SPECIAL HOLIDAY SALE EVENT THINGAROONIE
Every* order I get in the online store this week, lasting from last Monday to the end of Sunday three days from now, will get a free character magnet included! Just thrown right in there. You can’t choose your magnet — it’ll be random — but, hey, free character magnet! Buy a book? Free magnet! Buy a buttload of books? Free magnet! Buy magnets? STILL A FREE ADDITIONAL MAGNET.
So, yay!
*does not include buying the links to Joyce and Walky! comics, because i can’t throw a magnet into an email
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Leslie’s got that look like Robin’s gonna have to offer her McDonald’s to stop pouting. 😉
McDonalds? It needs to be higher class than that, KFC is where it’s at. 😛
Taco Bell. With Diablo sauce.
I’ve been having Carls Jr. lately. Yum.
Carls Jr is great, but my inevitable heart failure prefers Rally’s (aka Checker’s.)
Best fries evar!
Bring her to Legal Seafoods, keep the fish-n-chips coming. More eating = less spouting the terrible stuff that got her elected.
(Seriously what are half those places? We don’t have any of them up here. We only just started seeing Panda Express, Five Guys, and Chick-Fil-A less than 5 years ago…)
Curse your sudden but inevitable heart failure!
You know the Carl Jr’s CEP is gonna be Trump’s labour sec?
…dammit, I’m gonna have to stop eating there.
I love (hate) how at this point “Trump wants them for Cabinet” automatically tells you they’re bad.
We have Hardee’s here rather than Carl Jr’s (but the name is pretty much the only thing that’s different), and hearing about all his labor violations makes me question whether I should be eating there. And then of course, there’s the fact that the burgers there, while delicious, have enough fat and calories to substitute for two days’ worth of normal food.
Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
Why not both? You’ve seen how Robin eats!
Go to the food court at the mall, start at Petro’s and take it all the way to the cookie stall at the end.
Knowing how DoA’s Robin operates, she will offer to take Leslie to Chick-fil-A instead.
I was told by a colleague that her lesbian sister told her that Cfa has changed its act enough to come off the Devils Food list. Has anyone else heard that?
Do they still have all you can eat buffets? It is getting harder and harder to find one of those anymore.
Old Country Buffet immediately comes to mind. I don’t think regular restaurants offer it anymore.
Sizzlers and Charlies were both All You Can Eat places you could once go to where I live but neither of them exist anymore.
Other than Golden Corral, the only other all you can eat buffet that I recall being in Bloomington is a Chinese buffet right off of campus.
We have Hometown Buffet here in CA, but I’m not sure how widespread they are.
Eat there too often and they will be widespread.
They’re talking about bringing back the Pizza Hut buffets though.
I wasn’t aware Pizza Hut buffets went away.
Round Table pizza has all you can eat pizza and salad.
Where I live all but one Pizza Hut eat-in restaurants have disappeared, they are all purely takeaway/delivery now.
If that’s true please please let it be true!
Ryan’s, Golden Corral, CiCi’s pizza, a metric ass-ton of asian places, Sweet Tomato, just to name a few i know of near me. And all those except the generic “asian places” are chains, though i don’t know how widespread they are.
There are two kinds of Asian places. There are the classy ones that act like real restaruants, and the not-so-classy ones that may as well be a chain due to the consistency of the experience. Does this sound familiar?
The restaruant is in a strip mall between the Family Dollar and the check cashing place. You walk in past the quarter vending machines and strength tester, and a matre’d with a heavy accent seats you at a table with chunks of laminate missing, a paper napkin dispenser, a ketchup bottle (Heinz, but refilled with the cheap stuff), a very hándled (but full) bottle of soy sauce, the beer menu, and seats half made out of tape. Generic, maybe stereotypical “Chinese” music plays quietly in the background, but some of the songs sound like Kenny G covers. There are Yuengling posters and Budweiser neon signs on the wall, possibly covering torn wallpaper. After a few minutes a tiny waitress comes to take your drink order. You ask for Coke or Pepsi, but it’s always Pepsi.
Now it’s time to get some food, so you make your way to the steam table area with its raised ceiling and chandelier. You take a plate from the spring-loaded stack, it’s still warm and slightly damp from the dishwasher. An inkjet printed sign taped next to the plates catches your eye, it says “please donot be wasting any foods”. Before you is a wide selection of allegedly fresh vegetables, lo mein, and what is hopefully chicken prepared a dozen different ways. One steam table has the world’s most generic looking white rice, spaghetti, pizza, and french fries, it must be there to keep the kids happy. The sneeze guards have layers of Brother label tape residue from all the menu changes, and a third of the labels are wrong anyway. You load up on food, taking from the back where little kids can’t reach, and somehow not slip and fall on the slightly oily floor on your way back to your table. The food isn’t amazing, but you can’t help but feel it’s good for the price and selection. You go up a couple more times, each trip the waitress from before appears out of nowhere almost as soon as you stand and whisks away your plate full of chicken bones, used napkins, and the feather that was still on that teriyaki wing.
After your third plate the bill comes. It’s on a little plastic tray under the individually wrapped but slightly stale fortune cookies. There’s one cookie for each person at your table. It comes out to $7 a head, you pay in cash because they’d have to take your credit card up to the bar and run it there. You tip enough to bring your bill to a nice round number and give the tray back to the waitress next time she runs by with someone else’s used plate. The matre’d wishes you a nice day on your way out.
You left out the third kind, the non-buffet ones that have a few tables, but really exist for their take-out customers.
Do you write for a living? If not, you should.
That was directed at Needfuldoer, to be clear.
Can verify, KFC franchises with buffets still exist. There are two in my county, even. These are the only locations where you can find gizzards and livers. Also, various Pizza Hut buffets in area.
My eyes cannot perceive motion that fast.
Nah, gotta be even more high class than that.
Take her to one of those “Authentic” Mexican restaurants where they pour red sauce all over everything. :p :p
There is a spanish place by me with a drive through.
It’s really grose inside, but I don’t care WHAT thay are frying if it tastes that good!
And the best chain is Poppy’s soul food. From their heart straight to yours.
Oporto is a pretty good Portuguese chicken restaurant franchise(assuming they exist over there in the States that is)
There are chains that don’t even exist from state to state, so I wouldn’t count on it.
Seriously. For the longest time we only had the biggest national chains (McD’s, BK, Wendy’s, KFC, Taco Bell, Domino’s, etc.) up here in the northeast.
I don’t think Oporto has hit America yet, apparently it started on Bondi Beach Sydney, & got to Perth not long ago…
Culver’s, if you’ve got one near you.
Oooh, Long John Silver’s
Nononono.
Hatzel’s. This OBVIOUSLY calls for ice cream, not a real* meal.
*not even a real meal by fast food standards.
This situation IRREFUTABLY needs pizza. I know just the place…
FOOOOOOOOOLLLLS!
I see the comment section is discussing the important issues tonight :v
(PS: A&W)
Yeah, I was expecting comments about the changing facial expressions and instead found an education on fast food and buffets.
“What’s the opposite of Progress?”
That’s the joke!
REGRESS!
…. and people often regress to base instincts when they think about congress.
How is “What’s” the opposite of progress?
While your point is literally correct, I think you are trying to “Con” me. I thought it was: Congress; the reality of which is Agress-ive Transgression. Which shows that congress needs more LGBTQ&A representation. Here’s to wishin’ it were so.
“Suppose you were an idiot. Now suppose again that you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself…” – Mark Twain
Old play on words, Bluewind:
Pro-gress
Con-gress
I always preferred John Adams’ line from 1776: I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress!
For God’s sake, John, sit down! 😉
The surprising part is the “Franklin smote the ground and out leaped George Washington” bit was something Adams actually wrote.
Oh I got the joke. I live in the south hun and I’m the granddaughter of a man who was the living embodiment of an Adult Jokes and Riddles book. It’s just fun to turn it about or give a dim witted response. I approach them like a beta tester: think of what a logical person would do and do the opposite just to see what happens 😉
A few examples of jokes and sayings
1. A rooster is sitting on the peak of a barn. One side is steep and the other is not. Which side will the egg roll off of?
2. If a hen and a half laid an egg and half in a day in a half, how long would it take a rooster to lay a doorknob?
3. Working as hard as a one legged man in a butt kicking contest.
4. Dumb as a stump.
5. Nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
6. Number of friends before your dog died? (Response to getting flipped off) or You’ll never go back to dogs.
7. How many flies does it take to screw in a light bulb? (2 but you can’t figure out how they got in there)
8. You drive like grandma pisses: slow and all over the place.
9. Teacher: Little Johnny, it’s your turn to read your poem.
Little Johnny:
Out by the creek bank playin’ in the grass.
Fell in the water up to my knees.
Teacher: That doesn’t rhyme.
Little Johnny: Water wasn’t deep enough.
10. The Oxymoron Rhyme
One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys woke up to fight.
They drawed their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policemen heard the noise
And came and shot the two dead boys.
If you don’t believe this lie is true,
Go ask the blind man he saw it too.
11. What’s the difference between a watermelon and an elephant?
(I don’t know. What?)
Remind me never to send you to the store for a watermelon.
And so so many more many of which I wouldn’t put on here.
#10 … Always heard this way:
Ladies and Gentleman, Hobos and Tramps.
Cross-Eyed Mosquitoes and Bow-Legged Ants.
Admission is Free, so Pay at the Door.
Pull up a chair and sit on the floor.
I come before you to stand behind you
to tell you a story I know nothing of:
One fine day, in the middle of the night
Two dead boys came out to fight
back to back they faced each other
pulled out their swords and shot each other.
The deaf policeman heard the noise
and came to arrest the two dead boys.
If you don’t believe this story is true
ask the blind man, he saw it too.
Okay, Les, time to call her on her crap and teach her things she wasn’t expecting to learn.
woo, yeah, teach her about those LGBT rights, teach her with your tongue
(Should I stop? I think I’m gonna stop.)
Aww Robin remembered her name!
I’m really excited for this exchange even if they are fated not to fall together.
“I’m in congress, so…” – priceless.
Wait, a congressperson’s not allowed to say that!
…. it’s…. HONEST.
not these days they aren’t. There used to be a few good ens up on the Hill my dad worked with them. They were there to make things better for everyone not just their buddies or the people who gave them cash, they are mostly retired or dead now sadly.
what’s Carls’s Jr?
Fast food chain.
In some areas, it is known as Hardees
Robin is right. Sadly.
A VOTE FOR ME IS A VOTE FOR INSANITY!
Trump set a terrifying precedent.
set a terrifying precedent, will be a terrifying president
Except if you actually look at the assortment of Congess-critters you may finally realize that the infestation started long ago and the precedent was already entrenched.
yep started before President Obama was elected which is why he had to put up with so many ass hats and such rude and immature behavior, the teabag GOP idiots and their ilk set the stage for the total mess that will be the Drumpf administration. It is disgusting and I am and will be furious at every idiot who voted for that orange monster for eternity. Sorry but not sorry he is not qualified to do the job and he’s rude, a bully and immoral.
PAPOON for President! You know HE’s not insane!
Papoon for President? You have to be as old as me to get that. And to have first heard it on a 33 1/3.
People like you Barney! and you Uh-Clem.
I go Pogo! “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Or, following the lead of Wavy Gravy and Art Hoppe, Nobody for President! After all, Nobody’s perfect!
Huh, no comments as I type this. I wonder if this’ll post before someone links the comic where Les told Robin her name…
Nope. Also Robin is here maybe the most self aware Congressperson I’ve ever seen, real or fictional.
Or at least the most willing to say out loud what she knows in her heart.
Could just be her lack of a brain-to-mouth filter again; I guess it has its ups and downs.
Hey at least there is a functional brain attached, which can’t be said for a number of the critters on congress or the senate.
Lacking a filter isn’t the same as self-awareness.
There were no comments when I opened up but in time my comment posted it was already 7th place.
You’d think Robin would be on some sort of subcommittee, even if it’s to be the token freshman PoC congressperson.
Sure Robin, THAT’S why you remember…
And yep, she did.
Cripes, more than 5 years ago already?
This is stupid and dumb. People who do bad things are inhuman monsters devoid of emotional depth!
I can’t tell if your joking, because there are enough people here who honestly believe that.
I’m sure they’re joking, but Poe’s Law gets thick in here sometimes.
That’s why Snidley Whiplash mustaches!
*Snicker* I can’t get over that last panel.
Rabin: I’m fucking blazed as shit right now.
*reads alt text*
So it’s true Leslie told Robin her name? Or is it that Roz said Leslie was her favorite teacher?
Which one is true, archives? Which one??
Leslie told Robin her name.
Thanks, archives!
Probably also that Roz said Leslie was her fav, but that didn’t get into the archives. Because Roz is never* a perspective character.
*Except for in her dorm with Mary.
Are we sure we weren’t seeing Mary as a perspective character there, like when she was skulking about spying on Ruth and Billie or stomping around being paranoid about Carla’s vengeance?
Yes.
I refuse to see the world from Mary’s perspective.
I dunno, I find a good horror movie is a lot more satisfying from the perspective of the hapless chucklefuck bringing doom down upon themselves than their unstoppable adversary.
That pieflinger was magnificence.
The former. I suspect the latter is also true, but the archives don’t prove it.
Leslie is a proud teacher
I know, right?? She especially needed that boost after today’s class.
I’m too lazy to research the archives. Better to make a baseless claim that can be easily debunked. Roz has said verbatim that she hates Leslie and her teaching methods! See! Real easy. She’s also stated she hates puppies.
Only cute puppies. And kittens that aren’t in a weighted burlap sack.
But all puppies are cute! Being ugly only enhances their cuteness!
That’s about as well-researched as most criticisms of Roz. 😉
Making a false assertion to elicit a correction is an ancient and honorable Internet Tradition.
*plays Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” on the hacked Muzak*
….. Mean, mean pride …..
I can only think of Good Omens when I hear this song, now.
I love the last panel. Congress doesn’t do shit.
Does fundraising count as doing shit?
Seriously, I gotta know. I have a private bet that there’s no depths of scatological fetish they won’t pursue in the name of fundraising.
Man, I really wish that were true.
Quite the opposite. Shit is all that Congress does.
There is definitely flirting going on here. Flirting is happening.
The kind that Ranma and Akane sometimes engage in, before she megaton punches him.
It seems a very… yandere flirting.
Is that the right word? am I using it right?
ITYM tsundere.
Yandere means violence is an option if things go badly*.
* Which becomes much less funny when you consider how often that is a real thing. 8-({
Oh yeah. And I don’t think Robin realizes how much she’s flirting. Mayhaps this is the moment where the closeted bi realizes another part of her feelings.
Aw, that smile! I love this Les Bean. ♡
Don’t fall for the charm, Leslie! Resist!
DAMMIT ROBIN STOP REMINDING ME OF A BETTER YOU
better yet continue doing so, and then become a better you
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/hmmm/
For those wondering about where Leslie told her this.
Panel 5: “Okay, I’m still mad and disdainful, but it’s still nice to hear that I’m a good teacher.”
Leslie is all: “This shitty person (thatIstillreallyreallywantobangohgod) is literally making life hell for people like me and she’s actually seeming like a somewhat half-decent human being now that we’re in private and she’s not being a dogdamn horrible politician, and maybe if she could stop thinking like that, then she and I coul— that ship has sailed, stop it now, Leslie!”
Or, in one word, conflicted.
A few days before the election, I talked with a randomly-met woman who said she had spent half an hour alone in a room with Trump several times, and he was perfectly respectful to her.
Maybe he behaves differently with famous women? Or when he’s in a fame context? I wonder if he’s played various roles so much that they play him now?
Or maybe even sleazy orange rapists know not to grope their supporters in the days leading up to the election
There’s a whole thread on reddit where people who’ve met Trump shared their experiences, and it’s pretty much all “He was polite and friendly.” Looks like he doesn’t attack random people, waitstaff, etc.
The thing to always remind yourself about Donald Trump is that he is, first and foremost, a salesman. He’ll say what he thinks will break the ice with the customer. However, once that’s done, it’s business and every salesman will do his level best to be friendly, polite and open to his customer. That’s how you sell stuff.
Donald Trump doesn’t sell things personally. He’s a business owner, not a grunt. He’s just as much an asshole in proceedings as he’s acted on the campaign trail.
Most horrible people don’t spend 24/7 being horrible. They have to act reasonably a large percentage of the time or they won’t get anything done.
This. Most people that do horrible things to others (rape people, abuse people, stalk people, harass people, try and ruin other people’s lives) know that the trick to getting away with that is to show another side of you to everyone else.
Like a serial rapist is not going to rape every single person they meet and frequently will seem quite charming in places (see Ryan’s arc and watch how he approaches his targets), because that makes it easier to gaslight their victims afterwards (what are you saying, how could you accuse me of being a monster, was I not charming and kind to you ?) and recruit supporters who will demean the victim if they try and stir a fuss about it.
Most abusers will also operate very similarly and will seem absolutely charming and kind to most people even if at home they are a force of terror that makes their kids and spouse jump at the every sound of their voice. Because again, that makes it harder to bring a complaint against them, because thanks to the Calvinist underpinnings of our society, we want to believe that “evil” people are incapable of ever being “good” (friendly and charming) and vice versa. Where in reality, the chances that someone you think of as a great person has done something incredibly fucked up to another person is high.
And this also works directly against the survivors as well. A lot of the times, the bad times are mixed in with great times. That’s why they often talk about the cycle of violence in a lot of DV discussions, because acts of abuse frequently get followed by a honeymoon phase with promises of improvement or small kindnesses or something that can make it easier to believe that it was just a fluke or you were just imagining the bad parts. Like they were a dream.
Pair that with gaslighting and it can be easy to be in that state for a long long while and even mourn the loss of that abusive relationship or that your rapist is no longer in your life. Which yeah… I have some personal experience with that and still have trouble viewing that particular long-term relationship as bad because of that mixing of horrible stuff with good.
Then you think back on that tape that got released and think about the encounter with the model with and without the context of the previous discussion. It would seem basically polite and decent without the context of talking about grabbing by the pussy right before.
But yes, even Trump doesn’t attack every woman he meets. Even every one he meets in private.
And people are trained to ignore when something blatant does happen in front of them. I’m thinking specifically of when he tried to sexually grab Little Miss Flint on stage during a rally on camera or the times he’s leaned in for a kiss and buttgrab with Ivanka on stage during a rally on camera, because no one believes he would be that blatant, so we all must have been misinterpreting a harmless little quirk.
But yeah, not sure how to fix the public idea that a rapist will rape everyone at every minute of every second and their ability to stand for 3 seconds with a woman (cause in public perception only women can be raped, even though there are considerable amounts of men and non-binary folks who have been raped in their lives) without raping her is not at all a sign that they are not a rapist.
Or the one that believes a racist or a homophobe will react like a vampire to a cross in the presence of a black person or a gay person, so that one time they shook a black person’s hand or a gay person’s hand somehow means that their stated positions, beliefs, and supported policies aren’t monstrously bigoted.
But I think it’s going to become more and more important as a society that we figure out how to change this public perception, especially as all the neo-nazis are clamoring out of the woodwork to try and be normalized.
I have found more happiness when I learned to just keep people at arm’s lenght , even fellow queers and allies; because even the sweetiest , warm, and kind person will spit on your face the moment they find something about you that breaks their perceptions or something
I dunno, isolationism always seems enticing in theory, especially to a broken introvert like me, but I’ve always found the most strength in fighting for a community of those marginalized. But your mileage may vary.
For once she said the best possible thing instead of the most horrific.
If Robin had inside info that Joe or Walky were actually leaning something, her clothes might’ve suddenly disappeared by the last panel
“Stop it! BAD Jessica. BAD. Leslie is in charge now.”
She’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way.
You win. That comment was perfection. *hands over glove*
This is yet another example of “Nice =/= Good.” Plenty of people who’d be perfectly happy to throw you to the wolves without a second thought will still be totally personable and pleasant to you the entire time they’re doing so.
Yup.
So many people will smile to your face and say how much they support your situation or have empathy to your circumstances and struggles and then turn around in the voting booth and vote to try and ruin your life or talk shit about you behind your back about what a freak you are. It’s… infuriating.
How do they defuse what to me would seem to be inevitable and insurmountable cognitive dissonance? I’m sure it’s thru amazing motivated reasoning, but I’m serious curious what those sorts of contortions and double think look like.
One way is to simply not think about it, and get upset with anyone who brings up subjects that might cause you to.
This is why some people get really upset when you politely point out that something they said or did was racist. Getting angry at you distracts them so they don’t end up doing any of that serious self-reflection stuff that might cause them to feel bad for not changing.
Selfishness and bias can also skew things so that they really think they are being empathetic and reasonable. There are a lot of people out there who literally do not understand why people say they’re homophobic when they totally support gay rights and don’t have a problem with gay people, they just oppose allowing gay couples to get married or adopt children because that would destroy society.
“I’m totally okay with them existing, and maybe even holding hands in public (but no kissing (think of the children!))! You’re so intolerant of my religious beliefs! Not everyone has to share your point of view!”
Sadly, the human mind is quite adept at this awful form of mental gymnastics.
And thus, the shipping preferences of space-time asserts itself with gusto
Robin: (Thinking) don’t say hot babe, don’t say hot babe
Robin: … of my Sister’s Favourite College Teacher!
Robin: (Thinking) Nailed it.
+1
Think it and let Leslie know you’re thinking it, but don’t say it. Nicely played Robin. Yes, this has nothing to do with Roz’s favorite teacher.
Robin is not bad at the art of flirting. If this was last night Leslie would already have removed at least three articles of clothing.
That was last night…
… metaphorically speaking, she nailed ‘it’. In reality, still not nailed.
Damn it, Robin’s behavior here would be cute if it weren’t for her terrible politics.
EXACTLY what Leslie is thinking
Leslie’s internal dialogue: (she’s being so cute and flirty and… unff… no, bad Leslie, remember the horrible things she said, keep your dignity, let your anger guide you through this without making yet another big embarrassing mistake)
And Picasso’s paintings would look nice if it wasn’t for the fucked up anatomy.
This is one of those current event references that might (hopefully) become less funny to new readers as the setting’s time period changes year by year. Obama Derangement Syndrome resulted in the most do-nothing congress in American history, and our Robin was part of it.
hahaha nope
(not in the next decade, anyway)
I don’t know. It’s quite likely the next Congress will do many things. Many horrible things. We’ll be longing for the days of gridlock and a do-nothing Congress.
Shit, yeah.
Technically, the democrats have more than enough to play obstructionist.
They won’t, but they can.
Congress? Do something important?? NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Such vitriol, Leslie…
Idk, I guess I’m just hoping Robin won’t be redeemed for some reason. Like her arc won’t end up wrapped up in a neat little bow, that she’s actually not a very good person. Her actions up til this point haven’t really warranted redemption, so I’m hoping it’s not going that route.
You are totes flirting with her, congress woman, aren’t you?
*read in a whiny slightly complainy voice* Robin, you’re in congress, you’re not supposed to be honest.
*back to regular voice* Also, the accuracy of that statement says something about our government. For example, when the Republicas randomly shut down the government instead of passing a budget a couple of years back. Guess which other country was perfectly able to pay its federal employees?
The answer: Syria, while being in a civil war and before ISIS, ISIL, or whatever the hell they’re going by nowadays. If that doesn’t say some shitty things about our government, then I don’t know what does.
+1
US comparison contries has really begun to pick up lately; Syria, Zimbabwe, North Korea …
(And just call them Daesh, simpler than random order of I and S)
@Rukduk: ” If that doesn’t say some shitty things about our government, then I don’t know what does.”
I’m compiling a list of things that do, if you’re interested. They keep piling it higher and deeper.
…Hm. Jokes about congress are just going to keep moving from funny to terrifying over the next few years, huh?
Pretty much, though there is some hope that a few repo senators are decent enough on some issues to join the demos to thwart trump occasionally? I hope?
No. Not really.
There is a slight hope that a few will oppose killing the filibuster and thus allow Democrats to block the worst stuff the House throws up without actually having to join Democrats and thus piss off their base.
Things like privatizing Medicare.
Which would be huge & even better than what I suggested: frustrate the wuz out of McConnell, Ryan, and Trump, see how they like it. Course there is Obamas precedent for using executive orders — which the GOP will discover was only in unconstitutional when done by a D r m prexy.
But I do have hope that McCain & Graham will continue to stand against torture and in favor of DACA-folks, and maybe Flake with them. And maybe Collins will reach her breaking point on some of the stuff coming down the road….
*looks at the clock*
Ah, yes, time for the latest episode of Must Crush Pantsfeelings
So, now we know how Robin originally got elected to Congress: She’s actually quite charismatic when she’s being herself and isn’t reading from a script! 😉
So… What is Robin looking for? An endorsement for Roz’s RA campaign? It would certainly explain why she’s focussing on Roz’s feelings for Leslie as a teacher and a person.
Given what we know about Robin as a character and a person, and what SP! tells us about her sexuality, She is probably aware that her behavior in class upset somebody she respects and likes, and is probably also crushing on.
Actually, we don’t know much about Robin’s sexuality from SP!, except it’s not 100% straight. Yes, the sum total of her (non-drugged-out-on-sugar) sexual experience is Leslie, which I guess would make her a 7 on the Kinsey scale, but she spent way more time drooling after males than females. I don’t remember her EVER lusting after females. I always got the feeling she was bi, or maybe even straight-with-one-exception.
More importantly, does she KNOW her orientation in Dumbingverse?
Robin was also with Joe, which means she actually had a healthy heterosexual relationship. Which, wow, is just stunning! Joe could have relationships beyond Librarians and dead women! 🙂
she crushed on amber first
IMO, the time she and Leslie nearly raped Amber in the shower at their house was one of the darkest and most disturbing scenes in Shortpacked!
Oh, right, I’d forgotten about her crush on Amber. And time with Joe.
But I still have to wonder how whether Dumbingverse Robin has figured it out yet.
“Kinda, sorta undefinably queer”, IIRC.
She crushed on Amber and on Joyce (while Joyce was in a male body at the time, I believe Willis later said she liked Joyce and just didn’t realize it/want to realize it until she was in a male body and then kinda shuffled those feelings offstage again when she was back in her female body).
Let’s see. Watching her eye movement, her sickly grin, where she’s hesitating in her speech…
I’d say 40% chance she’s here to hit on Leslie, 40% chance she’s trying to figure out what went wrong in class, and 20% something else.
But regardless, she’s working up to some subject she feels awkward about.
Whatever will be the slimiest option.
100% this! 🙂
I doubt Robin knows anything about Roz trying to be an RA, or that Leslie would have much influence the matter.
She’s bringing up Roz because Robin’s totally crushing on Leslie and trying to hide it. Roz is just a an excuse for remembering her name and saying nice things to her.
She wants the cute teacher lady to go back to smiling at her
Well, Leslie might not be able to get her the job, a teacher’s recommendation might help as a reference for her application.
That said, I almost guarantee that isn’t why Robin’s here. She’s here to hit on Leslie, even if she doesn’t realize that.
Robin used FLATTERY!
It’s super effective!
Flatter is a real move, dontcha know?
The alt-text refers to Leslie or to Roz?
i think it’s referring to leslie. see here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/hmmm/
Wait, why is Robin wearing those glasses. It’s already been established that she does not need them and she is currently not in “Congresswoman DeSanto” mode.
Does she think they make her sexy? Maybe she got some polling data that told he that.
My guess? I think that she’s wearing them to look like Roz. She knows that she screwed up somehow (and, being Robin, hasn’t the first clue how). She’s making herself look like Roz because she knows Roz has a relatively healthy relationship with Leslie so she’s hoping that looking like her might make Leslie relax and be less hostile to her.
Just looking at this scene makes one think of the different homonyms of the word “congress”.
like okay on one hand this Robin is A Terrible Politician
but on the other hand I HAVE READ SHORTPACKED AND I SHIP THIS SO BAD
I second this
“Well I AM in Congress.. so obviously no.”
Well, after overturning popular vote to elect Trump, I imagine they figured they got their yearly quota of dismissing the public good finished early.
Uh, I think Congress electing Trump is an unlikely scenario at best.
To me, the most likely scenario is that he will be elected by the Electoral College (on the grounds that those were the votes that they were required by convention and law to make) and then the confirmation waved through by Congress with plenty of sound and fury but no-one whose vote matters breaking ranks.
This is because, in the end, it is a universal vested interest that they keep the political status quo in motion. If they set a precedent of ignoring the result now, it may one day become a precedent used against them and that, not anything Donald Trump may or may not do, is their greatest fear.
Most likely.
I mean, I have no /respect/ for the electoral college, and if it breaks, oh well. No result is democratic (And for that asshole who keeps trying to say “BUT WE’RE NOT A DEMOCRACY, WE’RE A REPUBLIC”, A: we are, we’re an indirect democracy, B: That literally only ever matters when someone criticizes our democratic model. The other 99.9% of the time, we’re totes a democracy and stand for democracy, and C: everyone and their mother is a republic, that’s not much of a bragging point. The only real monarchies or theocracies left are N. Korea/Some Micronations, and Iran/The Vatican, respectively.) Either the actual vote is ignored, or the rules we agreed upon for the election are ignored. No result can be democratic in that atmosphere.
Sure, I’d prefer the College breaks, because then we might /shatter the fucking concept/, but even then we’d probably just formally remove the seats. But the EC is undemocratic on its face, and was designed to trigger House elections every time while giving the plebes the appearance of a vote. And even now simply adds to the futility of voting for many – not just liberals either. I /do/ think a republican in California’s vote should matter SOMEWHERE in there.
Hey now! There’s lots more monarchies than that. I live in one, dangit. And it’s entirely possible to have a theocratic republic, too. If some of the real doom-and-gloom predictions of the next few years come true, the U.S. might even get to experience one first-hand.
Don’t you live in Canadia? A monarch with no power does not a monarchy make.
There are more than that. Monarchies and other dictatorships. Some of which have the trappings of democracy/republics, but not the actuality.
Hell, even North Korea is officially the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. It has elections and a legislature and everything.
I’d argue most dictatorships are, in fact, republican. North Korea is something of an exception, since it is now on it’s third generation of a hereditary head of state, but most other dictatorships don’t manage that.
Yep, North Korea is the sole dictatorship I’d rate a monarchy, because 3 generations of hereditary Supreme Ruler. They usually break down or prove too unstable for even that.
Well, it DOES make a monarchy – just not an absolute one. The term ‘constitutional monarchy’ exists for a reason.
No. A monarch who *Completely lacks power* is not the requisite to not be an absolute monarchy. The list of absolute monarchs is short. The list of monarchs who wielded very real powers is not. Most modern monarchs are nothing but the head of state – as in, the figurehead who is nominally in charge.
A monarch who doesn’t exercise power, or one who doesn’t have it, is nevertheless a monarch, and their country a monarchy.
Besides which, the monarchy does have, and occasionally exercises, real power. It’s just somewhat infrequent. Go look at Australia’s governor general firing the legislature, for example. 🙂
A ceremonial king is not really a ‘king’ for the practical purposes a monarchy requires. Figureheads aren’t really relevant when we start talking about form of government, anymore than it’s not really relevant that Kim Jeung Un’s literal title is not king and he lacks a crown.
Though strictly speaking some kings or emperors were /also/ actually republican leaders (Notable in Britain and the HRE).
“Wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
Lailah:
I always read -all- the comments, so I’m pretty sure there is no one who ‘keeps trying’ to make the Republic vs Democracy statement. It was said only once recently, by me.
On Dec 5th I posted:
“We live in a Republic. Not a Democracy. (why do I have to keep saying this?)”
as a comment on the RA appointment — also a kick at persons who -do- keep saying this. And now I’ve been bitten by Poe’s Law.
I like the Becky gravatar because it fits my fondness for sassy remarks. If you feel I’ve been assholeish, please clue me in and I will try to mend my ways.
It is a silly and repeated argument, even if it hasn’t come up here too often.
We live in a Republic and a Democracy. They are not exclusive terms.
If it were /just you/, /just the one time/… though you were the recent one I had also thought of. But no. The sarcasm does not come out simply by saying it. It’s kind of a meme in meriken politics. A widespread one. For some reason that I’m sure has nothing to dow ith the names of our political parties.
Ok, folks. It looks like you’ve run into that bit of crud too many times elsewhere. For the record, I have not repeated it -anywhere- else on the Net.
And if you want to call me out, fine. Not ‘that asshole’, but “that asshole Jhon“, OK?
Just a thought: The strip title makes me think that Robin being drawn looking like Roz in this scene isn’t accidental. I suspect that Willis wants to spend time establishing how much like Roz Robin can be. In what ways? Dogmatic, self-absorbed, quick to issue blame to others and… yes… sexually aggressive.
This is one of the reasons why Robin/Leslie initially disturbed me in Shortpacked! – It always struck me as an abusive relationship with Robin very much the abuser of the more vulnerable and suggestible Leslie. I am concerned that Robin, treating it as recreation and relaxation away from her ‘official’ public persona, might give Leslie false hope and use her for her own purposes, uncaring of how much this may hurt her lover.
There is also still the possibility that the tags are lying to us and that’s not actually robin. I’m struggling to actually believe my own theory, but roz could be scheming either on her own or with the assistance of one of her sisters. We never did get introduced to all of them one at a time sitcom-style in shortpacked, did we?
Leslie’s face suggests to me that she suspects something similar. Also, ‘favorite teacher’ is a bit suspicious, even if it should be true
I don’t think that this is Roz; the facial expressions are 100% Robin. Roz also has a rounder face than her older sister.
Not Roz. Of course there is a family resemblance, but Leslie would recognize Roz (seeing her every day in class) Rounder face and pretty sure Robin is taller, too. This is a comic, so art is not exact, but you guys are talking Clark Kent wearing glasses level of disguises, here! Bahahaha!
It would be completely inconceivable for this comic to ever include a character not being recognized by people who see her every day just because she’s (not) wearing glasses.
You keep using that word. I dinna think it means what you think it means.
Man, y’all’s hate on for Roz never ceases to amuse (Though in fairness, it’ll never be as great as the “ITS FOR THE CLITORIS, SLOWBROS” comic.)
By the way, I wanted to ask. Is appending “congressman/woman” to a person’s name even in informal conversation a normal thing in America? Sounds extremely sycophantic and lackey-ish to me.
Define informal – if Leslie was being informal, she’d have called her “Robin”. If you’re calling someone by an honorific, it should probably be the right one.
I know where you’re coming from, as a Brit, it seems weird to me because MPs (MSPs, MEPs) don’t have special honorifics heck even the top job is “Mrs May, the Prime Minister”, not “Prime Minister May”), but if you think about, say, a professor, you could call Professor River Song “River” or “Professor Song”, but calling her “Miss Song” is kind of dismissing her professorship.
Really? I thought the PM was entitled to Right Honourable. They are in Canada.
Side point: you can also use Representative as the title/honorific, which prefer of congresscreature.
God yeah, so much better.
Yes Leslie, she’s very nice and charismatic when she wants to be but she still panders to the worst sensibilities of bigots to prop up her political ambitions.
robin i dont think congresspeople are supposed to make those jokes
If they cannot mock themselves, then who can? 😉
Everyone?
Pay attention to those middle panels kids! Compare Leslie’s expression in #3 vs #5. No teacher will credit “favorite teacher” (panel #2). #4, though, that’s the sauce to feed a teacher’s professional ego!
Off topic, but is there a way to get rid of bad Project Wonderful ads from the adfeed here? Right now I’m seeing one for some anti-Anita Sarkeesian book.
This will be interesting.
I know it’s an opinion that bothers people, but (DoA) Ruth started out as a reprehensible bully, who probably should have been arrested for assault and battery, and kidnapping… and it took a lot of story to get her out of that hole, as far as I’m concerned.
So, we’ll see what happens with Robin.
…I remember the assault and battery (also theft and vandalism), but where was kidnapping involved?
Yup, part of me wants to see a redemption arc, part of me wants Leslie to stay far far away because this is going to be such a trainwreck of a relationship even if it goes “positively”. But Leslie’s libido having hope for the long-shot is one of those constants of the multiverse, I fear.
Nooooooooooooo, don’t fall for it!
why’s she wearing her glasses?
Why? If not to take deadly aim (at Leslie’s libido)?
Now picturing some sort of Heads-Up-Display projected into the glasses with seduction-relevant data readouts.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Leslie’s internal dialogue: (Wait a minute, you don’t even remember your own staffers’ names and belittle them to their face. Why are you remembering mine?)
And Robin oblivious to how much her bothering to remember this one name when the only people whose names she’s seemed to bother to remember have been current family members, to how much that communicates in volumes in how important Leslie is looming large to her.
And then, we see her positioning, separated from her team, pose awkward and bent, with begging eyes instead of straight and tall. She’s slipping into real Robin. Not “which real Robin would you like” Robin, but the Robin she is when all the cameras and secondaries leave and she’s just alone with her thoughts.
And it’s vulnerable. It’s blushing. And her words… the way she doesn’t understand the significance she is communicating. Of course she would remember the words of Leslie. Leslie is important. She doesn’t realize why Leslie feels important when the hordes of political staff and constituents could not and will never feel important, but it’s there and her voice is insistive.
She’s got as much of a crush as Leslie does, which is seen in their initial chemistry, in her remembering that she saw her at the rally, in her remembering her name and the words she said, in her taking the effort to escape the massive amount of staff involved in making sure the congresswoman with the mercurial nature and habit of making negative press doesn’t go off alone and unsupervised, in her changing to a more relaxed and comfortable and non-coordinated shirt just to look different than the Robin Leslie threw out.
It’s… powerful all together, because at least for me, it puts me in a similar position as Leslie as a reader. I want to root for Robin, to see her evolve, to see her figure out her bisexuality and develop a real and tender relationship to Leslie where they start out more as equals with the crush feeling mutual instead of developing slowly for one and being comedically overstated for the other.
But she’s also got so so many red flags and would be so toxic for Leslie. Cause even if Leslie succeeds in getting through to the real Robin, gets Robin to acknowledge her bi-ness, apologize for her politics, spend a wonderful romantic evening together, there’s a whole political machine out there waiting to either exploit the “scandal” of it (which would fuck Leslie’s career as a professor) or bury it in favor of Robin’s electoral chances (which would make Leslie feel discarded and tricked).
And so I want to also root for angry eyebrows Leslie to have the dignity to resist this real and genuine flirting.
And that’s the exact conflict we saw in the last two panels of last comic.
Panel 2: Eyes looking away, forced half-smile, right eyebrow coming down a little indicating that face is kind of in an awkward scrunch. Oh she’s lying her ass off her.
Panel 3: And Leslie knows it.
Panel 4: But here… the eyes seem warmer, more genuine, the smile more natural. I don’t think she’s lying here. I think Leslie may actually have earned Roz’s begrudging respect and I feel like we’ve seen it in Roz making her promises to be on her best behavior after getting called out.
And I think it’s true that she’s found herself learning things she wasn’t expecting to. Like, some of that might also be Roz talking up her teacher to try and get Robin to come to the class, but I think some of that might be genuine as well.
What this also means is that the lie in Panel 2 wasn’t that Leslie is Roz’s favorite teacher, but that that’s the reason she would bother to learn someone’s name.
Methinks, Robin might be starting to clue in to the fact that there’s some strange “attractive” force to Leslie that just draws her in and makes her fantasize about her bangs at night.
Panel 5: Okay, teacher feelings here. I’ve been here.
That moment when you feel like you weren’t able to fully connect with a kid, get their connection and engagement, and like you just taught them some stuff instead of really getting them excited to learn, it sucks. A lot.
And so to find out later from their parent that actually they’ve been raving about your class at home and consider you one of their favorite teachers, that they repeated something you thought they were not paying attention to?
It feels amazing. So yeah, this is the second day in a row where I identify the most strongly with a wordless Leslie Panel 5 face.
Panel 6: And I think Leslie’s resolve is cracking. She’s having to look away, she’s trying to come up with an excuse for Robin to leave.
Also, Robin… that’s the problem in a nutshell. Not just with Robin, but with a disturbingly high percentage of the population. That politics isn’t seen as anything important or meaningful or that dramatically affects where people on the raggedy edge live or die. But rather as a game where your “team” scores more points than the other “team” and so you can root and cheer that you’re “winners”.
And it’s that aspect that makes our government so broken, makes the election of conservatives so dangerous. Because it is all a game to them and to the mushy moderates who just want to be on the winning “team” so all the fascist overtones and real deadly effects on people’s lives are just seen as meaningless fluff.
And it also allows movements to be defined more by what they aren’t than what they are. What allows conservatives to nearly universally decide that climate change must be a hoax or that universal health care must be destroyed, all because those would be “wins” for the other team and winning is more important than health or survival.
And I hope Leslie no matter what can make a passionate plea in opposition to that worldview, that congress doesn’t matter, that it’s all just a bloodless game and show the blood and bodies jammed into the gearworks of this great and terrible machine.
This shit genuinely matters and we’re never going to be able to fix this great and rotting mess until we can get the majority of Americans to believe that.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Is our conservative, Republican, somewhat uptight Congresswoman actually attempting to hit on Leslie??!
Why, yes I think she is! My, my!
What will her constituents say…
Oh fuck, what will her constituents say?!?
I’ve wondered if Robin has a supposed boyfriend or is at least nominally dating men. Is it really feasible to be single and not looking with that constituent base?
She runs on the right platforms, so my guess is a lot of people are saying ‘she’s not married YET.’ Yet being the key word. Though since she hit 30, apparently more of them have been guessing…
“We’re all totally cool with gay stuff now and would like laws to address things which actually affect us”
In Mike Pence Indiana? I sincerely doubt it.
We don’t know that Robin’s district doesn’t contain a dimensional rift where this Indiana is partially overlapped by some sorta bizarro-Indiana from another universe. It would explain why physics seems to act strangely some times.
Or that Robin’s arc won’t mostly be a background plot thread that will take a years and years to get to that point and maybe things will have changed by then because most of the surviving population has been replaced by robots who find all human copulation to be equally squishy and gross.
Or that Indiana is in a weird time-flux where maybe the governor is Mike Pence, or maybe the governor is someone from 5 years in the future.
Or the Mike Pence in this Universe is the crazy, grumpy old night janitor at the Indiana Statehouse who earns just over Minimum Wage and lives in a one bedroom Apartment with two Goldfish and a Chihuahua
“She’s one of us, so we’ll adopt whatever double-standard we need to so as not to vote for the other party.”
LESLIE ASK HER THE NAME OF HER VOLUNTEERS FOR GOSH SAKE
Do I sense a gradual shift from DoA!Robin to Shortpacked!!Robin? 😀
No.
There is no difference. Shortpacked Robin acted exactly like this, it’s why everyone hated her at first.
Make out now. MAKE OUT.
dammit
I swear if this is just so Leslie will support Roz’ candidacy I hope Robin gets eaten alive by hungry old conservatist men at the Congress.
It’s not. Robin’s crushing on Leslie and wants to know why she was mad and how to make it better.
Whether Robin actually knows that’s why she’s here is a more open question.
My feeling is “definitely” and “probably not.”