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CH10P44
Posted on 1 September 2022 by rustyhearts

[[EDIT: oops, woke up thinking it was Monday.. Enjoy the double update this week, ladies!]]

[[EDIT X2: Since there's been some confusion: Maria is Alexis' mother. Yaya is off screen in the kitchen. ]]      

All going well so far :3 I'd like to thank breastie of the site, @arbustorum, for talking me out of including Alexis's dad in this scene. Despite my ruleset (male characters are only implemented as vehicles to develop important - see: female- characters), I am not immune to over-using them. -- and to everyone I scared with this joke image:

You can rest easy (for now :3).

9 thoughts on “CH10P44”

  1. lesboss

    found out about this comic today,have been reading it all night long and honestly it’s one of the greatest ones I’ve ever read,leave alone lesbian comics
    I loved it so much!!

    1. rustyhearts

      Wow thank you so so much for taking the time to read it! You’re incredibly kind, and I’m so glad you enjoyed it <3
      Hope you're able to catch up on sleep, and continue to enjoy reading LB <333

  2. Tenbelow

    FEAR

    I’ve seen commentors theorizing that Alex might have a homophobic family and then the previous page combined on with this one… My eyes honed RIGHT onto the cross on mama’s neck. It’s so small but that tiny bit of yellow really draws the eye when it’s surrounded by all the purple. Of course I have known some religious people who were very sweet very kind blahdeblah but that Religion has oppression of women built into it and has been the source of pain for so many same sex attracted people. I can’t help but get heebies and jeebies any time I see Christian stuff….

    I just have to laugh

    *there’s a tiny little cross*
    me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

    it’s made me more nervous then anything else that’s shown up in this comic for quite awhile, lol! If I’m supposed to look at that cross and feel DOOM, well. I sure did. Hahaha

    Also the fabric folds in Kass’s panel.. mom’s dress… they look so glorious. Fabric is so hard to draw! Whenever someone draws glorious folds like that I just have to notice it…

    I feel so Aware that Lexxie also needs to Get Out and Get Away from her family… there’s so many women in LeaseBound who need to get away from their families so they can breathe… I hope they do, everyone spreads their wings and fliiiesss…. I think it’ll be nice to see even more backstories of all these women, because I find myself thinking about Shez. Shez’s story seems different from a lot of these other women. A lot of these ladies need to GET AWAY from their mothers but hmm it just seems like it could be different with dear Shez….

    This really is a very ambitious story and project you’re making all on your own. so much to cover haha

    *i side eye the cross again and slowly back away from it as i finish up my comment, too nervous to think of much else good to say*

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    1. rustyhearts

      Trust your fear :3


      And omg re: fabric, thank you!! I am SO SOOOO proud of that panel in particular, the dress hem took several attemps to get it looking right, and I almost went with something much flatter because I thought it looked too much like it was blowing in non-existent wind. Glad I stuck with it now!!


      You can definitely expect more backstories. I Love your perceptiveness about Shez. her backstory is written and it has been vaguely hinted at in chapter 5. Sometimes I overwhelm myself with how much story there is left to put out there, currently swirling around in my head, but I once felt that way about this chapter, and it was once just a far off ‘someday’ future plan. I have to remind myself every now and then to keep myself grounded.


      I would be no where without the support of thoughtful commenters like you tho! I live for the thoughts and feedback of all the women who read LB <3
      Thank you again so much for always leaving such insightful comments.....And buckle up >:3

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      1. Tenbelow

        NO MARIA NO ;-; DON’T WORSHIP FAKE DUDES MEN MADE UP TO CONTROL OTHERS… You have a REAL daughter who does you REAL good and helps you for REAL don’t mistreat her because of those FAKE MEN who would never love you like your DAUGHTER DOOOOESSS. Do NOT hurt your daughter for any man, real or fake!! What are you doing Maria!! Maria why can’t you hear me?!? Oh no she’s a fictional drawing and she’s not listening because she can’t MARIA NOOO she’s a character in a story and she has to serve the narrative so Rusty can make the statements she wants to make!!! it’s an important story to tell and Maria’s actions are part of that marriiaaaaaaaaa!!!

        ah religion… tearing families apart… </3

        oh nooo it doesn't look like it's blowing in the wind at all to me, it looks like it's reacting very naturally to Maria turning her body to look at Kass. It's absolutely gorgeous. And even if it wasn't like, "realistic", exaggerating things and making them MORE cool and pretty then in reality is one of the powers of art. You always have so much to be proud of for what you're accomplishing in LeaseBound. I'd say your art is like. So completely absolutely "professional" but I don't know if "professional" is a compliment. I'm sure you see the GARBAGE art men can make that gets called "professional". women with broken spines. BUT MY POINT IS… your art is so SO SO SO good, and you deserve to feel so proud of it. Art is subjective in some senses, but you are absolutely at a level where you possess a lot of OBJECTIVE skill. Even if people are like "bleh I just don't like cartoony style and bright colors" or whatever, anyone calling your art bad is just a dunderhead. the skill level is objective. (I know you already know all of that, but I want to say it all anyway 💜

        There's definitely the "kill your darlings" thing when it comes to writing… And I hope you don't HAVE to do that… I feel like a long-running comic is a great medium to go explore absolutely everything you want to explore. It's not like, a short novel you're trying to keep a certain length. You've got plenty of readers who want to see EVERYTHING 👁👁 and i like the way i can't have the Whole Story within a month. It's a very nice and reassuring thought to think I could be looking forward to seeing more and more and more of this story for years to come.

        BUT OF COURSE…! You come first. If something does happen that means you have to stop the project or wrap it up early… omg you've already blessed us with so much, and for FREE? So yeah, you just do whatever you gotta do, Rusty always comes before everything else.

        1. rustyhearts

          1

        2. rustyhearts

          But in serious, thank you so much for saying everything you did in this comic <3 It's very reassuring to know there are readers willing to wait and see this story through with me! I had a terrible habbit of starting projects with big ambitions and then never finishing them (13 year old me was determined to make my very own 'anime', fully animated by myself with nothing but MSPaint 95 and 100% concentrated power of will). So I'm very determined to see this one to the end, no matter how antsy I to finish I get sometimes.

          <333

  3. Emma

    When I saw the cross around mamaAlexis’s neck, I thought: “Oh, she’s Christian?” Since Christians believe homosexuality is a sin, this is going to cause conflict! Parents tend to want their children to believe similar things they do. I also thought this might be the reason why Alexis and Jaden don’t work out. But how??
    Maybe the family tells Alexis she can’t date Jaden. But Alexis is a grown adult and can do whatever she wants. She and Jaden can easily keep doing what they’re doing regardless of how the mom feels.

    But maybe the mom is financially supporting Alexis’s studies. If mom is footing all the bills, she could tell Alexis: “Focus on your studies and stop dating Jaden, or I won’t give you money anymore!” Then Alexis will have to choose either her future career vs. a relationship. Something women have been choosing for all of modern history, really…

    I’m someone who was poor enough and worked her butt off enough for top grades so I could get tons of free money for college via grants and scholarships. Being of East Asian descent helped, too, since there is money available for that. Alexis seems hard-working so she probably has the grades to get some scholarships, but what if her family is rich enough to not qualify for some grants?? And she’s Greek and being of European descent doesn’t qualify you for any scholarships, either. That makes it a little harder, but she could always take out student loans! IDK how it is in Australia, but student loans are super easy to get (because banks love preying on young people and charging insane interest rates after graduation ugh), but if Alexis is studying to be a dentist, that’s a solid, stable, well-paying job so she wouldn’t need to worry about the loan payments after graduation!

    I’m just thinking out loud at this point. In the end, I know this will become very hard for Alexis and I sympathize. 🙁 I know if I met someone at college and my family told me I needed to either choose this one person I met 4 months ago vs. my entire family I’ve loved my entire life, raised me, and my mom who cleaned up my poop when I was a baby and taught me how to eat, I’m going to choose my family every time. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, tho.

    OR maybe the dad is going to put down a hard line! Maybe the mom wants to support Alexis no matter what, but the dad is going to be all “I’m a man and what I say goes, no questions asked!” Guys tend to be more aggressive about this. What if he forces Alexis to go to a different university? What if he moves the family back with his family in Greece to “get Alexis away from bad influences”? He could spring this on Alexis suddenly so she’s unable to make plans to do anything else but follow her family.
    Most of all, I think of family ties. Blood ties are STRONG (again, this could just be a cultural thing in my family since I see so many white people much more easily cut all ties with their families even when they’re very young).

    Now I’m imagining Alexis being forced to live elsewhere by her father, but in a later chapter when Jaden and Riley get together, Alexis shows up again now a dentist, financially independent and stable enough to do whatever she wants, and she has a girlfriend. Jaden and Alexis then catch up amicably, sorry they lost what they had, but Jaden talks about how great Riley is and Alexis talks about how great her new girlfriend uhhhhhhhh Karen is (I’m taking back the Karen trope, she’ll be in my Leasebound fanfiction as a very lovely woman lol)! That’d be bittersweet.

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    1. rustyhearts

      All very good questions!

      ( I love the idea of reclaiming Karen. Maybe I gotta get a Karen into LB 🤔🤔)

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