Sonny may know a thing or two about keeping your options open.
“The Big Hiatus” wasn’t just about searching for fairies and sacrificing your friendship. There was a lot of conversation between Lottie and Shelley Winters, who’s been her mentor since she was 7 or so, outside and around the story Lottie was telling her. At one point, the subject of Lottie’s love life came up. Lottie’s response was, “Um, well, no. I have a rich fantasy world of lust, but in real life, non.”
I had previously assumed that Lottie was ace. “Mystery is her boyfriend,” and all that. By this point, all of the other mystery kids had had some romantic connection or another, but in all of Bad Machinery the closest Lottie gets to a romantic relationship is one platonic hug with Tuan before literally saying, “Goodbye forever,” and walking away without looking back. So at the time, just the idea that Lottie had fantasies startled me so much that I didn’t stop to consider who might feature in them.
More recently, Lottie’s reaction to both Maggie and Billie in the Steeple crossover “Author Unknown” got me to revisit that conversation with Shelley, and I noticed that Lottie didn’t, at any point in that conversation, use any gendered terms.
I think one of the reasons that Lottie is, as she puts it in “Circus Windows”, “behind the curve on love”, is that, due to her late birthday, she’s most of a year younger than the other mystery girls. But I’ve started to wonder if maybe Sonny’s onto something here, if maybe one of the reasons that her love life has been non is that the girls she’s been into have been inconveniently straight. Her reaction to Shauna spending time with Blossom in the last story may make more sense if there’s more than just friend-jealousy there.
In a recent Solver story, Lottie got a boyfriend, but he was not a man of substance and didn’t last long.
Sonny may know a thing or two about keeping your options open.
“The Big Hiatus” wasn’t just about searching for fairies and sacrificing your friendship. There was a lot of conversation between Lottie and Shelley Winters, who’s been her mentor since she was 7 or so, outside and around the story Lottie was telling her. At one point, the subject of Lottie’s love life came up. Lottie’s response was, “Um, well, no. I have a rich fantasy world of lust, but in real life, non.”
I had previously assumed that Lottie was ace. “Mystery is her boyfriend,” and all that. By this point, all of the other mystery kids had had some romantic connection or another, but in all of Bad Machinery the closest Lottie gets to a romantic relationship is one platonic hug with Tuan before literally saying, “Goodbye forever,” and walking away without looking back. So at the time, just the idea that Lottie had fantasies startled me so much that I didn’t stop to consider who might feature in them.
More recently, Lottie’s reaction to both Maggie and Billie in the Steeple crossover “Author Unknown” got me to revisit that conversation with Shelley, and I noticed that Lottie didn’t, at any point in that conversation, use any gendered terms.
I think one of the reasons that Lottie is, as she puts it in “Circus Windows”, “behind the curve on love”, is that, due to her late birthday, she’s most of a year younger than the other mystery girls. But I’ve started to wonder if maybe Sonny’s onto something here, if maybe one of the reasons that her love life has been non is that the girls she’s been into have been inconveniently straight. Her reaction to Shauna spending time with Blossom in the last story may make more sense if there’s more than just friend-jealousy there.
In a recent Solver story, Lottie got a boyfriend, but he was not a man of substance and didn’t last long.