there’s a song in Russian that goes like this:
“I do not drink!” “Yes you do!” “By god I don’t!” “There’s no god!”
like okay I don’t approve of the basic idea of the song – pushing a female student to socially drink… although there’s a part of our culture where female students are supposed to have it together better than boys, behave better and yes, not drink, so this is intended as a song of freedom, not coercion… ANYWAY the lyric is beautiful and hilarious, so there <3
(the phrase "there's no god" is a soviet cliche, and the song originates from that era) (the joke is not a believer clashing with atheists, Everyone Is Atheist In Soviet Union, it's a turn of phrase being interpreted literally)
Any time anyone says “For God’s sake” or “Good Lord”, my father says “I’m fairly sure he has nothing to do with it”. He’s been doing this my whole life, and somehow it still makes me snicker. Even when he does it at me.
one time i joined a ex-believers group and for the first month all i could swear was variations on “god”, featuring “oh my god”, “lordy”, “good lord”, et cetera
IDK it was weird because suddenly….you had that freedom
I just consider “Thank God” as the sanitised, socially acceptable version of my usual “Thank Fuck!” Kind of the way my mother says “sugar”, instead of “Shit!” when she has non family company.
You forgot that he’s on a stick. (Or isn’t he on a stick where you live? I had to quit saying “Jesus Christ on a stick!” or “Christ on a stick!” when I went to uni, because it was offending non-locals. ^^; )
I’ve heard pogo stick, if anyone still remembers what those are.
Or “Christ on a cross.”
“Jumping Jesus H. K. Christ tap dancing in side-car with his black bastard brother Harry.”
There was also something about “chocolate jimmies and a lobster bib”, but I forget how it fit in. 🙂
Yeah… on that… a lot of people in the West don’t really get that ‘Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”), while sometimes used as a statement of faith, is more of a general-purpose cuss phrase in most Arabic speaking countries (and non-Arabic speaking countries with large Islamic populations such as Indonesia, India, or even the Philippines, where even some of the non-Muslims use it). It could mean anything from, “Wow, did you see that?” to “Owww you dropped that on my foot, that fucking hurts, be more careful you dumbass!” to “OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT THAT DRUNK DRIVER JUST DROVE INTO THE GAS STATION PUMPS WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE RUN!!!!”. It doesn’t take a lot of research to figure that out, but not many people in the US (and I gather in Europe as well) bother.
An all-purpose interjection, like how Americans use “Jesus Christ”!
I’m trying to think of a Jewish equivalent, too, but ‘Oy vey’ (and variations) are only for things that are upsetting. Perhaps we like making our interjections more specific.
I haven’t believed in any god for almost 18 years, and I still say it. It really is just a turn of phrase.
Though I’ll occasionally mix it up if I’m feeling facetious and say things like “Thank the gods” or something. My personal favorite, for expression exasperation or frustration, is “Jesus, Horus, and Thor!”
“Smeg” IS a real word. If I remember correctly, it’s a shortened slang form of “smegma,” which is the Greek word for the secretion of oils and fluids in the folds of skin, specifically within a man’s foreskin. Basically, whenever Lister would call someone “smeg-head,” he’s basically calling them “dickhead.”
I feel weird swearing by gods I don’t believe in. I worry I’m being disrespectfull. My favorites replace the word god with fuck. “What in the sweet light of fuck?!”
“Sweet mother of fuckery”
“Dwarfs were not a naturally religious species, but in a world where pit props could crack without warning and pockets of fire damp could suddenly explode they’d seen the need for gods as the sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, “Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!” or “Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!”
I still say things like “Jesus Christ!” and “Holy God!” sometimes, even though I have been calling myself a Discordian-Finaglist (because appropriating fictional/humorous religions is like eating Pringles) sine 1992.
I’m just very surprised that anyone would ever think think “thank god” is a religious phrase. Maybe it’s a regional thing, but that sort of usage is entirely secular in my experience.
It’s like making fun of a Christian for saying “thank my lucky stars” or a similar turn-of-phrase which has to etymologically be pagan.
Growing up in my family, it /was/ religious. My mother and grandmother were literally thanking their deity for guiding them to their misplaced keys or delaying that traffic light just long enough for them to get through. The one time I ever heard either of them say “god damn you” it was incredibly shocking because I knew to them, the phrase literally meant they were indicating the person was completely beyond salvation– in a religion where the only requirement to receive salvation is apologizing and saying thanks for forgiving me.
Trust me, unless you have been reading some of the Harron (or worse, Snarron or Lupron shudder</b?) shipper fanfics, of the more explicit and bizarre sorts (which are often the same given how many seem to be written by girls who have never seen the male anatomy), then there probably s worse. Much worse.
You really don’t want to know, but I assure you, some of it makes Enoby Dementtia Ravens WayTara Gilesbie look like Shakespeare in comparison, while also making <50 Shades of Gray look like an treatise on the joys of chastity.
Hopefully, the mod will be able to fix the mangled markup there. Sorry about that.
Also, just to give you some small idea of how bad it gets: back when Livejournal was a thing (other than a punchline), there were groups such as Deleterius which were devoted to ‘badfic sporking’, basically giving awful fanfics the MST3K treatment (I imagine that this still happens in places like fanfiction.net, but I haven’t looked). It was a pretty cruel thing that I have some regrets about now, but at the time it seemed funny, and occasionally one of the targets would get over themselves enough to listen to our criticisms and take them to heart (are you hearing this, Steam Greenlight Developers?)
I recall at least two different HP fics in which one of the characters – Ron in one, I think the other was Lupin or Sirius but I forget) – tries to cheer Harry up – by sneaking into bed with him and raping him. All without a single word said between them in either case. You know, because sex makes people happy, and who needs to explain themselves when they are sticking it in an underaged boy, right?
And those were far from the worst I’d seen in those groups. Sweet Mother Eris, it got far worse than that.
OTOH, some of the sporkings were tremendously funny and on target. I recall one story in which the punctuation was almost entirely missing (a common problem in fanfics which haven’t been proofread by a beta reader). I snarked that if she keeps missing periods like that, she should talk to a doctor… to which one of the regulars replied with something like, “Oh, go easy on her, she’s just too young to have punctuation yet!” Good times. Terrible fanfics, but good times nonetheless.
Rice Krispie squares work because the cereal is unsweetened and consists of very small pieces. Froot Loops are rough, large, and very sweet. The only way around the size is to crush them, at which point you’ve defeated the purpose of using them in the first place.
it’s one of those things! when you realize! that your specific variant of a religion! isn’t that far away from a cult!! especially in how it indoctrinates and proselytizes!
Nah, Joyce has yet to learn this lesson. She learned LGBT+ people are people. She’s improving, but religious diversity (and non-believing) is not a thing that’s clicked yet.
You know who else meant well? Hitler. I mean, you have to really stretch it, and even then it doesn’t hold water and was going to end horribly regardless, but…
Joyce’s dad? Whom everyone loves now because after his daughter almost got shot, he’s started to meet the baseline standards for not being an awful father and human being instead of doubling down on the awful like his wife?
The bible describes Noah (the one who built the Ark) as “a righteous man, blameless in his time”.
The rabbis were like, “what’s it mean, ‘in his time’?” and they had two potential interpretations:
– Perhaps he was righteous even though everyone else in his generation was terrible, that’s extra hard to do! Wow, good job Noah!
– Or, he was righteous and blameless only if you’re grading on a serious curve, given how everyone was a jerk in this time period, hey at least he was significantly better than his neighbours. D+, Noah.
I would say thank god is a turn of phrase because at this point it feels like it should be but I admit I do kind of feel weird saying it now that I’m basically an atheist. So…idfk but I’m sure for Leslie it’s either that or just an old habit.
True. It’s just so much apart of the everyday “One nation under God” “In God we Trust” on our money for example I think it takes having a very unique relationship with religion being either very religious like Joyce or having left religion to really feel any sort of conscious way about it. Idk…idk if I’m articulating myself well here.
Yeah that’s the thing I think if you’ve always been non religious it would just be a turn of phrase for you but if you’re a formerly religious going from it being something you said with a very specific meaning and belief attached to it to it just being something you say out of habit when you catch yourself saying it you might feel a little awkward about it.
Everyone should believe in the Force. I see no reason why Leslie shouldn’t believe in it. Now for any other religion, like the kind she was raised in, I understand and would be shocked and appalled.
BTW, Robin, your cute antics don’t make up for your home invasion and gaslighting–albeit that apron is doing its hardest to.
Well if Luke is going to say having fear and anger isn’t going to make you Space Hitler, good. If Luke is going to say Light and Dark are unimportant because good is what you make of it….eh, less enthusiastic. 🙂
I got that “You can’t say Thank God if you’re not Christian!” stuff when some coworkers found out I’m pagan. I pointed out that I was raised in a Christian household, converted a few years before, said that figures of speech aren’t ruled by religion, and do you happen to know just how polytheism works, anyway? before I dropped it. The coworker who was making the biggest deal about it was a pain in the ass anyway and it wasn’t worth arguing about.
What was that Southern 1920s version of the Odyssey called? The lead was an atheist and then had an obvious miracle happen he prayed for before backtracking a lot.
The movies pretty damn entertaining but my god (see what I did there) that would have to be one of the best soundtracks ever, right up there with Brokeback Mountain I reckon
I think too that Christian culture is so embedded in society, literally for centuries since the first religious colonists came. Even now a huge positive talking point for supposed-to-be secular politicians and their constituents is how much they believe in Christ and so forth. It’s totally unsurprising that people would commonly use biblical phrases like that. I wonder if people like your coworkers have just never thought about it because it’s the default for them; they can only see “others” and don’t realize “others” grew up in the same environment they did (like you said). Where I live people find out I don’t church or anything like that and suddenly I have 10 arms or something.
For MOST of the coworkers involved in the conversation, they weren’t really trying to be pests or insulting. It came across more like what you said, it simply hadn’t occurred to them before and took on a bit of a friendly ribbing tone in the course of the conversation. The one who was really harping on it, however, was looking for “Gotcha!” wherever she could. I don’t think she was looking to convince me I’m REALLY a Christian in denial, she was a true pain in the ass.
lol i do pronounce it that way, but quickly and slurred into each other? the syllables aren’t as emphasized. and sometimes i go straight up valley girl, but that’s usually when i’m mocking something.
I’ve seen enough people crying ‘continuity error’ at non-Christian characters saying “go to hell” or whatever to know that Joyce’s argument here is 100% true to life.
Lessee: Tiwaz, Woden, Thor, Frigga, Saturn, Newest Gen Pokémon titles… that’s all of them, right? I feel like I might be remembering/spelling a couple badly.
Tobey Faire, several devout religious groups have tried to get it changed to things like ‘First Day’, ‘Second Day’, etc. before, and some of the Romance languages (Spanish, for example) partly use that approach as well.
Conversely, in France a few years after the Revolution (1793) they changed the entire calendar (including replacing the seven day week with a ten day one, IIRC) to get away from the deep-rooted Christian day and date names, and the French Republican Calendar remained the official one until, uhm, 1805 I think, well into the Napoleonic period at any rate. The Russian revolutionaries tried something similar, twice (once by the Duma following the February Revolution and the Tsar’s abdication, and again after the October Revolution when the Bolsheviks forced out the more moderate groups), but neither one got any real use AFAIK.
In Ukrainian, the days are called “the day after the day of no labour” (we start with Monday and this makes me think that at some point we did in fact start with Sunday), “the second day”, “the middle day”, “the fourth day”, “the fifth day”, “Shabbat”, “the day of no labor”.
Like, not literally these names, but that’s the etymology.
There is something to be said for the fact that the only religious allusion there is Jewish 0.o
(In Russian, Monday is still called the same thing, but Sunday is “resurrection day”, making the meaning of the Monday name that much less transparent, so ‘yay’ for christianity)
I grew up in a secular Jewish household and apparently announced to my parents that I didn’t believe in God when I was five, but I still constantly say “Oh my God!” and “Jesus Christ!”
There just aren’t that many good secular exclamations (that I know of).
My dad sometimes says “Jesus Christ” when startled or dismayed, and he’s a rabbi.
(Also, Hell is not a Jewish concept, Christians added that later.)
Judaism typically forbids saying God’s name for no purpose, too. Some of us won’t even write it, not even when it’s translated into English, that’s where you see us write “G-d”. (As a 6-yr-old, I thought intentionally misspelling his name like that was very disrespectful, and we should spell it right.)
The most extreme avoidance I’ve seen is “haSh-m”. That’s avoiding spelling God’s protective nickname, even in the alphabet of another language.
In other news, my crush just asked me if we were ‘dating.’ Haven’t responded yet, but my day has been happy! Finished testing, my ELA teacher wasn’t pissed off by his other classes, and my crush probably likes me! Yyyyessss! *Fist pumps*
IN Shortpacked Leslies cat is the offspring of cho choo bear from Something Positive and Sprinkles from Girls With Slingshots. Also there was Cross over with Melonpool. Proving that all four must take place in the same universe. However Girls with Slinghots also made a guest appearance in Questionable Content and if that meeting is considered canon, it connects the Walkyverse to Questionable Content. I haven’t read a lot of Girls with Slingshots or something positive though, so if those have any crossovers…
SP imported a character from Queen of Wands and once featured an appearance by the Pet Professional, and that’s just what I remember off the top of my head. There are probably some other connections I’m forgetting.
Faye Whitaker is attending IU in the Dumbiverse. However, she might not be the Faye from the prime QC continuity, since her dad’s still alive. Does that suggest DoA is parallel to the general universe of mid-2000s webcomics?
*Goes back to the giant corkboard covered in comic printouts and a tangle of multi-colored strings*
This!
Also Coffee of Doom was a setting in Shortpacked! multiple times (however renamed to “Coffeeright Theft”), so there’s a lot of questionable content in Willis’ comics!
Ugh I used to say shit like that to my atheist friend back when I was a little 13 year old Muslim boy 🙁 Also mocking him for clasping his hands together into a sort of prayer pose when a bee got too close to him
Then I leave religion and suddenly every other sentence is “Jesus fucking Christ”
Huh, the forum software must have filtered out the not-tags I used to make it clear that yes, I was being sarcastic. Pity, really. Oh, well, I think this post should more than make up for that now…
if it makes you feel any better years later she’s going to look back at herself and cringe. hard.
i mean that’s what makes me feel better about most middle schoolers and this is just kind of an exaggerated version of that. being in transition, starting to get flaws/pimples, growing new parts of yourself that you hadn’t had room for before. it’s joyce’s spiritual puberty and it is embarrassing and annoying as hell
i mean like! it’s easier if you think of it as just One of Those Phases people have to go through. and either they get through it, or they get stuck there for a long, long time. but either way it’s a maturation process.
hmm, yeah. I’unno, it’s just this in particular reminding me of my kindergarten, which was both catholic and massively -possibly racist-ly- condescending against me and my secular/islamic Turkish family. lotta adults talking down to small children and their parents with this same type of logic. I Don’t blame Joyce, but after so much progress it’s real dang aggravating to see this particular interaction play out.
It is always okay to be annoyed with Joyce. It’s kindhearted and generous if you can remember that it’s not really her fault, but it’s not wrong if it rubs you the wrong way when she repeats the genuinely annoying stuff that she’s been taught.
Robin DeSanto is gay is the most discussed in the media in the few years ago. Even it has happened in 2017, but some of the public still curious about what is exactly happening and to be the reason there is a rumor comes out about her gay. At that time she became the massive social networking rumor.
The public, especially her fans are shocked. She just came out with her bad rumor which is spread massively. This time is not about her political career, but her bad rumor. The rumor is out of standardize of hoax, according the last reported this politician revealed herself as homosexual. Do you still believe or not, this rumor is really much talked by people even in a person of her fans.
Just imagine her voice over a montage of still photos over animated backgrounds, file footage of Robin in DC, and slightly shaky video of her in Leslie’s house taken from the street with a telephoto lens and you’re close to how it would look on TV.
Ah, lovely, you even got the terrible spellar and gramming (oh, my, that’s ironic, isn’t it?) of that sort of article down pat (no Nixon and Deep Throat jokes here, please). Which did you use for that ‘passed through multiple translations’ look, Babelfish or Google Translate? Those are great for that sort of thing.
Panel 5.
I’m having trouble reading that as for-real. I do that when I’m doing jokes, maybe that are a leetle true/ reflect my feelings, but not enough to warrant that level of commitment.
But in Joyce’s case, is she self-aware enough to make a joke like this? she’s been developing, but is she developed enough fr this to be facetious, or is it still for reals? I JUST DON’T KNOW
One: I agree with Becky.
Two: I love that apron.
Three: Are those muffins burned? Because that looks like smoke, not steam. I can now only believe that the only reason Leslie’s house did not burn to the ground today was because she came back early so Robin took the muffins out of the oven “early”.
Four: Muffins will fix nothing Robin!!! Muffins never fix anything!!! All they are is an empty lie, pretending to be cupcakes but not actually being cupcakes!!!
No! Those are the worst because they’re trying to be pumpkin pie with chocolate chips but they aren’t!! All muffins can do is get you excited about the real dessert they represent and then disappoint you by not being nearly as good as what you anticipated!!!!
I realllllllyyyyy hate muffins. Cinnamon rolls are the superior breakfast baked good!!!
Crap, that was suppose to be ‘fake muffins’, but for some reason I had to go and spoil the joke. I’M RUINING FOR ME! RUINING IT! hits self with DVD copy of Blue Velvet
Thoust bite thine thumb at me?!? Have at thee thou vile knave!! I seaketh satisfaction upon yonder field!!
…
Sorry, I was in the drama and theater club back in high school and briefly college, but I got tired of always being cast as the villain. You can only play Iago, Macbeth, and Puck so many times before you get tired of it, although it would appear some of it has stayed with me all this time. (That’s right I consider Puck the villain)
god, christian culture is so big in america that, although it’s hard to prove an absence of anything, i’m pretty sure i’ve never heard anyone in my life NOT say god, jesus, jeez, christ, etc. i was sort of raised christian but not really, and have been agnostic since i was a teen, but there is a deity outta my mouth every five seconds. they are just living up in there. like teeth.
ALL HAIL THOSE THAT LIVE IN YOUR MOUTH
REPUGNANT OF PLAQUE, DISASTROUS OF DISEASE
ALL HAIL THE GODS THAT LIVE IN YOUR MOUTH
AND FORGET NOT THE DAILY BRUSHING
So at this point, Robin has:
Flirted with Leslie
Slept in the same bed as Leslie
Watched musicals about understanding LGBT+ relationships with Leslie (yay SU)
Worn Leslie’s clothes
and Cooked muffins for Leslie.
…
There’s only one more way she could be more gay for Leslie, and it’d be locked behind a paywall.
Don’t forget broken into her home, dragged her into the media circus of her own crashing career and refused to take no for an answer in multiple occasions, which is romantic by romantic comedy standard.
They also held hands while watching the musical (BUT they held hands in a very straight way, I’m sure).
I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that media just watched the person who is rumoured to be in a lesbian relationship with Representative DeSanto bring home two attractive college-aged ladies to her.
There’s absolutely no way that can go badly for anyone, I’m sure.
Yeah, not good at all. One of the things I was worried about from the moment she proposed this plan. Especially with it confirmed the media is camped outside.
Personally, I think Leslie should just invite the media in. That’ll get rid of Robin. 🙂
I’ve been an atheist for years and I still say “Thank God,” or “God damn it,” or “Lord knows,” etc. It’s just so deeply ingrained in our culture that we can’t really get away from it. I mean I guess I could try to train myself out of saying those things, but there wouldn’t be much point.
I was raised atheist, and I use “thank god” and “god damn” all the time. It’s kind of the ultimate counter to people who think Christianity is under attack in America.
“You think your religion is persecuted? I unequivocally reject all belief systems, and STILL reflexively invoke your deity on a daily basis.”
One could argue “using the lord’s name in vain” is more along the lines of claiming god will judge/punish certain people you don’t like more than just saying, “God.”
Hm, I grew up in a non-religious/atheist home, I have never been religious at any point in my life… I don’t say “thank god” very often (usually thank goodness or similar), but I do say other religion-based phrases. Stuff like “Jesus Christ”, “Holy ____”, and of course the ever popular “god dammit” (heck even just “dammit” or “damn” is technically religious…)
“Freud Fu” is a weak fighting style, and it was discredited decades ago when its over-reliance on the same few moves proved ineffective at protecting its users from harm.
As an atheist, I must say I went through the “I shouldn’t say God because I don’t believe in him” phase. It was eventually superseded by the “Wait, if he doesn’t exist, I can take his name in vain anytime I want! And it’s exhausting to avoid it, so screw it!” phase.
Now, I’m sure there are a few who manged to survive the first phase long enough to break the habit, but I’m also sure their anti-theists, (or at least anti-Abrahamic-theists), not necessarily atheists.
I mean, what is a nonreligious person even supposed to say besides “oh god”? “Oh goodness” and related secular versions lack the connotational profanity inherent to invoking the Lord™’s name in vain, even for someone who’s rejected the religious norm in America. Like, the fact that “gosh,” “geez,” and the like are treated as euphemisms for “god” means that they’re by definition not equivalent.
And! On top of that, thanks to said religious norm, if you tailor-make utterances like that to reflect a lack of religion, you’re just going to be told you’re acting like a fedora-tipping dunce. You either co-opt religious exclamations, chop your interjection vocabulary in half, or look like a moron.
… I swear I’m not as worked up about this as I sound.
Robin had better have to work harder for a redemption arc than cooking and wearing an admittedly awesome apron while she squats in Leslie’s house. I pray, as a non-religious turn of phrase, that Robin has to do more to get redemption than cooking and a cute wardrobe she stole from Leslie to be considered for any type of relationship, friendship or romantic. Sure, it’s been a few strips, but Leslie is still suffering fallout for Robin’s shit, and should not get any good things until she consciously tries to redeem herself for being a selfish asshole.
I meant in the comic, it’s pretty clear that the commenters know it doesn’t. But I’m hoping the comic will treat this as a serious plotline from this point, one that can’t just be fixed by Robin chatting with Becky and having an epiphany without acknowledging how inappropriate she was to this point, and not have Leslie get pulled into a relationship just because Robin looks cute and did a sort of nice thing. Not to say Willis deals with things badly, but the tone of Robin’s escapades has been a little slapstick so far.
This comic has a strong precedent of stuff looking like funtime shenanigans, but then turning out to be far more serious, and treated as such (ie, Amazi-Girl). I suspect Robin will eventually find out she’s in the wrooong universe to get away with this like she wants.
When one guy complained repeatedly about the hypocrisy of my occasional use of “Oh my god”, I switched to using “Oh YOUR god” around him, (excessively). He was not amused. I’m pretty sure numerous prayers were said for me to be struck by lightning etc.
I later used my continued existence as proof of the failure of his beliefs. He doesn’t speak to me anymore. Objective Achieved?
So basically this page confirms nothing will stop in Willis writing from Robin becoming a pair with Leslie?
Sadly.
What Robin will do next cheat on Leslie, who she’s not dating or anything, with some random dude on sugar rush?
Leslie is in a remarkably ticklish situation here. She wants Robin out, understandably but… cupcakes! I mean the woman is a borderline-sociopathic menace who threatens to ruin her life but… cupcakes! She made her cupcakes!
I’m increasingly of the opinion that Robin is desperately running and hiding from something. She’s creating a secondary illusionary happy life for herself and, in so many ways, it’s tragic for her that her life has ended up in this way.
Panel 1: Oh fuck, that media circus is intense and Leslie has braved her way through it twice while Robin has chosen the cowardly way out. Though I do worry for the eventual fallout of Leslie bringing in two 18 year olds into her home given how shitty the media can be to “scandal” LGBT folk.
And all the sad face for her statement here, because she’s not being facetious. There really was a strong possibility that Robin would have burned down her house while she was gone.
Fuck, no wonder she jumped at the first chance to abandon class and run home. She was probably very aware that every hour away was blessed relief from Robin’s reign of boundary-violating bullshit, but also an hour that could have her coming home to a burned down wreckage of all of her belongings.
Panel 2: Awww, I love Becky’s happy excited face here. Like, we saw in the flashback that her previous house was one in which her dad extended over everything, dominating every memory and life-experience except for what she could steal away with her mom.
When she is excited that it doesn’t look or smell like dude, she’s probably at least partially relating it to that and that triggering space. And I get that. I still today can’t deal with the smell of Axe body spray because of how many bad memories I have in childhood of my mom only getting me that in what I’ve since realized where passive-aggressive attempts to forestall my awareness about my gender.
But yeah, it really is perfect for Becky and I love her joy at potentially staying here and having a roof and an older lesbian mentor.
Panel 3: And yet, even though this is like the 9000th time Becky has stated that she very much is still a believer, it will not stop douchebag totally not homophobes from trying to insist that she must be atheist or lapsed or not a “real” believer. Sigh.
Panel 2: It’s very Becky! Not only how excited she is to see a lesbian role model carve out a piece of the world to call her own (“one day I will be a way cool science teacher and have an apartment just like this… only more dinosaur posters”), but also her general attitude to a new situation. “Hello, what’s going on here? I bet it’s something awesome!!!”
Again, good reminder of Becky’s intact faith. She is perfectly cool with her God that answers lesbian prayers.
Yup, and it’s something she’s been craving. Like, she’s been robbed of her entire community which is now actively hostile to her and while she has friends, she doesn’t have that sense of belonging to something bigger.
I think she’s looking to Leslie for help connecting with her larger queer community and finding that sense of fellowship again.
I think so to, and the thing is, as soon as things get less catastrophically crazy for Leslie, she will be a great role model, and the pile of resources she already gave Becky will be a good start.
Just have to comment on that panel 3 observation.
It’s just all too sadly true. As someone who self describes as Christian (even if it’s in a flavor and format that most of Christianity would consider theologically heretical and highly nonobservant) I can’t even begin to describe how sad and disgusted the fact that people believe and act in such a manner makes me feel. Worse still is that anything I personally could or would say pointing out the small minded and counter-Christian manner many “true believers” act within is entirely counterproductive because of my own standing with them.
Related? My brother (or optionally step-brother, but we’re kinda sliding that out of the way) got ordained today, which, SWEET. And: my gay stepmum was a high-table guest of honour (being a leader from another denomination), there was at least one transperson present (and celebrated!), someone with a long-term ministry with people working the streets was present (and ditto) (not sure if she’s ordained or not), and a ninety-something who was the first woman of her ethnicity ordained in that denomination.
Of the nine of us at the table I ate at, three were ordained and two were married to ministers. Can only conclude that a density of leadership like that means *solid* support from on high.
There’s a small number at my pentecostal church who’d be hostile if they heard that breakdown… but the love and celebration I saw today means just that much less hesitation to rocket right over them.
(also — Leslie-face — white cishet professional privilege means I can get away with it. um, sigh?)
And yet… have heard that panel 3 observation directly too. The way I see it, as an ally it’s my job to go to bat for them when I hear that nonsense.
sometimes it’s just so relaxing to be in a female-dominated space. like. it’s just like. you can take a breather and chill and not have to think about dudes for a little bit
Robin has no beliefs and votes the way that will get her votes, thereby pushing a hatefilled agenda.
Joyce has strong beliefs that make her feel all the warm, safe fuzzies. Her not so subtle rewriting of everything around her to include as many people as possible in the belief structure is both as inclusive and nurturing as it is idealistic. Yet there is such a fine line between the way Joyce behaves and the way Robin does, I wonder how Joyce would react to being in a position of power.
There is nothing ‘inclusive’ about telling someone you know who they really are and their struggles and self-realizations mean nothing. It is incredibly othering.
The *intention* is definitely to be inclusive, since as a Christian she believes her worldview to be solely responsible for offering others salvation, but there’s a massive gulf between intentions and execution. Her attempts to justify others’ actions in the context of religious faith most definitely do result in her presuming to know more than she can about them.
Panels 4-5: Mm. So yeah, some of you may have noticed that I have an odd habit of saying things like “oh my Bob” or “Bob damnitt” or so on. And the reason for that is this. See, I grew up in ultra religious hell and I was the areligious/slightly-pagan daughter of a witch. And so for the parents of my friends, I was seen as a project and they were encouraged to jump on any turn of phrase involving God as proof that I actually understood that God was the divine savior, blahdeblah.
And it sucked. A lot. And folks that weren’t my friends were a lot more aggressive and a lot more hostile in the Joyce role and their eagerness to save a clearly sinning queer heathen when they were feeling like being “kind”.
So I trained myself out of the habit. To the point where my natural epithets are as you usually see. Because it was the only way to protect myself from this sort of crap.
Joyce may mean well, but I doubt Leslie is going to be as non-perturbed as Becky given how horrible religion was to her and how violently she has rejected it.
Panel 6: *looks at Robin* *looks at apron* Yes, Robin, you are incredibly heterosexual. No one could ever argue otherwise. I’ve never seen anyone straighter and not bi.
But yeah, this is pretty bad. Robin is trying to become more and more domestic, hoping to slip into some sort of happy fantasy housewife idea in order to avoid the reality of the situation she is in and is putting Leslie in. And that’s going to be harder and harder to uproot for Leslie as Robin keeps sinking her costs.
I don’t feel great about her planning on using Becky here (though I feel a lot better given that Becky gave full consent), but I can see her desperation as Robin is continuing to escalate inserting herself fully into her life in ever more dangerous ways.
Also, yes, totally fake news, you totally haven’t been imagining a very specific type of soft, gentle caress ever since you met Leslie that you’ve turned into a dangerous boundary-violating obsession. I’m also very sure that if she were to check her laundry, she would not at all be missing a shirt that just “happened” to make its way into your bag.
Honestly, I think you handled being people’s conversion project a lot better than I did.
It actually started when I was still a churchgoing kid who only had a few doubts about her faith; I just happened to go to the most liberal Presbyterian church in town and I had a few friends who went to a very evangelical (I don’t remember which denomination, not that it matters) church who were convinced I was A) going to the wrong kind of church and therefore doomed to hell if they didn’t save me and B) not devout enough anyway and therefore doomed to hell if they didn’t save me.
My reaction to this was to have a four-year long aggressively antitheist (I was an angry twelve year old flipping the bird to roadside crosses, yikes) phase and to cut ties with my only close friend at the time. I realized several years later that her parents had been pressuring her to ‘save’ any of her friends who weren’t part of their church and that it was possible to have different religious beliefs from your friends without needing to constantly be afraid of conversion attempts, but I’m still working out my feelings about organized religion.
And yeah, Joyce sounds exactly like that friend when a mutual, pagan, acquaintance would use any sort of colloquialism with the word God or Jesus in it. It’s sad but not surprising that while she’s changed in many ways, she’s still got some of those problematic habits.
I remember the odd fact of our Vampire: The Masquerade LARP in the Deep South which was composed of Goths who were a rough mixture of atheists, pagans, evangelical christians, and myself the ultra liberal Presbyterian Christian (later Jedi). It turned out the best solution was to never talk religion as it was deeply personal to everyone.
Reaction to panel 6 reaction: I made a jest above in the comics.but this is literally some of the scariest stuff I’ve seen. This is following the path of a modern horror movie and it’s doing it’s job very well. I’m legitimately worried Robin might go into a “if I can’t have you no one can” mindspace.
Yeah, that’s a mindspace that’s plausible, and frankly far more realistic than redemption; frankly, it’s also a good moral for the story about this kind of suitor.
Oh god journalists in the first panel. What the hell will they be saying to the cameras with regards to Leslie leading Becky and Joyce into the house?
Joyce: Please stop.
Robin: Baking does not make up for breaking entering/squatting, especially when you’re most definitely using her stuff to do so. You’re kind of making yourself a bit too comfortable here. Are you trying to show off your housewife skills (granted if you lose your job as a politician… well maybe homemaker is what you need to be because I’m not sure how easy it is for a politician after a scandal to get a regular job anyway- unless its their own business/the business of a family member/friend).
Actually what the hell happens to those in politics when they’re not in politics and they’ve not got some family business to be shoved into anyway? … Stock options? Politicians get like $174k as a baseline though so she probably has stuff saved up unless she’s been throwing it all on cadbury eggs.
Local teacher leads innocent youth astray to feed the voracious lusts of the Representative. What dastardly aims could these predators on all that is natural and good have?
Yes… this just in, one of them has been recently converted to lesboid tendencies, possibly by this predatory teacher and politician. Can we protect our children from being next?
Heh this reminds me “The Salvation War” book series. God turned out to be a jerk who sold us to Satan who sent his demonic armies to collect our souls.
Demonic hordes, meet modern warfare. It was a very Very bad time for the demonic hordes.
But that aside. In the series people had some serious problems with swearing or even just talking because of how ingrained mentioning God and divine stuff was in the language.
I remember reading that series when it was still forum posts. It was terrible; there’s a reason why Stardestroyer.com banned discussion of it from their forums.
Speaking as a guy who writes’ military science fiction (LUCIFER’S STAR! SHAMELESS PLUG), I understand why people like certain things and everyone’s tastes are different. Still, I couldn’t enjoy it because of David Weber’s quote, “Stories where only the bad guys die isn’t military science fiction but military pornography.”
Yes, Weber basically abandoned his own advice after War of Honor and now the Manticore score 10,000 kills for every one lost. Then that one lost turns out to have been a misogynist Nazi double agent.
And that was probably why I enjoyed it so much :-3 I did mention that I found the idea of demons and angels getting ROTFLstomped to be fun.
Too bad he never got to write Lords of War. Judging by what was said about it Humans would be pitted against an equally powerful opponent.
Does Joyce still think lesbianism is a ‘rebellion agains the Lord’? Leslie had given no indication she was atheist before this strip, did Joyce just assume Leslie was one just because she was a lesbian?
p2: i feel like becky is lowkey starting to get the seeds of a lesbian separatist consciousness. I was in Iowa when I started getting mine and i’m going to /love/ seeing how this plays out. also, i have almost that same flannel.
I don’t think she’s an extremist or anything, but I think she’s making up her mind in pretty quick order here about what kinda people she wants to put her energy towards, and I love it. I think Becky probably has the most overtly patriarchal history of anyone in the strip that we know of, and she’s pretty well-acquainted with the violence that men do to women. Up to the end there, not much of it really had much to do with her being a lesbian, either. That was just straight up misogyny that both she and her mother experienced. She didn’t say “it doesn’t smell like heteros”, she said “it doesn’t smell like dude” and I’m loving how much I feel her on this one.
p3: Unless Leslie said something offscreen, I feel like Joyce is saying this because she was filtering something Leslie said through a prejudiced filter she hasn’t critically analysed in the time since, and maybe hasn’t fully outgrown. She’s probably right, though.
It sounds like Leslie has a lot more experience dealing with religious discrimination from ‘charity’ orgs, which makes the whole…
hegemonic monopoly over religious belief, that certain bigoted institutions claim,
look a lot more legitimate and institutional than it maybe perhaps really is in the lives of many people. There’s a difference between your family and immediate church believing something wacky you know is wrong, and organisations to which you relate on a much less personal basis doing the same and wielding power over you. Very different ramifications.
If it’s just your family, you can leave your family and move on. But once it’s re-enforced again and again it starts to look a lot more bleak and inescapable. That’s probably (a big part of) why I’m way more into Leslie’s plan than a lot of other people here. This is the least humiliating “get this homeless kid a couch” plan I’ve ever heard of, and it’s of extreme importance that it go well, and Leslie fully understands that importance. Fun date idea: spend a night at the Salvation Army, no cell phones, no computer, and then get back to me.
Also, I love Becky for still believing in God. Not new information, but it makes me so happy.
p4-5: honestly, same, Joyce. I actually agree with Joyce on this one. I’m not sure on an intellectual level, but on a thematic level I love the contrast between Leslie’s denial of her belief in God (which I understand has no legitimate canonical basis, don’t get me wrong, that’s Joyce’s “i am extremely wrong about this, and i know it, but i need to continue believing this, so i’m going to” face) and Robin’s denial of her sexuality. I like that Becky’s reaction is like “….maybe, i guess that’s possible, but my explaination sounds a lot more likely, anyway, look! a US senator!” instead of “YOU ARE FLAT-OUT WRONG AND THAT’S DEEPLY OFFENSIVE”.
u don’t have to be in denial about one or the other. u can be both things. becky has two hands.
anyway just for kicks I want the camera to pan over and we see Leslie’s like, catholicism altar, but i think if leslie was repressing a belief in god it’d be a really cool dynamic for her and robin
1) I’ve got no problems with Leslie offering Becky a couch. I’ve got serious problems with her bringing Becky (or Joyce for that matter) into the hot mess of a media circus that is her thing with Robin. Cause it ain’t going to go well.
Nor is Becky actually on the street or in a shelter, so the situation isn’t quite as desperate as you describe. Right now, anyway.
2) We know Leslie was raised in a religious family and I believe it’s at least been hinted she no longer is. She’s certainly absorbed the background Christian assumptions and likely has some deep conflicts from that, but I doubt she’s anything that could be described as “in denial”. Possibly “in recovery” as some of my ex-Catholic friends would joke.
I mean, Leslie has no idea what Becky’s living situation is right now, but when you ask someone “do you have a place to sleep” and their answer is “I don’t know, kinda” that’s probably a warning sign to most responsible adults. Also, in actual reality, Becky’s living arrangement is one she could be literally kicked out of on a moment’s notice, like, escorted by campus police and banned from campus, quite possibly through a whole traumatic hours-long ordeal at the end of which she’s driven to a homeless shelter that will straight-up discriminate against her and make her either sleep outside or feign conversion to some obscure Christian denomination.
That’s worst-case scenario, but best-case is still her being kicked off of campus and having to sleep outside until the next time she runs into her friend’s womens’ studies teacher on a campus she’s banned from which also happens to be where her entire social support system lives.
Knowing what we, the audience, know, combined with what she and I, formerly homeless lesbians, know, Leslie is in the absolute right to handle the situation with some urgency. Caught between that and a conversation with a neurotic mess of a representative who just made some muffins but might say something rude, I’m picking the gay one.
Like I said, making the offer was great. Following up by making sure she had a way to reach Leslie so she could take her up on it in a crisis would be better yet. As would making sure Robin was out of the place so that she actually had a couch to offer Becky.
As it is, it’s really hard for me not to see her urgency as more using Becky to solve her problem with Robin than anything else. Especially given her line about her houseguest having to confront Becky’s basic humanity, right before asking if Becky could come that afternoon. This visit isn’t about Becky, this is about Robin. And that’s why it’s not cool.
Nor is the threat from Robin just that she might say something rude – which she will, she’s Robin. There’s the whole media circus, for one thing. They’ve certainly been photographed going in and are likely to hit both the news and the less reputable rumor mongers.
Even more, she’s dragging a homeless teen that she doesn’t even know into a political fight that she’s been losing. Hell, Robin could easily be the one to out Becky’s status on campus, should she learn it.
And that’s not even considering all the creepy stalker, breaking and entering aspects of Robin. If she transfers some of that focus to Becky, Becky’s not even in as good a place to deal with it as Leslie – who already can’t handle it.
Mind you, Leslie could redeem herself here and throw Robin to the media wolves outside to make a safe space for Becky, but I don’t think that’s in the cards.
I know you think those things. It’s common to attribute negative motives or character traits to lesbians based on their sexual orientation and then try to cover them up by over-inflating the possible negative outcomes or motivations in importance, while denying that that’s why you’re doing it.
Anyway, Becky’s 100% down for this plan. Throwing Robin out at this point would be unfair and against what Becky actually wants. She’s weirdly not being asked to be treated like a fabergé egg like you guys are saying Leslie’s somehow obligated to do.
After all, if there’s one correct thing everybody knows about the homeless it’s how easy it is to get a hold of individual homeless people at will, and how many communication options they have open to them at all times They should have kept it super profesh and left it to Becky to get a hold of her via linked-in, which she can easily utilise on the internet, on her computer, at her house. Duh.
But I get it, the biggest threat to homeless lesbians is other lesbians.
I don’t think that it even remotely occurs to Leslie that Robin as much of a threat to Becky as the world at large is. And that isn’t because Leslie is an irresponsible sex-blind lesbian controlled by her lusts, it’s because Robin is not anywhere near as much a threat to Becky as the world at large is. She is correct in this supposition.
Eh, as an atheist I still use phrases involving the word “god”. “God damn it” still has a nice ring to it, though I prefer saying “thank fuck” over “thank God” these days.
You really have no idea what people go through when they escape religion, do you? Or that when someone doesn’t believe in god, it means… they don’t believe in god.
Oh, Joyce, no. Don’t do that. Don’t be one of those Christians who just can’t get it through their heads that some people don’t believe in god. It’s offensive and dehumanizing.
I really hope, somewhere in all of this, there is lady Gaga’s poker face playing in the background, while Leslie is looking around for sign’s of mischief. Then, when she sees Robin, she asks, “what’s in the muffins Robin, what are in the muff-innnns?” And,….now I forgot what makes Robin black out and do increbly frightening things….but I would love for her to reply, “Robin roofies!”
I’m also curious about the meditation-not-working thing, because that’s not uncommon, and my own meditation practice seems to contradict a lot of the standard advice. it’d be awesome if my weird back-asswards meditation had something useful to others 🙂
I’m pretty busy atm, I should go now, just wanted to get you that link in case it helps 🙂
I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks that Robin is self-sabatoging her career, on purpose.
I mean, she’s wearing a Gaypron and telling some possibly-journalists about the soft caress of a woman, how can she not realize how hard she’s trying to push that SELF DESTRUCT button?
I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks that Robin is self-sabatoging her career, on purpose.
I mean, she’s wearing a Gaypron and telling some possibly-journalists about the soft caress of a woman, how can she not realize how hard she’s trying to push that SELF DESTRUCT button?
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I get super annoyed at my definitely nontheist BF’s “thank God”s all the muffin-effin’ time
though I love the idea of a Becky-styled journalist =D I MEAN WHY NOT IN TRUMP’S AMERICA
My roommate always tells me “God isn’t real,” whenever I say “Goddammit.” We like to riff on it.
there’s a song in Russian that goes like this:
“I do not drink!” “Yes you do!” “By god I don’t!” “There’s no god!”
like okay I don’t approve of the basic idea of the song – pushing a female student to socially drink… although there’s a part of our culture where female students are supposed to have it together better than boys, behave better and yes, not drink, so this is intended as a song of freedom, not coercion… ANYWAY the lyric is beautiful and hilarious, so there <3
(the phrase "there's no god" is a soviet cliche, and the song originates from that era) (the joke is not a believer clashing with atheists, Everyone Is Atheist In Soviet Union, it's a turn of phrase being interpreted literally)
Any time anyone says “For God’s sake” or “Good Lord”, my father says “I’m fairly sure he has nothing to do with it”. He’s been doing this my whole life, and somehow it still makes me snicker. Even when he does it at me.
For me the dad joke was, responding to “Oh my god” with “Yes?”
He also likes responded to “Jesus” with “My son’s not in, may I take a message?”
one time i joined a ex-believers group and for the first month all i could swear was variations on “god”, featuring “oh my god”, “lordy”, “good lord”, et cetera
IDK it was weird because suddenly….you had that freedom
I just consider “Thank God” as the sanitised, socially acceptable version of my usual “Thank Fuck!” Kind of the way my mother says “sugar”, instead of “Shit!” when she has non family company.
well, considering it’s a politicized version of “thank goodness” then eh
my mother would keep saying “Day…. rn”
Nope, that is is just another one of those “Thingz Wut Mericans Think, LOL! ™”. It’s just a turn of phrase, a worldwide turn of phrase.
HOW DARE YOU CHALLENGE MY UNTESTED WORLD VIEWS AND MAKE ME LEARN STUFF
and on a WEEKEND
Jesus H Fucking Jehoshaphat Christ, it’s the weekend???
It’s always the weekend, around here.
weekends are meaningless when you’re unemployed
High-five, buddy!
You forgot that he’s on a stick. (Or isn’t he on a stick where you live? I had to quit saying “Jesus Christ on a stick!” or “Christ on a stick!” when I went to uni, because it was offending non-locals. ^^; )
I’ve heard pogo stick, if anyone still remembers what those are.
Or “Christ on a cross.”
“Jumping Jesus H. K. Christ tap dancing in side-car with his black bastard brother Harry.”
There was also something about “chocolate jimmies and a lobster bib”, but I forget how it fit in. 🙂
I use “Christ
There’s also “Christ on a cracker” and the ever-famous “Jesus rollerblading Christ”.
I remember “Christ on a pony”, which I once tried to say and accidentally switched to “Christ on a potty”, which was funnier.
Yeah… on that… a lot of people in the West don’t really get that ‘Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”), while sometimes used as a statement of faith, is more of a general-purpose cuss phrase in most Arabic speaking countries (and non-Arabic speaking countries with large Islamic populations such as Indonesia, India, or even the Philippines, where even some of the non-Muslims use it). It could mean anything from, “Wow, did you see that?” to “Owww you dropped that on my foot, that fucking hurts, be more careful you dumbass!” to “OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT THAT DRUNK DRIVER JUST DROVE INTO THE GAS STATION PUMPS WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE RUN!!!!”. It doesn’t take a lot of research to figure that out, but not many people in the US (and I gather in Europe as well) bother.
An all-purpose interjection, like how Americans use “Jesus Christ”!
I’m trying to think of a Jewish equivalent, too, but ‘Oy vey’ (and variations) are only for things that are upsetting. Perhaps we like making our interjections more specific.
holy shit that’s amazing
My mother says “Shite” instead of shit
so does like all of Great Britain
wait, isn’t “thank goodness” just a light version of “thank God”?
I haven’t believed in any god for almost 18 years, and I still say it. It really is just a turn of phrase.
Though I’ll occasionally mix it up if I’m feeling facetious and say things like “Thank the gods” or something. My personal favorite, for expression exasperation or frustration, is “Jesus, Horus, and Thor!”
As a Red Dwarf fan, “Holy Smeg!” has entered my parlance. As did “Jovis Grudd” via Judge Dredd.
Mother of Grodd, what in Zod’s name is going on around here?!
*Fist bump*
Battlestar Galactica and “frack” for me.
Though my parents used to watch a lot of Red Dwarf when it was first airing, and so for a while I thought “smeg” was a real word.
“Smeg” IS a real word. If I remember correctly, it’s a shortened slang form of “smegma,” which is the Greek word for the secretion of oils and fluids in the folds of skin, specifically within a man’s foreskin. Basically, whenever Lister would call someone “smeg-head,” he’s basically calling them “dickhead.”
*insert “The More You Know” music and star here*
Smeg is also the name of a huge international appliance manufacturer. My Mum’s kitchen is literally full of Smeg.
I feel weird swearing by gods I don’t believe in. I worry I’m being disrespectfull. My favorites replace the word god with fuck. “What in the sweet light of fuck?!”
“Sweet mother of fuckery”
“Thank the cows.”
I also like to string together random words into epithets, often featuring rats for whatever reason.
I’ve become fond of “Thank the stars!” or “Sparks…” as swears, and I do the “thank the gods” thing too.
…Please excuse me while I purposefully replace “by the gods” in my vernacular with “Jesus, Horus, and Thor” xD
“Holy living mother of fuck!”
Hmm, that’s more for the catholic. I recon the protestants gives a much less important place to Mary.
“Dwarfs were not a naturally religious species, but in a world where pit props could crack without warning and pockets of fire damp could suddenly explode they’d seen the need for gods as the sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, “Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!” or “Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!”
-Terry Pratchett, Men-At-Arms.
Beaten to the Obligatory Discworld Reference. Damn it.
Or random-bad-luck-that-doesn’t-prove-anything it.
I sometimes say “Thank the Gods,” and I’m a Christian. I figure any god who can’t handle a little light riffing isn’t one I’d want to worship.
I still say things like “Jesus Christ!” and “Holy God!” sometimes, even though I have been calling myself a Discordian-Finaglist (because appropriating fictional/humorous religions is like eating Pringles) sine 1992.
Kallisti!
I’m just very surprised that anyone would ever think think “thank god” is a religious phrase. Maybe it’s a regional thing, but that sort of usage is entirely secular in my experience.
It’s like making fun of a Christian for saying “thank my lucky stars” or a similar turn-of-phrase which has to etymologically be pagan.
Growing up in my family, it /was/ religious. My mother and grandmother were literally thanking their deity for guiding them to their misplaced keys or delaying that traffic light just long enough for them to get through. The one time I ever heard either of them say “god damn you” it was incredibly shocking because I knew to them, the phrase literally meant they were indicating the person was completely beyond salvation– in a religion where the only requirement to receive salvation is apologizing and saying thanks for forgiving me.
“Oh my lack of God, it’s Trotsky!”
https://youtu.be/BuO274cd7Y0?t=44s
Oh My Gamikai!
“I want an old-fashioned house with an old-fashioned fence and an old-fashioned millionaire…”
Q: What do agnostics say during sex?
A: “Oh my God, who may or may not exist!”
what about http://joyceandwalky.com/d/20090613.html
“Ohhh Fate and Destiny! Fate and Destiny!”
“Chemical Chance! Chemical Chaaaannnce!”
“BIG BANG!”
(© William Melvin Hicks)
On the whole, thank goddess gets a nice reaction 😃
But Joyce arguing “thank god” points to relegious feelings is really weird.
It’s not the weirdest thing Joyce has done, but it’s still weird even for a fundie.
I’ve had this argument made to me
I want to know what Robin cooked.
I can either imagine her being an utterly atrocious cook, or a shockingly brilliant one (though naturally everything she makes is 1000% sugar).
There is no way she is merely adequate. She has to be one of the extremes.
Also I just noticed Robin’s apron, and it is fabulous.
Gaypron, as in gay-apron, or gaypron, as in gay-pr0n? You decide!
Rule 34, yo.
IT CAN BE BOTH!
“gape ron”
I ust had the worst harry potter related image in my brain.
WHERE’S THE BRAIN BLEACH
Who needs brain bleach when you can just Obliviate yourself?
Trust me, unless you have been reading some of the Harron (or worse, Snarron or Lupron shudder</b?) shipper fanfics, of the more explicit and bizarre sorts (which are often the same given how many seem to be written by girls who have never seen the male anatomy), then there probably s worse. Much worse.
You really don’t want to know, but I assure you, some of it makes
Enoby Dementtia Ravens WayTara Gilesbie look like Shakespeare in comparison, while also making <50 Shades of Gray look like an treatise on the joys of chastity.Hopefully, the mod will be able to fix the mangled markup there. Sorry about that.
Also, just to give you some small idea of how bad it gets: back when Livejournal was a thing (other than a punchline), there were groups such as Deleterius which were devoted to ‘badfic sporking’, basically giving awful fanfics the MST3K treatment (I imagine that this still happens in places like fanfiction.net, but I haven’t looked). It was a pretty cruel thing that I have some regrets about now, but at the time it seemed funny, and occasionally one of the targets would get over themselves enough to listen to our criticisms and take them to heart (are you hearing this, Steam Greenlight Developers?)
I recall at least two different HP fics in which one of the characters – Ron in one, I think the other was Lupin or Sirius but I forget) – tries to cheer Harry up – by sneaking into bed with him and raping him. All without a single word said between them in either case. You know, because sex makes people happy, and who needs to explain themselves when they are sticking it in an underaged boy, right?
And those were far from the worst I’d seen in those groups. Sweet Mother Eris, it got far worse than that.
OTOH, some of the sporkings were tremendously funny and on target. I recall one story in which the punctuation was almost entirely missing (a common problem in fanfics which haven’t been proofread by a beta reader). I snarked that if she keeps missing periods like that, she should talk to a doctor… to which one of the regulars replied with something like, “Oh, go easy on her, she’s just too young to have punctuation yet!” Good times. Terrible fanfics, but good times nonetheless.
*giggle-snort*
i thought ron was exclusively a death eater. i am intrigued
I wanted this strip to be titled “Gaypron” in the worst way, it was ridiculous.
I want it to be muffins incorporating some kind of sugary brightly-colored cereal. Froot Loops maybe?
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/cant-knock-it-until-you-try
Absolutely ideal 😀 That’s a child after my own heart.
Froot Loops make absolutely horrible baking material. I can’t get them to not blend into a homogeneous much.
Maybe if you made a variant of rice krispie squares with them?
Basically, you need to think of stuff like that as a garnish, not the base material.
Rice Krispie squares work because the cereal is unsweetened and consists of very small pieces. Froot Loops are rough, large, and very sweet. The only way around the size is to crush them, at which point you’ve defeated the purpose of using them in the first place.
Try fruity pebbles.
Deep freeze them and mix them in just before putting it in the oven.
Chocolate chips and Lucky Charms marshmallows.
Is the world ready for Cadbury egg muffins?
Also love the apron. More denial by Robin? Only apron Leslie owns?
we could, but should we?
Sure why not? A sugar-induced apocalypse would at least be original.
Suger, um, finds a way.
I’ve had Cadbury egg cheesecake.
maybe she’s only good at cooking stuff with sugar in it
Well it looks like she made muffins or cupcakes so definitely something sweet
That looks like black/”burnt” smoke emanating from the muffins/cupcakes.
Looks like muffins! Possibly cupcakes, but my money’s on muffins.
She made brownies with magic sprinkles.
does that apron say “gaypron” oh wait like apron i get it now
shit thats good
Muffins! Robin made muffins! All is forgiven! ^_^
–Ain’t seen nuthin’ till you’re down on your muffin
And you’ll sure be changin’ your ways…
Well, Leslie does want Robin to walk this way! 😉
i won’t tell you that i love you
kiss or hug you
cause i’m bluffin with my muffin
i’m not lying, i’m just stunnin’ with my love-glue-gunnin’
“Gaypron” Ha! Ha ha ha!
Holy shit Willis, please make that apron, I will buy it
and then hide it either til I come out to my family or move out of their houseAlso Joyce, sweet baby girl, no
We would also need the Acepron. That I would get, after I got out of my family’s house or came out.
A(ce)pron?
I have an ace. I have an apron. BAM! Acepron
Fifty-one more cards,
And I’ll be playin’ with a full deck.
Fifty now
I would pay good money for the Gaypron!
I want one, and I’m not even gay. This confuses me. 🙂
yep, totally straight muffins, nothing to see here
no such thing as straight muffins
Can’t a girl just like eating muffins without being accused of the gay?
Just straight muffin effers here
Joyce….means well.
in that she wants everybody she likes to secretly hold her beliefs because if they don’t they might go to hell
i mean that was implied but i wanted to spell it out because i needed that validation
She also hasn’t realized yet how fucked up she sounds.
it’s one of those things! when you realize! that your specific variant of a religion! isn’t that far away from a cult!! especially in how it indoctrinates and proselytizes!
🙂 🙂 🙂
Yeah. That’s never a fun day, I’d imagine.
I’m kind of thrown for a loop by this, cause I thought Joyce was fucking beyond this type of thinking.
Nah, Joyce has yet to learn this lesson. She learned LGBT+ people are people. She’s improving, but religious diversity (and non-believing) is not a thing that’s clicked yet.
ehh i think she’s struggling to find her identity. one step forward, two steps back. that kind of thing.
this is what she knows how to believe. it’s easy. learning to undo this kind of thinking – that’s hard
You know who else meant well? Hitler. I mean, you have to really stretch it, and even then it doesn’t hold water and was going to end horribly regardless, but…
…No.
Yeah, that whole thing fell apart the moment I tried to build it.
I’m not sure if it was intentional, but nice callback to Hank at Family Weekend regardless.
Who?
Joyce’s dad? Whom everyone loves now because after his daughter almost got shot, he’s started to meet the baseline standards for not being an awful father and human being instead of doubling down on the awful like his wife?
…I completely forgot his name, somehow. He actually leaves very little impression on me, for some reason or other.
The bible describes Noah (the one who built the Ark) as “a righteous man, blameless in his time”.
The rabbis were like, “what’s it mean, ‘in his time’?” and they had two potential interpretations:
– Perhaps he was righteous even though everyone else in his generation was terrible, that’s extra hard to do! Wow, good job Noah!
– Or, he was righteous and blameless only if you’re grading on a serious curve, given how everyone was a jerk in this time period, hey at least he was significantly better than his neighbours. D+, Noah.
….Hank is like that.
It’s not fully his fault. His parents raised him that way
Robin wearing that “gaypron” while trying to hide from journalists makes me think her closet would survive about as long as Becky’s
I’m really hoping this doesn’t end with a redemption story. I’d like to see more creepiness and cruelty from Robin.
I kinda think you should expect disappointment on that front.
idk i could see things get better in the short term, but the fucked up power dynamics lurk, hidden and ignored, before surfacing later to bite.
I second you C.t.
robin: meets a girl she likes, goes into frantic denial while moving into her house and borrowing her gaypron
listen. you can get the girl out of narnia but you can’t stop her from bringing narnia along with her
Yeah, Robin doesn’t closet. Other than denying it to herself.
gay pr0n
that’s beautiful
I would say thank god is a turn of phrase because at this point it feels like it should be but I admit I do kind of feel weird saying it now that I’m basically an atheist. So…idfk but I’m sure for Leslie it’s either that or just an old habit.
Also, if you’re American, you were raised in a predominantly Christian (or recently secular after being Christian) society. You’ll pick up phrases.
True. It’s just so much apart of the everyday “One nation under God” “In God we Trust” on our money for example I think it takes having a very unique relationship with religion being either very religious like Joyce or having left religion to really feel any sort of conscious way about it. Idk…idk if I’m articulating myself well here.
I’ve always been an atheist and I still say it, “god damn it”, “go to hell”, and sometimes even “Jesus Christ!” when startled.
Yeah that’s the thing I think if you’ve always been non religious it would just be a turn of phrase for you but if you’re a formerly religious going from it being something you said with a very specific meaning and belief attached to it to it just being something you say out of habit when you catch yourself saying it you might feel a little awkward about it.
Everyone should believe in the Force. I see no reason why Leslie shouldn’t believe in it. Now for any other religion, like the kind she was raised in, I understand and would be shocked and appalled.
BTW, Robin, your cute antics don’t make up for your home invasion and gaslighting–albeit that apron is doing its hardest to.
Yes, I am a Christian Jedi and yes, I’m a serious follower of my religion. It’s no sillier than anyone else’s….less so than most.
honestly more power to you, that’s the best rendition of christian gnosticism i’ve ever heard of.
because i’m terrible i kind of want to know your opinions on what we’ve seen of The Last Jedi now though
Well if Luke is going to say having fear and anger isn’t going to make you Space Hitler, good. If Luke is going to say Light and Dark are unimportant because good is what you make of it….eh, less enthusiastic. 🙂
ye
if we add this in with “structurally the Jedi were kind of super messed up and things need to drastically change” then i think we’ll be golden
I got that “You can’t say Thank God if you’re not Christian!” stuff when some coworkers found out I’m pagan. I pointed out that I was raised in a Christian household, converted a few years before, said that figures of speech aren’t ruled by religion, and do you happen to know just how polytheism works, anyway? before I dropped it. The coworker who was making the biggest deal about it was a pain in the ass anyway and it wasn’t worth arguing about.
What was that Southern 1920s version of the Odyssey called? The lead was an atheist and then had an obvious miracle happen he prayed for before backtracking a lot.
Oh Brother Where Art Thou?
The movies pretty damn entertaining but my god (see what I did there) that would have to be one of the best soundtracks ever, right up there with Brokeback Mountain I reckon
I think too that Christian culture is so embedded in society, literally for centuries since the first religious colonists came. Even now a huge positive talking point for supposed-to-be secular politicians and their constituents is how much they believe in Christ and so forth. It’s totally unsurprising that people would commonly use biblical phrases like that. I wonder if people like your coworkers have just never thought about it because it’s the default for them; they can only see “others” and don’t realize “others” grew up in the same environment they did (like you said). Where I live people find out I don’t church or anything like that and suddenly I have 10 arms or something.
My dad sometimes says “Jesus Christ” when startled or dismayed. He’s raised Jewish, and is a Rabbi.
For MOST of the coworkers involved in the conversation, they weren’t really trying to be pests or insulting. It came across more like what you said, it simply hadn’t occurred to them before and took on a bit of a friendly ribbing tone in the course of the conversation. The one who was really harping on it, however, was looking for “Gotcha!” wherever she could. I don’t think she was looking to convince me I’m REALLY a Christian in denial, she was a true pain in the ass.
Which is ironic, because, technically, it’s taking the name of God “in vain,” in that you usually use it when you are not actually thanking God.
Or, at least, that’s what I was taught.
Same…Joyce types I’ve known would be more likely to scold one for using God’s name so casually than saying it was proof of your belief in God.
(I, myself, took to mincing it before I moved from ‘agnostic believer’ to ‘agnostic non-believer’.)
Polytheism, remember. I never said WHICH god I was thanking, after all! 😉
I’m not a Christian anymore, but I’ve been saying “Oh God”, etc. for so long I can’t stop.
I mean, isn’t it entirely secular English-language usage regardless of religious background? It’s similar to saying “jeez.”
At least in my mind, it has entirely different connotations than something like “Praise Jesus,” which sounds distinctly Evangelical.
every time i say “omg” somewhere a pastor cries
Well I would at least cringe if you pronounce it “oh-em-gee” when saying it loud.
lol i do pronounce it that way, but quickly and slurred into each other? the syllables aren’t as emphasized. and sometimes i go straight up valley girl, but that’s usually when i’m mocking something.
I’ve seen enough people crying ‘continuity error’ at non-Christian characters saying “go to hell” or whatever to know that Joyce’s argument here is 100% true to life.
Do people actually do that?
Yeah, my standard rebuttal to “you can’t say that, you’re atheist”is “You say Thursday and don’t believe in Thor, either, so get over it.”
No, that’s the new rule. Fridays are only for people who believe in the old Norse fertility gods.
Mondays, on the other hand, are for everyone.
Unless you live in Nightvale, obviously.
Lessee: Tiwaz, Woden, Thor, Frigga, Saturn, Newest Gen Pokémon titles… that’s all of them, right? I feel like I might be remembering/spelling a couple badly.
TGIF: Thank god it’s fecund.
Tenk Bokanon.
Tobey Faire, several devout religious groups have tried to get it changed to things like ‘First Day’, ‘Second Day’, etc. before, and some of the Romance languages (Spanish, for example) partly use that approach as well.
Conversely, in France a few years after the Revolution (1793) they changed the entire calendar (including replacing the seven day week with a ten day one, IIRC) to get away from the deep-rooted Christian day and date names, and the French Republican Calendar remained the official one until, uhm, 1805 I think, well into the Napoleonic period at any rate. The Russian revolutionaries tried something similar, twice (once by the Duma following the February Revolution and the Tsar’s abdication, and again after the October Revolution when the Bolsheviks forced out the more moderate groups), but neither one got any real use AFAIK.
In Ukrainian, the days are called “the day after the day of no labour” (we start with Monday and this makes me think that at some point we did in fact start with Sunday), “the second day”, “the middle day”, “the fourth day”, “the fifth day”, “Shabbat”, “the day of no labor”.
Like, not literally these names, but that’s the etymology.
There is something to be said for the fact that the only religious allusion there is Jewish 0.o
(In Russian, Monday is still called the same thing, but Sunday is “resurrection day”, making the meaning of the Monday name that much less transparent, so ‘yay’ for christianity)
Robin is committed to her plan of never leaving Leslie’s house again.
she’ll set up a kickstarter, her voting base will love it
Her in the apron with muffins is really irritating me. This shit’s not cute. Get the fuck out Robin.
Rep. Robin Denial DeSanto (R-IL): she knows/is the muffin (wo)man.
*epic background guitar riff*
She’s just showing her appreciating for muff-ins in her totally not apropos apron.
It took me a while to figure out what was written on that apron. As for the alt-text, yeah I know that feel all too well.
I grew up in a secular Jewish household and apparently announced to my parents that I didn’t believe in God when I was five, but I still constantly say “Oh my God!” and “Jesus Christ!”
There just aren’t that many good secular exclamations (that I know of).
Dammit and Hell are also Biblical words, as the worst in Hell were sentenced by God to eternal damnation
My dad sometimes says “Jesus Christ” when startled or dismayed, and he’s a rabbi.
(Also, Hell is not a Jewish concept, Christians added that later.)
Judaism typically forbids saying God’s name for no purpose, too. Some of us won’t even write it, not even when it’s translated into English, that’s where you see us write “G-d”. (As a 6-yr-old, I thought intentionally misspelling his name like that was very disrespectful, and we should spell it right.)
The most extreme avoidance I’ve seen is “haSh-m”. That’s avoiding spelling God’s protective nickname, even in the alphabet of another language.
We could make a fancy symbol for “the Deity formerly known as HaShem,” but that’d be a graven image, so it’d be even worse
In other news, my crush just asked me if we were ‘dating.’ Haven’t responded yet, but my day has been happy! Finished testing, my ELA teacher wasn’t pissed off by his other classes, and my crush probably likes me! Yyyyessss! *Fist pumps*
ack!! exciting!!!!
Nice!
But there’s only one month of school left, so I do have to work fast
Congratulations! *supportive fistbump*
*Fistbump*
Nice!
Yay! Have fun!
I will
Would you prefer she swear to zod?
Grodd?
oh my zod she looks just like shakira
…i can work with this
That is pretty good.
Oh My Grodd, Lookit Her Butt,
(And yes, this is where a certain forumgoer should respond in a suitable fashion.)
You’d have to kneel before him first.
Unrelated, but i want to figure something out…
IN Shortpacked Leslies cat is the offspring of cho choo bear from Something Positive and Sprinkles from Girls With Slingshots. Also there was Cross over with Melonpool. Proving that all four must take place in the same universe. However Girls with Slinghots also made a guest appearance in Questionable Content and if that meeting is considered canon, it connects the Walkyverse to Questionable Content. I haven’t read a lot of Girls with Slingshots or something positive though, so if those have any crossovers…
cats are inexplicable and do what they want
I’m pretty sure singularkittie can travel between universes
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=2137
as long as we never see her do it we never know whether she did it or not
But it IS an important question – does Leslie have a cat? Is it cute?
:ooooo
Important Questions The Public Needs To Know!!!
SP imported a character from Queen of Wands and once featured an appearance by the Pet Professional, and that’s just what I remember off the top of my head. There are probably some other connections I’m forgetting.
Six Degrees of Webcomics?
Faye Whitaker is attending IU in the Dumbiverse. However, she might not be the Faye from the prime QC continuity, since her dad’s still alive. Does that suggest DoA is parallel to the general universe of mid-2000s webcomics?
*Goes back to the giant corkboard covered in comic printouts and a tangle of multi-colored strings*
This!
Also Coffee of Doom was a setting in Shortpacked! multiple times (however renamed to “Coffeeright Theft”), so there’s a lot of questionable content in Willis’ comics!
Ugh I used to say shit like that to my atheist friend back when I was a little 13 year old Muslim boy 🙁 Also mocking him for clasping his hands together into a sort of prayer pose when a bee got too close to him
Then I leave religion and suddenly every other sentence is “Jesus fucking Christ”
tl;dr stop it Joyce
I’m deeply worried about anyone who can’t read 4 lines
I’ve proved too many times that almost no one reads the 2nd paragraph of an email, and never the 3rd.
But I worry more about the people that can’t even stay coherent making a 2 line tweet!
From some of the replies I’ve seen on Twitter, I can tell you that there are some people who think 4 words is too long to read the whole of. Sad!
Huh, the forum software must have filtered out the not-tags I used to make it clear that yes, I was being sarcastic. Pity, really. Oh, well, I think this post should more than make up for that now…
Is it okay to feel massively annoyed by joyce right now in this moment. Because in this moment I am massively annoyed by joyce.
I dunno, it’s sort of adorable to see the cracks showing in her faith in religion by trying to find cracks in other peoples’.
Yeah, it’s an obnoxious thing to do.
At least she’s not doing it to Leslie’s face though. And I think she genuinely thinks it’s suspicious.
Quick! Someone check if Dotty’s ever said something like “thank god”
if it makes you feel any better years later she’s going to look back at herself and cringe. hard.
i mean that’s what makes me feel better about most middle schoolers and this is just kind of an exaggerated version of that. being in transition, starting to get flaws/pimples, growing new parts of yourself that you hadn’t had room for before. it’s joyce’s spiritual puberty and it is embarrassing and annoying as hell
Spiritual puberty – I like that phrasing
😀
i mean like! it’s easier if you think of it as just One of Those Phases people have to go through. and either they get through it, or they get stuck there for a long, long time. but either way it’s a maturation process.
hmm, yeah. I’unno, it’s just this in particular reminding me of my kindergarten, which was both catholic and massively -possibly racist-ly- condescending against me and my secular/islamic Turkish family. lotta adults talking down to small children and their parents with this same type of logic. I Don’t blame Joyce, but after so much progress it’s real dang aggravating to see this particular interaction play out.
It is always okay to be annoyed with Joyce. It’s kindhearted and generous if you can remember that it’s not really her fault, but it’s not wrong if it rubs you the wrong way when she repeats the genuinely annoying stuff that she’s been taught.
Chill Joyce. Chill. Don’t be that person
The Rumor Come Out: Does Robin DeSanto is Gay?
Robin DeSanto is gay is the most discussed in the media in the few years ago. Even it has happened in 2017, but some of the public still curious about what is exactly happening and to be the reason there is a rumor comes out about her gay. At that time she became the massive social networking rumor.
The public, especially her fans are shocked. She just came out with her bad rumor which is spread massively. This time is not about her political career, but her bad rumor. The rumor is out of standardize of hoax, according the last reported this politician revealed herself as homosexual. Do you still believe or not, this rumor is really much talked by people even in a person of her fans.
Now we need someone to animate Dorothy reading this off in a newsroom.
Just imagine her voice over a montage of still photos over animated backgrounds, file footage of Robin in DC, and slightly shaky video of her in Leslie’s house taken from the street with a telephoto lens and you’re close to how it would look on TV.
Ah, lovely, you even got the terrible spellar and gramming (oh, my, that’s ironic, isn’t it?) of that sort of article down pat (no Nixon and Deep Throat jokes here, please). Which did you use for that ‘passed through multiple translations’ look, Babelfish or Google Translate? Those are great for that sort of thing.
Replace “Robin DeSanto” with “Bruno Mars”, and I believe that’s what it originally looks like.
It’s just a re-worded version of an article about Bruno Mars. It didn’t get much attention until it was mentioned in a Game Grumps episode.
Panel 5.
I’m having trouble reading that as for-real. I do that when I’m doing jokes, maybe that are a leetle true/ reflect my feelings, but not enough to warrant that level of commitment.
But in Joyce’s case, is she self-aware enough to make a joke like this? she’s been developing, but is she developed enough fr this to be facetious, or is it still for reals? I JUST DON’T KNOW
note: people have said exactly what joyce has said in these very comments, and not sarcastically
This is true, but also, internet comment sections are atypical samples.
At least I damn well hope so… 🙁
In this case because Joyce’s position is drastically underrepresented.
Mm, short answer, it’s for real. Long answer… will probably be in my comic reaction.
Thank God for evangelizing optimists.
….
…. I’ll see myself out.
Nice try at being cute with the apron and the muffins, Robin, but I still hate you and everything you do
…but what if those are cupcakes??
Then Talos help us.
Surely you don’t hate the MUFFINS, though! THAT’S something that something that Robin did!
…. wait, what kind of muffins are they? … okay, maybe they’re hate-worthy.
what if they are made of coconut and raisins? yuck
Come on, Joyce. You’re better than this.
You can do beeetterrr than that. Beeeetterrr than that. *music plays, words loop*
One: I agree with Becky.
Two: I love that apron.
Three: Are those muffins burned? Because that looks like smoke, not steam. I can now only believe that the only reason Leslie’s house did not burn to the ground today was because she came back early so Robin took the muffins out of the oven “early”.
Four: Muffins will fix nothing Robin!!! Muffins never fix anything!!! All they are is an empty lie, pretending to be cupcakes but not actually being cupcakes!!!
unless they are lemon poppyseed muffins in which case they are exactly what they claim and are also delicious
Or chocolate muffins with extra chocolate. With chocolate sprinkles on top.
Sprinkles a shit
Chunks or bust
You are all philistines.
#pumpkinchocolatechip4evs
No! Those are the worst because they’re trying to be pumpkin pie with chocolate chips but they aren’t!! All muffins can do is get you excited about the real dessert they represent and then disappoint you by not being nearly as good as what you anticipated!!!!
I realllllllyyyyy hate muffins. Cinnamon rolls are the superior breakfast baked good!!!
mmmmmmmm
Muffins an empty lie! I say, how cruel!
*Bites my thumb.*
Nicely done!
Methinks Sir Wadey doth protest too much.
Ehh… Living in today’s USA, I never feel I’m protesting eno…
Oh, wait… you mean the muffins. My word! To accuse myself of hyperbole. Oh, do go on!
Nothing but false muffins. Sad!
Crap, that was suppose to be ‘fake muffins’, but for some reason I had to go and spoil the joke. I’M RUINING FOR ME! RUINING IT! hits self with DVD copy of Blue Velvet
Thoust bite thine thumb at me?!? Have at thee thou vile knave!! I seaketh satisfaction upon yonder field!!
…
Sorry, I was in the drama and theater club back in high school and briefly college, but I got tired of always being cast as the villain. You can only play Iago, Macbeth, and Puck so many times before you get tired of it, although it would appear some of it has stayed with me all this time. (That’s right I consider Puck the villain)
Also, dammit all, that should be “doth seek” not “seeketh”! And I didn’t even spell “seeketh” correctly!
I really picked a Shakespeare battle with a thespian? Just my luck.
Umm… Something something Queen of fairies, something something plague?
-Mercutio(When the player loses their script.)
Muffins will fix nothing Robin!!! Muffins never fix anything!!!
What a rude language!
Why does nobody think of the muffins?
Someone is in denial here (besides Robin, who practically has it written on her face), and I don’t think it’s Leslie.
you can get the girl out of narnia but you can’t stop her from bringing it along with her
And literally has it written on her apron.
Yeah, Joyce, I really don’t think so.
Damn it Joyce, no. I’ve been an atheist for about 14 years now, and I still use religious turn of phrases sometimes.
Robi wants Leslie to eat her muffin… in a totally platonic fashion.
FO’ RIZZLE, MUFFIN EFFER!!!
god, christian culture is so big in america that, although it’s hard to prove an absence of anything, i’m pretty sure i’ve never heard anyone in my life NOT say god, jesus, jeez, christ, etc. i was sort of raised christian but not really, and have been agnostic since i was a teen, but there is a deity outta my mouth every five seconds. they are just living up in there. like teeth.
out of curiosity, how many deities do you have living in your mouth?
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY TEETH GODS.
REPENT, YE OF LITTLE FLOSS.
ALL HAIL THOSE THAT LIVE IN YOUR MOUTH
REPUGNANT OF PLAQUE, DISASTROUS OF DISEASE
ALL HAIL THE GODS THAT LIVE IN YOUR MOUTH
AND FORGET NOT THE DAILY BRUSHING
HAIL OUR MIGHTY FRIEND COMPUTER! HIS HAPPINESS PILLS BE WITH YOU ALL!
I SHALL FEAR NO COMMIES, FOR VERILY YOUR MIGHTY PROCESSORS DO WATCH OVER ME. YOUR DISK DRIVES AND YOUR TERMINALS COMFORT ME.
Trust the Computer and keep your laser handy.
Robin is suspicious that she might not be the most spaced out person in the room any longer. She is an ALPHA-MANIC-PIXI-DREAMGIRL, dammit.
So at this point, Robin has:
Flirted with Leslie
Slept in the same bed as Leslie
Watched musicals about understanding LGBT+ relationships with Leslie (yay SU)
Worn Leslie’s clothes
and Cooked muffins for Leslie.
…
There’s only one more way she could be more gay for Leslie, and it’d be locked behind a paywall.
Don’t forget broken into her home, dragged her into the media circus of her own crashing career and refused to take no for an answer in multiple occasions, which is romantic by romantic comedy standard.
They also held hands while watching the musical (BUT they held hands in a very straight way, I’m sure).
I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that media just watched the person who is rumoured to be in a lesbian relationship with Representative DeSanto bring home two attractive college-aged ladies to her.
There’s absolutely no way that can go badly for anyone, I’m sure.
Yeah, not good at all. One of the things I was worried about from the moment she proposed this plan. Especially with it confirmed the media is camped outside.
Personally, I think Leslie should just invite the media in. That’ll get rid of Robin. 🙂
I’ve been an atheist for years and I still say “Thank God,” or “God damn it,” or “Lord knows,” etc. It’s just so deeply ingrained in our culture that we can’t really get away from it. I mean I guess I could try to train myself out of saying those things, but there wouldn’t be much point.
I was raised atheist, and I use “thank god” and “god damn” all the time. It’s kind of the ultimate counter to people who think Christianity is under attack in America.
“You think your religion is persecuted? I unequivocally reject all belief systems, and STILL reflexively invoke your deity on a daily basis.”
Yep yep
Bingo.
I was gonna state a demand for that gaypron, but I see I’ve been beaten to it at least twice.
The more demands, the more Willis supplies.
My new utterances are “Oh gods” and “Oh lords and ladies” thanks to Fire Emblem.
I wonder if that line of reasoning was used during Shortpacked…
Also, aren’t “thank God” “oh my God” and all that considered using the Lord’s name in vain…? So Christians should not say it…?
One could argue “using the lord’s name in vain” is more along the lines of claiming god will judge/punish certain people you don’t like more than just saying, “God.”
Hell, some denominations only consider ‘Goddammit’ to be taking the lord’s name in vain.
Panel 5 makes me feel like punching Joyce in the face for her constant pushing of religion on any and every sapient being around her.
Hm, I grew up in a non-religious/atheist home, I have never been religious at any point in my life… I don’t say “thank god” very often (usually thank goodness or similar), but I do say other religion-based phrases. Stuff like “Jesus Christ”, “Holy ____”, and of course the ever popular “god dammit” (heck even just “dammit” or “damn” is technically religious…)
Joyce, Joyce, Joyce. No, Freud Fu is not a means of making people join your faith.
“Freud Fu” is a weak fighting style, and it was discredited decades ago when its over-reliance on the same few moves proved ineffective at protecting its users from harm.
*thumbs up*
Yayyy
As an atheist, I must say I went through the “I shouldn’t say God because I don’t believe in him” phase. It was eventually superseded by the “Wait, if he doesn’t exist, I can take his name in vain anytime I want! And it’s exhausting to avoid it, so screw it!” phase.
Now, I’m sure there are a few who manged to survive the first phase long enough to break the habit, but I’m also sure their anti-theists, (or at least anti-Abrahamic-theists), not necessarily atheists.
That moment where Becky is the voice of reason and logic
She is as surprised as anyone. I’M SUPPOSED TO BE THE WACKY ONE, DAMMIT!!!
Destructive interference with Robin’s wackiness.
I mean, what is a nonreligious person even supposed to say besides “oh god”? “Oh goodness” and related secular versions lack the connotational profanity inherent to invoking the Lord™’s name in vain, even for someone who’s rejected the religious norm in America. Like, the fact that “gosh,” “geez,” and the like are treated as euphemisms for “god” means that they’re by definition not equivalent.
And! On top of that, thanks to said religious norm, if you tailor-make utterances like that to reflect a lack of religion, you’re just going to be told you’re acting like a fedora-tipping dunce. You either co-opt religious exclamations, chop your interjection vocabulary in half, or look like a moron.
… I swear I’m not as worked up about this as I sound.
I say it specifically because it pisses off people when I do so. Which is the whole point of swearing.
Also, if you use a profanity no one around you regognizes, the effect is sadly diminished.
I just say thank the gods, since screw it, let’s go back to Magnum Chaos and Deus Pater and Amor and all that jazz.
Robin had better have to work harder for a redemption arc than cooking and wearing an admittedly awesome apron while she squats in Leslie’s house. I pray, as a non-religious turn of phrase, that Robin has to do more to get redemption than cooking and a cute wardrobe she stole from Leslie to be considered for any type of relationship, friendship or romantic. Sure, it’s been a few strips, but Leslie is still suffering fallout for Robin’s shit, and should not get any good things until she consciously tries to redeem herself for being a selfish asshole.
Sorry. I really don’t like Robin at the moment.
Do you really think anyone thinks that being cute makes up for Robin’s behavior? After all the tirades and rants about it?
I meant in the comic, it’s pretty clear that the commenters know it doesn’t. But I’m hoping the comic will treat this as a serious plotline from this point, one that can’t just be fixed by Robin chatting with Becky and having an epiphany without acknowledging how inappropriate she was to this point, and not have Leslie get pulled into a relationship just because Robin looks cute and did a sort of nice thing. Not to say Willis deals with things badly, but the tone of Robin’s escapades has been a little slapstick so far.
This comic has a strong precedent of stuff looking like funtime shenanigans, but then turning out to be far more serious, and treated as such (ie, Amazi-Girl). I suspect Robin will eventually find out she’s in the wrooong universe to get away with this like she wants.
Spanish and Portuguese speakers to this day, even in the Americas, use their respective cognates of “Inshallah”…
When one guy complained repeatedly about the hypocrisy of my occasional use of “Oh my god”, I switched to using “Oh YOUR god” around him, (excessively). He was not amused. I’m pretty sure numerous prayers were said for me to be struck by lightning etc.
I later used my continued existence as proof of the failure of his beliefs. He doesn’t speak to me anymore. Objective Achieved?
Rubber buffing idiots!
muffins?
…
Rubber Muffin Buffers!
So basically this page confirms nothing will stop in Willis writing from Robin becoming a pair with Leslie?
Sadly.
What Robin will do next cheat on Leslie, who she’s not dating or anything, with some random dude on sugar rush?
Storyline isn’t over yet.
Leslie is in a remarkably ticklish situation here. She wants Robin out, understandably but… cupcakes! I mean the woman is a borderline-sociopathic menace who threatens to ruin her life but… cupcakes! She made her cupcakes!
I’m increasingly of the opinion that Robin is desperately running and hiding from something. She’s creating a secondary illusionary happy life for herself and, in so many ways, it’s tragic for her that her life has ended up in this way.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Oh fuck, that media circus is intense and Leslie has braved her way through it twice while Robin has chosen the cowardly way out. Though I do worry for the eventual fallout of Leslie bringing in two 18 year olds into her home given how shitty the media can be to “scandal” LGBT folk.
And all the sad face for her statement here, because she’s not being facetious. There really was a strong possibility that Robin would have burned down her house while she was gone.
Fuck, no wonder she jumped at the first chance to abandon class and run home. She was probably very aware that every hour away was blessed relief from Robin’s reign of boundary-violating bullshit, but also an hour that could have her coming home to a burned down wreckage of all of her belongings.
Panel 2: Awww, I love Becky’s happy excited face here. Like, we saw in the flashback that her previous house was one in which her dad extended over everything, dominating every memory and life-experience except for what she could steal away with her mom.
When she is excited that it doesn’t look or smell like dude, she’s probably at least partially relating it to that and that triggering space. And I get that. I still today can’t deal with the smell of Axe body spray because of how many bad memories I have in childhood of my mom only getting me that in what I’ve since realized where passive-aggressive attempts to forestall my awareness about my gender.
But yeah, it really is perfect for Becky and I love her joy at potentially staying here and having a roof and an older lesbian mentor.
Panel 3: And yet, even though this is like the 9000th time Becky has stated that she very much is still a believer, it will not stop douchebag totally not homophobes from trying to insist that she must be atheist or lapsed or not a “real” believer. Sigh.
Panel 2: It’s very Becky! Not only how excited she is to see a lesbian role model carve out a piece of the world to call her own (“one day I will be a way cool science teacher and have an apartment just like this… only more dinosaur posters”), but also her general attitude to a new situation. “Hello, what’s going on here? I bet it’s something awesome!!!”
Again, good reminder of Becky’s intact faith. She is perfectly cool with her God that answers lesbian prayers.
Yup, and it’s something she’s been craving. Like, she’s been robbed of her entire community which is now actively hostile to her and while she has friends, she doesn’t have that sense of belonging to something bigger.
I think she’s looking to Leslie for help connecting with her larger queer community and finding that sense of fellowship again.
I think so to, and the thing is, as soon as things get less catastrophically crazy for Leslie, she will be a great role model, and the pile of resources she already gave Becky will be a good start.
Just have to comment on that panel 3 observation.
It’s just all too sadly true. As someone who self describes as Christian (even if it’s in a flavor and format that most of Christianity would consider theologically heretical and highly nonobservant) I can’t even begin to describe how sad and disgusted the fact that people believe and act in such a manner makes me feel. Worse still is that anything I personally could or would say pointing out the small minded and counter-Christian manner many “true believers” act within is entirely counterproductive because of my own standing with them.
Related? My brother (or optionally step-brother, but we’re kinda sliding that out of the way) got ordained today, which, SWEET. And: my gay stepmum was a high-table guest of honour (being a leader from another denomination), there was at least one transperson present (and celebrated!), someone with a long-term ministry with people working the streets was present (and ditto) (not sure if she’s ordained or not), and a ninety-something who was the first woman of her ethnicity ordained in that denomination.
Of the nine of us at the table I ate at, three were ordained and two were married to ministers. Can only conclude that a density of leadership like that means *solid* support from on high.
There’s a small number at my pentecostal church who’d be hostile if they heard that breakdown… but the love and celebration I saw today means just that much less hesitation to rocket right over them.
(also — Leslie-face — white cishet professional privilege means I can get away with it. um, sigh?)
And yet… have heard that panel 3 observation directly too. The way I see it, as an ally it’s my job to go to bat for them when I hear that nonsense.
Gladly.
sometimes it’s just so relaxing to be in a female-dominated space. like. it’s just like. you can take a breather and chill and not have to think about dudes for a little bit
it’s great
oh my god Robin
how is it that despite how horrible she is she’s still one of my favorite characters
you write good antagonists Willis
Interesting juxtaposition of characters here.
Robin has no beliefs and votes the way that will get her votes, thereby pushing a hatefilled agenda.
Joyce has strong beliefs that make her feel all the warm, safe fuzzies. Her not so subtle rewriting of everything around her to include as many people as possible in the belief structure is both as inclusive and nurturing as it is idealistic. Yet there is such a fine line between the way Joyce behaves and the way Robin does, I wonder how Joyce would react to being in a position of power.
There is nothing ‘inclusive’ about telling someone you know who they really are and their struggles and self-realizations mean nothing. It is incredibly othering.
Sure, that’s what happened.
The *intention* is definitely to be inclusive, since as a Christian she believes her worldview to be solely responsible for offering others salvation, but there’s a massive gulf between intentions and execution. Her attempts to justify others’ actions in the context of religious faith most definitely do result in her presuming to know more than she can about them.
considering that is exactly what I said, it is hard to argue with you.
Panels 4-5: Mm. So yeah, some of you may have noticed that I have an odd habit of saying things like “oh my Bob” or “Bob damnitt” or so on. And the reason for that is this. See, I grew up in ultra religious hell and I was the areligious/slightly-pagan daughter of a witch. And so for the parents of my friends, I was seen as a project and they were encouraged to jump on any turn of phrase involving God as proof that I actually understood that God was the divine savior, blahdeblah.
And it sucked. A lot. And folks that weren’t my friends were a lot more aggressive and a lot more hostile in the Joyce role and their eagerness to save a clearly sinning queer heathen when they were feeling like being “kind”.
So I trained myself out of the habit. To the point where my natural epithets are as you usually see. Because it was the only way to protect myself from this sort of crap.
Joyce may mean well, but I doubt Leslie is going to be as non-perturbed as Becky given how horrible religion was to her and how violently she has rejected it.
Panel 6: *looks at Robin* *looks at apron* Yes, Robin, you are incredibly heterosexual. No one could ever argue otherwise. I’ve never seen anyone straighter and not bi.
But yeah, this is pretty bad. Robin is trying to become more and more domestic, hoping to slip into some sort of happy fantasy housewife idea in order to avoid the reality of the situation she is in and is putting Leslie in. And that’s going to be harder and harder to uproot for Leslie as Robin keeps sinking her costs.
I don’t feel great about her planning on using Becky here (though I feel a lot better given that Becky gave full consent), but I can see her desperation as Robin is continuing to escalate inserting herself fully into her life in ever more dangerous ways.
Also, yes, totally fake news, you totally haven’t been imagining a very specific type of soft, gentle caress ever since you met Leslie that you’ve turned into a dangerous boundary-violating obsession. I’m also very sure that if she were to check her laundry, she would not at all be missing a shirt that just “happened” to make its way into your bag.
In reality, of coure, she has the wingspan of an albatross. http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=300
Honestly, I think you handled being people’s conversion project a lot better than I did.
It actually started when I was still a churchgoing kid who only had a few doubts about her faith; I just happened to go to the most liberal Presbyterian church in town and I had a few friends who went to a very evangelical (I don’t remember which denomination, not that it matters) church who were convinced I was A) going to the wrong kind of church and therefore doomed to hell if they didn’t save me and B) not devout enough anyway and therefore doomed to hell if they didn’t save me.
My reaction to this was to have a four-year long aggressively antitheist (I was an angry twelve year old flipping the bird to roadside crosses, yikes) phase and to cut ties with my only close friend at the time. I realized several years later that her parents had been pressuring her to ‘save’ any of her friends who weren’t part of their church and that it was possible to have different religious beliefs from your friends without needing to constantly be afraid of conversion attempts, but I’m still working out my feelings about organized religion.
And yeah, Joyce sounds exactly like that friend when a mutual, pagan, acquaintance would use any sort of colloquialism with the word God or Jesus in it. It’s sad but not surprising that while she’s changed in many ways, she’s still got some of those problematic habits.
I remember the odd fact of our Vampire: The Masquerade LARP in the Deep South which was composed of Goths who were a rough mixture of atheists, pagans, evangelical christians, and myself the ultra liberal Presbyterian Christian (later Jedi). It turned out the best solution was to never talk religion as it was deeply personal to everyone.
Shirt? Non-zero chance that she’s already squirreled away some of Leslie’s underwear.
Dirty underwear.
Reaction to panel 6 reaction: I made a jest above in the comics.but this is literally some of the scariest stuff I’ve seen. This is following the path of a modern horror movie and it’s doing it’s job very well. I’m legitimately worried Robin might go into a “if I can’t have you no one can” mindspace.
Yeah, that’s a mindspace that’s plausible, and frankly far more realistic than redemption; frankly, it’s also a good moral for the story about this kind of suitor.
I will say “jesus HOPPING christ on a pogo stick” because I am still holding out for “faith, hop, and charity.”
I love the breakneck pace at which Becky is learning how regular humans interact…she’s already outstripped Joyce!
Joyce, this is not a Godportunity.
Robin, your statement lacks credibility.
Oh god journalists in the first panel. What the hell will they be saying to the cameras with regards to Leslie leading Becky and Joyce into the house?
Joyce: Please stop.
Robin: Baking does not make up for breaking entering/squatting, especially when you’re most definitely using her stuff to do so. You’re kind of making yourself a bit too comfortable here. Are you trying to show off your housewife skills (granted if you lose your job as a politician… well maybe homemaker is what you need to be because I’m not sure how easy it is for a politician after a scandal to get a regular job anyway- unless its their own business/the business of a family member/friend).
Actually what the hell happens to those in politics when they’re not in politics and they’ve not got some family business to be shoved into anyway? … Stock options? Politicians get like $174k as a baseline though so she probably has stuff saved up unless she’s been throwing it all on cadbury eggs.
Mostly they lobby their former colleagues.
Or get the cosy position that they totally were not promised in some industry they helped protect from regulation.
Or become Fox News pundits. Not sure what Democrats do. 🙂
They could write a book, isn’t that the go-to disgraced ‘celebrity’ thing to do?
Terrible tabloid voice:
Local teacher leads innocent youth astray to feed the voracious lusts of the Representative. What dastardly aims could these predators on all that is natural and good have?
Yes… this just in, one of them has been recently converted to lesboid tendencies, possibly by this predatory teacher and politician. Can we protect our children from being next?
Does it say gaytron or gaypr0n ? I can’t read.
Gaypron. As in, “Gay Apron”.
The apron was blank before Robin put it on.
This was meant as a reply to DarkoNeko.
Heh this reminds me “The Salvation War” book series. God turned out to be a jerk who sold us to Satan who sent his demonic armies to collect our souls.
Demonic hordes, meet modern warfare. It was a very Very bad time for the demonic hordes.
But that aside. In the series people had some serious problems with swearing or even just talking because of how ingrained mentioning God and divine stuff was in the language.
I remember reading that series when it was still forum posts. It was terrible; there’s a reason why Stardestroyer.com banned discussion of it from their forums.
Terrible? I quite enjoyed it. The idea of human army crushing demonic legions and angelic host was pretty hilarious XD
It was bad military cubstomp porn, and the author had a long line in such – there’s a reason why it’s a punchline in certain online SF fan circles.
“Hey Francis, your latest issue of Hating Everything Magazine is here.”
Speaking as a guy who writes’ military science fiction (LUCIFER’S STAR! SHAMELESS PLUG), I understand why people like certain things and everyone’s tastes are different. Still, I couldn’t enjoy it because of David Weber’s quote, “Stories where only the bad guys die isn’t military science fiction but military pornography.”
Ah David Weber, his Empire from the Ashes was really fun too. Too bad we’ll never get to see Humans vs. Acu’ultan T_T
Weber’s one to talk.
Now, if you want good, missile based space warfare with a female protagonist, look up Steven Galluci’s Erma Felna: EDF.
Yes, Weber basically abandoned his own advice after War of Honor and now the Manticore score 10,000 kills for every one lost. Then that one lost turns out to have been a misogynist Nazi double agent.
I also recommend Alexis Carew by J.A. Sutherland, which is basically YA Honor Harrington but without the weird politics.
And that was probably why I enjoyed it so much :-3 I did mention that I found the idea of demons and angels getting ROTFLstomped to be fun.
Too bad he never got to write Lords of War. Judging by what was said about it Humans would be pitted against an equally powerful opponent.
Does Joyce still think lesbianism is a ‘rebellion agains the Lord’? Leslie had given no indication she was atheist before this strip, did Joyce just assume Leslie was one just because she was a lesbian?
At the very least, she mentions her family used to be religious, without saying the same of herself.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/faithbased/
No, not only does she not ‘still’ think that, she never did. I assume Joyce is talking about something else Leslie has said to her.
No Robin, it’s alternate facts, not fake news.
I know exactly how that feels, alt text.
Only on PAPER.
Last panel: The muffins are a very small image, so that’s always a caveat on overanalysis.
However, I’ve seen plenty of comic strips on the played-out “Honey, surprise! My boss is coming for dinner!” “Oh no! I burned the roast!” plot.
If they were burned, wouldn’t the muffins and the indotherm or waferton be darker and more comically exaggerated?
Let’s try again:
“https://comicbookglossary.wordpress.com/wafteron”>Indotherm or wafteron link.
https://comicbookglossary.wordpress.com/wafteron/
This is the bare link.
Neither David Waferton, nor any of his relatives seem to be in this strip, so I think it’s moot.
*Something about the running and the punning.*
holy cheese
I LOVE EVERY PART OF THIS INTERACTION.
p2: i feel like becky is lowkey starting to get the seeds of a lesbian separatist consciousness. I was in Iowa when I started getting mine and i’m going to /love/ seeing how this plays out. also, i have almost that same flannel.
I don’t think she’s an extremist or anything, but I think she’s making up her mind in pretty quick order here about what kinda people she wants to put her energy towards, and I love it. I think Becky probably has the most overtly patriarchal history of anyone in the strip that we know of, and she’s pretty well-acquainted with the violence that men do to women. Up to the end there, not much of it really had much to do with her being a lesbian, either. That was just straight up misogyny that both she and her mother experienced. She didn’t say “it doesn’t smell like heteros”, she said “it doesn’t smell like dude” and I’m loving how much I feel her on this one.
p3: Unless Leslie said something offscreen, I feel like Joyce is saying this because she was filtering something Leslie said through a prejudiced filter she hasn’t critically analysed in the time since, and maybe hasn’t fully outgrown. She’s probably right, though.
It sounds like Leslie has a lot more experience dealing with religious discrimination from ‘charity’ orgs, which makes the whole…
hegemonic monopoly over religious belief, that certain bigoted institutions claim,
look a lot more legitimate and institutional than it maybe perhaps really is in the lives of many people. There’s a difference between your family and immediate church believing something wacky you know is wrong, and organisations to which you relate on a much less personal basis doing the same and wielding power over you. Very different ramifications.
If it’s just your family, you can leave your family and move on. But once it’s re-enforced again and again it starts to look a lot more bleak and inescapable. That’s probably (a big part of) why I’m way more into Leslie’s plan than a lot of other people here. This is the least humiliating “get this homeless kid a couch” plan I’ve ever heard of, and it’s of extreme importance that it go well, and Leslie fully understands that importance. Fun date idea: spend a night at the Salvation Army, no cell phones, no computer, and then get back to me.
Also, I love Becky for still believing in God. Not new information, but it makes me so happy.
p4-5: honestly, same, Joyce. I actually agree with Joyce on this one. I’m not sure on an intellectual level, but on a thematic level I love the contrast between Leslie’s denial of her belief in God (which I understand has no legitimate canonical basis, don’t get me wrong, that’s Joyce’s “i am extremely wrong about this, and i know it, but i need to continue believing this, so i’m going to” face) and Robin’s denial of her sexuality. I like that Becky’s reaction is like “….maybe, i guess that’s possible, but my explaination sounds a lot more likely, anyway, look! a US senator!” instead of “YOU ARE FLAT-OUT WRONG AND THAT’S DEEPLY OFFENSIVE”.
u don’t have to be in denial about one or the other. u can be both things. becky has two hands.
anyway just for kicks I want the camera to pan over and we see Leslie’s like, catholicism altar, but i think if leslie was repressing a belief in god it’d be a really cool dynamic for her and robin
1) I’ve got no problems with Leslie offering Becky a couch. I’ve got serious problems with her bringing Becky (or Joyce for that matter) into the hot mess of a media circus that is her thing with Robin. Cause it ain’t going to go well.
Nor is Becky actually on the street or in a shelter, so the situation isn’t quite as desperate as you describe. Right now, anyway.
2) We know Leslie was raised in a religious family and I believe it’s at least been hinted she no longer is. She’s certainly absorbed the background Christian assumptions and likely has some deep conflicts from that, but I doubt she’s anything that could be described as “in denial”. Possibly “in recovery” as some of my ex-Catholic friends would joke.
I don’t think it’s bee
I mean, Leslie has no idea what Becky’s living situation is right now, but when you ask someone “do you have a place to sleep” and their answer is “I don’t know, kinda” that’s probably a warning sign to most responsible adults. Also, in actual reality, Becky’s living arrangement is one she could be literally kicked out of on a moment’s notice, like, escorted by campus police and banned from campus, quite possibly through a whole traumatic hours-long ordeal at the end of which she’s driven to a homeless shelter that will straight-up discriminate against her and make her either sleep outside or feign conversion to some obscure Christian denomination.
That’s worst-case scenario, but best-case is still her being kicked off of campus and having to sleep outside until the next time she runs into her friend’s womens’ studies teacher on a campus she’s banned from which also happens to be where her entire social support system lives.
Knowing what we, the audience, know, combined with what she and I, formerly homeless lesbians, know, Leslie is in the absolute right to handle the situation with some urgency. Caught between that and a conversation with a neurotic mess of a representative who just made some muffins but might say something rude, I’m picking the gay one.
Like I said, making the offer was great. Following up by making sure she had a way to reach Leslie so she could take her up on it in a crisis would be better yet. As would making sure Robin was out of the place so that she actually had a couch to offer Becky.
As it is, it’s really hard for me not to see her urgency as more using Becky to solve her problem with Robin than anything else. Especially given her line about her houseguest having to confront Becky’s basic humanity, right before asking if Becky could come that afternoon. This visit isn’t about Becky, this is about Robin. And that’s why it’s not cool.
Nor is the threat from Robin just that she might say something rude – which she will, she’s Robin. There’s the whole media circus, for one thing. They’ve certainly been photographed going in and are likely to hit both the news and the less reputable rumor mongers.
Even more, she’s dragging a homeless teen that she doesn’t even know into a political fight that she’s been losing. Hell, Robin could easily be the one to out Becky’s status on campus, should she learn it.
And that’s not even considering all the creepy stalker, breaking and entering aspects of Robin. If she transfers some of that focus to Becky, Becky’s not even in as good a place to deal with it as Leslie – who already can’t handle it.
Mind you, Leslie could redeem herself here and throw Robin to the media wolves outside to make a safe space for Becky, but I don’t think that’s in the cards.
I know you think those things. It’s common to attribute negative motives or character traits to lesbians based on their sexual orientation and then try to cover them up by over-inflating the possible negative outcomes or motivations in importance, while denying that that’s why you’re doing it.
Anyway, Becky’s 100% down for this plan. Throwing Robin out at this point would be unfair and against what Becky actually wants. She’s weirdly not being asked to be treated like a fabergé egg like you guys are saying Leslie’s somehow obligated to do.
After all, if there’s one correct thing everybody knows about the homeless it’s how easy it is to get a hold of individual homeless people at will, and how many communication options they have open to them at all times They should have kept it super profesh and left it to Becky to get a hold of her via linked-in, which she can easily utilise on the internet, on her computer, at her house. Duh.
But I get it, the biggest threat to homeless lesbians is other lesbians.
I don’t think that it even remotely occurs to Leslie that Robin as much of a threat to Becky as the world at large is. And that isn’t because Leslie is an irresponsible sex-blind lesbian controlled by her lusts, it’s because Robin is not anywhere near as much a threat to Becky as the world at large is. She is correct in this supposition.
Eh, as an atheist I still use phrases involving the word “god”. “God damn it” still has a nice ring to it, though I prefer saying “thank fuck” over “thank God” these days.
We’ll getcha back.
heheh, jk
You really have no idea what people go through when they escape religion, do you? Or that when someone doesn’t believe in god, it means… they don’t believe in god.
They are GOD’s journalists…
Oh, Joyce, no. Don’t do that. Don’t be one of those Christians who just can’t get it through their heads that some people don’t believe in god. It’s offensive and dehumanizing.
I really hope, somewhere in all of this, there is lady Gaga’s poker face playing in the background, while Leslie is looking around for sign’s of mischief. Then, when she sees Robin, she asks, “what’s in the muffins Robin, what are in the muff-innnns?” And,….now I forgot what makes Robin black out and do increbly frightening things….but I would love for her to reply, “Robin roofies!”
ZombieFlamingo: I have a link for you. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/find/#comment-1220787 has discussion of coping mechanisms for the mean voice (which in my case is separate from depression, and if it gets really bad, depression will wake up to protect me from it!)
I’m also curious about the meditation-not-working thing, because that’s not uncommon, and my own meditation practice seems to contradict a lot of the standard advice. it’d be awesome if my weird back-asswards meditation had something useful to others 🙂
I’m pretty busy atm, I should go now, just wanted to get you that link in case it helps 🙂
I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks that Robin is self-sabatoging her career, on purpose.
I mean, she’s wearing a Gaypron and telling some possibly-journalists about the soft caress of a woman, how can she not realize how hard she’s trying to push that SELF DESTRUCT button?
(Whoops, not meant to be a reply. Please delete if you feel like it, Willis.)
I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks that Robin is self-sabatoging her career, on purpose.
I mean, she’s wearing a Gaypron and telling some possibly-journalists about the soft caress of a woman, how can she not realize how hard she’s trying to push that SELF DESTRUCT button?
I think so too, but I don’t think she has admitted it to herself yet.
i mean like this is about as imploded as her career can get i feel like
on the other hand, people are still hearing about her
She’s also Robin, so I could believe her being that dense
Also, Leslie grew up Catholic, so it’s probably just force of habit, tbh.
“The soft gentle caress of a woman”…
Where we gonna find one?
I just mentally say it with a little ‘g’ so it doesn’t count.