[Img: 4-panel comic titled: The āVirago Gaze.ā
Panel one pictures a presumably gender conforming young woman fawning over a manās face on a TV screen. The man has a square jaw and sharp cheekbones, but is otherwise drawn completely devoid of detail, resembling something like a character template in the shape of a plain white rectangle. The young woman gawking at him says, āOh my god, he is SO HOT.ā In the corner of this same panel (across the table in the scene), a different young woman is pictured, wearing dark clothing and a hat, and presumably gender nonconforming. She scrolls on her phone, appearing unimpressed and uninterested, with an empty speech bubble. Next to her, the text reads: ā(Supportive but does not understand the appeal.)ā
Panel two pictures a thought bubble representing a daydream playing in the first young womanās head about the man on TV. There are three small scenes of them interacting in her head. In the first, the man on TV is standing beside her, holding her by the waist with a blank face, except for a smirk. She is clinging to him with one hand on his shoulders, her head tilted up toward his face with her hair flowing in the breeze behind her, and she has one leg bent upwards behind her like in the stereotypical kiss pose. The man says, āI got you, babe.ā In the next scene, an older, pregnant version of herself stands next to the man as they pose for a maternity photo with a sunrise behind them. With his hand in hers around her belly, the man says, āYouāre going to be a beautiful mother, babe.ā In the last scene, a presumably post-pregnancy version of herself with a āmom bodā hourglass figure stands sexily in the doorway with one hand behind her and one hand on her hip. She wears some kind of bright red clothing with a neckline that goes all the way to her waist, revealing a sliver of her chest down the front. The man from the TV is pictured slightly below her, probably kneeling in reverence, with his hands clasped together in front of him. He says, āYouāre a goddess, babe.ā
Panel three exists outside of the daydream thought bubble and returns to the original room with the two young women. Text at the top of the panel reads: āLaterā¦ā Text below that reads: ā*Scrollā¦ scrollā¦ scrā*ā as the second young woman continues to scroll on her phone, and then suddenly stops. A small heart being pierced by an arrow is pictured next to the text right where it cuts off. Below, she is pictured wide-eyed, looking sort of stunned and in awe. Pictured next to her, we see the phone screen she is looking at, and on it is a young man with big doe eyes, a slight pout on his lips, and a subtle blush on his cheeks. Behind them, the first young woman is pictured across the room as a simplified doodle, frowning in disapproval. Her rambling appears in faded text behind her, so it is partially obstructed by her in the scene. The full text reads: āEW is that even a man, are you sure you even like men, your man needs a man, you must have no self respect, oh my god I bet he cries after, you deserve better, heās so unmanly, you need to embrace your divine feminineā¦ā Her complaints are ignored.
Panel four pictures a thought bubble representing a different daydream, one from the second young woman this time, about the young man on the phone screen. There are two scenes of them interacting in her head. In the first, the young woman is a towering, intimidating knight in dark, notably practical and masculine armor (as opposed to the kind of form fitting armor women are typically depicted wearing), dramatically cast in shadow. She carries the young man bridal-style, and he clings to her closely, as she walks away from a stereotypical cool explosion behind her. Within the explosion, two shadowed figures appear to be shriveling, and the text with arrows pointing to them reads: āBad guys.ā In the second scene, the young man is pictured posing artfully for his portrait to be painted. He sits in an arranged scene of roses and red silk, and a white sheet is draped delicately across his body. He is posed in the way female muses are typically posed for such paintings, in a way that presents them as soft and beautiful, elegant and poised. In the foreground, the young woman is pictured as the painter, sitting before her canvas and lifting a brush to it.
