reasons that might indicate that I usually have to look up how to tie a tie. That’s just ridiculous.
It’s possible that in the mornings her big sister and her would do their ties together and her sister would talk her through it… (it was part of the uniform)
I generally suck at knots. I have about a 1:2 chance to get flustered and fail to tie a knot on any given attempt.
My dad taught me the easiest way he knew. My husband threw me his tie the other day so I put it on instead of tucking it into my bag – after not having worn one for well over a decade I remembered how to on my second attempt
She plaid right into her hands.
BOOOOOOOO…. ok, that was pretty funny.
I know. That’s why I did it ;3
Is this some kind of an inside joke?
Does every lesbian need to know how to tie a tie?
If they want to cosplay Pearl in a suit, yes.
…I’m not a lesbian, but now I kinda want to cosplay Pearl in a suit.
When I think of cosplay Pearl and tie, I think of bowtie (and tux), but I could be wrong. However, you may have had earned more Pearl Points than I, and there could be one in the prize pouch.
A quick search an incredible number of actual bowties for an SU fan
It’s in the soft butch manual right after hats that are dapper but don’t evoke MRAs and pixie cuts.
Leslie never expected to end up with a daughter, especially not a scatty, wild and random late-teenage one. However, a daughter is what she got with everything that entails!
And Leslie will be the BEST mom for her.
Not really. She didn’t live through the terrible twos and thus will be too patient and permissive.
I mean, yeah, Becky’s her own woman and doesn’t need Leslie’s permission for much, but she’s going to take too many liberties with Leslie’s time and home and Leslie doesn’t know how to put her foot down.
Yup this, Leslie needs to lay some ground rules (and boundaries) down pretty quickly as the longer she waits the harder it becomes
They both have some valuable lessons to learn about boundaries, but I think Leslie will do fine. She has been in Becky’s shoes herself, she has quite some experience with bratty teenagers, and this time it is not a shameless congresswoman she has the hotz for crashing on her couch. Becky will not be another Robin.
She’s a professional teacher. She’s dealt with teenagers before, and we’ve SEEN her put her foot down. Here she’s simply opted to ignore Becky’s insistence on hooking her up and move on to a different topic, which is working so far
The separate topic boundary is also a classic teacher skill. It’s a nice piece of judo that removes the focus from the disruptive behavior into a subject you would much rather cover or spend time in and often times the student doesn’t even notice the setting of the boundary if you’re subtle enough.
Oh, come on Becky. I know you want to learn everything from lesbians, but you also want to n be an undue burden. Right? So sometimes, you should just ask the Internet.
What’s the worst that could happen?
*to not be an undo burden.
….. sorry about that. I’m so opposed to thread derails that I seem to be allergic to “ot”.
ARGH! How do my corrections of typos themselves have typos! They must be cleanzed! CLEANZED!
Call in some Space Marines. They will cleanse them for you… WITH HOLY FIRE!
No, they use bolt guns. Holy fire is Inquisitors, or maybe Sisters of Battle.
Well if you want to be picky you can call Salamanders, they LOVE their flamers.
Yet another reason the Sisters are better than the Marines.
*cough* Um… it’s undue burden ;p
I actually kinda want to see Becky discover lesbian porn… Her reaction would be hilarious.
I think it might be akin to Joyce’s “this is knowledge I should not have” reaction. Because she’s still got her fundie sexual ethos, minus the “no queers” aspect. And maybe she doesn’t hold to it as a general principle (don’t know if she’s moved that far), but it still defines her comfort zone.
…
I think her SECOND reaction would be to talk to Joyce about it and see what her face does.
She is slowly inching her way into physical intimacy with Dina but this kind of stuff would be like a nuke to the face for her…
Some eldritch acrobatics and a lot of screaming would be my guess XD Then again she Does have some experience in dealing with Sarah and… Other Jacob.
Later that day
Leslie: Becky, are you ok? You’ve been in the shower for a half hour now?
Becky: I need a long cold shower!
Leslie: Why?
Becky: I just discovered there’s porn for lesbians! I don’t want my mom judging me for doing anything involving sex before I get married.
Leslie: Good grief.
This is then followed by an indepth conversation were Leslie enlightens Becky while also stating that there is a water bill Leslie has to pay.
There is not enough cold water in the world to drown that discovery.
But this brings up a curious question. How would Becky want to get married? I mean, would she be satisfied with civil/secular marriage or would she seek some Christian group willing to give her a gay ceremony…
At least she has has a job so she can share the bills with Leslie.
I feel the same thing about Becky forthcoming; she’s as devout and teenage-curious-hormonal as Joyce, with the added facet of Becky’s just-discovered orientation.
The trope “sex is evil and I am horny” applies here.
Oh yeah, she CRAVES that sweet fruit of temptation hidden under the dino hat.
I think it would involve implied masturbation connected to a metric crapton of self-deprecating shame. You know, standard masturbation aftermath
Standard masturbation aftermatch for a sexually repressed fundie girl at least…
I am only the first and only arguably and I still feel shamed
Wait, so plaid is a lesbian thing?
…..
*considers the typical Catholic schoolgirl uniform*
…..
….. uuuuhhh….
Sshhh. The less the schools know the better.
…
Also, just made the connection that that may well play a part in the “Catholic schoolgirl” fetish that I personally find weird but hey, two consenting adults doing something safe and sane is not something I’m going to judge them for.
Try telling that to 6 million Scots!
🙂
(And it’s TARTAN dammit!)
Kinda. There’s certain signals queer folks use to try and notify others that they are queer. So you can have wallet chains, short pixie cuts, undercuts or the standard bisexual haircut, Doc Martens, tank-tops, and yes, plaid. Certain hats, vests and ties can also be used to try and signal butch lesbian.
None of which necessarily mean the person in question is queer, but just that queer folks tend to gravitate to those presentations especially when they are young and freaking out about how to signal to others that they are queer to find community and dates.
Plaid is on the list largely because of the 90s grunge and riot grrl scenes as both were highly accepting to queer women given that a lot of the riot grrl band leaders were openly bisexual and so that sort of morphed into lesbian culture in general.
“Ring of Keys”
tanktops = gay or lesbian?
good to know.
I know how to tie one kind of tie.
My dad’s wardrobe has a very old set of pictorial instructions on how to tie several different kinds of ties inside it. At one point in my childhood I gathered my curiousity and stubbornness and figured out one of them.
I don’t remember which one it is, but I do use this knowledge for belts (the kind on sweaters)
and I think I could do it on someone else as well as on myself, I don’t remember it as a set of hand motions, I remember it as a sequence of where the tie goes
(you take one tail and let it hang vertically, then you put the second tail under it so it comes out on the other side, then put it over so it forms a horizontal line over the first tail, then you put it under its own other half leading up to the neck so it’s now in the middle, then you put it under the horizontal line you’d formed above the first immovable tail, forming a knot, then you tighten it)
Sounds like what I think is called a Four-in-hand knot, which I generally remember as “One, two, up, and through.”
And, hey, cool, you’re right; if you’re tying the tail of a long Medieval belt off (or tying a ring belt), it’s the same knot! I hadn’t noticed that, neat.
These Becky&Leslie strips give me life.
Most people who work at or for a college knows how to tie a tie. Probably both on themselves and on someone else, stereotypes aside.
You don’t have to go full business formal all the time in academia, but everyone has to do it sometimes.
So even Willis has cause to say “Damn you, Willis!”
But…
But…
WHAT’S HAPPENED TO AMBER!?!?!?!?!?
(I’m okay…. I’m okay…. )
Who?
IKR?
SOME days can’t be about Amber/Amazigirl. Willis had to make room for Joe somehow, and she’ll just have to take a back seat.
Amber tried opening Ryan’s ketchup packets for his fries with a knife and ended up creating a big mess.
PSA: Never tie a tie really tight around your neck, always leave yourself some room. It can reduce circulation through your neck otherwise which can strain your eyes later in the day.
Why am I so excited about them shopping at Lucky’s? (maybe because that means in the DoA-verse Becky was DOWN THE STREET FROM MY HOUSE OMG.)
Becky, do you see a sign on Leslie that says; “Please ignore my boundaries”?
Based on Robin’s behaviour, there must be one there that only people with needy personalities can see!
Becky sees that sign on EVERYONE.
Becky (and Joyce) grew up in a community and faith where boundaries were set by one’s parents, and otherwise basically didn’t exist. (For your own good. Really.)
Sometimes I utterly forget that in the US schools with uniforms aren’t very common. I mean I know here in the Uk and Ireland) we all pretty much wore ties because of the belief it got kids ready for the work force.
I have probably worn a tie approximately twice since leaving such forms of education. Even when dressing ‘formally’ for interviews and what not I never wore one. Still could probably do one in my sleep though. I mean I even had to wear a tie in primary school so well over a decade of doing something everyday will do that to you.
Also random note: I wasn’t around for the comic in which Leslie said she had a decade on Becky but: As the shifting timestamp for this comic moves ever forward we move ever closer to the day when Leslies college generational experience is technically the main characters (in terms of technology and political climates they’re in) and that’s kind of trippy in a way.
*in the early stages of the comic anyway. (Does this make any sense at all?)
Well that only makes her 28.
Ties aren’t as required in women’s business dress as they are in men’s. It’s a weird choice to wear one when you neither need to not know how.
She’s a lesbian.
Maybe Becky decided to dress ‘up’ as she is Galasso’s ’employee of the week’.
I know Becky doesn’t know how yet, but they’re so fun to tie! Plus they look SUPER cute when worn casually. And handsome in formal and semi-formal wear. Honestly, I don’t know why men don’t wear ties more often. They’re great!
Ties are the yoke of oppression.
And eggs are the yolk of oppression.
Eggs aren’t emblematic of a life of forced drudgery, working countless hours at a job you loathe, missing out on time with loved ones, growing bitter and detached, for no reason other than “Society and most media say this is what adult life is like for men. It was this or destroying my body doing manual labor.”
You’ve never collected eggs in a battery house then?
They’re more leashes or nooses of oppression.
The ties that bind.
They also serve no purpose and get in the way.
They mark that you are of a high enough class that you don’t work near spinning machinery.
Eh, back in the days of “The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit” perhaps (and even then finding a non-conforming tie wasn’t that hard).
Nowadays it’s just a choice.
It’s cause she’s trying out a soft butch look. Vests and ties are super in in both the soft butch lesbian youth communities as well as the masc-leaning non-binary youth communities at the moment.
In all honesty, the soft butch look is probably the look I find most appealing when it comes to fashion aesthetics. It’s confident and punkish while at the same time oddly professional. It also draws attention to the body’s core, and helps accentuate body parts not traditionally considered to be attractive feminine wise by our culture like necks, arms, shoulders. The result is I would say a look that works in most situations. It’s a confident and “sexy” look in a way that is not commonly defined as “sexy” by male dominated society.
Want to wish all of you USAmericans good luck when the vote comes to AHCA v3 (now so bad no-one’s allowed to see it).
(Possible content warning?: Gender assignment)
This has popped up in a recent thread I’ve visited, and I was hoping someone with more knowledge than I might be able to provide a bit of clarity.
Over at the Giant in the Playground Forums, I’ve been participating in a LGBTAI+ questions and discussion thread. In this thread, the phrase “coercively assigned [Gender] at birth” happened to come up, and quickly became the dominant topic of the discussion. Multiple users have defended the use of it, but their reasoning seems a bit lacking, and in come cases has caused further questions.
What I’m wondering is, at what level does the coercion begin? I won’t outright deny there is any, because I can sort of understand that it occurs on some level or other. My confusion is simply where it occurs. The way some users have put it, the doctor who checks the box at birth is the one doing the coercion, but that doesn’t make sense to me, since said doctor is only going off of the newborn’s anatomy. They can’t exactly ask a newborn whether they’re cis or not, after all.
The only level on which I can see coercion happening, at such an early stage in the child’s life (literally the beginning of it), is the systemic/societal level. Society at large tends to favor the gender binary, and I can certainly see that checked box becoming a problem later in life, but isn’t any later coercion up to pretty much everyone but the person filling out the newborn’s paperwork? Again, I’m not trying to downplay the impact an assigned gender can have, I’m only trying to understand where these users are coming from, since they’ve largely failed to elaborate or explain in a way I can understand.
The thread in question, in case anyone would like to read it:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?526519-LGBTAI-Questions-and-Discussion-thread-IV-2b-or-not-2b
Oh, dude, can of worms here.
So, the term “CAGAB” was originally used by intersex people to differentiate their experiences from that of transgender people. Intersex people manifest multiple biological sexes, either chomosomally (meaning they’re chimeric) or regarding sex organs.
Not all intersex people are identified as such at birth or at a young age. Famously, Caster Semenya was first discovered to be intersex at the Olympic trials. Assuming and identifying as a woman her whole life, an ultrasound scan revealed that she had undescended testes and a micropenis as well as her visible vagina and breasts.
Ultimately, she decided to continue to identify as a woman and was allowed to compete as a woman in the track and field events.
However, that was a rare happy ending. Most intersex people are coerced into choosing one sex–or, more often, that sex is chosen for them–by undergoing sexual assignment surgery at as early as twelve months, despite the fact that having multiple sex manifestations is not harmful disease-wise. Some intersex people’s sex status is intentionally hidden from them until age eighteen. Some intersex people are forced to use vaginal dilators even prior to adolescence, in order to make their vagina normitavely sized.
This is often traumatic for intersex people, and they frequently develop PTSD. Some intersex people pursue sex reassignment surgery, just as transgender people often do. Intersex people frequently felt that their experience was different enough from non-intersex transgender people, due to the surgical and physical procedures they were forced to endure at a young age, that the term “Coercively Assigned Female (or Male) At Birth” was more apt that the more typical AFAB / AMAB lingo.
Okay, so, but then some trans people objected to the distinction, saying that is needlessly created a hierarchy of people whose true gender was suppressed by surgical means and people whose true gender was suppressed by psychological and sociological means. After all, many trans people also experience PTSD and even commit suicide because their identity is rejected and they are subject to abuse.
These people then also began using the term Coercively Assigned Gender At Birth. This made a lot of intersex activists angry, because they felt that non-intersex transgender people were attempting to take away their term, and intersex people are often shut out of LGBTQIA discussions, so why take away the one foothold they managed to get?
Other non-intersex transgender people try to emphasize allyship, and say that, you know, the goals of having accessible HRT and sex surgery, as well as a reduction of gender-based violence and hate crimes, are ones that transgender and intersex people share. So who gets to use the word coercive?
There isn’t, as yet, a general consensus. Simply numerically, there are fewer intersex people than other kinds of gender minorities, so there are fewer chances for their voices to be heard. I tend to err on the side of respecting the value of the only intersex people I know and save the word “coercively” when talking about intersex experiences only. But, neither intersex nor transgender people are a monolith, so it’s worth taking with a grain of salt.
Well, this has been educational. Thank you for filling me in.
also educational: Assigned Male. http://assignedmale.tumblr.com/post/98875387512/when-did-you-decide-to-be
I really like Assigned Male. Sophie makes really good points that I feel could help people understand things better. (If you have FB, I suggest following her; she’s always getting attacked by jerks and could use the support.)
Well that just took up several hours of my day.
No regrets. That was absolutely PRECIOUS <33333
I’m a big fan of Sophie. I look forward to her latest children’s book
Second that. And maybe buy some of her comics.
I second Taffy in his thanks for the education.
What Stella said.
On the positive side, California at the least has a bill moving through the system to try and end this coerced assignment at birth for intersex kids and allow a non-binary marker to be used or even for parents to request non-binary placeholder until the kid can say for themselves as well as adding a non-binary marker to driver’s licenses and official forms so non-binary folks have more options.
Both my non-binary friends and intersex friends have been excited about it so I’ve been watching it move through the houses with a lot of interest.
omgwtfbbq 🙂 🙂
although now that I think about it, having it on a driver’s license at all is kinda weird. having hair colour on there is weird too, like, hair dye exists.
I haven’t seen omgwtfbbq in so long that I forgot it existed. Thank you for reminding me. 😀
That sounds awesome. 😀 I hope it gets through okay.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!! gotta move!
As a cis person that tries to be a good ally, thank you for this lesson. 🙂 Now if I ever see anyone upset about use of CAGAB vs AGAB, I’ll know the basic history behind it.
I guess in the meantime I’ll just stick to saying “Assigned [male/female] at birth,” to try to avoid stepping on any toes.
Could have been worse. At least you aren’t trying to animate the plaid.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 2: Oh, Becky, boundaries. You’ve been really good on boundaries but you’re getting stuck in the classic “but I want to say thanks” trap of getting hyperfocused on getting someone something without checking in to see if they even want the thing at the moment.
Panel 3: And I like that Leslie rounds on her and the inappropriateness to a degree. Especially as being followed in ways she was not prepared for is likely to be a major trigger given what just happened with Robin and the fact that Leslie was deliberately going to the store to clear her head out a little.
Panel 4: Ah, the soft butch dapper look. Quite a classic.
Panel 5: I love the disparate faces. Becky’s face is less “but you’re a lesbian of course you know”, but more “you don’t…:(?” with a half beg.
And Leslie can’t keep her face straight. She knows she can tie a tie and that part of the reason she knows is likely that she went through her own soft-butch phase in the past.
Though I can feel the desire to not say anything, cause I imagine the specific skill of tying someone else’s tie likely has more connection to the time she spent married than anything else.
Panel 6: I love that these two are slipping into a mother-teenage daughter dynamic and it seems to be working for both of them.
Like, Leslie is still working on establishing all the ground rules, but I think her excitement of giving resources and offering her home is partially because she doesn’t want another young lesbian to go through what she did without family or home. Part of her wants to be a mom, especially if that is consistent from the other world and half-adopting wayward queer youth whose actual parents suck is a queer teacher tradition.
And for Becky, this is a dream. Having a mom figure back in her life. Getting to have a slightly bratty teen years that she saw in sitcoms but was never allowed to have in life thanks to her dad. Having said mom figure be a lesbian who has cool awesome secret lesbian knowledge.
She’s on cloud 9 and definitely getting over-excited, but I fully understand and respect why.
Yeah, all of this. I think Becky’s making mistakes, but she doesn’t know any better, and she’s just so happy about her life’s new direction.
Yup. Leslie is everything Becky ever wanted, and in response she is overdoing her “bratty teenage daughter” persona. I’m sure they will settle to a good dynamic.
My headcanon is that a 20 year old Leslie had a tie-wearing partner named Anna who, despite being dapper as fudge, never learnt to tie a tie.
But you are the artist. So you hate yourself?
(Lucky’s Cafe is a real thing. You’re not gonna get in trouble from like copyrights or anything, are you? I don’t know the legal details of this sort of thing.)
As someone that went through the NZ school system, which basically means a uniform and a tie from 13, I really don’t like ties and this was exacerbated when having to wear a tie at work
I now only wear ties for date nights with my wife or at weddings and funerals so I’m a bit bemused at why someone would wear a tie by choice
Well, she was married to a man once. Most women I’ve met who are or have been married to a man know how to tie a tie better than the men themselves.
Yup, reading that Thank You in Becky doing a Rick voice…