#and unknowingly make the other discover or rediscover or really /feel/ such new facets of themselves... and really think about

[mostlyanything19]

I guess this will be my last post of 2023 - who'd have guessed - but I just very randomly remembered, and then set out to re-read, the wonderful

The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal

and I've found it just as good as I remembered it to be. If you've never heard of this comic, I guess this is my recommendation to check it out! It's about two young men: Amal, who just came out to his parents, which didn't go too well, and who is now driving cross-country for his sister's graduation and to get away from it all, and the laid-back TJ, also on his way away from things and needing a ride. The two band together and get on their way, and what unfolds is a wonderfully atmospheric, sweet and earnest and funny story set right in the liminal space that cross-country roadtrips inhabit ... the sort of journey that you don't finish as quite the same person you started it as.

The author manages to tell so much of the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters simply through "camera angles", skillful moments of silence and clever work with panelling, plus the fun and natural dialogues and the careful, though-out way it all unfolds, which all results in something I'd call just as much a love story as it's a story about growing up a little more, facing the things you're running from, making decisions in life ... but also sometimes taking a little time to sing along to terrible songs in the car, see some nature, fall into it, and accidentally rob a store. I've read it a good three times now and I highly recommend it!

(Content note: It contains explicit scenes; in the way of people-being-physically-close-with-each-other that I probably can't name on tumblr anymore without getting blocked from tags? But YKWIM, in case it matters.)