RAWLIN'S STORY script version (2024/11/04)

Content warnings: reference to past abuse, dealing with the aftereffects thereof, consensual sensual intimacy.

This comic is made in scribbly, sketchy pencil. Mori is reliably drawn with more detail than Rawlin, who is often just a silhouette with eyes, mask, and a straight severe line of a nose.

Pg. 1

Text: Once upon a time, there was a little butch, who lived in a pit of monsters.

Image: A little stick figure Mori (recognizable by her childhood ponytail) surrounded by larger, looming figures reaching for her.

Pg. 2

Text: The little butch did what she had to, to survive. But it wasn't good.

Image: Mori eating out of a trashcan, eyes wide and wild.

Pg. 3

Text: And so she created me. She created me from herself. Two halves of the same soul.

Image: Mori reaches up, holding a heart half in her hands. Rawlin in silhouette stands around her, hands framing the heart half still in Mori's chest.

Pg. 4

Text: We lived in secret. It is easier to survive together than alone.

Image: Mori is eating from the trash again, but her eyes are no longer so wild, and Rawlin's enormous shadow hugs her from behind, watching her back.

Pg. 5

Text: But whenever things got truly bad... She'd go alone.

Image: Mori pulls out of Rawlin's arms and walks into looming, smiling figures. Rawlin cries out and reaches after her in vain.

Pg. 6

Text: All I could do was watch.

Image: Rawlin's face, tears running down cheeks.

Pg. 7

Text: Wait.

Image: Mori, being swallowed up by a mass of grasping hands, two smiling mask faces above.

Pg. 8

Text: Hope she'd return.

Image: Close-up on Mori's face. Even as the hands descend around her, she's smiling, her eyes sparking.

Pg. 9

Text: Help her fight back. She was so small, but so fierce, the little butch.

Image: Mori, grinning and giving the middle fingers, while Rawlin's silhouette embraces her protectively from behind.

Pg. 10

Text: But she was dying. All of it was dying.

Image: Mori, no longer defiant, no longer strong, stands with her half-heart bleeding down her chest and legs, a puddle spreading around her. Over and around her, leaves fall from the sky and flowers wilt.

Pg. 11

Text: While I was forever safe. Forever protected.

Image: Rawlin kneels behind the bloody Mori, holding her protectively but helplessly.

Pg. 12

Text: One day, I met God (or so I thought). It was so beautiful in sight and sound and matter. I was dazzled.

Image: Rawlin stares enthralled at a shining white light.

Text: And it said,

Pg. 13

Image: The white light says in different handwriting, "I will save you... if you take me into your heart."

Pg. 14

Text: But I said,

Image: Rawlin touches hand to heart-half and says, "I cannot. Life blood comes from life blood. I must give mine to revive the world. I'll have no heart to give you."

The white light replies, "Then I will take what's left.

Pg. 15

Text: And I did. And it did.

Image: Rawlin's silhouette is now fractured with jagged lines radiating out of the shining white light that has replaced the heart half. Rawlin has a teeth-grinding grin.

Text: And I became far worse than dead.

Pg. 16

Text: I became ecstatic with divine purpose.

Image: Rawlin's face in silhouette, eyes huge and glassy, grin huge and jagged.

Text: I felt remade in glory.

Image: Rawlin's hands, strong and clawlike.

Pg. 17

Text: I did whatever the god wanted (which was to seed and feed on as many as it could).

Image: Rawlin, still grinning, white seed between thumb and forefinger, crouches over a smaller human with blank face and opened chest, preparing to seed them.

Text: It consumed me and I couldn't even feel bad about it.

Pg. 18

Text: When I disobeyed or questioned, it cut my supply of rapture...

Image: Rawlin, no longer smiling, crying desolately.

Text: ...leaving me bereft & contrite. I became a monster.

Pg. 19

Text: Now I was become what the little butch had always protected me from. And she protected me again...

Image: Mori casts Rawlin down, off the bottom of the panel, in a posture of condemnation.

Text: ...by casting me down into the depths, where I could hurt nobody.

Pg. 20

Text: And there I stayed, in the cold, screaming black...

Image: Rawlin, eyes huge and mouth jagged, shrieking up at a black dome expanse representing the abyssal waters above.

Text: ...for a long, long time.

Pg. 21

Text: When the butch returned, she was no longer little.

Image: Mori, now with punk hair do and sleeveless vest, rappels down into Rawlin's cell, flame in her hand to illuminate. Looking down at Rawlin, she goes, "Hello? You want out of here or what?"

Rawlin, staring up at her with wide eyes, goes, "...okay?"

Pg. 22

Text: She reached inside me...

Image: Mori reaches between Rawlin's ribs, blood gushing over her hand, saying, "I'm not leaving you like this."

Text: ...and she pulled the poison god from my ribs, freeing me.

Image: Mori glares at the seed, stainless white despite all the blood, and says, "I really hate you, weird seed thing."

Pg. 23

Text: I admit, I was dazzled again...

Image: Rawlin, little hearts floating above, stammers, "Er uh well um..."

Text: ...but I'd been god-eaten too long. I behaved very badly, to my shame.

Image: Rawlin's speech bubble is emphatic and completely censored. Mori just stares at him with utter bafflement, leans away and goes, "Uh... no. What?"

Pg. 24

Text: I was thrown out until I could behave.

Image: A door slams shut behind Rawlin, who has just been given the bum's rush.

Text: It took years. Then I was too ashamed to show my face to anyone.

Image: Rawlin, chest scarred from where the seed used to be, covers face with hands, though bubble reading, "Stupid, stupid stupid monster!"

Text: What good was I to anyone?

Pg. 25

Text: But circumstances changed. I was slowly trusted, brought back into the fold.

Image: Mori, now with hair slicked back James Dean style and dressed in sweats, goes jogging with Rawlin.

Text: I began to live, not just exist.

Pg. 26

Text: But my feelings were... complicated.

Image: Mori pops up cheerfully over and over. With a flame from her fingertip: "'Ey, Rawlin! Wanna burn your godseed at 3AM?" Wielding a book of lesbian photography: "Wanna come protest Nazis with me?" Brandishing a brush hopefully: "Brushy brushy? Eh? Eh?"

Rawlin, clearly taken aback and extremely nervous goes, "Um... okay?" but with a thought bubble reading, "This is a bad idea. I like this too much for the wrong reasons, should she even be doing this with me after all I've done???"

Pg. 27

Image: Mori is kneeling, brushing a recumbent Rawlin's back with a delighted expression. "Hahaha, this is awesome!" she announces as she brushes.

Rawlin has to confess via thought bubble, "It does feel nice..."

Close-up on Mori's hands stroking over Rawlin's fur. It's simple but intimate.

Rawlin shivers, expression immediately becoming uncomfortable. "Too nice!" reads the thought bubble. "Definitely, definitely too nice! Did she notice? Please let her not notice..."

Text: She noticed.

Pg. 28

Image: Mori approaches an extremely squirrely Rawlin. "Okay, dude, we need to talk," she says.

Rawlin's thought bubble holds a wailing siren but says nothing.

Mori continues, expression calm, "We're fuckin' adults, okay? We can talk about this shit. I like being near you. I like touching you. I don't wanna bump uglies with you. 'Kay?"

The top of Rawlin's head pops off with a Boom. "Uh?"

Mori goes on, "I know eventually I'm gonna remember what all you done and be mad as hell about it. But that will be then, and this here is now. I feel safe to do this with you. I want to do this with you."

Pg. 29

Image: Mori finishes with a, "So? What do you want?"

Rawlin, clearly disarmed by Mori's straightforwardness, thinks about it. "I... I don't know. Everything feels sexual, and I... have bad associations with that. Every touch... it's so much."

Mori snorts. "Well, avoiding that shit forever ain't gonna solve that problem. You ain't been touched in twenty years. Duh it'll be a lot! Just because you feel something doesn't mean you gotta act on it."

"I... never thought of it that way," Rawlin admits, looking thoughtful. "But what if I get out of hand again?"

"Dude," Mori goes, "I can just walk away. Or call Rogan and we do the crisis plan like you set up. You aren't the boogeyman you used to be, these days."

Pg. 30

Image: Rawlin hooks a hand over the opposite shoulder and looks away. "...I never thought of such things before the god. There was so much else to worry about... why would I?" Her thought bubble holds an open trashcan. "It's like the god forced that upon me, before I was ready. Sex went from nothing to everything, so quickly..." Tiny Rawlin figures stand at a volume dial, one at the 0 end and looking curious, while the other plummets off the precipice of "max." "Everything feels sexual to me now. I hate it."

Mori looks sympathetic and pulls out a copy of Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma, by Staci Haines. "You know," she says, "we got a book what might help with that... we could read it together..."

Pg. 31

Image: Rawlin reads, holding Mori's hand. All text on this page is quoted from Haines.

"Allowing yourself your own desire might not come naturally to you... You may have to learn to tolerate the feelings of pleasure and desire all over again." (25) "[You] may mistake sexual energy for abuse itself... [but] just like money, sexual energy can be used for beneficial or destructive ends." (26)

"What it comes down to is this: Will you decide for yourself or have someone else do it for you?" (32)

"Which options heal you? ...Empower and support you?" (35)

Images of Mori's bloody hands holding the removed seed, her hands brushing down Rawlin's back.

"You get to be the one who names the unique sexual expression that is yours. Grant yourself permission." (35)

Pg. 32

Image: Rawlin looks surprised. "Huh. This... actually helps."

Mori leans on Rawlin's shoulder and grins. "I know, right? It's almost like this is our job'n'shit!"

Text: The idea that we got to choose... anything we wanted, and that the very act of choosing and trusting and respecting was what made the difference... it felt like leaving a cage for a wide-open plain. So much space was intimidating... but freeing too.

Image: Mori and Rawlin, tiny silhouettes dwarfed by a massive bubble landscape of mountains and hills.

Text: All there was to do... was whatever we wanted.

Pg. 33

Image: Mori crosses her arms over her chest, body language relaxed, smiling. "Ground rules. You don't touch me unless I say okay or initiate."

Rawlin, getting into the spirit of things, says, "Back and arms only. I say stop, you stop."

"We can use Mac and Rogan's stoplight system," Mori says, leaning against and pointing to a large (metaphorical) traffic light, with red labeled "stop," yellow labeled "pause," and green "go/yes!"

"That works," Rawlin says, then squints. "Wait. Is this... a kinky thing?"

Mori shrugs. "If you mean 'a socially devalued way to express intimacy,' yes. If you mean 'sexy to the max,' no."

"Huh," Rawlin says, who has never considered the distinction and is now thinking about it for the first time.

Pg. 34

Text: And so, the next time...

Image: Mori approaches with curry comb and an expression like a kid wanting to pet a puppy. She points to the comb. "Eh? Eh?"

Rawlin chuckles, clearly uncertain but relenting. "Okay."

"Yesssssss!"

In the next panel, Rawlin's lying down, posture relaxed as Mori brushes down her back. "What are you getting out of this, anyway?" she asks.

Mori shrugs. "I'unno. You feel good is all."

"Mm."

Text: Could it truly be that simple? Feeling good?

Image: Close-up on Mori's hands as she brushes, clearly doing a good job. Rawlin's eyes are closed, just drinking in the simple pleasure of it.

Pg. 35

Image: Off-panel, Mori asks, "Hey. Can I touch your neck?"

Rawlin's eyes shoot open. A heart beats in the background. "Um. Okay?"

"That a question or permission?"

"Permission! Green!"

Mori brushes Rawlin's shoulders, free hand on the back of her neck. Her expression is militantly nonchalant. Rawlin's is not. "Can I pin you a bit?" Mori asks.

Rawlin swallows. "Y-yes."

Mori puts the brush away, leans her weight against the back of Rawlin's neck and shoulders. Rawlin's eyes close with a long sigh.

Pg. 36

The speech bubbles become detached from the images, illustrating as things progress.

"Can I touch your hair?" "Yes."

One hand still on the back of Rawlin's neck, Mori leans in to pull her hair. Rawlin bites her lip, expression serene and relieved.

"Your throat?" "Yes."

Rawlin bares her throat to Mori's hand, which strokes over it.

Caption: A purring in my muscles. A pleasant warmth. A sense of homecoming.

Mori asks, "Can I touch your scar?" and Rawlin, smiling, only says, "Yes, yes, yes," as she does, brushing her own fingertips over Mori's forearm.

Caption: And nothing bad happened. I stayed myself.

Pg. 37

Text: There remain many things I don't know about myself... but... I hope to never forget the joy of this moment. Thank you, my butch.

Image: Rawlin sitting up, weeping and smiling joyously at the same time while Mori smiles back and grips her chin in a way both comforting and possessive. Everyone's body language is relaxed.