For the longest time, cartoonist Chris Hazelton has been teasing his readership on the will-they/won’t-they aspect of Ash and Emily’s relationship in the transformation webcomic Misfile; specifically, will they end up consummating their relationship before the end of the series (when Ash will assumedly become male and erase so much history in the comic for the sake of having balls once more). I must admit I found it interesting (and amusing) to see a repeat of the scene from years ago… only for Ash to back away from Emily rather than risk her ire for another kiss.
No doubt Hazelton’s readers were probably grumbling about the latest tease (though some might be used to it by now). The thing is, Ash’s hesitation makes sense from her character’s point. As she mentions to Rumisiel, each time she and Em have kissed in the past, it’s been awkward. The first time, Emily stormed out of the garage and Ash was left without anyone to talk to about what was going on. The next time, Em took advantage of Ash while she was asleep to get some smooches in. I don’t recall if there were any other instances, but they were undoubtedly full of awkwardness as well; it’s not like Hazelton to let a theme just die out before its time.
The funny thing is, for all that Ash complains about her relationship with Missi (in that Missi is too aggressive), it would take Em being the aggressive one in order to get the ball rolling with Ash at this point. I have to wonder how that would play out; while Ash is strongly attracted to Emily, she freaked out at Missi’s assertiveness (as it made her feel like she’d lost even more of her “masculinity”). Ironically enough, Ash backed away for a reason used so often by women: she didn’t want to risk damaging her friendship with Emily. Though I strongly doubt anyone’s going to tell Ash she was acting like a typical girl right then, even if she was.
