About Cassian
(Handy note: my middle name is Lotte, and that’s the name I went by for the first couple of years of this comic.)
My first “proper” relationship started when I was 15, and I already knew enough from dating some boys that a) I wasn’t keen on boys in general, and b) I am likely to cheat. In the words of Dan Savage, I didn’t fail at monogamy; monogamy failed me. So I suggested the relationship be open, a term I didn’t understand but knew enough to realise it was the next logical step. The relationship lasted 4 years, and ended when he got married to someone else and moved out. In that time, we’d even attempted a triad while still in school.
These days, I know it’s called polyamory, and I know other people who feel the same way, and I’m lucky enough to have lots of loving and lovely people in my life. Some of them I call lovers, and no one is more important than anyone else. I’m very aware that with my 9 years of experience I still haven’t read any of the excellent books out there, and that is mostly because I have too much to read.
In other news, I am very undefined in terms of sexuality and gender. At one point I had to stop calling myself a lesbian because I didn’t feel like a girl, and also because I kept ending up making connections with men for reasons still unknown. So now I’ve given up, and I love who I love, and anyone else who wants to define me… Well, they might find it difficult.
TL;DR: I’m agender, asexual, aromantic.
Anyway, as you can see, I waffle a lot. I thought maybe pictures would be a better way to express myself, since my poor confused brain can’t write eloquently enough.
Hi Lotte,
I love your pics! I lecture and research at Deakin Uni here in Melbourne, Australia and two of my bipoly books have won lambda Awards, “Love You Two”, a novel in 2010, and this year my non-fiction, “Border Sexualities, Border families in Schools”.
I was wondering if I have your permission to use some of your pics as part of my lectures, presentations, etc with full acknowledgment to you of course,
keep being so spot-on and savvy!
maria
xxx
Ohh, how interesting! I should look you up. 🙂 And thanks for asking – I will send you an email.
Thanks, Maria!
I’m glad you’re out there. Thanks for the fun forms of expression!
Hi, i was wondering: if i mention this website in a conversation, and end up mentioning you, the artist, what pronouns should i use? Or should i just refer to you by Lotte?
Sorry! I just noticed that you had listed your preferred pronoun in the “About the Comic” section. Sorry…
That’s okay, thank you for asking. 🙂 My preferred pronoun is singular they.
Hey there, I love your comic, it’s very nicely done. I love the text. WHat font do you use? It’s gorgeous.
Oh thank you! I am totally flattered, because it is my handwriting, which I scan and poke in photoshop. 🙂
hey! can’t believe i haven’t come across your amazing site (and sense of humour) before. I would love to showcase you for multiple match! get in touch 😉
Thanks for your kind words! Erm, I don’t know what showcasing is but I’ll send you an email. 🙂
Apologies for the intrusion Lotte, but are you in a poly relationship or do you know anybody who is? We’re a TV Production Company in London and we’re trying to find some polyamory families based in the UK for a one-hour documentary that celebrates love and raises awareness. We’d pay a generous fee for anybody who takes part – we’ve got two poly families who are already participating. If anybody is interested – and I’d be happy to provide more info – do let me know at richard@chalkboardmediagroup.com I’d be so grateful if you could help.
Kind regards
Richard
Hi Richard, I’m really sorry that this is so late! I guess since I update pretty rarely I also don’t check the comments as often as I should. :S
I don’t want to be on TV, and I do know a few poly families but I’d feel pretty weird emailing them out of the blue about this, especially since it might be too late. I’m going to leave this comment here though just in case anyone pops by – and if it’s not too late let me know so I can promote your comment on Twitter etc.
Thanks. 🙂
I haven’t seen your comics in a couple years and just discovered you’re still doing them. I think they’ve gotten better — deeper, kinda richer. May I have permission to use them once in a long while to illustrate a point on Polyamory in the News? With credit and link, of course.
Alan M.
Hi Alan, thank you for the compliments. 🙂 You are welcome to use any of the comics for anything you like as long as there’s a credit-link thing – they’re all Creative Commons licensed, details should be at the bottom of every page of the site. Thank you for asking first though!
Hello Cassian,
Thought I’d share my appreciations of your comics personally, they helped me so much with my poly relationships and I’m still sharing them to help others understand the life too. Thank you!
I recently started a FL group called polyamory Kent and again have linked you a few times to people there who are after some knowledge. Anywho, I waffle too…
SM x
SpyroMike, it is really good to hear that you like my comics and have found them helpful! 🙂 Thank you very much for taking the time to say so. I hope your group is successful!
Hi Cassian,
I came across your name on a Wikipedia article about the title “Mx”, having noticed the honorific on the DVLA website. I hadn’t seen Mx before and was really interested to read your pdf file showing all the companies and organisations that “allow” the use of the term on their computers.
Anyway, it got me thinking. I’m a teacher and my colleagues and I are either called “sir” or “miss” by the students: how, if you were a teacher or worked in schools, would you prefer to be addressed?
Also, I wonder if you would suggest a similar system for use in the armed services or the police, where individuals are called “sir” or “ma’am”.
Thanks
Jamie
Hi Jamie, 🙂
In my schools all the teachers were addressed by first name, and it seemed to work fine! So I recommend that. But if I worked in a school where this wasn’t possible, I’d probably want the pupils/students to call me Mx instead of Miss or Sir.
And in systems like the armed services or police, my favourite option for myself is to make Sir gender-neutral. It’s been done in various sci-fi TV shows (like Battlestar Galactica), and I like it a lot. However, I’ve heard that this can be dysphoria-inducing for trans people who were assigned male at birth, so at the very least that system would have to fully accept and celebrate trans people and their genders, binary AND nonbinary, and people would have to be very careful to call everyone “sir” regardless of gender, no exceptions. Our society generally needs to fully respect and celebrate trans genders before this can feel good. Another popular option I’ve seen is “ser”, pronounced to rhyme with hair. I’ve not been in a system like this, nor have I met a nonbinary person who has, so it might be that there’s a better way.
Thanks, these are good questions! 🙂 I hope it helps.
Cassian
Hi Cassian! 🙂
I’d like to put in my won two cents about honorifics, esp. in the Military.
Officers are those who are referred to as sir or ma’am (all the rest of us are referred to by rank i.e. Corporal Smith or Sergeant Pepper). I have met exactly one gender non-conforming officer. Rather than referring to them as “sir” or “ma’am” they said they preferred to be addressed as “Captain” like we do with us lowly non-commissioned types.
Even as a cis-person I dislike most honorifics for my gender. “Miss” and “Mrs.” denote marital status, and in the conservative circles my mother inhabits using “Ms” means you are divorced or can’t find a man or blah blah blah. I hate how tied they are to martial status. I therefore (wherever permitted) use my rank as my honorific even in the regular world, so my electricity bill comes to Cpl Griffy42 instead of Ms Griffy42.
Thanks for the awesome comics!
Hey, this is super interesting, thanks for sharing! Also I’m glad you are enjoying the comics! 🙂