I kicked off Pride month by watching Booksmart, a charming and funny coming-of-age story that explores identity, sisterhood, and queerness. In my favorite scene, one of the protagonists has sex for the first time. She’s drunk, nervous, and it’s not just her first time getting laid – it’s also her first time acting upon her attraction to women. It starts out fine, but then in the middle of it all, she pukes on her partner. Her partner screams in disgust, she runs out, and my best friend and I squirm in our seats from the worst case of secondhand-embarrassment we’ve ever had.
After it ended, I realized how magical it was. Not the vomiting, reader, but a queer woman having a romantic scene that was funny in ways that didn’t serve to make her more appealing to the audience.
In the media, women are rarely allowed to mess up and be humorous – especially at the same time – and romances for queer people have often been wrapped in mystique, tragedy, and melodrama. As we near the end of Pride month, I find myself fondly remembering Undertale, Night in the Woods, and Butterfly Soup for each having a scene in which queer women actualize their feelings, or reminisce on a time they attempted to do so, and fail spectacularly or embarrass themselves. In an industry that most often represents straight men, it’s not only refreshing, but also vital for queer women to have stories that humanize us through concepts like comedy and authenticity that are often made to feel inacessible.
After years of denial, I came out in 2015 – which also happened to be a pretty good year for queer women in mainstream video games. One of those games was Undertale, which has two queer women among its vibrant and unforgettable cast of characters. As a socially anxious and shy woman who has a crippling fear of failure, I connected with the nerdy royal scientist Alphys the most – and it’s she who’s the focus of one of Undertale’s best scenes.
Undertale – Alphys date Watch on YouTube
The scene above explores the all too common shyness between queer women who are attracted to each other, social anxiety, and an issue that has plagued mankind for decades: whether anime is real or not. It starts by Undyne, the captain of the royal guard, asking Alphys out on a date through a letter she makes you deliver. Because of this, Alphys thinks you like her, so she proceeds to take you out to the most objectively romantic and ideal spot for a first date: the garbage dump.
Undyne shows up halfway through your date, feeling it’s best she give the letter directly to Alphys. While she goes off to search for Alphys, Alphys confides in you that Undyne is the person she likes; however, she’s unable to confess because she feels like a fraud. She’s the royal scientist – someone who, under the king’s requests, has conducted experiments that have hurt many people. The guilt she’s harbored over her career has led to her lying about who she is to the person she likes. “They say ‘be yourself.’ But I don’t really like who ‘myself’ is,” Alphys says. When Undyne returns, Alphys tells her the truth about all the things she’s said and done to impress her, like watching anime instead of history movies or reading comics instead of academic books.