Alien Romance, the daily comic strip
Feb. 16th, 2026 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gs_silvaI fell behind on Alien Romance posts! I keep up better on my Patreon page. It doesn't have the transcripts but it has additional commentary that I don't post here. Then again, here has commentary that I don't post there.
Last we saw, Cathy was taking the vehicle portion of the driving exam, and the instructor was eyeballing her. Well, he reaches down, and gets himself smacked. Clutching his sore hand, he continues to instruct Cathy for the exam, but he begins to mumble so that Cathy can't possibly understand him.
Back at the DMV, the receptionist attemts to call Cathy up to the front desk, but can't pronounce her name. "Catherine Ar... uh... miss, your results are available. You've failed both sections of the exam."
Ella jumps in and exclaims, "But, Ma'am, that's impossible! Can't you double-check?"
Then the instructor comes up behind the receptionist, adding smugly, "She lost points on parallel parking and exiting the traffic circle on the wrong road."
"I'm sorry," the receptionist says.
Ella is distraught. "That was bad. I'm sorry."
Cathy has something important to say: "Il m'a touché...ed." (I made a typo in the comic: it says "he touched" instead of "he touched me.")
"Illa toolshed?" repeats Ella in confusion. So Cathy demonstrates... rather alarmingly! Alarmed, Ella spins around, shouting, "He did NOT! Ugh, that creep! We can't let this go. C'mon."
She runs back into the DMV, Cathy following behind her, and pushes aside the man being served at the reception desk to confront the receptionist. "Miss, would you please lower your voice?!" the receptionist hisses.
Ella shoots back, "Why? Would you listen better if I sounded like a man? She paid for this, and he molested her, and then I bet he flunked her on purpose!"
***
My mother laughed long and hard at the line about sounding like a man, because of course when I read it aloud I deepened my voice. Then she enjoyed it a second time. The upside to memory loss, I guess - jokes are funny all over again! (I didn't fully explain what happened to Cathy, though. I have a dark and cynical outlook on life, but I know when to hold back.
Last we saw, Cathy was taking the vehicle portion of the driving exam, and the instructor was eyeballing her. Well, he reaches down, and gets himself smacked. Clutching his sore hand, he continues to instruct Cathy for the exam, but he begins to mumble so that Cathy can't possibly understand him.
Back at the DMV, the receptionist attemts to call Cathy up to the front desk, but can't pronounce her name. "Catherine Ar... uh... miss, your results are available. You've failed both sections of the exam."
Ella jumps in and exclaims, "But, Ma'am, that's impossible! Can't you double-check?"
Then the instructor comes up behind the receptionist, adding smugly, "She lost points on parallel parking and exiting the traffic circle on the wrong road."
"I'm sorry," the receptionist says.
Ella is distraught. "That was bad. I'm sorry."
Cathy has something important to say: "Il m'a touché...ed." (I made a typo in the comic: it says "he touched" instead of "he touched me.")
"Illa toolshed?" repeats Ella in confusion. So Cathy demonstrates... rather alarmingly! Alarmed, Ella spins around, shouting, "He did NOT! Ugh, that creep! We can't let this go. C'mon."
She runs back into the DMV, Cathy following behind her, and pushes aside the man being served at the reception desk to confront the receptionist. "Miss, would you please lower your voice?!" the receptionist hisses.
Ella shoots back, "Why? Would you listen better if I sounded like a man? She paid for this, and he molested her, and then I bet he flunked her on purpose!"
***
My mother laughed long and hard at the line about sounding like a man, because of course when I read it aloud I deepened my voice. Then she enjoyed it a second time. The upside to memory loss, I guess - jokes are funny all over again! (I didn't fully explain what happened to Cathy, though. I have a dark and cynical outlook on life, but I know when to hold back.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2026-02-17 07:33 pm (UTC)Actually, you've got a great setup. The touching incident plus an outraged female friend would be a perfect time to introduce Cathy to feminism / women's studies. (This was back before anyone but me called it Gender Studies.) I was in college in the early 1990s, and one thing we read a lot of was translated French feminism. That branch didn't really grab me personally, but it would be something that Cathy could read, which would be relevant to her experiences, and readily available in both languages. Some of the texts we used were even half-and-half editions, which I did like. The college even did outreach around the town.
The first three of these are in your timeframe and I read them in college.
This library list has a ton of stuff, including some historical references.
Anyhow, I'm happy to share experiences for your inspiration.
*ponder* You know, most molesters are habitual. That guy has probably groped a LOT of girls. A search through the pass/fail records would likely have a blip with a higher female failure rate. There might be complaints filed with the police.
But one thing that's very likely is that any women's center or other feminist hangout would be well aware of his misbehavior and any mention of groping at a driving test would get the "Oh, HIM!" response. Look in the bathroom and his name will probably be on the pervert list, too. (Before the internet became a prevailing forum, women would write the names of dangerous men on bathroom walls.)
So think about the storyline. Do you want to talk about how helpless people can be when they don't speak the local language, and how hard that makes it to defend themselves? Or about how to overcome barriers and find ways to defend themselves and accomplish goals? Very different trajectories, depending on what you want to explore.
Re: Yes! Maybe!
Date: 2026-02-17 10:28 pm (UTC)I originally conceived this 4-year stretch to be the Long Slog. You're probably familiar with Long Slogs - they occur in many stories at about the 2/3 mark, to set up a final inciting event that kicks off the climax. The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite example: the holding pattern the characters find themselves in while they're at Cloud City. I love Lando as a character, but his whole stretch is meant to provide a low-key sense of dread, and sometimes I hate that! So I figured I could skip the Long Slog altogether! And Book 2 will start where the plot picks up again!
That was all before I decided to turn my Patreon into a daily comic, because it turns out I don't want to work on Draft 3 in isolation.
So I supposed I could think of enough cute everyday moments to keep it all going without slipping too far into a Long Slog... it was just missing something. Some purposeful element to help us all fend off that grinding feeling of stagnation. Because I need my characters to stagnate for a while, so they'll be where they are when Book 2 begins.
I'll have to do a little research. I wasn't active in social movements during this time, myself. I transferred to art school in 1992, and things got a little better then, but I'm sure I missed out on a lot that was going on. So let's see what I missed! :)
Re: Yes! Maybe!
Date: 2026-02-17 11:12 pm (UTC)*happydance*
>>I originally conceived this 4-year stretch to be the Long Slog. <<
Yeah, but Westerners rarely write them well. Eastern literature tends to do better because the spiral plot structure is so popular there. Characters keep encountering the same or similar challenges, but each turn around the spiral, they are slowly learning new skills and solutions.
>>Some purposeful element to help us all fend off that grinding feeling of stagnation. Because I need my characters to stagnate for a while, so they'll be where they are when Book 2 begins.<<
Yeah. You need little steps, tiny epiphanies, and people deciding to learn things that will take time to master.
>>I'll have to do a little research. I wasn't active in social movements during this time, myself. <<
I was. I think I was in college 1990-1994.
>> I transferred to art school in 1992, and things got a little better then, but I'm sure I missed out on a lot that was going on. So let's see what I missed! :)
Well, we had the Take Back the Night and other feminist stuff. I nearly got a bunch of frat rats torn apart by a pack of maenads, that was a very near miss. Most events were not quite that edgy, and we had some really good ones.
Then there were all the protests against the Gulf War. The Quakers on campus staged a Silent Vigil for Peace every Tuesday. That'd make a lovely single-panel scene.