#sabine: an asexual coming-of-age story

[historyhermann]

Beauty, dress codes, and fashion: Examining twenty fictional White female librarians [Part 3]

Continued from part 2

Screenshots taken from fandom gallery of "Through the Looking Glass Ruins" episode of The Owl House; a Dutch nun in 1992 and a Hungarian priest in 1935

Even more simplified is Amity Blight in The Owl House, who is directly shown as a librarian in the episode "Through the Looking Glass Ruins". As she travels into a dangerous/forbidden section of the library to help her friend Luz Noceda, she wears a library employee card in a lanyard around her neck, a black short sleeve dress, black point shoes, and orchid leggings. In the episode, she ties up her hair in a typical librarian style, as shown in the image above. She looks similar to those working in religious libraries, especially a nun or even a priest.

Reprinted from my Pop Culture Library Review WordPress, where this post was published on Nov. 29, 2022.

When I saw what she was wearing, it immediately make of something religious. Wearing the color black can express self-confidence, sensitivity, an attempt to impress someone, could indicate someone has a rebellious nature that doesn't accept authority, exudes a person's feelings of power and influence, and building walls to protect themselves. It doesn't necessarily make you "part of a suspicious sect" or anything like that. Rather, wearing black-colored clothes can be classy, mysterious, or distinguished. More specifically, some have argued that wearing black can be slimming, elegant, sexy, chic, or even overbearing and evil. Most of the positive qualities are the reasons that Amity is watching it, as the wearing black-colored clothes can signal "a desire to reclaim one’s power." [13]

Inter-related with this is the fact that librarian and library perform a specific role "in the language of fashion," employed in phrases like librarian chic, conjuring imperatives and fantasies on librarians, their labor, and recognition. This centers "class-privileged white women" as the stewards of librarianship and space of the library itself. Furthermore, cuteness can compel viewers to place value on what is cute, worthy to be desired, protected, and cared for. As such, if Whiteness is seen as cute, it is devoid of its "power to inflict violence" and is not threatening. The latter is the case with Amity, as often seen by fans, as she is clearly attractive, delightful, appealing, or even clever and mentally keen, and is White. [14] In that sense, the styles of Amity and Kaisa are somewhat similar.

Amity is also a lesbian, something which I mentioned back in October. Like everyone else, lesbians internalize societal standards of appearance and weight, even though they were more critical of "traditional social norms" when it came to roles and rights of women. A large number saw physical attractiveness as "important in a partner," even though such attractiveness was functional rather than a concern for looks like straight women. Not surprisingly, there is even a fashion style known as "lesbian chic." [15]

Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, archivist at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, argued that librarians are marginal due to enduring values just as lesbians are marginal, noted that lesbian is a sexual orientation and a "constructed political identity." She also said that all lesbians may not be "equipped to be librarians" with a lesbian "subject specialty." [16] Amity may not have that specialty, nor may she know nothing about lesbian herstory, lesbian separatism, or lesbian feminism, but she would provide service of a high caliber to patrons and fight lesbian erasure at the same time.

Like Amity, other librarians also have their own style. This includes Mo Testa in Dykes to Watch Out For, public librarian Myra in The Public, Sabine in Sabine: an asexual coming-of-age story, Desiree, Sara, and Sarah, her two work colleagues. The latter three characters are in Too Loud, an animated web series. Starting with Mo, a lesbian feminist and reference librarian, is described as a "worrier and kvetch extraordinaire" on the comic's official website, she has a "penchant for striped clothing" just like the comic's author, Alison Bechdel. This means that Mo is falling into the style of being "overly conventional," and not as colorful as, let's say, drag queens. [17] The same can be said about what Desiree, Sara and Sarah wear while working at the library. Their clothes falls into typical wear like cardigans, dresses, brown pants, and sensible shoes. However, when Desiree finally dresses up in more girly clothes during the episode "Slumber Party," it makes clear what the now defunct Misfit Librarian's Style Catalog blog tried to prove: that librarians are stylish people despite some a perception of the opposite. [18]

Myra and Sabine also wear simple clothes, but nothing that could be called "dated" or "conservative". Sabine, even more than Myra, exudes a level of coolness as she is also a student as well as a part-time librarian at the college library. This is something that even the New York Times recognized years ago, noting that emergence of hip and cool librarians in a profession described as "nerdy" and a haven for "left-wing social engagement." More than any of the other librarians in this post, Sabine is more trendy and fashionable, although not as dedicated to fashion trends as those like Sam, Alex, and Clover in Totally Spies! to give three examples. Very few of the librarians I've described in this post are those are either wear hair in a bun, wear glasses, or a cardigan, with librarians getting a bad rap for the latter. [19] Rather they tend toward being more stylish, especially in terms of Amity, who dyes her hair green (her original hair color is brown) and later lilac, and Kaisa, who has put purple streaks in her black hair.

Continued in part 4

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Notes

[13] Maria Hakki, "Here is What Wearing Black Says About You (and the 5 most common personality traits of these people)," iheartintelligence, May 28, 2020; Cassandra Sethi, "How to Wear Black," ehow, Feb. 21, 2022; Ada Polla, "5 Rules for Wearing All Black Clothing," HuffPost, Dec. 6, 2017; "What does black clothing symbolize?," Colorbux, access date March 22, 2022; Cameron Wolf, "Study Confirms That Wearing Black Clothing Makes You Appear More Attractive, Intelligent, and Confident," Complex, Aug. 28, 2015; bethany, "In Defense of Wearing All-Black," College Fashion, Jan. 31, 2019; Ellie Krupnick, "14 Reasons Black Is The Only Color Worth Wearing," HuffPost, Dec. 6, 2017; Brianna West, "The Psychological Reason Some Women Love Wearing All Black," Thought Catalog, Jan. 30, 2022.

[14] Vani Natarajan, "Nostalgia, Cuteness, and Geek Chic: Whiteness in Orla Kiely's Library" in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 122, 132; "Cute," Dictionary.com, accessed March 22, 2022.

[15] Karen Heffernan, "Lesbians and the Internalization of Societal Standards of Weight and Appearance" [Abstract], Journal of Lesbian Studies, Vol. 3, No. 4, Oct. 12, 2008; "How to Dress Lesbian Chic," Wikihow, Jan. 31, 2022.

[16]  Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, "Lesbian Librarianship for All: A Manifesto" in Reference Librarianship & Justice: History, Practice & Praxis (ed. Kate Adler, Ian Beilin, & Eamon Tewell, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2018), p. 298-299, 301, 304. I'm not even getting into the somewhat problematic and strange idea that all librarians can be "lesbian librarians" even those who aren't lesbian. I think she just chose the wrong term for it. Maybe "social justice librarian" or something like that would have been better.

[17] "Cast Biographies," Dykes to Watch Out For Official Website, accessed March 22, 2022; Janine Utell, "The Comics of Alison Bechdel: From the Outside In," University Press Scholarship Online, Sept. 2020; Michael Rhode, "Alison Bechdel at Politics and Prose bookstore," May 4, 2012, Wikimedia Commons; Elizabeth Fernandez, "It's just a drag, darling, but this is a big election," F.M.I.: Female Mimics International, Vol. 20, No. 1, #57, 1990, p. 41. My favorite part of this quote was this: "Other critics offer a more unusual complaint: The contest has become overly conventional. Candidates nowadays resemble librarians more than drag queens, some say." It made me laugh a lot as it says a lot about what people see as librarians.

[18] Molly Wetta, "What makes a work wardrobe?," Librarian Style, Jun. 1, 2021.

[19] "Bookworms' backs up," Sunday Star Times, Jan. 31, 2009; Kara Jesella, "A Hipper Crowd of Shushers," New York Times, Jul. 8, 2007; Brytani, "A Study of Librarian Fashion," The Intrepid Nerd, Oct. 6, 2011; Heather Slania, "Welcome to the Librarian Fashion blog!," Librarian Fashion, Mar. 22, 2011. Slania is now the Director of the Decker Library at MICA and was formerly the Director of the Library at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

[starsailor83]

To The Stars and Back

High Class Homos

Mage & Demon Queen

My Dragon Girlfriend

Friends With Benefits

I want to be a cute anime girl

The Prettiest Platypus

The Croaking

Sabine: an asexual coming-of-age story

Eldritch Darling

HeartWorker

Night Owls & Summer Skies

Faroff

Royal Blue

Justice x Heresay

It's Kind of a Funny Story

does anyone have any good webcomic recommendations?? specifically queer ones? i really like shit like castle swimmer, heir’s game (highly recommend that one if you haven’t read it), heartstopper, etc etc. i’ll take any recs tho!

[actuallyasexuality]

Ace recommendations

Welcome to ace recommendations, where I will recommend pieces of media that i have read/watched that either is about being asexual, has an asexual character in it, or is created by someone who is asexual.

Today's recommendation is "Sabine: an asexual coming-of-age story" on Webtoon. The author, MermaidMap is asexual.

The webcomic is a slice-of-life/comedy about a girl named Sabine navigating life in college. Follow Sabine as she makes friends, goes to parties, goes on dates, kisses classmates, and discovers why maybe she isn't into dating and kissing as much as her friends are.

[aspeccharactersoftheday]

Sabine from Sabine: an asexual coming-of-age story is asexual!

[ndaromantic]

Hi, i made a list of canon aro and ace characters out of every possible form of fiction i can think of: (I haven't read/watched some of them)

Cartoons:

miraculous ladybug- alix kubdel is aromantic. max kante is asexual.

bojack horseman- todd chavez and yolanda buenaventura are both asexual.

steven universe- periodt is aromantic asexual.

epithet erased- percy is asexual.

TV shows:

sex education- florence is asexual.

game of thrones- varys is asexual.

agents of shield- ruby hale is asexual.

shadowhunters- raphael santiago is aromantic asexual (but his aromanticism is erased in the show bc of course it is ://// i guess you can just read the book even tho he's a side character)

mangas:

kanojo ni naritai kimi to boku- an aromantic side character and an asexual (?) character (also a trans girl and a sapphic love story).

our dreams at dusk by yuhki kamatani- an anonymous founder who is asexual and genderqueer.

anime:

the case files of jeweler richard- tanimoto is aromantic.

games:

cute demon crashers- four characters are aromantic pansexual.

when aster falls - rohan is an asexual lesbian.

ikenfell- petronella is a non binary aromantic.

the outer worlds- parvati is asexual.

spade memory- wisteria is an aromantic asexual character.

films:

the olivia experiment- olivia is asexual.

watchmen- adrian and ozymandias are asexual.

books:

loveless by alice oseman- gerogia is aromantic asexual.

radio silence by alice oseman- asexual character.

two dark moons by

avi silver- aromantic character.

the trouble by daria defore- danny kim is an aromantic gay character.

second chance by chelsea m. cameron- serena is demisexual and demiromantic.

baker thief by claudie arsenealt- claire is a nonbinary (genderfluid i believe), aromantic, demisexual, pan character.

royal rescue by a. alex logan- prince gerald is an aromantic asexual protagonist.

tarnished are the stars by rossie thor- nathaniel is aromantic asexual.

an accident of stars by

foz meadows- gwen is aromantic.

webtoons:

always human- rae is aromantic asexual (also a sapphic love story + a nonbinary character).

BOO! It's sex- kim is asexual.

brimstone and roses- laz is asexual.

castoff- three asexual main characters.

heckin dead- aromantic asexual character.

sabine: an asexual coming of age story- (the title says it all lol).

undefiled wings- occhio di tigre is aromantic asexual.

episode (the app):

not heartless- aromantic character.

dead or alive by sargym.ep- kana is aromantic asexual (there's also a non binary character, an omni character & etc...)

despicables by sargym.ep- lily is asexual.

asexuality uncensored- (i think the name speaks for itself lol).

ace of hearts- asexual character.

won't you kiss me- asexual character.

There's probably more out there but these are the ones i found :) you can also find many more books in the aroace database.

[lancernolancing]

Sabine: an asexual coming-of-age story | WEBTOON

In this queer coming-of-age story, Sabine journeys through the wonders of college life as she discovers her asexuality, makes good friends, makes bad ones, and dances as much as possible. She might be naive, but at least she's trying her best!

[Updates every Monday and Friday]

[callmepere]

Please read Sabine: An Asexual Coming-of-Age Story on webtoons!

It’s really funny, very easy and enjoyable to read. It’s also a college coming of age story as well and frankly it’s my favorite!

It’s got over 100 episodes but I SWEAR ON YOUR COUSIN’S MOTHER they go by so quick. It’s my favorite and I want more support for the author!

[sanyu-thewitch05]

I’ve been reading this amazing comic on Webtoon called Sabine: an asexual coming of age story.

Here’s the link: Sabine: an asexual coming of age story

Here’s the funniest panels that has actually made me relate to being asexual.