Vote over at TWC and you can see this week and last week's thumbnails! Just because sometimes they're hilarious compared to the finished product. Awkward conversations! So, here's the deal: this is very much a Midwestern comic, and Midwestern queer culture (especially in the suburbs) doesn't always mesh with internet or big city queer culture. For example, the joke that lesbians can't drive doesn't apply out in the 'burbs (or country), because we all have to be able to drive the two hours to date the next closest lesbian. (Or in my town, all the queer women here are mostly retired or near retirement, because even queer people leave the city eventually.) Anyway, my point is, Elias is pretty insulated to his pack and a handful of other people, and isn't hip to the current LGBT lingo, so he's kind of useless in this situation. So Vincent's "strangers are awful and I don't really care what gender someone is" just translates for Elias as "okay, then that's just how you are I guess?" Whereas a much more official label would put Vincent as probably pansexual and demisexual (not quite asexual, but attracted to people they're emotionally attached to)...but neither of these nerds are familiar with those labels, so it'd be weird if they knew them. That's my reasoning, at least. I just don't like when discussions of sexuality in a story feel shoehorned into a lesson on said sexuality, when the characters wouldn't necessarily have the context to discuss those things with perfect knowledge. Elias is 22 and knows he's gay, but most of his energy is devoted to werewolf stuff. He knows other queer people and he kind of understands that some people don't identify as having a gender, but the queer community isn't his main focus and he doesn't know a lot of other queer people, so him perfectly schooling Vincent on the specifics of his sexuality would be...weird and jarring. So, for right now, I'm leaving Vincent's sexuality as subtext. We might come back to it later if it feels like he needs to address it again. Anyway, the point of this page is to establish that Vincent's not really concerned about the gender of who he's attracted to, but he is attracted to people sometimes once he warms up to them. (Side note: I personally consider myself demisexual, I guess, so I basically just gave Vincent my own sexuality...though I'm pretty exclusively attracted to women. And online dating is horrible, because why would I care about these photos of random strangers.) (Side side note: I also shy away from labeling anyone in the text of the story, because so many labels in the LGBT spectrum evolve over time, and if you're reading HTBAW in 10 years, calling this boy pansexual and demisexual might be totally out of date by then. That's just me being paranoid, though.) As far as my life goes, I'm slowly coming out of being a sickly beast all day yesterday. I feel marginally better today, though definitely not 100% okay. My allergies usually explode during the summer, and if they get bad enough, I end up with a sinus infection. That's fun! I need to take it easy for a few more days, which is unfortunate, because my yard desperately needs to be mowed and I'm just gonna have to let my grass look like a shaggy mess until I'm up for it. I'll get to all you guys' comments here soonish! I very much enjoyed all the freaking out from yesterday lol. My schedule is a bit backed up, because I have to go down to Bloomington, IN on Friday to talk to kids at the library, so I'll be busy for a few days getting everything done to prepare to be gone all that day :)