I thought I’d highlight a few references from the recent comic, because there may be things in there you’d missed … in fact there will definitely be things in there people missed because, much like Joan of Arc (or Winona Ryder), MY MIND IS INFECTED and I tend not to explain where things come from, so this post explores a little.
On another topic … well … three other topics: (1) BobC; I replied to your kind comment on the previous post, (2) I wanted to publicly thank the host of this cute lil website (who actually featured briefly as a name-drop in Lithium as a private joke) – they are absolute legends at solving things and getting me back up and running, FREE OF CHARGE. Also, (3) could someone put Reunited onto e-hentai please? I’m worried if my website goes down the comic won’t get out there onto the interwebs at all. And (3.5) I’ve just noticed ALL OF LITHIUM has fallen off e-hentai too – it’s in Hungarian and French but not English, probably because it was uploaded so long ago. So if you’ve got an account and fancy uploading Lithium in original English again, that’d be grand. Thank you!
Now, Easter Eggs …
^ when they first sit down, they remove their shoes … Daisy leaves her sandals spread far apart (let’s go …), and John puts his shoes in between, missionary-style. It’s a premonition.
^ that’s the very first time John sees Daisy, and the red boner-covering towel is ready and waiting for him! Not an Easter Egg as such, but kinda funny.
… I just enjoyed this, lol …
^ this is one of the many bits that come from real-life; my friend K said this some years back, when we were talking about all of the objects in her home that she had ‘tested’ in her vagina since she was about 13, and it was so so funny, we were laughing so hard the list was getting absurdly long as she thought about it … so she actually turned it into a poem and performed it at an open mic one night, hahahaha! True story 😂🥒🍆🔭🌭 She’s another example of a confident, vivid woman IRL. I do love my friends.
… again, this conversation literally happened. With a parent literally saying “Come on?!!” in their pained way, as if they shouldn’t have to put up with it hahahaha! I’m beginning to think this is why my comics maybe hit different; they’re just true awkward stories hahaha 😬
… I made sure that very tonguey frog slide was subtly (or not so subtly) in the background whenever possible if there was a ‘drooling’ or snogging reference. Just for lols.
So … now some comic universe references … first of all there’s obviously the posters on John’s wall: Forbidden Planet (it’s on Charlie’s bedroom wall in Lithium as well, because Forbidden Planet refers to hidden/ashamed thoughts being materialised into reality … watch the film), and of course pop-art Leonard Nimoy, as is tradition for any comic referring to the STFW cluster of comics which is vaguely Star Trek universe.
There’s a few more Lithium tie-ins as well, some of them weaker than others …
… 384 years puts us at the kick-off of Lithium (despite my catastrophic typo in Lithium #14, Lithium takes place in the 24th century). No real reason for this reference, other than to point to the generation-spanning messed-up-family-tree of the STFW universe.
… was a reference to Skylar’s happy time in the jacuzzi in Lithium #8. Here she is, orgasming in Hungarian:
So this is where we talk about the parallels with The Rather Magnificent Family Bubble. Obviously with John being Kal’s dad, there needed to be some decent references going on to tie those series together; first of all, there’s the location. Here are YOUNG ANNA SMIT (not Daisy) and EVEN YOUNGER KAL SMIT (not John), at the beginning of RMFB comic #1, standing in the Reunited comic’s Annexe (John’s temporary room), but in around 2010, so 27 years after Reunited:
… so that’s Anna and Kal standing in the Reunited scenery! I was pretty pleased about that carefully setup reference, even if no-one noticed it. So in 2010(ish) John’s son Kal is a teenager, and Anna (the younger sister of John’s wife) is 25 – pictured above in an orange dress (itself a Dutch reference … because Anna later … anyway …). And 10 years after that, here they are in RMFB comic #2, 2020/2021, discussing the bum-groping whilst in Covid lockdown together:
… did anyone realise that? Ah well, I do try to be consistent, good fun if you ask me. [ahem Autism ahem]
Anyway back to 1983’s Reunited; this is Kal’s dad, John narrating:
… is a reference to RMFB, in which Kal also literally complains about his inability to form decent metaphors (“Like a toothpick in a mouse’s rucksack” etc), and it’s one of my favourite bits in RMFB, haha!
Here’s another parallel:
^Kal’s dad John falls while trying to get undressed. Decades later, Kal falls while trying to get undressed:
… with the exact same resounding THUNK! 😂
And here they are enjoying that squeaky camp bed. John in 1983:
… John stores the metal-framed camp bed which decades later gets used by Anna Smit (John’s wife’s little sister) during her house move, the bed that subsequently gets broken by John’s son Kal …
(You can see the top-right of the camp bed frame is broken; it’s twisted by Kal’s head/shoulders). Haha! Again, no reason for any of this really, it’s just me being autistic and finding it funny to connect everything in the most elaborate nested series of comics known to our species. No biggie 😬🤷
🥂 Final thing I had to do was get some champagne in there, because my all-time, absolute favourite thing about RMFB is the … well, just the joy of the whole thing. The champagne. The celebration of life.
… I mean do I even need to point out the champagne reference?? Probably not. This is from Bubble:
… I’m pretty sure that image is why Daisy is called Daisy, btw. And when I wrote Daisy’s character to fit with the reference in RMFB #6/7, more than anything I just wanted Daisy to embody the effervescence, the unquenchable joy of the RMFB series.
… I suppose I depicted her like this because it’s easy; my closest friends have always been like this, confident and vivid. And horny and silly. And jealous and tragic and wonderful and creative and tired and incredible.
And when I think of all the mysogynistic bollocks on youtube or in porn generally, I just feel sad for all those angry boys who don’t know women, and are missing out, wholesale, on life.
Anyway that’s it, I hope you enjoyed my little debrief on the recent comic! Now go and share it all round the interweb so others can enjoy its silliness too x🥂
Thanks for sharing. I like the continuity and little bits that add to the entire experience of the amazing stories you craft (and all the juicy details too).
Beautiful.
<3
Done.
Thank you 🙏
Love the easter eggs! I caught maybe 1/3 of them on my own. Seeing the others has been fun! I especially like that the bedroom room was the SAME ROOM. I’m usually good at spotting reused sets and other items in 3D art, and love how different they can be made to appear just by using different camera positions and lighting, but I totally missed that one.
Please, do make use of my recollections however you like! After all, it’s your work (and DesertFox!), along with your prompting, that reawakened them and helped me share them. I’m grateful for that.
My Mom’s been gone a few years now, and she comes to mind less often. But sharing this story has refreshed so many other memories I have of her. Especially in her role of being the first adult to expect me to think and act as an adult. And to be brave in sharing.
So, another memory snippet. In our shift to more adult roles, Mom was always still my Mom. And, from time to time, whenever she felt the need, she’d still “mother” me. It could be as simple as a reminder to wear a jacket. Anything which seemingly would bypass her adult perspective of me, and remind me I was, and would always be, her child. We’d laugh at it, though I would always say, “I love you too”, to ensure the laughter had no sting to it. At some point, these episodes came to be called “mervering” (rather than ‘mothering’), though I’m not sure which of us came up with the term. When she did one of her mothering things, I’d say, “Yes, Merver”, which became an endearing shorthand. Which I believe she took as encouragement and permission to tease me. Which it totally was! She always had a sparkle in her eye when doing it.
So, yeah, thanks for letting me share just how amazing my Mom was.
Here’s the Cliff Notes version of the rest of my “encounters” with my Mom. We progressed from alternating masturbation to simultaneous masturbation. Then we used our hands to do the same for each other. Then we had sex.
The thing is, I don’t recall the number of times we did each of those, just that the total was small, like 6 to 8, max. And after each, I’d go back to sleep on the couch. That is, we never slept the night together. We both wanted to, we talked about it, yet we finally decided that some minimal boundaries were needed. One thing she said kind of sealed the deal, “I want your first full night with a woman to NOT be with your mother!” We both laughed at that, but it really did draw exactly the right line for us.
It also allowed our “encounters” to also be limited to that time in her cabin. I went off to the Navy, she moved for new jobs, and that time was allowed to become its own special and unique thing. And a complete thing.
That first “sleepover” didn’t arrive until the day before my 22nd birthday, after I had been in the US Navy nearly 4 years. But that’s another story, the one I called, “The First Woman I Should Have Married”.
I am uploading Lithium. first ever upload so I don’t know what I’m doing(yet)
OK, about the 4 years between the cabin and my first sexy sleepover.
While my undiagnosed mental health issues, anxieties, and insecurities limited my ability to form and sustain relationships, I always had opportunities. Basically, I’m not ugly or crude (despite being a sailor), and sometimes that’s enough to generate interest.
I was a primarily a loner, but going out with my shipmates was kind of required. They’d go out to score, I went out to see if I could become more able to tolerate going out in the first place. I’m a drinking lightweight, so no big buzz for me. My saving grace was dancing. I loved to dance, in part because I loved music and motion, but also because it allowed me to be near women without having to maintain a conversation! I was very inhibited, and my failing and fumbling attempted advances were always rebuffed.
The thing is, if I avoided making those clumsy advances, women would approach me instead! I’d go on the occasional (stressful) date, but nothing clicked. I was too apprehensive. But dancing? I had a regular group of women who were my friends inside the clubs, if not outside them.
Until I first dated a mother. No, it wasn’t a direct call-back to my Mom, something I made very sure of within myself. In part, it lowered immediate expectations. A single mom was inherently more independent, meaning she needed less from me, and had less to give me (at least in the moment). Also, it generally meant her “baby clock” wasn’t a pounding distraction. Dating a single mom also made it so easy to see where I could simply help out.
Plus, I simply loved kids. I may have mentioned that I was the only male babysitter in my neighborhood, largely due to moving to live with my Dad and Bonus Mom and having to help care for their first and soon second children, my half-brothers. Dating a single mom, then immediately bonding with her kid(s), added awesome dimensions to dating. I could somehow handle multiple smaller simultaneous relationships far easier than a single all-encompassing one. Go figure.
It does dip into TFWISHM (“The First Woman I Should Have Married”) story, who also was the first mom I dated. The night we met was amazing (and is the first chapter of TFWISHM, titled “The Wingman”). We immediately scheduled our first date. I showed up only to find my date looking stressed, as her daughter’s babysitter had cancelled and she had no backup. My immediate response was, “Would it be OK if she came with us?”. I think that’s the moment when she really fell for me. The three of us had a fantastic date together, largely because I encouraged her daughter to introduce herself to me by telling me whatever stories she wanted to share. She was totally funny, her mom and I being wonderfully entertained.
However, the Navy soon had other plans for me, and I couldn’t sustain my first attempt at a long-distance relationship (which is the closing chapter of TFWISHM).
Until my mid-40s, I dated only single moms. While the romances never made it to the altar, I got close twice. And I’m still in the lives of some of those kids, attending graduations, weddings, births and even becoming a kind of grand-uncle to their kids.
How many get to have positive multi-generational relationships after failed romances? I do! Makes being permanently single so much easier.
Contittyunity? Is that a thing?
Contitunity? Contittyunity? This is probably nothing but they’re my gift to you
The bits and pieces that bridge all your work is great.
Continuititty.
Haha thank you for that donation of thought! I always try to make things consistits 😂