AAAAHHHH Painted Strawberries starts out with the universal queer experience of being convinced that every other queer is better at dating than you are, except for the assholes, who are *unfairly* better at dating than you are -- And then it pivots to the universal queer experience of "who are all these women and where were they when I was looking cute for 20 minutes last Friday" (maybe this is just me)
And then it pivots to the careful and slow build of understanding before WHAM -- the entirely NOT universal experience of being a queer person of color in a world that is *determined* to fetishize you -- in one way or another.
Oh man I am so into thiiiiis!
GWAHDHDJJDJS it makes me SO happy that someone is reading and analyzing my work with such care 🥹🥹 thank you so much!!
I wrote Painted Strawberries as a goofy gay romcom, but I also really like to show sides of sapphic dating that aren’t really explored. Jiwon and Sabrina struggle with dating in different ways, they’re both butch, they’re both queer women of color.
Sexuality lies in relation with SO many aspects of our identities: gender expression and race are only a few examples. Even within our community, there are people with experiences we aren’t familiar with. I want people to say, “oh, I never thought about that before!” but see that there can still be solidarity and understanding even if we aren’t the same.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying it so far!! This made me so happy to read, thank you 💕
