Bee!!! I hope it's okay if I ask for your thoughts on this new Check Please update? I love hearing anything you have to say!! The writing was so good, the tension and emotion was palpable, if you don't wanna post about it though that's fine!
hi hello hey friend! i loved this update as a reader, and i loved this update as a gay! let me tell you why, as concisely as i can!
the focus being on bitty and his internal struggle is the most important part. this isn’t about suzanne or what may be going on in her head - it’s about bitty, and him confronting something which is unspeakably difficult. he’s the forefront of every panel, and it turns everything onto him. this is great!
the demonstration of how bitty’s life has shifted is super well executed in the visual narrative. he’s shown being held by friends and jack, surrounded by happy people who are physically close to him - and emotionally, too. then, he’s separated by his mother by physical distance, only able to talk on the phone, showing us the disconnect in their relationship. this is great!
the return of everyone’s favourite metaphor! “bitty is the pie!” this is great!
the subtleties in suzanne’s dialogue, and the pervasiveness of her southern conservative sensibilities. “you’d rather not come home this summer, or…?” and “you know jack’s gonna be busy this summer” and “that’s a lot to put on him” and “you know that’s not how we do things.” this is hearkening back to when we first met suzanne, and she told bitty “you may go to samwell university, but that does not mean you’re too good to listen to your mother.” she’s reminding him where he comes from - and not in a good way. we’re seeing the foundations of bitty’s fears. she makes honesty difficult, and she fuels his guilt, and she’s trying to pull him back into line in that pseudo-sweet passive-aggressive southern way. this rings true as hell. this is very realistic. this is great!
we are also given several hints about how the narrative will continue and how bitty’s actual coming out will eventuate, and i think the most important one is “i just don’t have the words.” this is great! this is fucking great!!
anyway, the respect given to bitty’s very real, very understandable fears is exactly what i was hoping for. i’m reminded of a show i went to once, for a musician whose name i can’t remember lmao
it was a duo with one guy beatboxing, and the other playing guitar and singing? they were australian? does this ring any bells for anyone?? anyway
the singer was introducing this song he’d written. he said he wrote it for his lesbian friend. he said she had been convinced her parents would take her coming out badly - that she was terrified to tell them, and she just didn’t know how to do it, and she wanted to avoid the whole thing because she knew it wouldn’t end well. her friends (straight friends) convinced her to do it. she did it. it went awfully.
aside from my incredulity that he was taking her personal pain and spinning it to make him seem like a supportive good guy, i was just astounded by how much straight people will ignore what gay people are telling them, just to convince themselves that other straights aren’t as bad as we say.
our fears are not unfounded. if we think coming out is a bad idea, there is probably a very real reason for that. to see ngozi paying respect to that, and to see her showing understanding of the realities of coming out and how complex it is - it just means the world to me.
i loved this update. it was great!
janainaart
ellievsbear
izzy806
vaporwave
