Choose Your Own Dykeventure
with Maddy Court aka @XenaWorrierPrincess.
Maddy drinking Diet Coke after visiting the park with her dog, Louis, in Wisconsin.
In April of this year, I interviewed Maddy Court aka @XenaWorrierPrincess, arguably my favorite dyke memer (is that a word?), about her “Choose Your Own Dykeventure” zine that she released right before quarantine started.
Her zine is a perfect virtual quarantine game for anyone who isn’t been able to see their friends IRL. It’s also fun to play IRL with your pod. At the time she released it, people were getting together over FaceTime or Zoom to play virtual versions of “Choose Your Own Dykeventure.” A group of dykes even posted a call on the dating app Lex asking people to join them in playing “Choose Your Own Dykeventure” over Zoom. It is so wholesome. I love it.
I love Maddy’s memes because they are poetic, accurate, and hilarious. They’re usually tongue-in-cheek, but yet so spot-on about dyke/lesbian identity. Maddy taps into lesbian stereotypes, and makes fun of us, but not at the expense of us. It’s fun to follow her to see what Maddy will make new memes about. Quarantineships? Crocs? Break-ups? Yes, all of the above, plus more. It feels like a little treat each time one of her posts pops up on my timeline.
I posted some of her memes in between our interview, which she created mostly during quarantine time, but if you’re not already familiar with Maddy’s memes, go through her timeline. They will make you laugh a lot and maybe have an existential crisis at the same time.
She runs a newsletter called “Secret Girlfriend” that you can check out/subscribe to here. She also posts great pictures of dogs, if you’re into that.
Editor’s note: This interview was done over email in early quarantine April 2020.
Yez: First off, how are you coping with quarantine? You are quarantining at home with your parents, right? Seems like so many of us are returning to our childhood homes during this time. What’s that like for you as a dyke going home?
Maddy: I’m not coping very well. Every day I eat frozen pizza. I actually moved back in with my parents about a year ago after some rocky mental health, so you could say I got a head start on quarantine. I’m lucky in the family department--my biggest issue is that my parents are super messy. They don’t do the dishes. I’m always stepping over a laundry basket or clearing off table space to eat. I love my parents, but I don’t approve of their lifestyle.
Yez: I love your new zine, “Choose Your Own Dykeventure.”
Excerpt: “Last night you hooked up with your crush. This morning, you’re at brunch with your best friend who you may or may not be in love with. The server asks if you want almond, oat, or soy milk with your coffee.
This is a Choose Your Adventure zine about lesbian dating. You make the rules. You are the dyke at the center of this story.”
Yez: What inspired you to make it?
Maddy: I like writing projects that are constrained or pre-formatted in some way. The Ex-Girlfriend zines and book, for example, are organized in a Q&A format. The advice question is a prompt and I formulate my response around the question. The idea of doing a lesbian Choose Your Own Adventure where the first choice is between non-dairy milk just came to me. It made me laugh like a loon in the grocery store (remember grocery stores?), so I knew I had to do it.
Yez: It was originally supposed to come out on Valentine’s Day, right? It turned out to be timely for quarantine. From the looks of your Instagram story, it seems like lots of people are organizing with their friends to play “Choose Your Own Dykeventure” over Zoom or FaceTime. I had so much fun playing out the different scenarios. What ideal “dykeventure” do you hope readers chose in the zine?
Maddy: Yes, it was supposed to come out on Valentine’s Day. I always give myself a deadline and supersede it by a few weeks.
So many people are playing Dykeventure via Zoom! Also, so many people have sent copies to their friends and long-distance lovers. I love sending mail. It makes me so happy. I’m so blessed with readers. I never take it for granted.
Somebody said Dykeventure punishes you for not behaving, which I don’t think is true. I worked really hard to make it seem like there was no logic, or like the choices you make don’t impact the consequences. I wanted readers to feel trolled because that’s what dating feels like!!
Yez: Choose Your Own Dykeventure has it all: Notes app text drafts, oat milk, Tinder, double-texting, and trying to avoid someone at a queeroake night. How did you come up with these characters and the different scenarios?
Maddy: Initially, I wanted the “dyke at the center of the story” to be a blank slate that readers could project themselves onto. But then I realized that the story couldn’t move forward if the “you” had no personality.
Also, creating a “you” that everyone relates to is impossible because there’s no universal lesbian experience. There’s a storyline when the characters go on a road trip and reflect on their privilege to travel freely in the United States, which is a deeply white moment for them. I almost took it out but then I was like, who am I fooling? I’m white and that impacts my lived experience, which in turn impacts my imagination and what I’m writing about convincingly. This is why on @xenaworrierprincess memes and other projects, I never want to come across as an authority on what it means to be a lesbian. It’s fraught! It’s something I want to keep thinking about as I continue to make work and share it with the world.
I also worry that she, or they, is too passive and reticent and some readers might find them frustrating. Maybe the “you” to Too Dykeventure will be a dyke fantasy badass who fucks.
Yez: What was your favorite part of the zine to write?
Maddy: In everything I write, my favorite part is always what shows up when I’m feeling totally blocked and ready to quit. Griz the Sewer Dyke’s storyline came to me after I hit a brain wall and couldn’t think of more dykeventures--I went on a walk to get Chinese food (remember restaurants? Remember getting cans of Diet Coke from a fridge and then waiting for a lunch tray of fried food on Styrofoam plates to be set before you?) and that’s when Griz the Sewer Dyke just popped into my brain. That plotline is so extra stupid, but it made me laugh out loud.
Yez: My friends and I often talk about how your writing/memes/tweets reach deep into the recesses of our dyke hearts, like you somehow get to the core of what it means to be a lesbian. When you post a new meme I either send it right away to my best friend or before I have a chance to see it, they’ve already sent it to me. What is it about your work that resonates so much with lesbians?
Maddy: That’s so kind of you, Yez. Seriously, that’s so nice. I started making memes in 2016 or 2017, when there was a lot of lesbian-specific hate on the internet. There’s a lot of love for lesbians in everything I post.
Yez: In a way isn’t quarantine our time? Like dyke time? It’s weird to say that because I want to make a joke about how as lesbians we thrive in isolation, but that’s not actually true. It’s just fun sometimes to make fun of ourselves. Do you feel that way about the work that you put out into the world? Do people sometimes take it too seriously, and then you have to tell them you’re joking?
Maddy: One thing that @xenaworrierprincess has taught me is a lot of people understand and process jokes in a very logical, bottom-up way. I often get DMs asking me to explain memes, as if the joke is some kind of lesbian secret. When really it’s just something weird that I thought of in the bath.
As far as hate DMs and angry comments, it’s generally a situation where someone reads the meme as an ultimatum from me to all of dykedom. Each and every time I make a joke about dykes being friends with their exes, someone yells at me for encouraging people to stay close with their abusive ex. Or someone said I was being butchphobic when I described a shade of khaki as femmephobic. Another time, someone said I was being classist for lightly ribbing butches who wear Carhartt which is assuming so much about my class background and also ignoring the fact that Carhartt is a whole-ass luxury brand that is sold at Madewell.
My DMs are wild. I would not wish them on my worst enemy.
Yez: Some of my friends have gone through break-ups during quarantine. We’re only a month in so far. Do you have any advice for lesbians going through break-ups during this tough time?
Maddy: My heart goes out to all the sad, single dykes right now. This is a terrible time to be a heartbroken. You can’t go to Six Flags or be with your friends. You can’t leave your phone at home and go to a garden show. A lot of the advice questions that come across my desk are about breakups and how to move forward, and the truth is that there are no shortcuts. You just have to feel shitty, probably for a long time. I believe this is the argument Solange makes in “Cranes in the Sky.”
At the same time, don’t sabotage your healing process! Don’t lurk on their Instagram and don’t continue to text. Set some firm boundaries and cling to them like a small, gay starfish clings to the shelter of a safe rock.
Yez: On the other side, there’s lots of lesbians jumping into long-distance (regardless of actual physical distance) quarantineships right now. Isn’t this inevitable? For us to dig into the longing/yearning to be with someone, but it’s impossible since everyone is socially distancing right now?
Maddy: Yes! My Scorpio sun is so anxious for all these quarantineships. Are they really getting to know each other in a healthy, sustainable way? Will their love survive post-quarantine? Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s enough to have someone to text right now, today.
Yez: I know you’re working on a book right now that is based on your first three queer advice zines. How is that going? Do you have any plans to make more dyke zines in the future?
Maddy: I’m revising the Ex-Girlfriend manuscript this week and next and them bam, it’s out of my hands! The thing I’m most excited about, besides Kelsey Wroten’s incredible art, is that we had a budget to bring in guest contributors like Samantha Irby, Mey Rude, JD Samson, and a few others. The book is way more interesting because it’s not limited to just me and my insights.
I’m also working on Too Dyke, Too Venture, the sequel to Choose Your Own Dykeventure right now. It’s been a nightmare getting to the post office during quarantine, so I’ll probably release it as a PDF. For sure it will benefit mutual aid in some capacity.
Recommended by Maddy
Maddy’s current reads:
Maddy’s favorite flicks:
October Country (2009)
American Movie (1999)
Where the Heart Is (2000)