Megan Rose Gedris - Comics n' Stuff

Re: my previous post (not counting the Twitter updates.)

At least she was a bit more original with her biphobia. No mentions of "she'll leave me for a man" or "fence sitters". This was stuff I hadn't heard much before.

If you're going to be bigoted, at least be creative about it. Think outside the box. Find new ways of looking down* on people different from you. Be an original douchebag.

---

*The biggest thing that pissed me off about the whole exchange was the downright snobbery. "I am better than any lesbian who isn't a gold star because I was strong and they were weak." *vomits blood*

• 17:19 If retweets were money, I would be very rich today. Thanks, guys! #
• 20:24 Updated a whole lot: www.squidoo.com/writing-gay-characters Thanks for all of the RTs and spreading the word! #
• 20:28 @yamino I already took care of it. No worries! #
• 21:59 @yamino: Yay! I am becoming known for crazy flowing hair! #

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I don't rant a lot anymore. I have adopted more or less a stance of "Will getting angry about it change anything no?" *goes back to more productive use of her time*

There are a couple things that I will never be able to tolerate. Linkin Park music is one of them. Biphobia is another.

Fiona has been shown in recent comics to be somewhat biphobic when she hears Lia once had a male lover. A lot of lesbians feel this way, as if that girl is somehow "tainted". I, in no uncertain terms, said that those lesbians should get over it.

Getting over biphobia, or any phobia, is a good thing. Period. Consciously hanging onto thoughts you know to be based in irrational prejudice IS a bad thing. There is NO redeeming it. At all. You get the "special hell".

The following is paraphrased, from the YU+ME forum. I cut out the constant repetitions are arguments over linguistics*.

You just don't get it. I'm not afraid of bisexuals. I just don't want to date them.

A legitimate attitude. If you aren't attracted to someone, you aren't attracted to them. Can't be helped. No wrong in that. Why aren't you attracted to them?

I feel like I'm in a relationship with all her previous boyfriends.

What, this girl never showers?

Look, I resisted the pull of heteronormativity! If they can't, then they have no pride. They're just giving into what society wants them to do.

Did you ever consider that there is no "giving in" on the part of the bisexual women? That they're with men because they like men? How much pride can you get out of not doing something you really didn't want to do anyway?

Lesbians sleep with men all the time! If they've been raped, I'll still date them, but if they did it voluntarily, or enjoyed themselves, that's bad. I take pride that I resisted that gigantic crap.

I see. Again, you're using the word "pride" to refer to your history of not sleeping with men. So does this imply that doing otherwise is something to be ashamed of? Also, you're confusing bisexual women with lesbians who have slept with men. So basically, in addition to disliking bisexuals, you now admit to not liking any lesbian who isn't a gold star.

You're not listening to what I'm saying.

Aw, I'm so sorry I misread your biphobia as biphobia. I will try to read harder next time.

---

Patronizing and snarky? Quite a bit. I try to be courteous to even the most assholeish of fans, but I have no patience for this, and me and my readers don't need people like this hanging out on my site. According to the last census, more of my readers are bisexual/pansexual than all other orientations combined.

It's not biphobic to not date someone based on your own preferences. Because heck, I have a slight preference towards bisexual women. It's when those preferences are the result of strange bigotry that gets people justifiably angry at you. Being told "I just don't fancy you," is acceptable. Being told "I just don't fancy you because you were weak enough to give into men, and you have the stink of your previous boyfriends on you," is going to ruffle a lot of feathers.




*Seriously, what is up with the constant arguing over word definitions on my site? 5-second solution to any linguistics argument: dictionary.com. Bam. Actual definition obtained. Argument over.

I updated Writing Gay Characters. Even more stuff there, now.

Went to the doctor yesterday. My regular doctor was too busy, so I was to see a different doctor. She turned out to be too busy, so I got an intern. An awesome intern. When your doctor talks to you about Neil Gaiman and comic books, you have a good doctor.

So, this illness is hard to tack down. Due to the huge variety of symptoms, it seems to be three or four different illnesses taking turns attacking me. But he says the overall sickness points to seasonal allergies.

So he prescribed me some allergy meds. One month, with insurance: $75. For a generic allergy med.

This is the health care system with insurance. I am so glad I never had a life-threatening sickness without insurance. I can't imagine being able to handle that.

I hope I don't actually have anything requiring me buying this every month. I cannot afford that, even with my new job.

• 10:49 Boss brought in venison. Mmmmmmmm. #
• 12:07 If Photoshop was "real": tinyurl.com/ycvc5p6 #
• 15:47 lol: tinyurl.com/y8vxmff #
• 19:02 Would a "how to write gay characters" fall under "how-to" or "arts"? Which suits it better? *needs to know* #
• 20:00 Going with "how to" for now. I can always change it (I think). #
• 21:48 I wrote an article: Writing Gay Characters / tinyurl.com/yf7zjck #
• 22:38 Today started with venison sticks. Ended with bean sprouts. #
• 23:14 @crossedgenres I wanted to write it for your magazine, but I was too slow. -_- #

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I hear a lot from other writers about how they would love to include gay characters in their stories, but they're too afraid of screwing them up, so they don't try. And that's no good. I don't like seeing people discouraged from including entire groups of people in their stories.

So I wrote a HUGE article about it (or "lens" as they're called) on Squidoo. Hopefully it can inspire people to write more and better gay characters.

Writing Gay Characters.

Have any suggestions to add to the page?

Also, tell people about this article! The more people you tell, the more people can find it and hopefully learn from it.

If you're like me, you love fonts. And Lady Gaga.
And if you're like these guys, you found a way to combine those loves.

So, if I was one of my readers, I would be wondering how YU+ME manages to update 5 days a week still, but Lesbian Pirates hasn't updated in over a week.

Basically, LPFOS pages take longer to do, and the file sizes are about 3x as big as YU+ME pages. When my computer worked, this was no problem. But my computer doesn't work.

The average LPFOS page takes about 3-4 hours to do. I have been attempting to finish one every night all week. I've put about 10 hours into this latest page, and it is still not done because 90% of the 10 hours gets spent waiting for the computer to remember what it's doing.

*prays to the Mac Gods to bless me soon.*

So this is mostly to tell LPFOS fans: I haven't forgotten you. I am trying really hard. It will come as soon as it's done.

• 10:55 Asteroids Galaxy Tour = Awesomesauce.. More on Playlist.com: www.playlist.com/playlist/additem/674862609 #
• 16:05 @yamino: tinyurl.com/ycj36f4 #

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So lately, I've been obsessed with the website Clients From Hell, where graphic designers post horror stories about dealing with asshole clients. It's addictive. I check it every hour or so.

But one thing always irks me about the site: there is no way to comment on anything.

I don't have the ability to let someone know how funny I think the story is, or how bad I feel that they had to deal with such a necrotic prick.

The internet has given us so many opportunities for our voices to be heard, that the absence of it can leave us feeling lost. Everything is about two-way communication, or group communication, interactive dialog. Everything is up for debate.

It's made us full of ourselves, I think. "But, my opinion just has to be put out there!" runs through our minds. "I disagree with this person and I can't sleep at night without letting them know how wrong they are!" So many people so used to being heard (or at least talking. Being heard is another matter) that we just keep opening our mouths to say things compulsively.

I question whether the constant communication is a positive thing.

The cbox on YU+ME is staying gone, for various reasons. And I am surprised by how many people contacted me to say how much they missed it. They could go to the forum, but they didn't want to. They wanted to leave comments. I don't know why. But they are listless without the cbox.



To illustrate my point on how weird some of us feel not being able to comment, I have disabled the comments on this entry. What are you gonna do now? (I will never know since you won't be able to comment and tell me how you felt about not being able to comment!)

• 11:46 ArtRage 3 has watercolors (and more!) I am SOOOOO excited about this! #
• 13:35 @jen_lim Freehand everything in Photoshop (for the most part.) #
• 17:18 Surfacing too fast from the ocean gives you the bends. So does surfacing too fast from dreams. :P #

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Went to sister T's house to drop off a check for Trucker Lewis, her roommate. Got there at 7:00. Somehow, 11:30 happened.

If you had told 16-year-old me that this would happen someday, I would have called you a dirty liar, and probably continued on to imply things about the virtue of your mother. Somehow, something happened to where I can spend 4 and a half hours with my sister and it only feels like 2.

I wondered why I kept having to pee so much.

• 16:30 "how r u?" <-- Worst conversation starter ever. #
• 16:36 Beginning work on the "Lesbian Pirate Propaganda" pin-up calendar. #
• 16:45 The net is down. *opens windows network help* "You must be able to connect to the internet to use this." *headdesk* #
• 16:47 @sorayume It was on a website with a full email system. No reason for 3-word misspelled messages! #
• 16:56 @yamino I love that someone took the time to make an entire website for this. #
• 16:56 Decided to slightly change the ending of YU+ME. It was too weak, plot-wise. #
• 17:29 YU+ME ending is much more exciting now! Still sad, but less sad than it was. #
• 17:35 Shit! Plot hole. Okay, time for revision #3. #
• 19:34 God, this ending is hard. I suppose I don't have to finish writing it today, but I want to. #
• 23:23 The slow computer takes a lot of the fun out of doing comics. Becomes more frustrating than fun. #

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Current Donation Wallpaper:

I was just messing around in ArtRage a few days ago. What started as "Oh, I'll doodle for a few minutes" turned into two hours of painting.

• 15:50 Is it weird to ask a coworker to go to a naked-people show? I think that would be weird. #
• 16:15 @yamino Well... it's a show... that involves people taking off their clothes... and dancing... while you draw them... if you want to. #
• 16:50 @TooOldToBeCool More like a loophole in the city's ban on nudity. :P #
• 18:38 Who would want to watch Neopets fuck? I just don't understand. #
• 22:48 I'm going to go try to give my cat a bath. O_O #
• 22:54 OMG, that was adorable. Scrambles is so mad. #
• 23:01 I miss having music while I work. #

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I wish my comics-making computer and my internet computer were the same thing. I'm actually getting LESS work done because when I want to slack off, I have to go into a different room and I'm less likely to get back to work.

Most of the people who had a great influence on me, who were role models for me, are dead. But there is one person who is not: high school art teacher.

We caught up today. It's been about five years since I saw her last. (Six since I graduated from high school. Has it only been six years?)

We were quite close in high school. I'd stay after school lots of times, hanging out in the art room. I learned a lot from her, but she also let me do my own things. It was a perfect balance of freedom and structure.

And we had... the Art Cult.

"Dara, you're so talented! When I grow up, I wanna be juuuuuuust liiiiiiiiiike Daaara!" -All said in unison by six girls in high pitched voices. Whenever someone (not just Dara) did something really cool, we'd all say it. Creeped the hell out of everyone else in class, but god damn it was fun.

I'm not one of those people who wishes she could be back in high school. (For one thing, I'd have to deal with Twilight fans. I don't care one way or the other, and where I am in my life, nobody else I know cares either.) But it's nice to have someone help me remember the good times.

My memory is a terrible thing, full of holes, retaining the strangest things and tossing out things I want to keep. I keep my memories in other people.

• 11:46 Fuck you, snow! #
• 12:28 Jello seemed like such a good idea at the time. :( #
• 12:28 @ZachWeiner Yes. Weird. #
• 13:43 @nenadi I am avoiding stores like they were disease-ridden animal carcasses. I hate black Friday. -_- #
• 14:58 OMG I am scripting the final chapter of YU+ME right now! Holy crap. One word: Epic. #
• 17:21 Ah, the ending is turning out way sadder than I thought it would! #
• 17:49 Entire rest of YU+ME: done scripting. I am kind of sad. I will REALLY be sad when I'm done drawing it. #

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