Yes, I live in a little wooden box, next to the dog’s urn. :xo
Charles Spencer
I couldn’t keep Dog and Cat inside. They’re both scattered out back where they can continue to interact with each other and the squirrels. The previous Cat is in the shrubs from which he would launch his attacks on our ankles.
Ahh, I read that as “replacement car til I saw your comment, cat does make a lot more sense in this context (seeing as a replacement car is pretty much just a matter of practicality and usually not terribly sentimental)
Not necessarily. I still have my first car, and its replacement has since been replaced. I dailied it for ten years, then needed a better commuter but just couldn’t part with it. (Pro tip: don’t try to replace the car your grandfather found and helped you fix soon after he dies.) Six years later, that car needed a bunch of expensive suspension work I couldn’t do, so it got replaced. (Not much sentiment there though, that one was just a machine.)
I’m still sentimental about my (former) ’69 Camaro, which I drove from the time I learned to drive in the late ’70s until 2001 or so when I absolutely could not afford to keep it on the road any more. Definite emotional attachment to that car.
Geneseepaws
Cat. Car. Both three letters, both get to you better/worse the longer you have them.
Some Ed
For the first couple of decades of my life, my father’s first car’s remains were dragged along with us through at least three moves. (There were a couple of shorter moves very early on I was too young to remember that were close enough together that it’s conceivable it may not have been dragged from one to the other necessarily. It’s also conceivable it could’ve spent that time in my grandmother’s automotive graveyard / front yard.)
Eventually, one of my brothers had a friend over, and they were shown the crap my father kept in our garage which precluded us from using it for any of our current cars.
“Holy crap, is that a Triumph TR2?!?”
“It doesn’t run. It literally doesn’t have an engine.”
“It *is* a Triumph TR2! I totally know a guy who’d pay a lot for one of these!”
“Did you not hear? The engine dropped out 20 years ago, after my father accidentally flew his car…”
“Does not matter. This guy is crazy like that. He has just about all of the Triumph models *except* this one. So long as the body’s intact, he’ll buy it.”
“The seats have rotted out.”
“It’s 30 years old. Of course the seats are rotted out. Does not matter.”
So eventually, it lived again, despite having been totaled by the insurance company. Also kind of hilariously, all the time my father had spent going to antique car shows looking for a collector who would be interested in buying and refurbishing it wasn’t needed. (It was probably still the pragmatic approach, though.)
Leslie officially being Becky’s new mom? 6 seasons and a movie, please.
Helps that I’ve always imagined Leslie with the voice of Pearl from Steven Universe, and Becky with that of Amethyst. Like, even before they started significantly interacting, I was doing that.
I honestly think that Leslie’s attempt to mom Becky is having the opposite effect she’s intending. It’s a nice bit of writing but Becky neither wants or needs a new mother. She’s 18 and HAS a mother who raised her.
What Becky wants/wanted from Leslie was a big lesbian sister who could be her role model.
They want very different things and this inspired Becky to leave Leslie.
How would Leslie’s actions be different if she was being Becky’s big lesbian sister?
Khyrin
Less trying to act responsible. More playful.
HMH
Like, “yes, Leslie, I am very fucking aware of all the parts of my identity that make my life suck. That’s kinda what I’ve been dealing with. But I’m really sheltered, so like, maybe you could introduce me to some of the parts of my identity that are GOOD, actually?”
The issue being, of course, Leslie hasn’t actually done much to seek those parts of life, herself, due to her sense of repression and inadequacy. If anything, Becky’ll end up helping her fix that.
C.T Phipps
Hell, Becky got Leslie laid.
BBCC
When a big sister is as much older as Leslie is to Becky, “less acting responsible” is not usually how it works out in my experience.
C.T Phipps
I think Leslie is only like 26 or so.
Needfuldoer
I would have guessed early thirties, since she’s teaching her own class. 26 would only be a couple years out of college.
Leslie can be Becky’s cool lesbian aunt, and Hank can be her new stepdad.
Well aware, it just seems improbable that she’d be teaching classes already.
Some Ed
Not saying it’s likely for a teacher to have their own class at that age, but I did have a professor who was 26. Admittedly, it was very clear it was their first their own class.
I also had several lecture TAs who were about as in charge of their class as what we’ve seen Leslie being. (At least, I do not recall seeing anything indicating that Leslie doesn’t have a professor she reports to that isn’t the department head.)
As I’m thinking about it, only one of my classes my freshman year wasn’t taught by a lecture TA, with no actual sign of a professor if you didn’t look for them. (As in, I don’t recall the syllabus or anything saying who the professor was. You could find out by talking with your academic advisor regarding a serious issue with your lecture TA, but apart from that, you dealt entirely with TAs.) That one class where we actually got to see the professor was actually taught by the undergraduate department head, because he felt like teaching a class that semester.
One of those 26 year old lecture TAs was very clear about his graduating that semester. We even had one day of class cancelled (we were told about this the prior session) because it was right after his defense, and it didn’t matter whether he passed or failed, he wasn’t going to be up for teaching that day. (He passed, which is generally what happens when you get your thesis defense. Apparently, failing a thesis defense is generally seen as a failure of ones advisor, as they’re supposed to not let you schedule it until you’re ready.)
KJ
I….I’m Leslie’s age dear god
Dorje Sylas
I don’t see anything unlikely about a 26 year old teaching what seems to be a 1 credit elective filler course.
BS/A at 23 or 24.
2 year Masters program, 25 or 26
Now a new PhD student, teaching a filler course.
BBCC
It’s not a filler elective. It’s an intro course for the gender studies major. Some take it as an elective or an English credit, but it’s also an intro to a major. Roz majors in Gender Studies.
BBCC
26 is still 8 years older than Becky.
Valerie
I’m ten years older than my siblings and I’m kind of a mini-mom. If Leslie is 26, that’s probably a very similar situation. Older siblings step into that role a lot, especially when the actual parents are not good parents.
ischemgeek
Yeah this. I ended up being more parent than older sibling to my youngest siblings. Unsure if due to age difference or the fact that my parents weren’t great.
Miri
I’m 8 years older than my little sister and also kinda a third parent to her. That thing where I occasionally changed her nappies, looked after her independently since she was in a pushchair still, and had a lot more agency and independence than her, more life experiences and knowledge, etc.
Now that she’s in her mid 20s occasionally I turn to her for emotional support/advice about things I know she knows about but it was only a few years ago she was telling me how she felt bad because I support her but not so much the other way around. I have been consciously working on not thinking of her as a young teen though, and recognising that she is an adult with agency.
C.T Phipps
I may be biased because my wife is 8 years older than me.
BBCC
I get that, but dating is a very different relationship from having a pseudo-sibling/pseudo-mom who’s 8 years older, like Leslie.
Miri
Presumably you met when you were both adults, and she doesn’t need to do mental adjustments to remind herself that you are actually an adult, though? Coz when I was 18, I was 18: an adult. When my sister was 18, she may have been technically an adult, but in my head she was more like 13, at the oldest, possibly 15. (This is despite her being ludicrously intelligent.)
At 18, most people are still dependent on their parents financially. Here (the UK), most students need parents to cosign their lease agreements and act as their guarantors, for instance, when they go to university. They may or may not be able to cook, budget, know how to drink responsibly (Becky can’t drink legally yet). They probably haven’t had a full-time job, or if they have done it will probably have been a holiday job.
At 26, Leslie has been homeless, possibly both married and divorced, has finished her education and has a career… She’s independent and has enough life experience that she should generally feel reasonably in control of her own life. She is only answerable to others to the extent that she chooses to be.
There is a big imbalance in the power and agency they both have over their own lives.
C.T Phipps
I’m not saying that they should date (gross) but I’m saying that 8 years means that Leslie is not and should not try to be a mom figure. Because she isn’t that more mature.
Miri
I meant more “siblings with an age gap can have a parents-type relationship, and they are at different enough stages in life that their adopted sibling relationship may mimic that (even though two consenting adults with an 8 year age gap who meet when they’re a bit older and have less of a gulf in terms of agency, confidence and life experiences can have an equal, loving relationship without any power imbalances arising from the age gap).” Sorry – was very tired and don’t think I said that clearly.
I’m not sure about that. Becky’s early interactions with Leslie seemed very much in a daughter mode rather than a sister one. That could have changed, of course.
I was going to say “most likely”, but then I remembered she was homeschooled. Hold on… Indiana has easy homeschooling, and schooling to 18 by default. Since she’s Joyce’s peer, they’re probably the same age.
Depending on when her birthday falls, she could be on the older side of her grade because she had to wait a year to start schooling. (In my state, August was the cutoff.)
Aw, Little Sister(I mean Becky and not Joyce), I think you have cPTSD as well as PTSD. That ability to compartmentalize and keep moving has served you well. But little sister the compound interest when that bill comes due is going knock you over somewhere around 30 if you just keep throwing stuff on the pile.
I made it to age 34 before the bill showed up. Long enough to build a substantial life that I could then accidentally completely fuck up by coming out.
I remember trying to calculate the speed that my mom hit the ground on the way to her funeral. No later meltdown either, she was a very mentally ill woman by the time of her death.
No disrespect intended, but the phrase “trying to calculate the speed (she) hit the ground” makes me start to imagine a whole bunch of really weird ways your mother may have met her end.
Well there are a number of ways that can happen, my mother died from brain damage when she fell from breaking her hip. She had no visible head injuries so the working hypothesis is she died from her brain sloshing around inside her skull when her shoulder hit the floor. YMMV
CrazyJ
It was from jumping out of a 15 story window, nothing particularly exotic.
Miri
Oof. I’m sorry she reached that point and either wasn’t helped or couldn’t accept it for whatever reason.
Robin offered an education and an actual bed, in exchange for work which didn’t make Becky feel like a moocher. I don’t remember Becky having a problem with being mommed
HMH
Becky can be a little mommed, as a treat, but she also has Adult Shit to Deal With to get her life together, and she’s full-bore into the high of initial independence. Reclaiming her life is sort of how she is coping with how awful her life is. Doesn’t mean she isn’t traumatized, it’s just a way some people deal.
C.T Phipps
Becky is all about her new and exciting life. She’s very much an extrovert post-escape from Homophobialand.
Leslie seems to have just managed to survive hers so she’s a lot more cautious and withdrawn.
Just alittle clash of personalities.
thejeff
She explicitly worried about overstaying her welcome with Leslie right before she met Robin, not about her independence.
Even the “fight” they had afterwards was a mother/daughter bit.
177 thoughts on “Resolved”
Ana Chronistic
“I mean, if you knew my dad, you’d be all NBD too tho”
deathjavu
Leslie does at least know how much her own dad sucks, so she probably understands pretty well.
Van Jealous
I AM that cat!
Jamie
Did you at least get a nice funeral…?
Van Jealous
Yes, I live in a little wooden box, next to the dog’s urn. :xo
Charles Spencer
I couldn’t keep Dog and Cat inside. They’re both scattered out back where they can continue to interact with each other and the squirrels. The previous Cat is in the shrubs from which he would launch his attacks on our ankles.
ElectricBlue
Ahh, I read that as “replacement car til I saw your comment, cat does make a lot more sense in this context (seeing as a replacement car is pretty much just a matter of practicality and usually not terribly sentimental)
Needfuldoer
Not necessarily. I still have my first car, and its replacement has since been replaced. I dailied it for ten years, then needed a better commuter but just couldn’t part with it. (Pro tip: don’t try to replace the car your grandfather found and helped you fix soon after he dies.) Six years later, that car needed a bunch of expensive suspension work I couldn’t do, so it got replaced. (Not much sentiment there though, that one was just a machine.)
Ray Radlein
I’m still sentimental about my (former) ’69 Camaro, which I drove from the time I learned to drive in the late ’70s until 2001 or so when I absolutely could not afford to keep it on the road any more. Definite emotional attachment to that car.
Geneseepaws
Cat. Car. Both three letters, both get to you better/worse the longer you have them.
Some Ed
For the first couple of decades of my life, my father’s first car’s remains were dragged along with us through at least three moves. (There were a couple of shorter moves very early on I was too young to remember that were close enough together that it’s conceivable it may not have been dragged from one to the other necessarily. It’s also conceivable it could’ve spent that time in my grandmother’s automotive graveyard / front yard.)
Eventually, one of my brothers had a friend over, and they were shown the crap my father kept in our garage which precluded us from using it for any of our current cars.
“Holy crap, is that a Triumph TR2?!?”
“It doesn’t run. It literally doesn’t have an engine.”
“It *is* a Triumph TR2! I totally know a guy who’d pay a lot for one of these!”
“Did you not hear? The engine dropped out 20 years ago, after my father accidentally flew his car…”
“Does not matter. This guy is crazy like that. He has just about all of the Triumph models *except* this one. So long as the body’s intact, he’ll buy it.”
“The seats have rotted out.”
“It’s 30 years old. Of course the seats are rotted out. Does not matter.”
So eventually, it lived again, despite having been totaled by the insurance company. Also kind of hilariously, all the time my father had spent going to antique car shows looking for a collector who would be interested in buying and refurbishing it wasn’t needed. (It was probably still the pragmatic approach, though.)
meanderling
Aw Becks. I sure hope you end up ok.
Doctor_Who
Leslie officially being Becky’s new mom? 6 seasons and a movie, please.
Helps that I’ve always imagined Leslie with the voice of Pearl from Steven Universe, and Becky with that of Amethyst. Like, even before they started significantly interacting, I was doing that.
C.T Phipps
I honestly think that Leslie’s attempt to mom Becky is having the opposite effect she’s intending. It’s a nice bit of writing but Becky neither wants or needs a new mother. She’s 18 and HAS a mother who raised her.
What Becky wants/wanted from Leslie was a big lesbian sister who could be her role model.
They want very different things and this inspired Becky to leave Leslie.
NelC
How would Leslie’s actions be different if she was being Becky’s big lesbian sister?
Khyrin
Less trying to act responsible. More playful.
HMH
Like, “yes, Leslie, I am very fucking aware of all the parts of my identity that make my life suck. That’s kinda what I’ve been dealing with. But I’m really sheltered, so like, maybe you could introduce me to some of the parts of my identity that are GOOD, actually?”
The issue being, of course, Leslie hasn’t actually done much to seek those parts of life, herself, due to her sense of repression and inadequacy. If anything, Becky’ll end up helping her fix that.
C.T Phipps
Hell, Becky got Leslie laid.
BBCC
When a big sister is as much older as Leslie is to Becky, “less acting responsible” is not usually how it works out in my experience.
C.T Phipps
I think Leslie is only like 26 or so.
Needfuldoer
I would have guessed early thirties, since she’s teaching her own class. 26 would only be a couple years out of college.
Leslie can be Becky’s cool lesbian aunt, and Hank can be her new stepdad.
BBCC
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/scaredmess/
Word of Leslie is 26.
Needfuldoer
Well aware, it just seems improbable that she’d be teaching classes already.
Some Ed
Not saying it’s likely for a teacher to have their own class at that age, but I did have a professor who was 26. Admittedly, it was very clear it was their first their own class.
I also had several lecture TAs who were about as in charge of their class as what we’ve seen Leslie being. (At least, I do not recall seeing anything indicating that Leslie doesn’t have a professor she reports to that isn’t the department head.)
As I’m thinking about it, only one of my classes my freshman year wasn’t taught by a lecture TA, with no actual sign of a professor if you didn’t look for them. (As in, I don’t recall the syllabus or anything saying who the professor was. You could find out by talking with your academic advisor regarding a serious issue with your lecture TA, but apart from that, you dealt entirely with TAs.) That one class where we actually got to see the professor was actually taught by the undergraduate department head, because he felt like teaching a class that semester.
One of those 26 year old lecture TAs was very clear about his graduating that semester. We even had one day of class cancelled (we were told about this the prior session) because it was right after his defense, and it didn’t matter whether he passed or failed, he wasn’t going to be up for teaching that day. (He passed, which is generally what happens when you get your thesis defense. Apparently, failing a thesis defense is generally seen as a failure of ones advisor, as they’re supposed to not let you schedule it until you’re ready.)
KJ
I….I’m Leslie’s age dear god
Dorje Sylas
I don’t see anything unlikely about a 26 year old teaching what seems to be a 1 credit elective filler course.
BS/A at 23 or 24.
2 year Masters program, 25 or 26
Now a new PhD student, teaching a filler course.
BBCC
It’s not a filler elective. It’s an intro course for the gender studies major. Some take it as an elective or an English credit, but it’s also an intro to a major. Roz majors in Gender Studies.
BBCC
26 is still 8 years older than Becky.
Valerie
I’m ten years older than my siblings and I’m kind of a mini-mom. If Leslie is 26, that’s probably a very similar situation. Older siblings step into that role a lot, especially when the actual parents are not good parents.
ischemgeek
Yeah this. I ended up being more parent than older sibling to my youngest siblings. Unsure if due to age difference or the fact that my parents weren’t great.
Miri
I’m 8 years older than my little sister and also kinda a third parent to her. That thing where I occasionally changed her nappies, looked after her independently since she was in a pushchair still, and had a lot more agency and independence than her, more life experiences and knowledge, etc.
Now that she’s in her mid 20s occasionally I turn to her for emotional support/advice about things I know she knows about but it was only a few years ago she was telling me how she felt bad because I support her but not so much the other way around. I have been consciously working on not thinking of her as a young teen though, and recognising that she is an adult with agency.
C.T Phipps
I may be biased because my wife is 8 years older than me.
BBCC
I get that, but dating is a very different relationship from having a pseudo-sibling/pseudo-mom who’s 8 years older, like Leslie.
Miri
Presumably you met when you were both adults, and she doesn’t need to do mental adjustments to remind herself that you are actually an adult, though? Coz when I was 18, I was 18: an adult. When my sister was 18, she may have been technically an adult, but in my head she was more like 13, at the oldest, possibly 15. (This is despite her being ludicrously intelligent.)
At 18, most people are still dependent on their parents financially. Here (the UK), most students need parents to cosign their lease agreements and act as their guarantors, for instance, when they go to university. They may or may not be able to cook, budget, know how to drink responsibly (Becky can’t drink legally yet). They probably haven’t had a full-time job, or if they have done it will probably have been a holiday job.
At 26, Leslie has been homeless, possibly both married and divorced, has finished her education and has a career… She’s independent and has enough life experience that she should generally feel reasonably in control of her own life. She is only answerable to others to the extent that she chooses to be.
There is a big imbalance in the power and agency they both have over their own lives.
C.T Phipps
I’m not saying that they should date (gross) but I’m saying that 8 years means that Leslie is not and should not try to be a mom figure. Because she isn’t that more mature.
Miri
I meant more “siblings with an age gap can have a parents-type relationship, and they are at different enough stages in life that their adopted sibling relationship may mimic that (even though two consenting adults with an 8 year age gap who meet when they’re a bit older and have less of a gulf in terms of agency, confidence and life experiences can have an equal, loving relationship without any power imbalances arising from the age gap).” Sorry – was very tired and don’t think I said that clearly.
thejeff
I’m not sure about that. Becky’s early interactions with Leslie seemed very much in a daughter mode rather than a sister one. That could have changed, of course.
Cheesy1
“. . . did you just call me a ‘cat lady’?”
Mr. Random
I mean at this point, I think shock and reservation is kinda a normal reaction.
Regalli
Thank you Leslie, you are everything I want in this moment for Becky.
Mra
Is Becky 18 yet?
Stephen Bierce
Legal emancipation can be imposed earlier than that. But Becky probably is given she was at college before she “moved out”.
SeanR
I was going to say “most likely”, but then I remembered she was homeschooled. Hold on… Indiana has easy homeschooling, and schooling to 18 by default. Since she’s Joyce’s peer, they’re probably the same age.
Needfuldoer
Depending on when her birthday falls, she could be on the older side of her grade because she had to wait a year to start schooling. (In my state, August was the cutoff.)
BBCC
Yes. When she ran away the first time, she said ‘I’m 18, my dad can go screw’.
Bunny
Aw, Little Sister(I mean Becky and not Joyce), I think you have cPTSD as well as PTSD. That ability to compartmentalize and keep moving has served you well. But little sister the compound interest when that bill comes due is going knock you over somewhere around 30 if you just keep throwing stuff on the pile.
Hephaistos Fnord
Yup. That’s how I became abusive.
Valerie
I hope you’ve gotten the proper help to try to overcome that. I’m proud of you for realizing it.
JetstreamGW
Little sister you say?
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/shera-and-the-princesses-of-power/images/6/6d/She-Ra_S5_Catra_Under_HP%27s_Control.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20200516011126
Jess
TOO SOON
FaerwenofValenwood
Turning 29 in 3 days and BIG OOF this comment is too real
hallucigenia
I made it to age 34 before the bill showed up. Long enough to build a substantial life that I could then accidentally completely fuck up by coming out.
Sirksome
I mean Ross was kind of just as bad as Blaine so I’m not missing him and I don’t blame Becky for not feeling too bad about it.
Hephaistos Fnord
This is exactly how I reacted to my mom dying for very similar reasons.
The meltdown didn’t come for another 10 years.
CrazyJ
I remember trying to calculate the speed that my mom hit the ground on the way to her funeral. No later meltdown either, she was a very mentally ill woman by the time of her death.
Hazel
After ten years you say? *looks at calendar* Woo, still got another couple of years!
Bicycle Bill
No disrespect intended, but the phrase “trying to calculate the speed (she) hit the ground” makes me start to imagine a whole bunch of really weird ways your mother may have met her end.
Opus the Poet
Well there are a number of ways that can happen, my mother died from brain damage when she fell from breaking her hip. She had no visible head injuries so the working hypothesis is she died from her brain sloshing around inside her skull when her shoulder hit the floor. YMMV
CrazyJ
It was from jumping out of a 15 story window, nothing particularly exotic.
Miri
Oof. I’m sorry she reached that point and either wasn’t helped or couldn’t accept it for whatever reason.
Inscrutablejane
I’m kinda right there with my dad too, even though he hasn’t passed yet (he’s at the palliative care stage).
OtterBoy1
How old is Becky? Does she need a legal guardian? Wait she’s gotta be over 18 I’ve answered my own question
Fart Captor
Legally requiring a guardian and needing/wanting a mom are separate issues
Becky can adopt as many moms as she wants when she’s ready
C.T Phipps
Leslie tried to mom Becky. The result was Becky actively moving out and making a deal with Not Sarah Palin in order to achieve independence.
There may be some differing expectations on what one thinks the other needs.
Fart Captor
Robin offered an education and an actual bed, in exchange for work which didn’t make Becky feel like a moocher. I don’t remember Becky having a problem with being mommed
HMH
Becky can be a little mommed, as a treat, but she also has Adult Shit to Deal With to get her life together, and she’s full-bore into the high of initial independence. Reclaiming her life is sort of how she is coping with how awful her life is. Doesn’t mean she isn’t traumatized, it’s just a way some people deal.
C.T Phipps
Becky is all about her new and exciting life. She’s very much an extrovert post-escape from Homophobialand.
Leslie seems to have just managed to survive hers so she’s a lot more cautious and withdrawn.
Just alittle clash of personalities.
thejeff
She explicitly worried about overstaying her welcome with Leslie right before she met Robin, not about her independence.
Even the “fight” they had afterwards was a mother/daughter bit.
KJ
I don’t think Robin can rap like Sarah Palin
Fart Captor
Leslie SHOULD be squeeing over meeting Becky’s adorable girlfriend but NOOOO she has to deal with drama and bad times because dads ruin everything
King Daniel
…huh, this is the first time Dina and Leslie have encountered each other. Took only about ten years, I suppose.
Deanatay
Wha? No, Dina and Leslie have met before.
Right??
Huh, I guess not.
King Daniel
Now I’m wondering which other significant characters have never happened to encounter each other yet.