May 1st, 2020
1 May 2020 · page 983 of 1306
can you believe there was a point when i was like "i'll never write romance stuff, it's boring and dumb!"
anyway here's this page
Cast: Benjamin Thackerey, Eliza Swift, Gren
Comments (63)
Events
ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
Manchester Central
Panel 1: two very different styles of getting through a crowd!
You can't say it's serious until Mr Thackerey takes his gloves off.
I dunno. Maybe the leather makes it ultra sexy.
"I'll never write romance stuff, it's boring and dumb!"- Kate "the only single character is canonically aromantic" Ashwin
👀👆🏻
I’m not sure I would describe Mal as “single”, exactly. He doesn’t have or want any kind of romantic partnership, but he and Wolfe have a very strong platonic bond, and they basically operate as a pair.
That's not true!
Nicola is technically a lesbian, she's just married to her work.
I was going to comment that I didn't know justice was female, but remembered that [yeah, she totally is](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice")
Yeah, and she sounded quite unhappy about it in that talking of her and Harry. (Don't know whether it was more about her break-up with Polly or her mother's attitude, though.)
I'd just like to see an alloro character who isn't in romantic relationships and not unhappy about it. :)
Oy, tell me about it. Relationships are great, but the single-mindedness with which people obsess over obtaining them (and with which the media tells us we ought to obsess over obtaining them) is just bizarre. If you've got one, sure, I guess you should probably obsess over it to a certain degree. That's kind of required for maintaining it (just don't, you know, obsess too much). But if you haven't got one, why worry about it?
Unless I've forgotten something, Wolfe isn't in a romantic relationship and he seems fine with that!
Yeah, I thought about him, already after I made that comment. :) And decided that I should have written "who isn't in romantic relationships or constant search of these". :lol:
Nothing wrong with that, ofc, I love Wolfe as he is! :)
Edit: Also I want to add that I really appreciate that we see him unhappy about Mal's leaving.
what, vee, wolfe and nicola are chopped liver? :V
Ship Vee and Nicola and that solves part of that problem (Actually didn't they date for a while? So taking the comic as a whole.... :P )
Wolfe is in a relationship with everyone including the teacups.
Nicola is married to her work.
And Vee is chopped liver, yes.
Meh, romance is dumb, but dumb things can still make for a good story.
Also, never underestimate the power of shippers :P
Romance is only boring on its own. Combine it with fighting Sins, curing mind control and jumping on running trains and it becomes excellent. It's kinda like cooking... if you just eat salt it will be disgusting, but add it to a meal and it frequently improves the result.
Romance is the action derived from being "a romantic", which in turn is a character trait. (Or, if you're more about diagnosis than attribution, a condition. Perhaps a habit. I digress.)
Not everyone has it (and some people develop it, but just eventually), therefore romance doesn't belong in every aspect of every story - it would make some characters behave out of character.
Which is of course the reason some fanfics are good, and some are terrible.
We do love to discover that side of our favorite characters, though. And sometimes it can make those that are less interesting to us more endearing...
True enough. I'm actually aromantic myself, so I know what you mean. And I absolutely hate it when movies add romantic subplots to characters who didn't have them in the book. Or even worse, invent a whole new character just so they can be a love interest.
Again, it's like cooking. Salt works great if you add it to soup, but maybe don't sprinkle it over your lollipop... and if you add too much, it drowns out the other flavours.
squints is that a subtle dig at the hobbit movies? Because if so I wholeheartedly agree
Yeah, that's what I was going for.
Spoken like someone who has never eaten straight salt. It's delicious.
A pinch of salt yes. A bowl? No, and I think that might actually kill you. But that still works with the metaphor... some people like eating straight salt and some people like pure romance
...Hm, you put more thought into this than really I did. I just wanted to be funny and bare my salt crimes before the world.
I put zero thought in this. I was just somehow lucky enough to make a metaphor that can apparently fit everything
Besides, I've eaten straight salt before. Admittingly less because I liked it and more due to health reasons, but still.
She outran him in heels, I love her even more now
It’s because she has longer legs and thus a longer stride.
Spoken like someone who's never tried to walk in heels, never mind run
I mean, I've never done that either and even I know enough to mock you!
Those are both factors. She also had a head start.
And she's better at running.
I find it hilarious that she's SO MUCH better at running than he is that IN A FULL LENGTH DRESS AND HEELS she can stay a good 10-20 feet ahead of him over a gate (and actually EXTEND THE LEAD). As a sheltered academic myself, I totally believe it; it's just funny.
I have friends who can do entire theatrical shows, including kick dances and running about stage, in approximately 4-6" heels. I think it's because they want their characters to be taller, and... uh... found a way to do it.
That is also extremely impressive
Heh. For the Buffy episode where Giles was turned into a demon, Anthony Stewart Head liked his demon makeup, but said "A demon like that should have hooves, not human-style feet."
The makeup/costume people said "Well, we could do that, but you'd essentially be walking around in Very High Heels. Do you think you could learn to do that?"
ASH just smiled.
They gave him his hooves.
[https://youtu.be/IkI3zHvtZ1s](https://youtu.be/IkI3zHvtZ1s "https://youtu.be/IkI3zHvtZ1s")
Having longer legs makes you slower if your gait isn't fast enough.
It ain't what you got so much as how you use it. Even if you're, like, two stories tall, and can just kick the competition out of the way - nothing says you're inevitably going to do that.
Well, they got a room.
A compartment, technically
... to find that Mal left the train in the confusion
Chuckle
I really am liking these two together - I'm just wondering if Eliza being MtF transgender will be an issue - especially as, given the period this is set in, I'm
mostly certain there weren't any options for gender reassignment surgery - so she is probably still rather masculine under her lovely dress.
Replying to myself, because I got curious and had to look it up - first known Male-to-female operation was in 1930, Germany.
That's actually really interesting, given the historical events of the time. I don't know so much there. All my friends and relations are FtoM
1930s Germany was actually relatively LGBT friendly, until they very much were not. Consider films like "Different from the Others" (1919) or
"Viktor und Viktoria" (1933). There were pretty strong LGBT movements there, until, well, you know.
All that reactionary BS was reacting to something after all. :-(
I doubt the period it's set in will be an issue; at least half the characters in this comic have relationships and/or jobs that they wouldn't have had in real-world 1830s England.
Is gender dysphoria a usable emotion for magic? Like, if you take her gender dysphoria, intensify it, and use it to enchant the male bits, will it cause them to undergo the appropriate change?
This man is possessed by a buggerup of overthinking
There may not have been options for gender reassignment surgeries in our world during the 1800s, but the Widdershins world is different (even if it is loosely based on our world). For all we know, there's a way to reassign one's gender with magic instead of surgeries, for example. :)
There's an infinite number of things you could have said that weren't this.
yeah agreed, i don't really need this kinda discussion here thanks, it literally does not matter whatsoever since none of us are this fictional character's medical doctor
Useful notes: In a made up fiction story that doesn't have to matter if the author doesn't want it to
These two. Are so adorable. Glad the dog's there to chaperone!
Isn't Mal in there...? If so, he's probably got an even dumber, bigger grin than I do right now. There'll be much teasing in order.
Bet that's the most fun Benji's had in his life.
While everyone's commenting on the developing romantic things happening. I'd like to complement Gren on being such a well trained Bounty Hunter dog with these train jumps. She was ahead of both of the newbies.
Especially as she came into the door before Eliza who opened that door!
There's bacon in the dining car.
Now kiss.
I think there's a difference between "writing romance stuff" and having characters that develop romantic attachments with each other despite the best efforts of the author. (Stupid secondary characters ... stop trying to hit on the other secondary characters, OK? sigh)
"...can you believe there was a point when i was like "i'll never write romance stuff, it's boring and dumb!""
And yet, here we are,
oh my