2792 Like Tears In the Rain.

by

Patreon
Subscribestar
Comic Vote
Reddit
Wiki
Presents List
Shirts & such.
Ko-Fi.

One of the problems with having a staggered release schedule is that scenes that play better when read all at once lose some of their impact when released over the course of a few days, or even weeks. This entire interaction flows better when it’s read all in a row. It’s not even finished at this point, but this page is the emotional high point where Jess recalls the beginning of her relationship with Brooksie in the context of her relationship with Evrina. This is probably the longest Jess has ever been shown being who she really is at her core; a very smart person who struggles when she feels deeply connected to someone. She’s unable to get out of her own way, and has a hard time reading the other party. There have been a few times when Jess was unable to read Jo properly and Jo had to gently scold her. On top of that Evrina shift gears quickly, misunderstands, and is also confused about what she wants. She’s a much more instinctual creature than Jess and is much more likely to seemingly exhibit anger, when really aggression is more like her baseline. So they’re struggling to get to the same place, and one might wonder why they want to in the first place, and I would say that even the remnants of love can draw you to someone who you feel has wronged you. They have a kind of resonance that is different from Jess and Jo, but it’s no less valid. There’s layers and layers of baggage these two are lugging along with them that makes things hard to leave cut and dried.
Jess does a lot of things based on what she thinks the actions of the other people will be. It’s a mode of thinking that all humans fall prey to, but especially smart ones. They become so used to getting to a conclusion faster than everyone else that they forget to actually give other people a choice. On some level it stems from a desire to maintain control. Of all the characters Jess and Thomas exhibit this behavior the most. It’s probably part of why Jess likes Thomas, because she senses he is like her and she loves herself, while Thomas also senses it in Jess but it is unattractive because he hates himself. It also makes Jo somewhat incorrect when apprising why Jess doesn’t like John. Jess doesn’t like the person she pretends to be and that’s what John reminds her of. Even though on some level that’s an unfair appraisal too.
This entire argument is very much an echo of several arguments I had with various partners over the years. Not so much in content, but in flow and tone. The entire time I’ve been making it I’ve accidentally called on things I really try not to think about anymore. It’s not as true now as it was 20 years ago, but I certainly had an almost psychotic need to be correct. Not right. Correct. It’s a trait Jess has, although I think I dialed it back in her a lot more than it existed in me.
Evrina is more like Reggie. Confident in herself to the point that she almost never gives thought to how her actions affect others. Which may well be why they didn’t get along. Much like how identical poles of a magnet will repel they push away from each other. That’s not to say that they can’t become friends. people aren’t magnets. It’s just that there’s an impediment. I’ve shown at least once that Jess likes confidence. In spite of her timid nature Jo boldly made the first real move in their relationship. It’s not hard to imagine Evrina slapping Jess on the ass and telling her she looks good in her jeans. While some people would bristle, Jess would probably ask for seconds. These two clearly left an impression on each other, and now they have to deal with that in spite of previously having to expectation of ever seeing each other again.
Sometimes you open a door and find your past looking back at you in a situation that seems so coincidental that it strains credulity. It has happened to me so often at this point that coincidences seem more like a feature than a bug. Sometimes you meet a new friend online only to find out that they’ve been best friends with an ex of yours almost since the time you broke up with them. I’ve always tried to maintain that life has no inherent narrative structure, but sometimes…

Anyway, it is what it is and you can choose to believe that what I write is possible, or not. If more successful people can be popular while maintaining that a dumpy college student can be a superhero, or a robot can be gay, I’m barely even rocking the boat with “sometimes people have strange arguments.” I’ve lived that, but I’ve never met a gay robot. That I know of. Although I would like to. Honestly the robot’s sexuality really isn’t important. I’d just like to have a robot as a friend.

Putting all that aside, allow me to remind you that you can support my work via the links above, or around, the page in various places. That would be nice. You could also probably hinder my work if you wanted to as well, but that would be not nice. Be nice. I have enough struggles already, thank you. If you want my work to continue I hope to see you on Wednesday. If not, I hope you fare well wherever you fare in spite of that.

31 Comments

Lesbians are like a game of Minesweeper. They gotta play the field to find all the empty spots so that they can mark the mines. Use the empty space to find the filled in space.

Mines being other lesbians I guess. That you want to findThisAnalogyIsWeird.

Hee hee. Oh, she’s got it bad for Jo, poor girl.
This is weirdly sweet. Hope it works out for them… eventually

“Why do you even care (that I dumped you to pursue a crush I never actually pursued because of my own hangups, thus hurting a partner who cared deeply about me for absolutely no gain to anyone)?”

Gee, Evrina, I dunno, why do YOU think she’s frustrated?

Evrina annoys me. I’m siding with Jess whole-heartedly here and I don’t even like her much (and maybe I don’t like her because I’m actually similar to her, to keep up the theme of the blogpost, and I don’t like that side of myself–who knows!). Jess pushed buttons inside the diner but Evrina started it; she’s clearly hung up on Jess, and Ramon, but doesn’t want to deal with either of those issues, nor does she make any attempt to avoid or get away from it and in fact actively seems to put herself into a position of basically blue-balling herself (excuse me, I don’t know the female equivalent of that term). It’s like working in a pet store when pet hair makes you sick, so you go in every day, get sick and miserable, and complain about it, and get mad at the animals, but you never try to find a new job or even just some Benadryl.

Evrina’s refusal to pursue Ramon may feel silly in a vacuum but it’s possible she has a history of people trying to convince her being attracted to women was a phase or a mistake and now she can’t date a man with whom she has strong chemistry or else so many close minded people in her life will do everything they can to gloat and chortle about how right they were all along.

The issue there is bothering to give a shit what those people think and thus allowing oneself to be limited by them.

To add on, it helps to adopt a mindset that life is not a Young Adult novel where the protagonist is Always Correct and Unconditionally Good, and anyone that is Not 10000% Nice is a Big Evil Meanie Poo Poo head.

Sometimes horrid people can be right on the mark even if for the wrong reasons or motivations.

Sometimes a person that has the best of intentions can have them go horribly awry.

That’s life.

I actually like both of these characters, and I think getting this sorted will be good for both of them.

I once dated (and knew for a quite long time before and after) a girl a lot like Evrina, except she was a lesbian who couldn’t accept it as a result of growing up with bible thumping parents. As a result she hopped from man to man in an attempt to find the “right one” – and in the process found a large number of bad ones.

If it’s any consolation I promise I was re-reading Friday’s comic even last night at like 11 pm so this story is fresh for me

Love how the rainshower has progressed visually.

I’m not going to dig into most of your lengthy character analysis (but thank you for it!), but I do want to say – and I recommend this to fellow readers – that every once in a while I read a big chunk of the comic all at once, excactly because of the effect you mention at the top. I do this with a few comics I follow, and find them indeed much better when experienced more like a graphic novel than a webcomic, if you know what I mean.

I’ll probably have to re-read this little argument when it’s complete, but I’m really enjoying this drama. The build up of rain is also a nice touch

God Jess reminds me of a friend I used to have. Kinda weird, but effortlessly attractive and just, kinda, floating by on that for most of their life. My friend was even bi. Anyway, Jackie, when this conversation is done, could I recommend either posting it as one long finished panel after it’s done, or posting said long panel on your Patreon/other pay sites to be read as it was intended? I feel like that would be a nice little bonus since, as you said, these panels feel more connected than usual and really should flow better if all read at once.

Wow, thank you for the in-depth character analysis! I mean, it’s really obvious that you’ve put a lot of thought into these characters over the years, but it’s great to see that laid out in an essay, too. Outstanding.

i just want to add that i’ve been thinking about getting an “everyone is raindrops” tattoo for *years* now, and now it’s back at the front of my thoughts again

I could never get a tattoo of words because if I could see it I would read it obsessively till it drove me crazy.

I’ve been rereading the comic and I just saw the blog where you talked about that like yesterday, coincidentally. I already have several word tattoos already, but only one is in a place thats very visible to me (forearm) and I put that there so i’d reread it several times a day on purpose. “You didn’t come this far to only come this far.” There’s also a semi colon just to the side of it.

“You did art about friends, + lesbian sex, + straight sex… and that means you’re bi.”

I ask Jess, that you please reconsider those ideas, if you would.

Such as: the 1940s-1980s film star, Mr. Rock Hudson: played in films, in my words- straight men, who romanced + dated women.

Rock Hudson did films, where he played straight men, so that [proves], “he was a straight man”,…hm, actually- he was not, and it does not.

(You can see Mr. Hudson in the romance film, Pillow Talk [circa 1959].

Rock Hudson was a gay man, in real life, and in his relationships. But he played straight men, in his films.

In the 1940s, 1950s, + through the 1980s, for most men who were film actors: you [had] to play straight men…who dated women, or the general public wouldn’t see your films or TV shows, and you would not get hired to do TV or films.

Rock Hudson’s friends, + co-workers, + agents, kept his orientation private, most likely because: they liked him, + they wanted him to keep getting jobs, in those years.

Long story short: making films, or making art, about: straight romances, bi romances, gay women’s romances, or any type of romances, doesn’t mean that you want to have any of those [types of romances], or that you have any of these types of orientations.

“Thus endeth the soapbox speech”.

[This comment didn’t seem this long in my head, but it became long, as I wrote it. I guess I needed to make more, longer examinations of ideas, than I thought I would. Cheers.]

It also makes little sense explaining a concept to a fictional character.

I would, however, say that he wasn’t the creator of those films. He was paid to pretend to be straight, so your argument doesn’t follow. It would make more sense to argue that the gay writer wasn’t straight in spite of writing straight romance.

As you say: “It also makes little sense explaining a concept to a fictional character.”

True.
I was trying to be a little creative- in order to try to explain how some people, fictional or not, can [incorrectly “assign” a sexual-orientation to someone else], without any proof for such an assignment.
Cheers.

But you’re correct.
However, I left out part of Rock Hudson’s, acting career, a part of his career, that might support my argument:
in making his films + TV shows, Mr. Hudson was [creating, or maybe his agent created it]- a straight-man-presentation/act, or a straight-man-PERSONA, in order for Mr. Hudson to [keep his acting jobs, and for Mr Hudson’s to keep [getting] some acting jobs.
In my view, + from what I’ve seen- The U.S.’s films watching-people + TV shows-watching people, in the 1940s-1980s,…the majority of them- were VERY homophobic against gay people. If they found out you were gay, they would stop seeing your films + shows- and that meant your career was [over], for most US performers.

A lot of Americans were [very] stunned, in the 1990s[?], when they found out that the UK singer, Freddy Mercury, was gay. A lot of them probably stopped buying Freddy Mercury’s songs, and Queen’s songs, because they had found out that news about Freddy Mercury.

In my view- what people’s actions are, in public, or at their job- might not tell us what 1) what orientation they might have, or 2) what their romantic actions might be…when they are in private.

In other words, [and yep, I am spitball-ing, + recent…physical exhaustion might be clouding my attempts to use logic…right now], but- in my view: someone’s art, or [someone’s…public statements about who looks attractive], or the way that someone may act…for their job, might not tell people at all: what that person’s orientation is, or what that person’s love life happens to be.

That’s all that I wanted to say about that topic.

Thus ends my second, soapbox speech, for today.
:)

As Jackie said, he’s just an actor, paid to pretend to be someone. Evrina is making sex comics of her male and female friends for her own, personal naughty time. If I wrote a story about some hot and heavy sex with my same-sex neighbor, for my own fapping pleasure, it would strongly indicate that I am at least a little bit less than absolutely hetero. This is one of the things I find interesting about porn; it reveals actual preferences and not what people claim (like how most porn stars tend to be either tiny or thicc, but strangely not the perfect slim hourglass that we’re all told is the ideal body type).

Please pardon my recap, this is supposed to go here:

That could be.
Did Evrina tell anyone why she drew those comics?

It’s never even indicated that they were posted publicly anywhere, let alone that her friends know about them. A few pages ago, Jess says she saw them because Evrina left them lying around her room and on her open computer screen, and then Evrina acted shocked that Jess had seen/read them and immediately assumed she was being judged (negatively) for them. Which suggests to me that they were deeply personal and, at least relatively, private. Maybe they’ve been posted online somewhere, but given how active some of her friends are in the furry community, I doubt it seeing as they’d be likely to find it and realize they were the inspiration given how thinly veiled it is.

So, yes, it is reasonable to conclude that Evrina might be repressing bisexual tendencies when she draws erotic art of herself and a male friend for her own personal use and not for the pleasure of others. Especially when it’s paired with other clues that Jess has pointed out.

Does that make it okay to try and tell people that their sexuality is something other than what they claim it is? No, generally speaking the appropriate thing to do is to take their word for it since they should know better. Having said that, when someone you care about is quite obviously experiencing significant distress over an internal conflict and that is actively getting in the way of their ability to build a happy life for themself, it isn’t unreasonable to intentionally cross some boundaries to force them to deal with their issues and help them resolve them, even if that means being the bad guy and doing bad things. Could Jess be wrong? Sure, but at this point that seems unlikely, and even if she does wind up being wrong having this discussion still has decent odds of leaving them both in a better emotional place than they were in before since that is far from the only issue being confronted here, at the very least closure and healing is happening on both ends, even if old wounds needed to be re-opened for it to happen, and if Jess is wrong, clearing up that misunderstanding is also a positive result of the interaction.

But please remember, for right now, we don’t know yet, if Evrina: “draws erotic art of herself and a male friend for her own personal use and not for the pleasure of others.”

As of right now, we only have hints that Evrina might be drawing: “erotic art of herself and a male friend for her own personal use and not for the pleasure of others.”

Cheers.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.