GND 365 - Perception checks

HI! I live! And I still do not have much time to resume any kind of regular update posting BOOOOO but how's about at least wrapping up this lil scene.

And lets do an entire session of Pilates leaning on that Fourth Wall there.

LOTS OF SUBTEXT. Lookit Sarah defending her man (... kinda sorta?!) - or at least admitting the existence of a boyfriend of the sort one eventually introduces to one's parents.... that's a whole rollercoaster of being dissed and affirmed almost in the same breath for our glitterboi. Aaaand back to drawing them making out which seems to be the main compulsion in my coming back to doing these at this point.

I kept this light and on the repeat meta gag but this idea of the Karen conversation initially had a whole different series of quite serious characterization beats I wanted to hit. The elephant in the room is Linda! Karen wants to affirm  her trust in her stepdaughter to be an altogether better and more decent and sensible person than her bio-mum, but also knows she's taken after her for loving Drama~ and craving a life less ordinary, so she worries - and there's no way really to formulate such things without seeming to be gratuitiously ragging on The Rival and/or controlling and critical and getting Sarah on the defensive! But Karen's got to be the Reasonable Authority Figure parent but also of course college is a time for self-exploration and being a free young adult and she doesn't really expect/want Sarah to be getting engaged or in the family way at 20 when she's meant to be studying for a career...! But someone has to say the right words (oh.... how about that) and it can't be Robert because you wanna bet (oh hey instant canon just add water) among the reasons Linda gave for wanting a divorce/just leaving - whether she made the accusation explicitly and in bad faith, or in true distress, or merely implied - was that omigod Robert you are STIFLING me - and Robert is just so terrified of hearing the same from his lovely lookalike prickly daughter and driving her off in turn, of course he opts for hands-off conflict-averse parenting and amiably keeping his distance.....

... that was a lot to work into any kind of natural dialogue and end on a joke.

And to be quite fair to Sarah's stubborn blind spot, hers is a valid question - Bowie's The Next Day album in 2012 was mentioned in-comic canon, before the Day of the Blackstar timeline aversion, so as far as she knows and fangirls, he is a (very much alive) genteelly-sexy semi-retired sexagenarian musician, no longer the kind of chap to show up in scandalous paparazzi pics covered in cocaine and bodyglitter.... plothole or mystery!

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