Drop-Out is a short-run Furry comic, now completed, by gray Folie.
Lead characters Sugar (she/her), a tarsier/sugar glider crossbreed, and Lola (she/her or they/them), a marine hydroid, are a nonbinary lesbian couple, each with their own issues with their families, gender identity, and physical and mental health. Sugar, depressed after her cousin's suicide and no longer caring about her in-progress master's degree, declares her intention to drive cross-country to the Grand Canyon and jump in to her death, as her cousin did. She asks Lola to come with her, and Lola, feeling she has nothing to live for without Sugar, agrees.
The comic can be read here.
Content warnings for obvious in-depth discussion of suicide, familial abuse, medical abuse, and drug and alcohol use.
No relation to the Dropout streaming service.
This webcomic contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Lola's mother is no prize, calling her a fuckup, taking her away from her loving father, and refusing to let her express her nonbinary gender. Sugar's mothers love her, but are notably overbearing in their phone call.
- Apologizes a Lot: Sugar spends a lot of time saying "sorry," often doing it after feeling that she's pushed Lola too hard about something, tying to her fears about being seen as a "predator."
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Lola has no feet, just blunt-ended legs, and can't wear shoes. Sugar usually does, but goes barefoot at home and at one point forgets that she isn't barefoot during the journey, accidentally kicking something when trying to pick it up with her thumbed tarsier foot.
- Bittersweet Ending: Both of them still desperately want to die, but agree to live for each others' sakes and make the necessary changes in their lives to make them bearable.
- Carnivore Confusion:
Word of God is that non-anthropomorphic animals do exist in this universe but are rarer, and meat supplies are boosted by anthropomorphs leaving their bodies for the purpose in their wills. Sugar inherited her tarsier parent's dietary needs and has to eat meat, which is a contributing factor to her depression as she feels like a "burden". - Content Warnings: The Drop Out website's header includes a "strong content warning for themes of suicide and drug use."
- Does Not Like Men: Sugar considers masculinity inherently predatory, and hates her own unfeminine and carnivorous traits, feeling they play into each other. This seems to be part of why ze went back in the closet about zer genderqueer status.
- Driven to Suicide: Possible Stealth Pun, as it's about the pair literally driving to their suicide, after lifetimes of difficulty leave them feeling they have no other option.
- Extra Eyes: Lola has four eyes. The top pair often act more like eyebrows, but they also tend to reveal Lola's more complex emotions.
- Gender-Blender Name: Lola's never-stated deadname was intentionally picked to be gender neutral due to their intersex status, but they chose a feminine new one, subverting the usual expectations for nonbinary people's names.
- Hereditary Homosexuality: Sugar is the intersexed lesbian daughter of two intersexed lesbian moms. The intersex part may be justified as there are known genetic components to many intersex conditions, and she explicitly says she inherited it from both of them.
- Homosexual Reproduction: Sugar has two biological mothers, one of whom has an intersex condition which allows her to produce viable sperm.
- I Have Many Names: Lola has used fake names at least twice, plus her unknown deadname.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Whenever Sugar cries, it's rendered very realistically, the artist going so far as to render her mucus.
- Intersex Tribulations: Both of the main couple are somewhere under the intersex umbrella, along with both of Sugar's mothers and Sugar's ex-girlfriend Frankie. It's not specified what types of intersex condition Sugar or Lola have, and the artist has gone on record as stating that they don't want to state it outright as it's none of the reader's business, though the exact symptoms and experiences they display might make it possible to guess for readers familiar with the topic. (It can be inferred that one of Sugar's mothers has partial androgen insensitivity, since both are confirmed to be assigned female at birth and one of them produced viable sperm, and Frankie is stated to have Klinefelter's.) It has affected both of their upbringings and relationships with their genders differently.
- Non-Human Non-Binary: The actual trope is averted, despite them both being both nonbinary and non-human. Their society is still very human, Word of God is that they are in fact genetically modified humans, and their experiences are very much like those of a nonbinary human.
- Odd-Shaped Panel: During a scene where Sugar gets in a screaming argument with a man at a gas station, the panel borders become jagged and chaotic.
- Pictorial Speech-Bubble: One page has the car radio producing speech bubbles full of multicolored scribbles in order to convey the sound of radio static. The next page has a speech bubble with a "connected" icon when Lola connects their phone with the aux.
- Prefers Going Barefoot: Lola physically can't wear shoes; as an anthropomorphic marine worm, they have no feet, just stilt-like legs.
- Road Trip Plot: The comic is about the two main characters taking a road trip to the Grand Canyon... the destination for their suicide pact.
- Small Taxonomy Pools: Averted, Sugar is a crossbreed of a tarsir and a sugar glider, while Lola is a kind of marine hydroid sometimes known as a snailfur.
- Suicide Pact: Sugar convinces Lola to do this at the start of the comic. Sugar is depressed after her cousin's suicide and knows Lola is also suicidal, and knows they both have struggles, and thinks the two of them committing suicide together will be "so romantic."
- Suicidal Sadistic Choice: Unintentionally done by Sugar to Lola. Without Sugar, Lola can't pay for the apartment and has no family and nowhere else to go, and fears being blamed for Sugar's death by their loved ones. Sugar meant to be romantic, but she put Lola in a very difficult position.
- The Unreveal: Lola's deadname and the pair's exact medical intersex conditions are never specified, as the writer has stated it's none of the reader's business.
- World of Technicolor Hair: Lola's locs are bright pink and aren't dyed; this appears to be within the colour range of snailfurs.
- Worth Living For: When they finally get to the Canyon, Lola abruptly declares that she loves Sugar too much to go through with their Suicide Pact. She still wants to die, but if it'll keep Sugar from jumping she's willing to live a bit longer.
