Alien Romance, the daily comic strip

[gs_silva]

Maurice being cynical. I know I'm inviting conflict here, so I'll mention that this all is based on some nonfictional family history. But I don't want to get into it, so I'll leave it at that.

Cathy is folding up the map of Lyon that Maurice was looking at in the last comic. "Tell me the history of your town," she says to Maurice, who is on the futon. She joins him there.

Maurice replies, "It not like Lyon. It's not even very old. Half of my township, and a tenth of the whole county, came from three families." (He's probably exaggerating here. Maurice has never taken a census of his county! It's probably something he heard someone speculating on once.)

"Burke, Lambert, and Farriss. Ren's a Burke. They were Quakers, originally. They didn't run out the Indians that lived there first - someone else did that. Then the Baptists and Mennonites came. They didn't kill any Indians either. There was an Underground Railroad house somewhere. Nobody remembers where anymore, but it was definitely there. Everyone's sure of it. They believe in peace and harmony for everyone. Ren's a Quaker, half the town's Quaker. Did you know Nixon's a Quaker? He's not from my town, but he is one."

(I feel like I owe Maurice some opportunities to take swipes at Nixon, but that he wouldn't take advantage of them unless he felt truly safe. Yeah, Nixon's well and thoroughly a villain in 1990, but Maurice gets most of his politics from his father, and his father has some undiplomatic opinions about our glorious nation. If it's any comfort, Maurice's father has harsh critiques of the USSR too (which is already in the process of falling, yay!) even though the Arzamastsev family weren't political refugees. Not all Russian immigrants were political refugees, no matter what they say on "MacGyver." So Maurice has gotten accustomed to keeping a lot of political notions to himself.)

Cathy curls up on his shoulder, and he asks her, "Do you understand?"

"No," she replies. "Sorry."

"Sorry," says Maurice.

I should add the disclaimer here that, in spite of earlier assertions about personal ties, no political opinions here necessarily reflect my own. I know, I'm trying to have it both ways! I really am. That's the truth. Haha.

Check out my Patreon page for more commentary and a chance to support me if you feel so inclined.

Comments

[moth2fic]

So I finally found your patreon page and joined for free - even though I really follow you here, it might help occasionally when DW is being stupid with pics.
I was amused in Australia about the 'history' of places i.e. not very historical to anyone from Europe. I imagine it's similar in USA. Our house was built in 1696...

[gs_silva]

Yay! I post the link every now and then, and I was about to post it to you before you found it. The image loading failure is a mystery to me, so hopefully Patreon will stay stable, although the ice skating image isn't on it.

The history thing, haha, so true! There's a building in Barnstable MA that's about the same age as your house, and it's not in use execpt as a tourist attraction. I think it's the oldest building in the town (which is one of the few towns that dates back that far - the town I live in now was established in 1760 or so, and that's 'historical' too) because they knocked the rest of them down already.

I'm reading Oliver Among the Fae as I work on my first scene with Maurice and Cathy, and the parallels are amusing! Cathy is being weird but flirty. Maurice is confused but into her. Then she runs off, leaving Maurice to puzzle out what just happened. I'm onto the next scene in your book now, and it diverges from there, but I enjoyed the parallels while they lasted.

[moth2fic]

The original part of the house was a courthouse at the top of the local 'fold' where people sorted out whose animals were whose. Hence the 'street' name Greenhead Fold. It was all added to during the industrial revolution and had a shared loft space with the 'new' houses in what was now a terrace, used for hatting, the local Stockport industry - there's now a hatting museum in town. We found some formers and spindles. Apparently Wesley preached here.

I like, with my fae, to use the sort of situations that happen with humans. I think one of the things I enjoy about fantasy and sci fi is the ability to look at current problems from a slightly different perspective and make people think. So yes, my fae might well have similar issues to your characters!!

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> He's probably exaggerating here. <<

He's probably not exaggerating if it's rural and especially with a subculture start. Founder effect has an overwhelming impact sometimes. There are towns in my area with the same few names on everything -- the businesses, the streets, etc.

>>Ren's a Burke. They were Quakers, originally. <<

Aww. I loved seeing this.

Re: Thoughts

[gs_silva]

That's good insight; thank you! I didn't live in a town quite that small, so when I heard people make those claims, I always had some doubts. I know it's possible, but was it REAL?

Apparently, yeah, could be!

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Another way you can confirm it is with cemeteries. Small, old ones might have 3-6 names filling the vast majority, and then a handful of other random ones. I use this site to research local names for characters, and I keep hitting small cemeteries with a really short name list.

https://www.interment.net/

Canada had the filles du roi, who left an overwhelming genetic imprint (but not surnames):
https://digpodcast.org/2018/12/02/fur-trade-french-canada/

Re: Thoughts

[gs_silva]

Oh, good point!