skygiants | (no subject)

This continues to be a year in which I binge webcomics, and today I arrive to tell you about the only thing I've been reading for the past week, the entire back archive of The Hazards of Love.

The Hazards of Love begins with charming delinquent teen Amparo Uribe pulling the fire alarm at school, asking their charmed but dubious straight-A-student crush Iolanthe out on a first date, getting chewed out by their grandmother, and making a very bad deal with a talking cat. This results in the cat claiming Amparo's name and human life, while Amparo is exiled to Bright World, a (heavily Mexican-folklore-influenced) magical land filled with magical creatures who think that human flesh is a delicacy perhaps only surpassed by the savor of human memories.

In the A-plot, [Amparo-that-was] struggles their way at GREAT personal cost into a temporary name and position as the servant of a cruel and malicious shadow in the shape of a deer. They are not the first to have this name or position and their predecessors didn't end well, but [no-longer-Amparo] is pugnaciously determined to hold onto their humanity, forge alliances with the few other humans who've managed to survive in Bright World, and find their way home no matter what!

In the B-plot, charming delinquent teen Amparo Uribe turns their life around and really begins to appreciate the people around them, to everyone's surprise and especially Iolanthe's ....

I love [no-longer-Amparo] enormously, which is not a surprise; I was walking to work on Friday and I stopped in the middle of the street and said out loud, "Jamie Hamilton from Homeward Bounders again?!" Yes, it's another mouthy little shit with jokes and a chip on their shoulder who through carelessness and minor bad luck lost everything they ever loved and are powering themselves exclusively on the objectively baseless conviction that they're going to be the first one in history who manages to get it all back. Jamie Hamilton from Homeward Bounders AGAIN. Have a couple of my favorite [might-someday-again-be-Amparo]s:

However I ALSO love the B-plot, which engages with one of my favorite too-rare fictional scenarios, in which a person who has a close relationship with a possessed/replacement version of another person has to reckon with their relationship and responsibility towards the original version. By the end of the first arc of the story, Iolanthe has been in an on-again off-again relationship with "Amparo Uribe" for TEN YEARS (for [the-once-and-possibly-future-Amparo], it's been one; time moves differently in Bright World!) and knows the following facts:

a.) at SOME POINT over the past ten years, the original Amparo's life was stolen by the person she loved, and who loved her
b.) the person she loved, and who loved her, seems to be gone for unknown reasons
c.) the original Amparo needs help and nobody else seems to be providing it

Iolanthe does NOT know that the person she loved, and who loved her, has run through their natural lifespan [because they were a cat] and is now on the next of their nine lives [as a cat] and hanging out on her couch [as a cat] having realized, through experiencing love and grief as a human and the love and grief of the humans around them, that perhaps stealing a human's life and name was, broadly speaking, an error in judgment ....

So the actual B-plot of the comic is Iolanthe grimly attempting to save a person that she is fully aware she doesn't really know, with occasional assistance from the cat, Amparo's dead grandma, another traumatized Bright World survivor, and a completely unrelated butch lesbian medium who got dragged into this by Amparo's dead grandma and has now been grudgingly convinced to provide assistance against all her normal policies because Iolanthe is very pretty and looks very sad.

Strong recommend! Sad to be caught up on my binge because now I'm back on agonizingly slow webcomic update schedule but glad to be caught up so I can have any attention to read other things! Am I prioritizing this write-up right now because I nominated it for Yuletide and I want to try to pitch it on people before sign-ups? MAYBE. (Happy to provide warnings if desired; this story does not pull its punches and abuse and trauma are big ongoing themes.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sholio

Oh!! I don't know the comic, but I instantly recognized the style - that's the artist/creator who drew Boy Meets Boy back in the day, and the sequel which I stopped reading before the ending that apparently created fandomwide incandescent rage. :D I haven't read their stuff in AGES. Now I'm curious about this one.

From:

skygiants

I've not read any of the artist's other stuff but the style definitely did look familiar to me, I'm wondering if I used to see icons or something around ....

What about the ending created fandomwide incandescent rage? >.>

From:

sholio

There are definitely icons around! The first two comics had a well-established fan following that overlapped heavily with LJ fandom.

What about the ending created fandomwide incandescent rage? >.>

HAHAHAHA WELLLLLL (and I need to caveat this by saying that this is based on secondhand scuttlebutt, since I'd stopped reading the comic by the time this happened)

The second comic (Friendly Hostility) was a spinoff from the first, featuring a fan-favorite secondary pairing from the first comic who in the original (IIRC) were merely slash-with-potential but got together in the spinoff, to the fandom's obvious delight. It later came out that these characters were a) the author's self-insert, and b) the insert for the person *she* was crushing on at the time she created them, who she got together with - and then had an acrimonious breakup with, which resulted in the last story arc of what was up until that point a cute romcom taking a (from all accounts) EXTREMELY WILD left turn into grimdark, the relationship turned abusive, and the "happy ending" was the self-insert realizing he was better off without That Asshole and breaking up with him.

Every now and then people turn up on FFA still furious about it a decade later.

From:

krait

Boy Meets Boy! Wow, now that's a blast from the past. I must have fallen out of touch with it before it ended, because I don't remember an ending (much less a spinoff), but there's something in me that is still pleased to hear that it did end. Very sorry to hear that the spinoff went down in flames, though.

Now I feel the need for a BMB icon. :) I bet I have some old strips saved somewhere...

Edited Date: 2023-10-07 09:16 pm (UTC)

From:

sholio

I haven't thought about BMB in *ages*, until seeing the above art. It's also really interesting to think back on it, because from what I remember, the entire concept of the comic, the thing that made it popular, was just that it was a cute romcom about a gay couple. That was it, that was the entire premise. But there were very few others. Times really have changed a lot!

From:

krait

Basically! The occasional supernatural elements such as the landlady being the devil incarnate, and the very shippable side characters (one of whom was having a minor crisis of sexuality), were probably also part of the draw. Possibly the recurring female characters - Tabitha, Rasheequa, Abby - being sympathetic and varied was also a draw, considering that a lot of things aimed at the ""yaoi fangirl"" audience back then either had no female characters, or treated them terribly.

From:

teenybuffalo

Can I please ask for an overview on where you think we are in the plot of this comic? Like, do you think it will resolve at some point in the next few years, given the pace of the storytelling so far? I ask because the premise sounds amazing for my interests, but then again, I had to give up reading Lackadaisy because it took years to get through a relatively small amount of story and I was frustrated to the point where I couldn't bear to stick with it.

From:

nextian

My best guess is that this is actually the endgame, for what it's worth.

From:

skygiants

The creator has said from early on that there are going to be three arcs, the first two with 11 chapters each and the third a bit shorter -- we're on chapter 24 now and the first two arcs did indeed complete with 11 chapters each, so this does seem to put us on target to be in the endgame and for things to resolve in the next few years! I am optimistic!

From:

jadelennox

I am so bad at reading webcomics but I will recite multiple jamie hamilton monologues at the drop of a hat, so I should probably give this a try.

From:

skygiants

I also am extremely bad at reading webcomics regularly, but I'm very good at binging backlog and becoming unwisely invested in terrible children, so HERE WE ARE.

From:

strikeslip

And if you buy the Oni Press print volume, it is all in color!

From:

skygiants

I am DEFINITELY buying the first volume, the author has very much earned this from me.

From:

dhampyresa

/covers eyes from spoilers

This sounds great!

From:

skygiants

:DDD I hope you enjoy if you read it!

From:

alias_sqbr

I might wait until it's done, but it does look very cool.

From:

skygiants

Hopefully I'll be able to check back and shout about the ending in, uh, three years or so???

From:

alias_sqbr

I look forward to it :)

From:

sheliak

Well I just followed your example and binged it and my thoughts are in no way done percolating, but I'm very curious about which characters you nominated!

From:

skygiants

I was still only partway through at the time nominations were closing, so I hastily nominated who I thought I might want at the time which was Fawn!Amparo, Iolanthe, Juliana, and Amparo's abuela -- had I actually managed to complete in time I probably would have shuffled that up a bit but I don't regret it too much.

From:

vcmw

I read the print collection of the first bit of this and it was so great. I am terrible at reading online comics but maybe I can binge just a little of the second bit?

From:

skygiants

The whole second volume is done! It is a great time to binge it! >.>

From:

chestnut_pod

Oh, well, time to request those two collected volumes at my local library, then!

From:

skygiants

Alas that at this time there is only one collected volume to request! But I think the second is coming soon ....

From:

reconditarmonia

It's SO good, holy fuck. Fawn(/not!Amparo) is so great.

UNRELATEDLY except that both of these are Books By People I Know, I finally finished The Iron Children and I LOVE IT yay. Gosh I have so many feelings! I love your worldbuilding and how the bodysharing/telepathy works out and the Jewishness and all the minor Dedicates (but also the mains, I just mean they're all so clearly sketched and I love them).

...but also it made me wonder if you've watched Simoun? Have we talked about this?

From:

skygiants

Oh gosh thank you so much, I'm so glad you dug it!! (& very glad you called out the minor Dedicates because they are my favorites tbh. >.>)

I have not watched Simoun and in fact I know very little about it other than ... anime? sad anime??

From:

reconditarmonia

Simoun is about priestesses whose form of worship is using two-person aircraft to draw magical shapes in the sky, and who had to become the airforce because their country is at war! They have a lot of various and complicated feelings about using the magical shapes for this and about being soldiers! Also in this society everyone is born female and chooses their adult gender when they come of age, and only people who haven't yet chosen can fly the magic aircraft. (there's at least one character who has "don't want to choose yet" as one of her main motivations for being a priestess/pilot)

SO YOU SEE WHY I MENTION IT. You might be into it!!

From:

skygiants

....okay yes I admit I do see why you mention this.

From:

sushiflop

Hi, subscribed for book reviews because I just love reading them but I also loved The Hazards of Love! Are you caught up to the comic because I'm intrigued by

spoilers

possible el ciervo redemption arc???

From:

skygiants

Hello!!! I AM and I'm also EXTREMELY curious about how this is going to be handled, given All Of The Everything.

From:

sushiflop

ALL OF THE EVERYTHING!! There's a lot of the everything. I feel like The Audience (TM) has soured on redemption arcs as a thing, which is a shame, because when they're done well I love them. I do feel like the author is very aware of just how horrible El Ciervo has been, so I've actually got high hopes for the execution bc I feel she will be willing to grapple with all the implications. 🤞 Very excited to see how things shake out in the comic in 2024! I also saw there was The Hazards of Love fic in Yuletide, was that your gift? It was excellent!