I think we’ve got an official cross-town rivalry set up between them and the Lesbian She-Devils.
impish
football???
the Lesbian She-Devils would CLEARLY be a rugby team
Dafydd
Do they play rugby in Greece?
Leila
Football or football? Because for me, football involves corrupt European refs, “no visible blood on the uniform”, a checkered ball, and a lot of good footwork.
Metalhawk
And phenomenal Oscar worthy acting chops. What? He touched me? OW! MY LEG! MY LEG! I AM A WORLD CLASS ELITE ATHLETE AND HE BROKE MY LEG WITH A TOUCH! 😛
Except that a gun is not a toy. You bring it, you use it. Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
And after it rains there’s a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It’s not that the colors aren’t there
It’s just imagination they lack…
Everything just takes me back–to My Little Town–Paul Simon
zoelogical
paul simon truly is the man with a song for every occasion
Neeks
One of my favorite simon and Garfunkel songs is “so long, frank Lloyd wright,” an ode to the deceased famous architect.
one of my greatest delights is the knowledge that Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon were married for a year and when they broke up he wrote songs about their relationship and her “cold coffee eyes”
Aletheia
Dude, if bi people get invisibility, we ace peeps must get, like, mythical being status (along the lines of unicorns and dragons).
only once in a lifetime can the Mythical Ace be spotted. They range wild and free, evading capture with ease, as much of a legend as the Yeti or Bigfoot. Yet accounts of them range everywhere, from the highest ranks of office to the local grocery store.
Agatha Hendley: One time I saw an ace in the mold on my refrigerator! … Then it turned into Emilie Autumn.
The Normal Times: Pandemonium raged on the scene as Farmer Haggis reported an ace in his barn by running through town three times half-naked. It was later discovered that it was also the site of his child’s laboratory for scientific experiments, which created the confusion.
Cashier: Look, you gonna buy something or are you gonna sit there asking me dumb questions while a line of people backs up behind you?
Saki
Heh, the Ace float at the Pride I was at last WE had a unicorn theme. XD
You folks are basically myths already since NOBODY BELIEVES YOU GUYS WHEN YOU SAY YOU’RE ACE.
michael
They “just haven’t found the right one, yet”.
Crumplepunch
It’s very similar to the sort of thing it was still acceptable to say about gay people in the 80s.
Still, I don’t think ace people will ever see the same kind of widespread social awareness as the rest of the LGBT community, just because we ultimately can’t be oppressed as much. There is no way to introduce discriminatory legislation against asexuals, for example.
Crumplepunch
And also because a lot of asexuals see the concept of forming an asexual community in the same way as there is a gay community as being a pointless exercise. Nobody wants to go to an ace bar.
Li
I strongly disagree with your first comment, and your second comment is part of why I want sapphic cafes. There is an implicit sexual element to “”gay”” bars, which is a problem for a lot of reasons. We as a community need ways to socialize with and validate each other that aren’t so focused on sex and dating.
Spencer
I’m with Li. I’m really sick of queer automatically being viewed as PG-13.
Paul1963
I got into a long e-mail argument about ten years ago over that idea, but with a twist: The guy I was arguing with was insisting that everyone is really gay, that anyone who identifies as straight is in denial, and that meeting “the right person” would open their eyes and make them embrace their true (in his opinion) sexuality.
This was on an e-mail group for a convention I was involved with, and the admin told us to take the discussion offline right after I asked how suggesting that there was some magical man who would make me no longer want to be with women was any less offensive than someone suggesting that there was some magical woman that would make him no longer want to be with men.
And with that, plans for a “singles mixer” at the con were cancelled.
What’s really ironic about this exchange is that near me is a queer coffee shop. And somewhat by happenstance it’s become sort of the default place for trans and ace folks to go and hang, largely because there’s not the same predatory feeling there as there is at queer bars.
Crumplepunch
To clarify over “acceptable to say about gay people in the 80s”, I don’t mean it was actually okay to say it, I mean that, for example, it could be said on television or in a major release movie without offering public apology.
For the oppression of asexuals, I mean that we can really only be hurt with low social visibility and by people dismissing our existence. That’s nasty stuff on its own, but it would be impossible for conservative media to fabricate an equivalent controversy to the trans bathroom issue or gay marriage rights.
Speaking for myself, nobody else in my immediate social circle is ace, and I rarely if ever hear about the dating lives of my friends. I’ll make nice with anyone, but the idea that I should congregate with other ace people specifically because we aren’t interested in sex seems something like starting a community of people who aren’t interested in tennis.
Man, I wish. It would be awesome if ace people were kinda passed by for bigotry. Sadly, though, there’s all manner of awfulness that ace folks get targeted by.
Disbelief from loved ones, demands by religious leaders that we “be fruitful and multiply” regardless of our comfort levels, medical mistreatment, diminishment and disbelief of our relationships to the point of treating them as fictitious, immigration rules that can have our marriages dissolved and our immigrations denied because we are “clearly faking it”, risk of being labeled insane simply because of our orientation, all manner of negative stereotypes and negative statements (me and a friend had a good hour-long exchange going over all the ones that were off the top of our heads, also it’s worth noting that child molester is one of the stereotypes of ace people), risk of physical violence (my very allosexual gf nearly got her ass beat once because she wore an ace shirt going to the grocery store), and the big mack daddy awfulest of them all:
Sexual assault and rape. Asexuals are sexually assaulted at absolutely terrifying numbers and a lot of that has to do with the way we don’t actually pay much attention to coercion as a sexual assault tactic, nor do we check our assumptions that every romantic relationship will involve regular sexual activity of a typically heteronormative fashion.
As such, a lot of ace people get pressured by romantic partners to perform sexual activities they don’t want because “if you loved me, you’d do this” or “you don’t want to be broken, do you”.
And even that is somewhat minor compared to the dark elephant in the room, which is the sheer frequency asexuals are targeted for corrective rape by friends, loved ones, or relatives hoping to “fix” them of their “delusions” and thus make them “normal” again. Asexuals who come out typically are more targeted as a result and there’s not the same social condemnation of using sex to “correct” an asexual as there is using sex to “correct” a lesbian.
Many of these things will eventually need the creation of legal categories of protection and at the very least massive changes in social attitude and greater awareness and acceptance of ace people.
Not to mention that bigots get really creative in inventing new political awfulness to target the minority group du jour. See the bigots pitching a segregationist fit over trans bathroom use or the attempt back in the 70s to make it illegal to be gay and a teacher.
pyrpyr
Ehhh, I’m not so sure about the whole “can’t legislate against Ace” bit, if the hyperChristian contingency ever manages to get ahold of government enough (not far from that in my humble pessimistic opinion, especially as far as some states are concerned *coughNorthCarolinacough*), they can always make a rule that every single person has to get married (in a straight marriage ofc) and make babies.
Crumplepunch
Cerberus –
Thanks for your post, it was illuminating. I suppose a pitfall of never really engaging with online ace communities is never being made aware of problems I am not experiencing.
Li
Yeah, I. I’m still sorting out where my gray-aceness lies, and things were going really well with a GF until she said she wasn’t confident I was sexually interested in her, I explained that I think I might be demisexual, and she was very relieved and said she wasn’t sure she could date an asexual person and then offered to take the initiative more since I “can’t”. It was almost what I wanted to hear, but boy did it ever make me feel tremendously pressured and less safe. With more distance from it, I can’t help hearing coercion in her “offer”, that I would have been signing up to accept coercive physical contact throughout the rest of our relationship. Thankfully I followed my instincts even tho I wasn’t fully sure WHY I was so uncomfortable, and ended it.
Bah, clearly we are jibing with them when we say we’re ace. For the fortieth time… this month… THEY JUST ASSUMED WE WERE REALLY UNCREATIVE, OKAY, GEEZE!
NullSet
Cryptid
Tacos
Yep, I’m also pretty OK with being considered a mythical being.
It seems to me that they are pointedly ignoring Joyce as well.
Or at least brushing her off as best as they can.
JustCheetoDust
More like the latter. It looks like they want to minimize interactions.
That’s still nothing compared to the outright dismissal of Becky even though she’s the one to greet them instead of Joyce, which is just plain rude.
Willoughby Chase
It seems to me that Becky has become a nonperson.
David
Well, it’s like meeting an old friend who has a squirrel dry-humping his nuts, wait no, her knockers. You just do a short greeting in the hope that you’ll be able to talk under less distracting circumstances later on.
idk. like, not everything that is toxic is outright abusive, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t terrible. people can have good intentions and still be awful for you. finding that good makes it a different situation, i think. like if someone’s trying to control you, even if they think it’s for your own good, that is kind of abusive; if someone’s doing controlling things without realizing that they’re controlling because they’re screwed up, that’s another.
like i guess i feel like the point of this arc is that just because these people aren’t pointing guns at their heads doesn’t mean that they aren’t being toxic.
506 thoughts on “Landrum”
Ana Chronistic
You know the best part of church? The community!
…if you’re, like, OLD.
Ana Chronistic
and also not the daughter and friend of the daughter of someone involved in a campus shooting
Suzi
Based on Joyce’s moms reaction, I doubt it’s the “daughter of a school shooter” and more the “lesbian she-devil” thing
Reltzik
Come on.
“Lesbian she-devil?”
There’s no need to be redundant like that.
magicallady
“malignant daughter”
NoHeart6265
whoops, tautology!
Plasma Mongoose
The Lesbian She-Devils would be a great name for a football team.
magicallady
but will this rough and tumble team have what it takes to make it to the intercity championship?
LynziGraye
I suddenly want to be on a roller derby team with this name.
I mean, I’d die within 5 minutes of the start of the first match, but it would be AWESOME
magicallady
thats what practice is for! so you dont die in 5 minutes!
Reltzik
So just maimed instead?
…. hmm, now I’m imagining a team named “The Malicious Maimaries”
Neeks
Count me in for team “thanks for the maimeries”
Cerberus
Reltzik-
I think we’ve got an official cross-town rivalry set up between them and the Lesbian She-Devils.
impish
football???
the Lesbian She-Devils would CLEARLY be a rugby team
Dafydd
Do they play rugby in Greece?
Leila
Football or football? Because for me, football involves corrupt European refs, “no visible blood on the uniform”, a checkered ball, and a lot of good footwork.
Metalhawk
And phenomenal Oscar worthy acting chops. What? He touched me? OW! MY LEG! MY LEG! I AM A WORLD CLASS ELITE ATHLETE AND HE BROKE MY LEG WITH A TOUCH! 😛
Woobie
And the most fake falls in sports!
mister gray
lesbian she devil actually sounds cute.
Clif
Have you seen roller derby?
Hampsterpig
Totally calling one of my gay friends that next time I see her.
chris2315
I want to believe you’re joking, but your Gravatar makes you sound serious.
Rutee
I shipped at least two of The Flying She-Devils together. I think just two.
Paul
I think it’s a combination of the two, and they fall more along with the Brown family on perhaps Becky’s dad was justified.
Ana Chronistic
Wouldya believe I completely forgot that somehow? Damn librul media making me think loving my neighbour is some kind of GOOD thing to do!
*looks at the cover of Book 5 again as a reminder*
David
Except that a gun is not a toy. You bring it, you use it. Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
quarktime
Someone once referred to me and my lifepartner as “Militant Lesbians from Hell”. I was flattered.
NelC
I hope you both have jackets with that sewn on the back.
Willoughby Chase
It’s the oversupply of pitch forks and torches I find disturbing.
Stephen R. Bierce
And what a welcome those two are getting.
Wheelpath
So inviting the way they don’t acknowledge Becky
lokitsu
Becky? Who’s that?
(Waves to Joyce)
zoelogical
i thought invisibility was just a bi superpower but maybe they’re all colorblind and can’t see rainbows
Stephen R. Bierce
And after it rains there’s a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It’s not that the colors aren’t there
It’s just imagination they lack…
Everything just takes me back–to My Little Town–Paul Simon
zoelogical
paul simon truly is the man with a song for every occasion
Neeks
One of my favorite simon and Garfunkel songs is “so long, frank Lloyd wright,” an ode to the deceased famous architect.
zoelogical
one of my greatest delights is the knowledge that Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon were married for a year and when they broke up he wrote songs about their relationship and her “cold coffee eyes”
Aletheia
Dude, if bi people get invisibility, we ace peeps must get, like, mythical being status (along the lines of unicorns and dragons).
…actually. I’m okay with that.
zoelogical
only once in a lifetime can the Mythical Ace be spotted. They range wild and free, evading capture with ease, as much of a legend as the Yeti or Bigfoot. Yet accounts of them range everywhere, from the highest ranks of office to the local grocery store.
Agatha Hendley: One time I saw an ace in the mold on my refrigerator! … Then it turned into Emilie Autumn.
The Normal Times: Pandemonium raged on the scene as Farmer Haggis reported an ace in his barn by running through town three times half-naked. It was later discovered that it was also the site of his child’s laboratory for scientific experiments, which created the confusion.
Cashier: Look, you gonna buy something or are you gonna sit there asking me dumb questions while a line of people backs up behind you?
Saki
Heh, the Ace float at the Pride I was at last WE had a unicorn theme. XD
Foxhack
You folks are basically myths already since NOBODY BELIEVES YOU GUYS WHEN YOU SAY YOU’RE ACE.
michael
They “just haven’t found the right one, yet”.
Crumplepunch
It’s very similar to the sort of thing it was still acceptable to say about gay people in the 80s.
Still, I don’t think ace people will ever see the same kind of widespread social awareness as the rest of the LGBT community, just because we ultimately can’t be oppressed as much. There is no way to introduce discriminatory legislation against asexuals, for example.
Crumplepunch
And also because a lot of asexuals see the concept of forming an asexual community in the same way as there is a gay community as being a pointless exercise. Nobody wants to go to an ace bar.
Li
I strongly disagree with your first comment, and your second comment is part of why I want sapphic cafes. There is an implicit sexual element to “”gay”” bars, which is a problem for a lot of reasons. We as a community need ways to socialize with and validate each other that aren’t so focused on sex and dating.
Spencer
I’m with Li. I’m really sick of queer automatically being viewed as PG-13.
Paul1963
I got into a long e-mail argument about ten years ago over that idea, but with a twist: The guy I was arguing with was insisting that everyone is really gay, that anyone who identifies as straight is in denial, and that meeting “the right person” would open their eyes and make them embrace their true (in his opinion) sexuality.
This was on an e-mail group for a convention I was involved with, and the admin told us to take the discussion offline right after I asked how suggesting that there was some magical man who would make me no longer want to be with women was any less offensive than someone suggesting that there was some magical woman that would make him no longer want to be with men.
And with that, plans for a “singles mixer” at the con were cancelled.
Cerberus
What’s really ironic about this exchange is that near me is a queer coffee shop. And somewhat by happenstance it’s become sort of the default place for trans and ace folks to go and hang, largely because there’s not the same predatory feeling there as there is at queer bars.
Crumplepunch
To clarify over “acceptable to say about gay people in the 80s”, I don’t mean it was actually okay to say it, I mean that, for example, it could be said on television or in a major release movie without offering public apology.
For the oppression of asexuals, I mean that we can really only be hurt with low social visibility and by people dismissing our existence. That’s nasty stuff on its own, but it would be impossible for conservative media to fabricate an equivalent controversy to the trans bathroom issue or gay marriage rights.
Speaking for myself, nobody else in my immediate social circle is ace, and I rarely if ever hear about the dating lives of my friends. I’ll make nice with anyone, but the idea that I should congregate with other ace people specifically because we aren’t interested in sex seems something like starting a community of people who aren’t interested in tennis.
Cerberus
Crumplepunch –
CONTENT WARNING: Sexual Assault
Man, I wish. It would be awesome if ace people were kinda passed by for bigotry. Sadly, though, there’s all manner of awfulness that ace folks get targeted by.
Disbelief from loved ones, demands by religious leaders that we “be fruitful and multiply” regardless of our comfort levels, medical mistreatment, diminishment and disbelief of our relationships to the point of treating them as fictitious, immigration rules that can have our marriages dissolved and our immigrations denied because we are “clearly faking it”, risk of being labeled insane simply because of our orientation, all manner of negative stereotypes and negative statements (me and a friend had a good hour-long exchange going over all the ones that were off the top of our heads, also it’s worth noting that child molester is one of the stereotypes of ace people), risk of physical violence (my very allosexual gf nearly got her ass beat once because she wore an ace shirt going to the grocery store), and the big mack daddy awfulest of them all:
Sexual assault and rape. Asexuals are sexually assaulted at absolutely terrifying numbers and a lot of that has to do with the way we don’t actually pay much attention to coercion as a sexual assault tactic, nor do we check our assumptions that every romantic relationship will involve regular sexual activity of a typically heteronormative fashion.
As such, a lot of ace people get pressured by romantic partners to perform sexual activities they don’t want because “if you loved me, you’d do this” or “you don’t want to be broken, do you”.
And even that is somewhat minor compared to the dark elephant in the room, which is the sheer frequency asexuals are targeted for corrective rape by friends, loved ones, or relatives hoping to “fix” them of their “delusions” and thus make them “normal” again. Asexuals who come out typically are more targeted as a result and there’s not the same social condemnation of using sex to “correct” an asexual as there is using sex to “correct” a lesbian.
Many of these things will eventually need the creation of legal categories of protection and at the very least massive changes in social attitude and greater awareness and acceptance of ace people.
Not to mention that bigots get really creative in inventing new political awfulness to target the minority group du jour. See the bigots pitching a segregationist fit over trans bathroom use or the attempt back in the 70s to make it illegal to be gay and a teacher.
pyrpyr
Ehhh, I’m not so sure about the whole “can’t legislate against Ace” bit, if the hyperChristian contingency ever manages to get ahold of government enough (not far from that in my humble pessimistic opinion, especially as far as some states are concerned *coughNorthCarolinacough*), they can always make a rule that every single person has to get married (in a straight marriage ofc) and make babies.
Crumplepunch
Cerberus –
Thanks for your post, it was illuminating. I suppose a pitfall of never really engaging with online ace communities is never being made aware of problems I am not experiencing.
Li
Yeah, I. I’m still sorting out where my gray-aceness lies, and things were going really well with a GF until she said she wasn’t confident I was sexually interested in her, I explained that I think I might be demisexual, and she was very relieved and said she wasn’t sure she could date an asexual person and then offered to take the initiative more since I “can’t”. It was almost what I wanted to hear, but boy did it ever make me feel tremendously pressured and less safe. With more distance from it, I can’t help hearing coercion in her “offer”, that I would have been signing up to accept coercive physical contact throughout the rest of our relationship. Thankfully I followed my instincts even tho I wasn’t fully sure WHY I was so uncomfortable, and ended it.
Cerberus
Bah, clearly we are jibing with them when we say we’re ace. For the fortieth time… this month… THEY JUST ASSUMED WE WERE REALLY UNCREATIVE, OKAY, GEEZE!
NullSet
Cryptid
Tacos
Yep, I’m also pretty OK with being considered a mythical being.
Needfuldoer
But this is La Porte, not Pleasantville…
Bicycle Bill
It seems to me that they are pointedly ignoring Joyce as well.
Or at least brushing her off as best as they can.
JustCheetoDust
More like the latter. It looks like they want to minimize interactions.
That’s still nothing compared to the outright dismissal of Becky even though she’s the one to greet them instead of Joyce, which is just plain rude.
Willoughby Chase
It seems to me that Becky has become a nonperson.
David
Well, it’s like meeting an old friend who has a squirrel dry-humping his nuts, wait no, her knockers. You just do a short greeting in the hope that you’ll be able to talk under less distracting circumstances later on.
Bagfaceman
It’s honestly a better welcome than I expected
Dalrint
Maybe this won’t be a horrible experience? Just an awkward one where everyone keeps having to leave immediately.
Dana
Oh, look at the time! Can’t read the comments tonight.
Dalrint
I CAN HOPE PEOPLE AREN’T COMPLETELY TERRIBLE!
I mean, it’s a vain hope but…
Clif
Admit it. It’s the slow motion train wreck that keeps bringing you back.
Just like the rest of us.
Dalrint
It is. And yet.
I don’t know. I keep wishing some little part of the world Joyce came from will turn out to be anywhere near as nice as she believed it was.
zoelogical
she loved it so much i just kind of wish it was capable of loving her back the way she needs it to
Dalrint
Yes. Basically. Except that feels vaguely like a domestic abuse problem.
So I kind of want her to find one good thing but then run back to college and get far away from it to grow as a person.
Damn that still feels like a domestic abuse analogy.
zoelogical
idk. like, not everything that is toxic is outright abusive, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t terrible. people can have good intentions and still be awful for you. finding that good makes it a different situation, i think. like if someone’s trying to control you, even if they think it’s for your own good, that is kind of abusive; if someone’s doing controlling things without realizing that they’re controlling because they’re screwed up, that’s another.
like i guess i feel like the point of this arc is that just because these people aren’t pointing guns at their heads doesn’t mean that they aren’t being toxic.
zoelogical
i would think of a word that isn’t Toxic but it’s late
RIP12081990
Well the later stages of Billie and Ruth were not abusive still horribly toxic though
Needfuldoer
Jocelyne’s been pretty cool so far, Hank’s certainly trying, and of course she’s still got Becky…
David
La Porte, Indiana: the home of Belle Gunness.
Jack
I feel like that’d still be horrible for Joyce. For someone like her, a church community is a family.
Finding out your family is peacing out on you is pretty rough.
gkheyf
You think the cheese fun is funny, but maybe it’s not…
gkheyf