So does this mean I pack my bags? Head out of the comments section?
It’s been a good time hanging out with you all, I’ll never forget the laughs we shared. Look after each other, keep the place going. Don’t let The Faz back in.
*Takes one last look at the comments page, sadly puts on a hat, and turns to walk out the door pausing only to turn out the light.*
I’m actually in talks trying to get a spinoff show going.
Failing that we’ll see how test markets deal with my leaving and if it’s bad I’ll get a half-episode subplot midway next season explaining how I had been framed for the Bullshit by a heretofore unknown archenemy from childhood.
Omg I never realized Leslie & Robin’s initials were L & R! I’d say it’s conveniently appropriate for their political views if Leslie’s name weren’t already conveniently appropriate for her sexuality.
Sadly, charmingly wacky though this is, I fear we’re in for another turf war between the “cartoony silliness” crowd and the “Robin’s a stalker” crowd. Oh well…
What irks me, to the extent that it does, is that the types of behaviors Robin’s exhibiting (or “folkway violations”) are perfectly acceptable fodders for comedy specifically because this is not how normal people are supposed to behave. Contrast between expectation and presentation and such.
And now, I think I’m thinking way too hard about this! LOL
I think Leslie’s reaction go a long way to showing that what Robin’s doing clearly doesn’t fly in this universe. It’s a brilliant subversion of an otherwise-harmful message that I’ve noticed is somewhat typical of Willis’ work. In fact, I’m writing an essay on that right now!
I think Commodore has a rather valid point. Since we know Leslie better, a lot of us are relating to her. She is clearly not finding this funny, causing us to not find it funny, seeing it as Robyn refusing to think of someone else’s feelings beyond her own to the point of breaking into Leslie’s house after she was thrown out.
It would be funnier if this didn’t have the large chance of destroying Leslie’s career and life. Also if Robin was just some random woman instead of an asshole politician that’s been actively making life worse for people like Leslie.
And if it didn’t echo a really big problem we’re facing politically where a critical mass of the US and many other countries are straight up refusing to believe in reality and trying to brute force their fictional world so hard that people will stop fighting them while they get angrier and angrier that reality doesn’t cow as easily.
It becomes way less cute and more, yeah, our president who has been linked to Robin in other ways before does do that thing of openly and blatantly breaking the law or committing treason and we all shrug and normalize it because he’s a “force of nature” who refuses to follow any legal law or greater good.
At the rate Trump is going, I honestly think it may only be a month or two before he dies of either a heart attack, a stroke, or both. Now, normally I’m not one to wish for somebody else’s death, but he passed beyond the line of “I would feel guilty about shooting this person in the head” a long time ago. But then we’re stuck with Pence. Who, at this point, may actually be the greater of the two when it comes to evil. Because at this point practically no one is willing to deal with Trump. The NSA doesn’t trust him with secure intelligence because they think he’ll give classified intel over to the Russians, the court system is currently fighting him hard, the entire press aside from Breitbart (including Fox News) is actually doing the job of a free press in a democracy by calling him on his bullshit, some federal agencies or branches of federal agencies are ignoring his orders, he pissed off a ton of police and mayors of “sanctuary cities” by threatening federal funding, and his attempted Muslim ban pissed off major elements within the military because now it will be harder to get local translators to help American troops. The only people currently in favor of pisshair are the people who wanted that wall (which a large portion of the border patrol thought and still think is a bad idea) which doesn’t even cover the Texas-Mexico border or a 24-mile long stretch of the Arizona border because those are natural borders formed by rivers that legally cannot be blocked due to international treaty. His latest “press confrence” might as well have been called a meltdown. The increased hate and violence created by his campaign is still a major problem but it’s one that’s being fought by organizations who have also received a groundswell of support in response to said hatred. I’m still worried about my friends as I’ve mentioned before, but the Orange bastard may have already lost and he just doesn’t know it yet. Hopefully.
Honestly, it is staggering the amount of damage that rotting pumpkin wearing a poorly constructed human costume has done in such an incredibly short time. Before Election Day, I heard some Trump Voters explain they were voting for him because they saw him as a bomb that would blow up the establishment so it could be rebuilt. Unfortunately, I think they failed to realize they would most likely be caught in the explosion.
A lot of people here in America, on both sides, have an astonishingly naive idea of how revolutions work, including the cost (human and otherwise) involved and how much the part in the middle sucks, and an assumption that what comes out of the revolution is always better than what preceded it.
There’s also the assumption they’ll be exempt from the hardship or the inevitable fallout. It honestly makes me want to just smack my head against the nearest wall until I’m too numb to think about it.
1.8 million Brits signed a petition to uninvited him to GB.
I didn’t dare to read the article on the people who think he’s doing a great job, though.
Everybody and anybody comments on “he gets things done” (sort of) and this shows a much too common fatigue with the time a democratic process takes to get things done (because discussions and dealing well with differences of POW etc takes time even if you can cut back on interference from lobby groups).
@ StClaire
I think the main reason for this naive idea is the fact that our revolution didn’t fall prey to all the things a revolution can fall prey to. Our founding fathers, or at least George Washington (the most popular) really did believe “no one has the right to boss us around”, not the usual “I, and I alone, have the right to boss us around”. That’s what happened with Cromwell. And Robespierre. And Stalin. And Mao. And Castro. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are only two Revolutions in recorded history that were “successful”: the American Revolution and the Glorious Revolution (which doesn’t really count because no shots were fired – and the “good guys” won long before it began).
Honestly, I’d take Pence right now. He would be awful, no doubt and especially brutal to queer folks like me, but he’s at least not going to normalize nazism, openly defy the rule of law, try and destroy freedom of press, and wouldn’t launch nukes over a bad tweet.
I’m 100% with you on this. Being apart of the same community, I view Pence as a monster, but at least I don’t worry he’ll do something so incredibly stupid that it actually might push North Korea over the edge. This might be one of the only times where I support the idea of the “lesser of two evils”.
And Pence lacks Trumps apparent complete immunity to the consequences of his actions by dint of some weird twisted charisma that only conservative white people can perceive.
Plus any scenario where Trump is ousted in favor of Pence likely leaves the Republican base split and outraged. The Party can’t help but be weakened in that situation.
Excepting the Trump drops dead scenario, I suppose.
I believe Trump’s entire campaign and administration is being investigated for Russia. I’m fairly certain any fallout from that will get him out on his ass.
@ Killjoy – …Well, yeah, obviously it wasn’t only white people who voted for him, but that was the majority of his base. Latinx folks overwhelmingly voted for Hillary.
In response to yet another “white people did it” post, it was pointed out that people who are not white ALSO voted for Trump.
Somehow, this is taken as “blame Hispanics”.
Oh well.
I probably need to preface this with yet another clear statement that I think Trump is the strutting, grinning incarnation of the dark underbelly of American culture. He’s a bloviating ignoramus, a self-aggrandizing bully, a zero-sum might-makes-right jackass with an infantile ego, who sees life divided into “winners” and “losers”, and “losers” only worthy of scorn and belittlement.
Anyway… instead of concentrating on the pablum of a “stupid ignorant racist old white males” narrative, take a look at the flip-side percentages of how many people who DON’T fit the narrative voted for Trump.
43% of women voters, voted for Trump
43% of voters with a college degree, voted for Trump
37% of voters age 18-29, voted for Trump
29% of Hispanic voters, voted for Trump — about 3.77 million voters
8% of black voters, voted for Trump
So let’s not kid ourselves and take the easy narrative here. Whatever happened with Trump, wasn’t only about education, or race, and pointing that out isn’t “blaming” anyone.
And pointing out what the majority of his base was – White, middle to upper class, married, older Christian (especially Evangelical) men without a college education – matters because it tells us the bigger targets for new elections. And most of those aren’t smaller majorities, they’re big ones.
In any election, you can assume a percentage of every demographic will vote for both – what matters is what percentage. And trying to basically reverse engineer NotAllWhiteMen for this is not helping because it ignores who the majority of Trump voters actually are.
For instance – yes, 8% of black people voted for Trump. And? That isn’t anywhere near as helpful in stopping him next election as the fact 80% of Evangelicals voted for him.
You are literally using the fact that a majority of people in America are white to obscure the fact that most of the people voting for Trump were white.
Look at literally any breakdown by race and you will see tha a MAJORITY of white women voted for Trump while a MINORITY, a TINY minority, of Black, Hispanic, and Asian women did.
Most of that 43% of women who voted for him WERE WHITE. Most of that 43% with a college degree WERE WHITE.
I’m white, too. As a college educated white woman, a mere 51% of my pathetic and treacherous voting block went to Hillary, and my voting block is the ONLY group of white peoples which did.
This is on us. Dodging accountability for it? THAT’s taking the easy narrative. THAT’s kidding ourselves.
Funny, you certainly seemed to feel like you were part of “white people” when you were loudly insisting that it isn’t white peoples fault Trump got elected.
By the by, this kind of thinking? The unwillingness to accept that white people as a whole are racist and that we as white people bear responsibility for both the legacy and ongoing power of white supremacy?
This is literally how a lot of us rationalized voting for Trump. Being “tired of being called racist”. Taking comfort in being told by Baron Fuckface von Clownstick that no, we haven’t done anything wrong; that actually we are the VICTIMS of “racism taken too far”; that we are all humans, equally if not more oppressed than people of color; that our hurt feelings are more important than other people’s systemic disenfranchisement.
Getting mired in self-pity, letting yourself start to believe that people who talk about bad shit white people have done are personally attacking you and need to stop, that is what opens the door to radicalization.
It is those feelings that the ideologue seizes upon, telling you that you’re right to wallow in self-pity and that other people are to blame for the guilt you feel by association to white supremacy.
So if you’re going to refuse something, let it be that. Let it be refusing to let white guilt make you angry at the people who are talking about the shit we’ve done, when you should be angry at us for doing it instead.
Only in the sense that he believes whatever was last said to him, while Pence is always wrong. The problem here is that Pence will always be the last person to speak to him on this stuff.
The guy who thinks we should bring back torture and would love to round journalists and Muslims up into camps is absolutely not any better on human rights.
At BEST – and this requires taking the Mandarin’s word at face value FAR more than I’m comfortable with – Trump himself isn’t actively against LGBT rights. Even if that’s actually true, you’d be foolish to trust that he’ll lift a finger to defend the LGBT community from action by Congress, or even his own cabinet.
Jeff Sessions has already indicated he won’t be bothering to prosecute anti-LGBT discrimination, and I strongly doubt Piss Hitler would veto an anti-LGBT bill if Congress put one on his desk.
Literally the only reason I could imagine him defending LGBT rights is if it threatened to get in the way of him persecuting Muslims.
MatthewTheLucky: That’s not quite true. Sometimes it’ll be Bannon who speaks to him last. Probably more often. Trump doesn’t actually seem too close to Pence.
Not that this improves things much, though it might change the targets a bit.
I think you overestimate the chances of Trump’s health failing him. He goes to the residence by 6pm when he’s in Washington at all. He’s vacationing in Florida more weekends than he isn’t. He’s keeping his stress under control, don’t worry.
I think our best hope is that he remains too unhinged for the Republicans in Congress to keep tolerating. They only put up with him because he’s nominally in their party and will sign their legislation (and appoint their people to head the various agencies and sit on the court benches). But if his erratic and idiotic behavior keeps sabotaging their ability to advance their agenda – which to a large degree it is – he becomes more of a liability than an asset. The instant that Ryan and McConnell decide that dealing with the fallout of impeaching a president from their own party is less than the chaos that Trump causes, he’s going to be forced out of office.
I’m pretty sure that’s why Pence is Vice President. He’s the Republican establishment’s insurance plan.
As much as I love Shortpacked I don’t consider Robin/Leslie to be a lodestar of the multiverse. Shortpacked Robin is wrong for this world. She warps it just by existing, and the longer she sticks around the more she retroactively demonstrates just how phenomenally unhealthy her relationship with Leslie has always been. Furthermore, in this universe particularly, she drags Leslie down and undermines her agency and competence as a person with her “wonk wonk wonk, that’s our Robin” reality distortion field.
She should have been out on her ass twice already but she just alters the deal every time it doesn’t work out in her favor. It’s sickening to see.
This isn’t Shortpacked Robin. Besides the obvious point of no powers she got into Congress not by a wacky punchline turned canon but by hiding as much of herself as possible and pandering to her voting base.
At the moment she’s being incredibly immature and irresponsible, but the real difference is in Shortpacked this would mostly work out in her favor. In DoA her job is likely going to crumble around her over this.
It’s not Leslie being controlled somehow by Robin’s charisma which is making her put up with Robin, it’s her own weakness. I don’t mean that in a mean way, but Robin is Leslie’s Achilles’s Heel, she can’t quite bring herself to stand firm against her. This happens in real life all the dang time. No universe altering powers needed.
She’s not a wacky cartoon character in a too realistic setting, she’s a silly person who’s in denial about what is going to happen next. Amazi-girl is the carry-over from Shortpacked that makes the least sense and even she works.
Which further highlights the contrast in people’s reactions.
The story having a superhero is an acceptable break from reality, but essentially reenacting the plot of “One Froggy Evening” splits the story in twain! Oh well, that’s the internet, I guess. ^_^
Well, I mean Amazi-girl is the *least* normal part of this comic, but my point was nothing she does is impossible to my knowledge and her motivations make sense. If you wanted to say DoA happens in real life there’s nothing I see to imply it couldn’t aside from some shifting time-line issues.
Amazi-girl is also a young woman in a costume. She doesn’t have super powers. She’s just a fan of superhero comics working through some huge mental issues and trauma. “One Froggy Evening” didn’t have a scene where a young woman was nearly roofied and date-raped. It didn’t have a scene where a young gay woman was threatened as gunpoint to return back to her abusive father.
I appreciate your sentiment and yeah, the line between cartoony mishaps and ‘reality’ in this comic do stray thin at points, but I don’t think people are wrong to view what Robin as doing as a serious breach of Leslie’s comfort. Not when the comic has tackled serious issues before. Glue on the carpet is one thing, but Leslie has literally kicked Robin out, she snuck INTO Leslie’s house without her knowledge and there is a semi-strained sexual tension between the two. This isn’t goofy “haha she really sticks to you”, this is creepy. And if you don’t see it that way, alright. I can respect that. But please respect when others see it in a more dangerous light?
Thing is, the narrative is still playing it as silly, goofy Robin. Even Leslie is reacting with annoyance rather than treating it as creepy and threatening as it should be.
That may change. Much like Amazi-Girl changes from girl with issues who dresses up in a costume to actual (low-end) superhero from storyline to storyline. Her skills are way beyond anything realistic. She gets the advantage of the whole superhero secret id trope.
Similarly Robin is too over the top wacky to really fit the dangerous stalker role, even if she’s doing dangerous stalker things.
@Mr.Mendo If you notice, even Amazi-Girl is treated with real-world repercussions. Injuries, mental health issues, a breakdown of social contracts.
Robin has not and will not face the necessary repercussions for her actions here, because as the OP said, she employs a wacky reality distortion field. She will escape any and all real world ramifications because she has to stick around to be goofy. Willis will break his entire lifeblood project in half so Robin can badly re-create Looney Tunes jokes.
That actually kinda makes sense. One cartoon ended with the revelation that there are actually a bunch of Droopys.
Could there be more than one Robin? We still don’t know how many DeSantos exist, and she was able to produce a veritable army of lookalikes for her wedding.
Leslie is an underpaid gender studies teacher who has to deal with Joe, Joyce, and now Robin on a daily basis. She probably falls right to sleep every night. XD
“Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” or “Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” (English: “Furthermore, (moreover) I consider that Carthage must be destroyed”) often abbreviated to “Carthago delenda est”. Never try to be a Latin grammar Nazi unless you have your tenses right.
Leslie’s given up. If she were to boot her out and lock the windows, she’d probably break in or convince the landlord to let her back in. And Leslie’s done fighting and failing and feeling like nothing. Much better and safer in her mind to just ride it out, numb, until everything is over.
Yeah, that’s what I figure that was the case too. That was intended less as actual excitement than forced enthusiasm about the very tiny sign that maybe something might be sinking into Robin’s head here.
OTOH, while it doesn’t actually change the legal situation – “She broke into my house and then fell asleep and the next day we hung out and watched cartoons and then I threw her out and she snuck back in so we went to bed and now it’s morning and I’m calling the cops” makes it a lot less likely she’ll be taken seriously.
Man, if the world was more just, Leslie could go to the media and tell her side of the story — “Robin is a powerful woman in politics with controversial views. I invited her to speak with my Gender Studies class, but I had to kick her out for her inappropriate comments to my students. She wanted to speak to me afterwards, to clarify why I’d kicked her out, so we met in a public place. We spoke about how her politics had impacted my life. There was also some mutual attraction, but I told her it could never be. Fine. Then, she began stalking me, including sneaking into my bedroom while I was asleep. I literally, physically threw her out, but she will not stop breaking into my house. Please help.”
But no, the media might eat her alive, so she can’t.
As for the ‘why did it take you so long’, the answer could be “I was hoping that she was reasonable, and I could handle it myself without tons of legal and media attention. However, I can’t, as she is not reasonable.”
And/or “I am a new professor without tenure, I’m afraid the university might not want me now that I’m in the middle of a media spectacle.”
and/or “I’m an independent person, so that’s how long it took me to conclude that I actually need your help.”
All relatable, but still so terribly risky. 🙁 sucks to be Leslie.
It’s possible she’s thinking all that, but we’ve seen little sign of it. No hint that she’s even considered and rejected calling the cops or going to talk to the media.
Not that I don’t ultimately trust Willis, but can we move on from pretending Robin’s behavior is even potentially still cute or amusing? It was, at best, creepy-clueless-“cute” to start with, and became insufferable almost instantaneously once Robin woke up and opened her mouth. It was almost cute because Leslie tried to be nice and Robin had a moment of showing her affection, but that is a dubious “high point” at best and quickly sabotaged by Robin’s decision to claim she has the implicit right to stay in Leslie’s house regardless of Leslie’s expressed wish that she leave. Enough is enough. Robin needs to go and get a dose of reality that she can’t do whatever she wants.
I’m not sure it’s meant to be cute or amusing. Quite apart from what it’s doing to Leslie, I’m beginning to wonder if Robin has actually had a psychotic break. There’s clueless, there’s bad boundaries, there’s attempted wacky, but I’m starting to watch her with actual alarm. It’s like a dissociative fugue. Why are you here, Robin?
True, that’s what I meant by trusting Willis to resolve this in a way that isn’t just “Lolz, oh Robin.” But it’s still being used as a punchline now, and that’s getting tiresome. If it’s leading up to a reveal that Robin needs to get serious help, and understand the consequences of her actions, GREAT. But personally I don’t want many more “Robin being clueless or willfully ignorant” strips, I think the point was made a few strips ago.
Robin’s isn’t ready to admit to herself that she isn’t straight, but at the same time she doesn’t want to leave Leslie, so she’s stuck in this Odd Couple reality she’s building up around them.
I hope it’s not intentional but at best Willis has severely fumbled the tone here for me because every one of these strips feels like it’s supposed to be “wacky odd-couple antics” and not “Leslie’s stalker has forced her way into her home and will not leave.”
No, even by Congressional standards Robin’s not cutting it. Even by stereotypes of Congress, she’s not there.
Not so much in this sequence, but she can’t even pander properly without being told explicitly to pander more or less by her handler – in the open where the audience can hear.
Al Franken’s first bill was one that banned government contractors from requiring their employees to go through (company-paid) arbitration instead of court in cases of violence or sexual assault in the workplace.
30 republicans voted against it on the grounds that “regulation bad”, and were subsequently very surprised at the public backlash from their constituents.
More recently, we elected a deformed Cheeto as president, it took weeks after his inauguration, and millions of protestors across the country before congressional Democratic leadership realized “huh, I guess people want us to fight back and actually stand up for progressive values / basic decency”
So frankly, I’d be shocked if the majority of Congressturds are even able to wipe themselves on their own.
This kind of humor worked well in Shortpacked, because the whole comic was silly like this. With the more serious tone of DOA, I automatically take this seriously too. (Part of the reason why Amazi-girl felt so out of place in this comic to me initially. Not so much any more because there are realistic reasons behind it that have been revealed.)
So it does feel more like Robin is creepy rather than silly, because even though she’s doing the exact same stuff she’d do in Shortpacked, it feels out of place here because, this isn’t Shortpacked, it’s Dumbing of Age.
sorry if that makes no sense I’m somewhat drugged up right now.
I think you did a fine job expressing your opinion, Clocky. Basically, it comes down to framing. In Shortpacked, the framing of the series was much more comedic, so things like this were automatically framed in a comedic light.
Dumbing of Age does have comedy within it, but the framing tends to lean more towards the serious side of things, so it’s hard not to see this through that same lens.
I think the fact that we also have more emotional attachment to Leslie and she is clearly not happy with this arrangement contributes to that as well.
Oh, I’m glad it was coherent. But yes you explained it better than I can. And being invested in Leslie is definitely also part of it. At the same time readers of Shortpacked are still invested in Robin, too. So that makes it particularly frustrating to watch because I like Robin, I like her silliness in the framing of Shortpacked, but this type of humor doesn’t work in this context so I can’t root for her.
Oh, believe me, I understand the conflicting emotions surrounding Robin within this subplot. I enjoyed the previous relationship between the two and I was happy the possibility of them getting together here too made me very happy.
That is until we got to see more of this universe’s Robin, which slowly made me want to see Leslie get as far away from her as possible. Part of me hopes this disconnected humor is intentional to highlight Robin’s disconnect with reality and her apparent inability to either read or even care about the needs of others (especially if those needs conflict with her own).
Honestly, I just want to give Leslie the biggest hug right now because I feel like she needs one bad.
Yeah I felt exactly the same way, for the longest time I really wanted more Robin in the comic. And I wanted her to be comedy relief too! But in a way that fits the tone of the story better. Transplanting Robin directly from one universe to the other with no changes just doesn’t mesh well.
If it is intentional then there must be a pretty dramatic shift in tone at some point. I’m at the point where I also just want Leslie to get away from her. I hate seeing someone who is too timid/tired to fight being take advantage of.
The point where my opinion of DoA’s Robin started to sour was her explanation for supporting the bill. I’ll admit, being apart of the community that would be negatively effected by it makes me a little biased, but I felt like I was coming to the same realization that Leslie was within that strip: the person I thought I liked turned out not to be the person I thought she was.
I’ll also admit I was a little bit hopeful near the end of the scene at the bar, especially with how Leslie left. However, that hope came crashing down when Robin showed up at Leslie’s home uninvited, refused to serious acknowledge Leslie’s complaints, broke back into the home after being forcefully evicted, and just dug deeper into her fabricated reality.
It especially hurts because I hate seeing Leslie being taken advantage of by Robin, being worn down slowly.
That’s pretty much the same part where I started feeling really uneasy about her. And the end of the bar scene, god, yes. Leslie stood up for herself, she made it clear that she couldn’t go against her moral code like that, she said NO. I was proud of her. And then Robin just completely ignored it all. And her refusal to accept Leslie’s answer is being played off for laughs. Even if it does take a sharp turn and she faces consequences, these strips were still meant to make the readers laugh as far as I can tell. And I don’t think it’s something to be laughing at.
I agree. I will admit that I do have a bias due to being in an emotionally abusive relationship with someone like Robin who disregarded my boundaries constantly. Probably another reason why this subplot & Leslie’s position within it hits me so hard.
I think that’s the point. You can just assume you’re correct in your interpretation. It’s supposed to feel creepy and out of place. Robin’s antics don’t belong here, and that heightens the absurdity in this strip.
I agree it heightens the absurdity but it also makes it feel really disjointed. It just doesn’t feel like it belongs. Cody C. and Zaidyer explained it better in their replies to my comment.
I also totally agree that it feels disjointed. What I’m trying to say is, if it feels that way to you, maybe it’s completely intentional on the author’s part.
Reading your other comments, I guess we have different levels of trust in the author. That’s okay then. See you!
This makes perfect sense if you ask me. I’m sure Robin is quickly joining Amazi-Girl on the shortlist of “reasons David Willis continues to receive messages accusing him of making up or misrepresenting Joyce and Becky’s religion”. Robin is so wacky you guys that she refuses to let the setting correct her no matter how many definitive attempts it makes. This gets readers to start asking questions about the credibility of the other outrageous things they’ve read.
It’s an indulgence I don’t like and am not comfortable with. Every time I talk about this comic with my friends, they see it and I have to explain to them that the cartoonist obviously just wants it both ways sometimes you see, and they’re like “yeah, I can see that. I’m gonna read something else”.
I didn’t even think about how it affected the credibility of other parts of the story, just that it clashes so greatly with it. But you’re absolutely right. Thanks for the explanation of how it affects the rest of the comic
Ever tried talking evolution with a Creationist? Or medicine with an anti-vaxxer? Or the Constitution with a Trumpoid? People who refuse to acknowledge they’re contextually insane … are real, and frighteningly common.
I can’t remember where I read it, but the idea is these people have incorporated these beliefs as a part of their identity, making it incredibly hard for them to admit said belief could be wrong or incredibly harmful. Instead, they shut out this new information as propaganda attempting to silence the truth so they can keep their worldview in tact.
Evolution means Original Sin isn’t true and that means everything is a lie. Not all Christians believe that of course, but tying it all together into that one package both makes it harder to reject, because you have to give up everything, but also makes it more likely you’ll reject religion entirely if you’re pushed far enough to reject any of it.
Enforcing the law against sitting politicians is a mixed bag. Still, something needs to happen, because this is awful. Which I believe is the point – Robin’s act and issues with seriousness is not something that can be wacky hijinked away in this universe. I think Willis is building to Leslie losing it on Robin.
I hope that’s the case, because each of these strips make me feel worse for Leslie. It also makes me wonder how Robin managed to get a seat in Congress in the first place, but looking at our current state of affairs, that isn’t really that hard to see anymore.
Which is so far out of left field for someone who has already expressed her fears and turbulent history with her own sexuality.
We had Toedad being shown as an -absolute villain- for going overboard with letting his beliefs overwhelm his care for Becky. We’re led to see Joyce’s mom as a ‘live at home’ villain for her religious bigotry.
But Robin is so wacky that she is somehow excused for being a villain? You can’t have wacky slapstick romcom when trying to support social justice and anti-trauma narratives.
As someone who’s had guys who wouldn’t back off (not quite to this point, I admit, thank God) I think it’s valid to be more annoyed than afraid because I’ve been there. I’m sure people who have actually been stalked have felt that way. Hence why I think this is going to build to a blow up on Leslie’s part. The reason things feel ‘wacky’ is because Robin doesn’t let anything NOT be due to her own issues, if my theory is right. But looking at it in the real world lens I can’t see anything but a build up to Leslie snapping.
The wacky goes beyond this interaction and through everything we’ve ever seen of Robin. If we’re taking her seriously, she should be ruled incompetent and assigned a guardian for her own good.
I can’t look at it through a real world lens because I can’t see how this Robin exists in the real world. Sure, she’s a congresscritter now which gets her some privileges, but how did she get there with no comprehension of basic social rules or even laws? Since we don’t get to use sugar-fueled super powers as an excuse here. Nor does she come from the kind of money that lets someone develop even a less exaggerated version of this.
Again, I have known people like Robin, so I have a hard time believing she’s unrealistic. Yeah, it’s been there the entire time – that’s a feature, not a bug, because that’s how Robin operates. And no, she’s not incompetent, she’s an asshole with no sense of boundaries who’s allergic to both consequences and any measure of seriousness. I’m 99% sure that if Robin’s strips feel forced or artificial, it’s because they’re supposed to because ROBIN is forced and artificial all the time.
As for Congress, A) Clearly competence and understanding of the law is not a real barrier and B) While Robin sucks at it, her campaign staff seems pretty competent. That counts for a lot.
Robin’s district must be so heavily gerrymandered as to be impervious to competition and full of people who would vote for a dead mule as long as it had an R next to its name.
I mean loons like Michelle Bachmann or Maxine Waters look competent by comparison.
Honestly, I don’t believe you’ve known people like Robin. Or, more accurately, I think your take on Robin is so far off from my take on Robin that saying that is meaningless. 🙂
Robin’s a parody of a Congresswoman. As I said elsewhere, even the worst Congresscritters don’t get told out loud in front of an audience to be “less panderingish” and “more panderingish” and then ask which persona they want to hear. Before the meeting sure, but not so openly.
And the same with the rest of her life, from what we’ve seen. How did this person make it through whatever she did before she became a Congresswoman? College? Some other job? Taken seriously, she needs a keeper.
No, which is part of the point – Robin’s a TERRIBLE congressperson. She may not have been so terrible when she first ran (or at least, kept her eye on it) but there’s no question now.
And no. No she really doesn’t. Being an asshole and an idiot is not the same as being mentally or physically disabled or ill to the point she can’t take care of herself.
That’s that different take again: I don’t think she’s an asshole and an idiot (in the colloquial sense) as much as detached from reality enough that she actually can’t take care of herself. She doesn’t appear to understand there’s anything wrong with breaking into Leslie’s place and just hanging out there. She’s not just a TERRIBLE congressperson, but it’s hard to see how she could have gotten there in the first place. She can’t even pander properly!
I mean, she could be a manipulative asshole, just pretending to be massively incompetent to lull everyone into complacency, but I think she’s pretty much what we see. Not stupid, just completely unaware.
I’m kind of waiting for a payoff I don’t know if it is ever coming. I don’t want Robin redeemed or in a relationship with leslie or any of that. I want her smacked down like Mary.
I can’t see any way she could end up with Leslie that wouldn’t have me beyond creeped out. She can be redeemed – although Grod knows that she’s wracking up a lot to apologize for – but I really do feel you can hit a point where a relationship is out of the question. Like, “good for you, you turned out to be a reasonable, worthwhile human being but no. You broke into my house and destroyed my stuff. Be happy friends is still on the table.”
She might possibly be worse than Mary, but I kinda wonder if Robin’s “oppresses gay people” is actually worse than Ryan’s “date-rapes girls regularly” and Toedad’s “kidnaps own daughter at gunpoint to subsequently oppress the gay out of her.”
“Oppresses all of the LGBT people in the state” is worse than “oppresses a single gay person” by any rational metric especially considering her actions enable abusers like Toedad by stripping LGBT youth of protection.
Not that I really want to get into measuring how evil any of these people are, but while she does aid in the oppression of all the LGBT people in the state (or in the country really, since she’s in Congress), but it’s not clear how much impact she’s actually had, being a junior member of Congress and all. The only bill we know of didn’t pass and certainly wasn’t just her work anyway. I don’t believe she has actually stripped LGBT youth of protection – not that they had much to start with.
Ross OTOH, while he’s basically limited his damage to Becky (and to her mother?), is very directly and personally responsible for that damage.
Okay, why does Leslie have posters still on her wall? Doesn’t she know that she’s an adult now… and they should be in a protected frame because come ON, that’s a vintage Back to the Future poster reprint!!!
In a few months, it turns out that this whole season is a dream Leslie had after realizing that Robin wasn’t the kind of person she had hoped she would be.
Narrator: After defeating Xavier, Kyle runs towards Robin and Joyce (if you want you may imagine him running ninja style) hoping to reach them before they reach Reginald.
Kyle: (thinking) 40 seconds…35…30…25..20….15….10…there they are!
Kyle: Wait!
Joyce: Huh?
Robin: What is it aide?
Kyle: You can’t go in there.
Joyce: Why not?
Kyle: If you do…
Narrator: Robin is shot through the door.
Joyce and Kyle: What!?
Narrator: The door opens and Reginald calmly steps out, a warm gun in his hand.
Reginald: I can hear you through the door you know. I assume you have determined my plan…
Joyce: Sort of.
Narrator: Kyle whispers information into Joyce’s ear.
Joyce: Ah.
Reginald: Although I planned to kill myself I now realize that offing a congresswomen will work just as well.
Joyce: Why are you doing this. Why do you want a war?
Reginald: My father plans to bring western religion and culture to our country, if that succeeds soon he will bring eastern religion and Christianity and Buddhism, and Hinduism and any others you may have! In the end…
Reginald: Robin will die soon. There is no way to stop a war…unless.
Joyce: What are you doing!?
Reginald: Here I stand, like Spender on the hill.
Narrator: Reginald shoots himself through the head. Collapsing at Joyce’s feet.
Joyce: I..I…AUGH! (Loud crying)
Narrator: Xavier appears behind her and Kyle.
Xavier: the Duke is dead. But we can still save your friend. We must hurry.
Robin: (coughs up blood)
Narrator: They do in fact manage to reach a hospital before Robin expires.
Later…
Ruth enters Joyce’s office
Ruth: I heard about what happened…and thank you.
Joyce: just doing my job.
Ruth: Will there be a war?
Joyce: Thankfully not, since all the evidence for Reginald’s death pointed towards suicide, and the reason why a congresswoman was shot is dead, no party has a reason to start a war.
Ruth: That’s good.
Narrator: Joyce gets up and looks outside her window.
Joyce: I do feel sorry though, all he ever wanted was to protect his way of life.
Ruth: I don’t have an answer for that.
Joyce: Does anybody?
Ruth: Oh by the way…a new case came up!
Joyce: Please, don’t tell me it’s another murder!
Ruth: Oh no..no..but some supplies have gone missing from the chemistry lab.
Joyce: Ah, much easier! On we go!
Narrator: Joyce grabs her fedora, and steps out into the hallway.
Any more thoughts on AG’s attitude towards Amber can go in response to this comment or idk I can make something on the QC boards I guess. Still don’t think there’s a lot of evidence AG has a blanket distrust of Amber so far.
When I was with my ex, there was a thing she would do, wherein she’d suddenly get it into her head that I had done some terrible wrong against her. Some of it was in response to her feeling she’d fucked up with me in some way, a lot of frequently was in response to abuse from her own family who was trying to bully her in the closet and diminish the success she had created for herself.
And I could try to argue with her, show proof that the things she was accusing me of couldn’t have happened, try and have a more neutral conversation where we tried to get to the root of why she felt I wronged her and what I could do in service to those feelings. But those actions were always futile, because in her own mental pathways, I had done wrong and needed to grovel and make up for it by being properly contrite and promising to do things to make up for it.
And it’s possible that the actions were deliberate, a means of gaslighting me out of recognizing negative behavior and impossible demands she was setting for me (like I wasn’t allowed to show signs I had been crying nor signs that I was angry about something even if that something had nothing to do with her). Certainly she did her share of that later. There was one particularly rough moment where some guy basically mused openly in front of me whether or not he should murder me like an after thought. Her response to that was that I was attacking her with this knowledge of what happened to me and trying to scare her and so I needed to never bring it up or show signs of struggling with the emotional fallout and instead take care of her emotional state about it and how I had harmed her by bringing it up.
I still love a lot about that relationship. The good times were very good and I still balk at calling it fully abusive, but those times when I would be put through the ringer of her delusions and her refusal to listen or respect what I wanted or needed, when I’d be asked to apologize for things that never happen and make a good show out of deciphering the exact right apology to make lest I be accused of being disingenuous. When I was caught up in the script she was writing, powerless to have any meaningful mark, trying to meet impossible standards and feeling like even more of a failure or second-guessing myself constantly to try and figure out if I was just blocking out huge swaths of my memories (cause being DID, knowing my memories of events are real and complete is somewhat critical for me and she fucked with my confidence about that pretty bad).
Those times I consider the dark times, and it was brutal. Her delusions could not be argued against and so it was easier to just give in and accept the framing and roll with it. I stopped trying to push back and I stumbled through as best I could hoping one day it would end and we’d be able to talk openly about what had happened.
Why I bring this up, is Leslie’s defeated grimace in Panel 2. Without the will to push back anymore. Just surrendering to the madness because the madness is not going to listen or respect to any attempt to set healthy boundaries or dynamics or dissuade Robin from following the feeling of what is “right” over any silly thing Leslie might actually say or want. I’ve been there and I recognize it.
That’s tough hun. Emotional abuse will not only make mental illnesses worse (it did for me and all I have is OCD, depression, and recovering from PTSD so I know it was rough on your mental health), it effects your physical health and can take longer to recover from than physical abuse. It sucks that you had to go through it, but I’m glad you came out the other side and were able to build a life for yourself. Not everybody is able to recover as well as you have which really speaks to how strong a person you are. I hope you know that 🙂
Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you say in a previous discussion that you had found someone? If so, I would love to hear about him/her/them. 🙂
Also some good sources for Ace individuals would be welcome if you get a free minute. One of my friends is trying to figure herself out and thinks she maybe asexual (mid 20s, never had any interest in any gender romantically or sexually, finds sex scenes in web comics and tv/movies to be boring and something she’s happy to be over so she can get back to the story, never ships characters,…), but isn’t really sure. She’s going back to college so a lot of her time is taken up with that right now so no rush, but she would like resources for when she goes on break.
Thanks. It’s still hard to fully wrap my head around it all because it didn’t feel as bad as other abusive situations people were in, but then I’m sure every abused person has said that.
Yeah, 🙂 I have a fiancee who goes by they pronouns and who is ace and trans and DID like me. I met them at Trans March and we bonded over over-analyzing Steven Universe and Sense8. They’re really great, but struggling a lot under Trump and facing a lot of bullshit harassment from folks who are trying to terrorize them by making “jokes” about how they’re going to take their stuff when they get thrown in a camp. I also have a girlfriend (I’m poly and very open about it) and this November we’ll have been together for five years. She’s very nice to cuddle. So I’m a happy Cerberus on all that front. 🙂
Ace individuals. Let’s see (and this probably won’t pop up until morning when Willis approves it):
The Asexuality Blog (http://www.theasexualityblog.com/home.html) Run by the tireless Sara covers a lot of topics and has a lot of active projects relating to asexuality and even includes a podcast on asexuality subjects.
And the webcomics Girls with Slingshots, Rain, Ignition Zero, Sister Claire, and GoGetARoomie all have major recurring ace characters in their storylines.
I mean, I know speculation of Lilian being ace, but I don’t think she’s ever said she was or even really knows exactly what she is. Plus she’s a main character, not recurring.
The only other person I can think of is possible WOC, if we are to believe her lover was not sexual. Or maybe who the cast page calls “Garden Boy,” though I thought he had another name. Though, since he’s just now being given access to the world, I’m not sure he knows what he is, either.
(I apologize if “what s/he is” is bad terminology.)
Lilian is pretty hard-coded as ace and Roomie is hard-coded as grey-aro. The words haven’t been used but the dynamics are familiar to ace and aro folks.
That comic is pretty nice, but I kind of balk at the way it tries to exclude ace people from lgbt communities unless they have a ‘truly oppressed’ gender identity/romantic orientation.
Like maybe I’m jumping the gun but I’m reminded instantly of everyone who tried to exclude me from the community when the only part of my identity I had accepted was my being ace and it gets my hackles up.
I should have read the whole thing instead of tabbing out, I admit. It deliberately welcomes them in as part of it later, but I’m still not totally sure what the significance of a supposed lack of institutional discrimination is, especially when it’s that same thing that’s often brought up to exclude ace people from the community.
…is it bad that I just now realized that your avatar is a dog that famously has three minds? Because I feel like I should have pieced that together a long time ago. I’ll go hand over my Greek Mythology Nerd License® now.
I think that’s the norm in fact. My dad is very emotionally abusive, but I always think how my mother was worse. It’s also how I ended up staying with my ex so long.
Wow! Not one but TWO good partners! Extremely jealous here. I love how you and your fiancé met. That’s just beautiful. Although I hate how hard it’s been on them lately. At least they have a supportive and strong partner to lean on. It much be worse for them in so many ways since they don’t fit in a neat little box. People are very binary minded overall. I hope you live in a town that’s more open than my own (it’s really behind with a good chunk of people against homosexuality and a troubling number who didn’t know what trans was especially before the whole bathroom bullshit). If yall are in a backwards area, I hope you both can blend (I know one cis woman who can pass for either gender depending on her clothes and makeup) so yall can avoid most of the idiots. You are a good person and they must be a good person too to be your legal partner and I hate to think of either of you going through any more hell that yall have to.
I hate to admit that I was very binary minded until a few years ago although I never knew there was anything other than (cis and trans) male and female. Imagine my surprise as I studied to find out that I was most likely not born cis! I identify as female which is how I never dug deeper into why I had to be taken into surgery after being born, had a second surgery as a teen, and have a scar and no labia minora. I asked my dad and he said the doctors just told him there was something wrong and they had to fix me. I had to get the inner part of my labia majora fixed when I became sexually active because the skin was paper thin causing me problems. At least I have a uterus and at least 1 ovary (I might have 2 but they have never seen it on tests) so I might be able to have biological children someday, but sometimes I could do without the uterus because periods suck!
Can I ask a DID question? Feel free to skip this by the way. When you meet someone and feel like you hit it off, do all alters have to sign off on them? After you’ve been together a while, is it possible for one alter to want to break up or one alter to want to stay in when the others want out? With Amber saying that Danny is AG’s, was she saying that because of where they were or is it possible for Danny to date one alt?
It’s kinda funny that people often confuse polysexuals like me with poly like you. It’s like saying bi is the same thing as bifocals because they both start with “bi”. XD
I’m monogamous myself in that when I go out with someone I am only with that person until whatever comes of it is over rather it’s one date or many dates or something serious. However, if I found 2 people I had a deep connection with who had the same with each other I might consider life as a 3 piece set. It’s not something I go out and look for and it would have to be something really special. I don’t tell other people either. Too many already think bisexuals and polysexuals are sluts who love threesomes and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna give them ammo! 😉
Honestly? I’ve never had any luck in the romantic department. I pick bad partners. Sometimes I doubt I will ever even find a decent partner much less a great one. I haven’t been on a date in a year and a half. It saddens me sometimes because I would like a partner and to maybe one day be a mother (I asked about adoption and they turned me down hard being single and on disability unable to work). Then I think of the terrible crap I’ve been through and the headaches they caused and want to sign up to be a spinster.
Thanks! I’ll pass all the links on to her. I really appreciate you taking the time 🙂
PS: Sorry for the later reply. I typed you a long response much earlier but my browser crashed and I hadn’t copied what I typed, so in frustration I decided to reply later.
“There was one particularly rough moment where some guy basically mused openly in front of me whether or not he should murder me like an after thought. Her response to that was that I was attacking her with this knowledge of what happened to me and trying to scare her and so I needed to never bring it up or show signs of struggling with the emotional fallout and instead take care of her emotional state about it and how I had harmed her by bringing it up.”
WHAT IS EVEN THIS?! O_o FOR THE EVER-LOVING STABILITY OF THE TIME-SPACE CONTINUUM, WHAT THE EVEN FUCK IS THIS?! o_O
I’ve talked about the first part of this before. This was the guy in the car who casually mused about whether or not to circle back and kill me cause I dared trans and be on a date with my girlfriend (same one as current) and that somehow ruined his boner.
My ex’s reaction when I tried to process it afterwards was… novel to say the least. And it ended in me agreeing never to again bring it up and instead help her through the fallout of how I had “tried to harm her” by bringing up something so scary and was thus to never bring it up again or even be seen processing it while simultaneously supporting her in her “hour of need”, because secondary trauma > primary trauma.
She was also present at my public rape and her lack of intervention or alarm was a key part of why I assumed what was happening must have somehow been normal until it was too late as it were. In her defense, she was instrumental in getting me out of there afterwards and in a fit state to function, but once I was stabilized, I wasn’t allowed to really bring it up too much lest I be accused of “trying to make her feel guilty” and had to do a lot of support work for her regarding how scary it was for her to watch that happen.
These parts definitely are her less than stellar moments, but she’s also had a lot of positive moments in my life in the time we’ve been together and I know part of her aversion is because of her own experiences facing emotional abuse and sexual assault. She also had a twisted way of viewing supporting someone else and how to respond to guilt, because her mom liked to use moments of guilt in order to extort an ever-expanding list of abusive favors and subjugations of herself.
So I know a lot of the bad was just because she had a lot of stuff come up when she felt guilty or like she had failed me in some way and handled that poorly and then got caught in a guilt loop where things got… bad. And it probably didn’t help that she got it in her head when I came out that she needed to be the “man” of the relationship and thus protect me from the bad things, so if I was processing something awful or upsetting, then she’d feel guilty about not preventing the bad thing and protecting me from it and thus get locked in the bad guilt mode response.
And the worst part of it was I wasn’t allowed to bring up this cycle because that triggered the guilt as well and wound up her finding ways in which I’d wronged her so we could be equal and then emotionally processing it as we weren’t equal and I’d been the only one who did wrong in order to try and escape the guilt spiral.
She’s not a bad person but yeah, some of the end results of this stuff were… rough to deal with.
But that all said, part of why we fell apart was cause I caught her out using gaslighting tactics intentionally to “win” an argument and she often made me feel like I had to make up for being ace, trans, and DID and insisted my DID made me inherently untrustworthy and dangerous (this was the justification for the no strong emotion ban, because even years into our relationship she was still convinced I would someday snap like the DID people in movies, which was rich because the attempts to repress actually were worse for my condition and meant I self-injured more to cope), so who knows if I was just being naive about it all and being too willing to assume a benign interpretation of things.
Certainly it’s been hard since to assume that partners actually are okay with those traits and aren’t seeing them as something I need to apologize for by being an extra good partner. And it’s hard asking a partner for emotional or physical help or about something that upset me, because part of me still reflexively flinches and assumes the worst.
I dunno, it’s hard to know what even to feel about all of it.
RBN is a decent community too, they might be able to point you towards resources more relevant to you. I wish I could remember more than that one link.
Hey, you rock. That must have been so taxing, plus getting out of there must have been super hard. Damn. I’m sorry you had to deal with it, it was deeply unfair, major high fives for getting out of there in the end. <3
You said it's hard to know what to feel about it: 'conflicted' is a perfectly valid response. I wanna validate your feels at every moment regarding the end of a relationship that really needed ending.
It's okay & sensible to be mournful and mad and furious and bummed about it. It's okay to be both sorry and glad about losing them, and of course elated to find yourself again (plus people who are way awesomer for you), woo!
You weren't wrong for loving or missing this person's positive traits, either. You have a heart full of love, but some people are just too unhealthy or toxic to properly love you back. (It's totally fine that your partner clearly needed help from a therapist to deal with their many triggers, for example, but not remotely okay to demand their partner become their therapist, and even worse to demand you to become a stone with no feelings.) I wish your ex-partner luck in their therapy, and that they stay far far away, you know?
I am grateful for your emotional and intellectual strength, for your resourcefulness in setting up supports as you and this person split up, and your resilience in rebuilding your life and self-esteem afterwards. Love to you.
Panels 1-2: I’ve gone over the defeated sigh, but it’s worth also noting that Leslie has not once in the last two days been allowed to complete her morning routine in peace, instead having to jump from 1 to crisis management as her literal waking moment both times.
Those who’ve had issues with proper sleep schedules or an inability to establish a safe routine know how disorienting that can be and how that can color the rest of your day. It’s only a small piece of the wrong Robin has done to Leslie, but it’s an important one to note in how she’s not only being run ragged by Robin’s inner monologue but she’s also probably mentally exhausted as well.
Panel 3: Ugh, Robin has moved her script in her head and now has cast herself as the “loyal wife”/”wacky roommate” role, playing to her inner monologue of how that dynamic is supposed to go. Using half-remembered snips probably from a television show about what it means to be a “good guest”, but ignoring the central premise of actually having consent and listening to the boundaries and requests of the person granting you the space. And in that way, it’s practically Trumpian, playing at the structure and the optics of a thing, but understanding nothing of its actual purpose or workings.
Panel 4: And of course, she’s also terrible at it. I have a feeling she’s never once had to live on her own without a staff or a family to ensure she’s eating healthily and dressing herself. She has no life skills, but is convinced she can play a domestic role if it means not having to accept the consequences of her actions.
Panel 5: Is it just me or are all the light colored shirts a soft lilac color, almost as if the purple shirts in that basket bled through on all the white ones. So, I think we can count this one in the list of what she has destroyed.
And of course Leslie’s responses and questions might as well be nothing to Robin. She’s trying to will an alternative reality into being and responding as if it was true and Leslie was super excited to have a new U-haul girlfriend who’s really totes straight but is definitely living her forever and never leaving and trying to fit a sitcom idea of what it means to be a roomie or a girlfriend.
Panel 6: Which makes her face here tragic. She’s given up on setting anymore boundaries, on trying to correct Robin’s behavior. But she’s still got the little bit of life in her to object to the destruction of things that matter to her. And it’s tragic, because it seems on this current path, she’ll become numb to that as well.
That certainly was the case for me. It all just became… what you did to get by. And I learned to minimize when they came up by never bringing up any issues and just riding through the bad and saying whatever caused the least damage. Knowing nothing I did or said mattered to the psychodrama playing in her own head.
As I mentioned below I am legitimately scared for Leslie’s well being. This, this horrifying. And to see Leslie so crushed is tear jerking. Speaking of tearjerking, I wasn’t here to comment yesterday because my friends and I all got together to watch a movie, and it’s been about a year since all of us were together in the same room. Long story short, we had to stop the movie about half an hour in because I was bawling my eyes out uncontrollably, and kept crying for about two hours. After an hour of calming down after that we continued said movie. Then afterwards I kept remembering the scene that made me cry every couple of hours and I’d start sobbing again for twenty minutes. So I was not in an emotionally set state to comment yesterday, and am barely holding it together today. I’m just so glad I had the weekend off from the bar. A crying bouncer is not an intimidating one.
1. Sympathies, and I hope that at least the catharsis and/or the closeness was/were worthwhile.
2. I dunno, I think I’d find a crying bouncer quite intimidating, in a “how do I deal with this?” sense. Like, “Are you okay, dude who could break me in half?”
In response to statement 2, I’m not very tall (only 5’11”) and I couldn’t break someone in half. Arms are easy to break, spines are much more difficult.
…
Don’t ask me how I know that.
OMG foamy thank you! LITERALLY NOBODY but you in the comments has mentioned this and I thought I might be seeing things!!
Look at her!! she’s clearly butt naked!!
Eh…If it’s just and Episode I poster then the vacuum damage is minimal. However, this is just nuts and scary. Good god almighty but Robin must have already taken at least a decade off of Leslie’s life from the sheer amount of stress. Cerberus mentioned in part of her analysis above proper sleep cycles and routines, the difficulty of reestablishing them and the fact that Leslie has to wake up and immediately enter damage control mode. The physical and mental strain this is putting on her is alarming and dangerous to her health.
Not sure what to say in a coherent manner. Maybe because it’s 7am in the morning or maybe because of how fucked up this is. I’m scared. Robin scares me. This whole forcefully making herself a part of Leslie’s life is extremely uncomfortable on every level and the slapstick shenanigans whatever going on in the last panel just makes it confusing too. I really can’t tell what the mood of this page is supposed to convey.
The more of these comments I read, the less apologetic I feel about how much I hate Robin.
Because I hate Robin. Her reality distortion field refuses to be switched off and it is bad writing to continue rewarding it with cheap laughs. Leslie should have made her peace, parted ways, and never seen Robin again. Leslie should have thrown Robin out the door and never seen Robin again, except in the tabloids, who should have annihilated Robin the moment all those news vans parked outside should have seen her getting forcibly thrown out the door.
I don’t care why the story needs her to stick around. Robin needs to go away and stay gone. She needs to stop ruining Leslie’s life and undermining her character. She needs to stop watering down the tone of the comic by continuing to get away with violating it.
I should hope so. Bad writing is such an awful accusation to make and I often regret making it, because it shouldn’t be made lightly and certainly not about a story in progress.
Bottom line is Robin needs to be dealt with and her antics should not be normalized. Not by the “that’s our Robin!” effect she’s angling for, and sure as hell not by Leslie letting herself get worn down.
I think the point is that in most of pop culture, this would be played for cheap laughs (think of how many rom-coms are basically the leading man stalking the leading woman because ~*~wacky hi-jinks~*~ until she’s worn down and gives in), but it’s actually supremely creepy behavior.
I don’t being funny and creepy are mutually exclusive. Horrible things are often also prime subjects for humor. We just avoid making jokes about these things to just anyone, so as to avoid being assholes to people are deeply personally affected by them.
Maybe. I’m far from convinced of that. I’d be much more convinced if the narrative wasn’t playing the wacky pretty much straight. I’m not getting the creepy tone. It should be there, given the situation. I get it recaps like Cerberus’s, but not from the actual strips.
Robin’s too much like a toon for it work for me.
And I don’t believe this storyline ends with Robin in jail. Or better yet in an institution, because this Robin, taken seriously, shouldn’t be capable of living without a keeper.
Or a hospital, for heaven’s sake. At this point Leslie is entirely justified — morally and legally — in physically restraining Robin and having her arrested.
I hope and trust that the reason she hasn’t goes beyond “lol zany”; I can think of a few, such as active reluctance to avoid the publicity or a distrust of the justice system given her and Robin’s positions, but this underreaction thing is really bugging me 🙁
I’m still surprised we haven’t seen any news within the comic of Robin being spotted breaking into a place of residence after being thrown out since Leslie’s condo was supposed to be surrounded by the press.
..well, actually I think I’m starting to forgive myself after reading a zillion comments, but, it still hurts, liking someone who’s doing terrible things. every robin-comic is another kick to the stomach. And she’s just a fictional character, she can’t come into *my* room and destroy *my* stuff.
Look at the bright side, Leslie: all the while Robin is there, she isn’t in office making decisions that will affect the fate of thousands! You’re doing a service to the whole state!
Clearly, Robin doesn’t make any decisions, ever. Whatever she does as a Congressperson is a result of her staff telling her what to do. Which means she’s doing all the damage even when she’s here.
Oh good heavens, she’s turning into one of those room-mates!
You can’t help but wonder just how long she’s planning to hide away from the world in Leslie’s apartment. You also can’t help but wonder why she so desperately wants to hide away like this.
She wants.
She’s not fully aware of what she wants, or willing/capable of admitting it to herself, and certainly not one for examining the matter at all.
She just wants, and she will ignore or deflect anything stopping her from getting what she wants.
Absolutely self-focused.
Absolutely terrifying.
I mean this is DoA, where shitty things happen to almost everyone consistently. Didn’t know what else I was expecting.
This level of buildup usually carries some severe repercussions though. I’m curious to see how this ends. Not too interested on following this train wreck any longer though.
I’d rather more Mary than more Robin. I’d rather more ANYONE ELSE than more Robin. No-one else’s evil gets played as wacky hijinks. The other villains are shit people, but they’re at least acknowledged by the rest of the cast as shit people. Ryan’s fully aware he’s horrible, Blaine outright acknowledges it with sadistic glee, and Mary at least has this grim acceptance that everyone else is against her side (even if she’s wrong that her side isn’t shit).
This, of course, may be the point that Willis is trying to get across with this arc – that shit people are not just the grim, serious, and gleeful sadistic, but they can sometimes present their shit under a facade of friendly smiles and wacky jokes.
I dunno, Mary’s meanness got briefly played as Wacky Hijinks with Carla’s skates and the glue, before getting turned to something more serious. Hopefully a similar turn is coming here, but it’s been a long time coming.
I still can’t take the “glue in the skates” strip seriously, due to the comicness of the faceplant panel.
I DO think it makes a difference that, in that arc, Mary was awful AFTER the comic relief strip – once you hit the transphobia, there were no laughs to be had – while Robin is being awful DURING the comical strips.
It was well done though because at the start it was whacky then in the middle part it was left quite ambiguous or at least arguments could be made for Mary then it all got very serious
Very good point for demonstrating just how quickly things can change
What I find in these comics is actually a reason why Leslie could like Robin, while still acknowledging how awful she is. Forever, I couldn’t understand why Leslie was ever attracted to Robin. But all this goofy stuff makes it make so much more sense.
Don’t get me wrong. Robin is awful. But she’s really good at seeming endearing, even when you know how awful she’s being.
ZERO of Robin’s appearances in DoA strike me as endearing. Creepy. Stalkery. Call SWAT-y. But not endearing. The more Robin shows up, the LESS I understand how someone who isn’t in desperate need of an education in healthy personal relationships could be attracted to her. I could see it (if I squinted really hard and it was twilight) when Robin was just a nebulous presence defined as a beautiful woman who is successful in a difficult career path; but the more we see of her the more I wish for the serendipitous truck of the poll.
Exactly what part of breaking into someone’s home and destroying/commandeering their possessions is endearing? This isn’t goofy it’s deeply inappropriate and unsettling.
I assume these comic strips with Robin being annoying fool and invading Leslie privacy just cause she likes to do it should make us feel funny inside, right?
It makes me rage if anything wanting to remove Robin from the comic completely.
I’m not familiar with US Universities organisation, but since Leslie has a landlord, wouldn’t it mean she lives off campus (and therefore campus security wouldn’t be an option)? But yessss, the police. Or an exterminator.
As someone who owns many posters, almost all of them first press bonuses for CD’s and DVDs of my favorite Japanese Idols, I would probably kill Robin if I was in Leslie’s position.
Okay. I’m going to offend some people here – well alot of people, but this really needs to be said.
HOLY FUCK YOU GUYS IT’S JUST A WEB COMIC
Robin isn’t a horrible person. ROBIN IS NOT A PERSON AT ALL. She is a caricature that is deliberately exaggerated. Her behavior isn’t damaging anyone because .. OMG LESLIE ISN’T A REAL PERSON EITHER.
Seriously though on some level I bet that Willis is glad people cared so much about something he created, but there’s also the opposite side that obsesson is not a healthy thing and some of you really REALLY need to take a step back and ground yourself, because I’m seeing alot of shitting your pants crazy when it comes to people’s reactions to what a bunch of fictional characters are up to.
Dude/Gal I really hope you’re not talking about Cerberus here and the way she opens up with her personal history in these comics, because if so you’re way out of line.
And while there is a certain silliness to overanalyzing fiction (it’s called “fan wank” for a reason) you’re exaggerating yourself if you think it’s so unhealthy. It’s the mark of GOOD fiction if the audience can identify with the characters and relate them to their real life. It’s the mark of VERY GOOD fiction if the story helps people get through their real hard times
Have you considered that this comic might be cathartic for some people, that the issues raised allows people to talk about similar issues they’ve experienced, to unload and feel better?
That the comic might be useful for helping change attitudes by helping people see mirrors of themselves and then discuss those changes?
I personally can identify with a number of characters on here as I’m sure a lot of other people can as well so of course when that happens storylines are going to effect people as they will have experienced what the characters are going through
It’s almost as if, when presented with a piece of artwork, different people choose different levels of emotional investment in it, and may have different feelings (largely based on their life experiences). Fancy that!
Also please allow me to introduce you to the comments section, it is on the Internet, where some people enjoy chatting about fiction at length.
Why does this bother you, really?
Honestly, yeah. It is just a comic, but that doesn’t mean it can’t tackle tough topics or create relatable characters that let people open up about their lives. I tend to take things like Mike’s mistreatment of others in stride, as just a (terrible) joke, but when poeple in the comments discuss real world implications of these things, I find it interesting. It gives a view into the experiences of others because they are willing to open up after reading the comic, and that’s really cool. Half the reason I read this is because i like seeing how the other folks down here interpret it.
I still have some faith that Willis won’t actually go with “lol wacky” Robin and let her get away with her gross ignoring of boundaries; but this storyline is running ragged. That’s three times that Leslie wakes up/turns around to see the annoying pest refuses to leave. I think we’ve had enough
Shortpacked Robin was in a goofy comics featuring reality-bending wacky hi-jinks, and her legislative agenda while a US Congressperson was decidedly less bigoted.
I think for a lot of readers, it didn’t strike the same note as it does here, because this “wacky hijinks” in DoA have a tonal dissonance that they lacked in a comic that had a resurrected Reagan and Jesus, and an AI car, and a “drama tag” and inter-dimensional travel, all based on a sort of rubber “rule of funny” reality.
So just to clarify, Robin has at this point pretty much deep-sixed her political career at this point, right? I mean, she’s a family-values candidate who got caught (apparently) smooching a lady at a bar and has since stayed at that lady’s house for two days, with the press gathered outside. I mean, unless her opponent has already weathered decades of political character assassination and the head of the FBI comes out the week before the election with a vague “we suppose something we found might lead to something but not really” letter right before the election, I can’t really see Robin’s campaign bouncing back from this. Indiana isn’t that red.
Robin would be far from the only family values or reactionary homophobe who survived a gay scandal. Usually, though, it requires doubling down on the homophobia.
The simple fact is even if Robin is an enormous hypocrite, she’s still the Republican candidate and the other guy is the Democrat. Of course she’s going to win.
[ ] Get hit by a truck
[ ] Die in a fire
[ ] Be appointed to a Cabinet position
If I don’t want her appointed to Cabinet but also don’t want her to suffer bodily harm what do I select? Get hit by a truck and hope that it’s either a toy truck or a very slow moving truck?
Ehhh. I’m all for cute lesbian couples and I was really hoping it would work out between these two. But the more wacko junk Robin pulls, the less endearing and joyful it is. It’s getting kind of painful and irritating at this point.
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“Also I spayed your dog!”
“I don’t have a- you know what? I don’t want to know.”
Now if it was her cat, however…
“Where’d you even get these twizzlers from if you never left the house?”
“Are you telling me you don’t keep a pocketful of twizzlers?”
Hmm that’s not where I was trying to comment.
Replying to a thread about fixing an unknown cat with the creation of mystery twizzlers brings some unpleasantly evocative images to mind.
“Since we’re apparently doing sitcom stuff I also painted a line down the middle of your apartment dividing my stuff from yours.”
“It’s ALL my stuff!”
I call bullshit.
??? On what exactly?
Too late. Bullshit has been called.
Well dang.
So does this mean I pack my bags? Head out of the comments section?
It’s been a good time hanging out with you all, I’ll never forget the laughs we shared. Look after each other, keep the place going. Don’t let The Faz back in.
*Takes one last look at the comments page, sadly puts on a hat, and turns to walk out the door pausing only to turn out the light.*
-scene.
Buuuuuuuuuuuuullshit.
You could always come back via Netflix. It worked for Young Justice.
I’m actually in talks trying to get a spinoff show going.
Failing that we’ll see how test markets deal with my leaving and if it’s bad I’ll get a half-episode subplot midway next season explaining how I had been framed for the Bullshit by a heretofore unknown archenemy from childhood.
You know, I’m still disappointed that Young Justice wasn’t an adaptation of the comic by Peter David …
R: “Okay then.” *Starts painting lines down the middle of every individual object*
L: *SIGH*
Omg I never realized Leslie & Robin’s initials were L & R! I’d say it’s conveniently appropriate for their political views if Leslie’s name weren’t already conveniently appropriate for her sexuality.
Sadly, charmingly wacky though this is, I fear we’re in for another turf war between the “cartoony silliness” crowd and the “Robin’s a stalker” crowd. Oh well…
Though, I have to say, this has all made me curious how a modern audience would respond to “The Cat Came Back”…
I think we’ve crossed the line from stalker to squatter-slash-home-invader.
What irks me, to the extent that it does, is that the types of behaviors Robin’s exhibiting (or “folkway violations”) are perfectly acceptable fodders for comedy specifically because this is not how normal people are supposed to behave. Contrast between expectation and presentation and such.
And now, I think I’m thinking way too hard about this! LOL
I think Leslie’s reaction go a long way to showing that what Robin’s doing clearly doesn’t fly in this universe. It’s a brilliant subversion of an otherwise-harmful message that I’ve noticed is somewhat typical of Willis’ work. In fact, I’m writing an essay on that right now!
I think Commodore has a rather valid point. Since we know Leslie better, a lot of us are relating to her. She is clearly not finding this funny, causing us to not find it funny, seeing it as Robyn refusing to think of someone else’s feelings beyond her own to the point of breaking into Leslie’s house after she was thrown out.
With a crowbar!
It would be funnier if this didn’t have the large chance of destroying Leslie’s career and life. Also if Robin was just some random woman instead of an asshole politician that’s been actively making life worse for people like Leslie.
And if it didn’t echo a really big problem we’re facing politically where a critical mass of the US and many other countries are straight up refusing to believe in reality and trying to brute force their fictional world so hard that people will stop fighting them while they get angrier and angrier that reality doesn’t cow as easily.
It becomes way less cute and more, yeah, our president who has been linked to Robin in other ways before does do that thing of openly and blatantly breaking the law or committing treason and we all shrug and normalize it because he’s a “force of nature” who refuses to follow any legal law or greater good.
At the rate Trump is going, I honestly think it may only be a month or two before he dies of either a heart attack, a stroke, or both. Now, normally I’m not one to wish for somebody else’s death, but he passed beyond the line of “I would feel guilty about shooting this person in the head” a long time ago. But then we’re stuck with Pence. Who, at this point, may actually be the greater of the two when it comes to evil. Because at this point practically no one is willing to deal with Trump. The NSA doesn’t trust him with secure intelligence because they think he’ll give classified intel over to the Russians, the court system is currently fighting him hard, the entire press aside from Breitbart (including Fox News) is actually doing the job of a free press in a democracy by calling him on his bullshit, some federal agencies or branches of federal agencies are ignoring his orders, he pissed off a ton of police and mayors of “sanctuary cities” by threatening federal funding, and his attempted Muslim ban pissed off major elements within the military because now it will be harder to get local translators to help American troops. The only people currently in favor of pisshair are the people who wanted that wall (which a large portion of the border patrol thought and still think is a bad idea) which doesn’t even cover the Texas-Mexico border or a 24-mile long stretch of the Arizona border because those are natural borders formed by rivers that legally cannot be blocked due to international treaty. His latest “press confrence” might as well have been called a meltdown. The increased hate and violence created by his campaign is still a major problem but it’s one that’s being fought by organizations who have also received a groundswell of support in response to said hatred. I’m still worried about my friends as I’ve mentioned before, but the Orange bastard may have already lost and he just doesn’t know it yet. Hopefully.
Honestly, it is staggering the amount of damage that rotting pumpkin wearing a poorly constructed human costume has done in such an incredibly short time. Before Election Day, I heard some Trump Voters explain they were voting for him because they saw him as a bomb that would blow up the establishment so it could be rebuilt. Unfortunately, I think they failed to realize they would most likely be caught in the explosion.
A lot of people here in America, on both sides, have an astonishingly naive idea of how revolutions work, including the cost (human and otherwise) involved and how much the part in the middle sucks, and an assumption that what comes out of the revolution is always better than what preceded it.
There’s also the assumption they’ll be exempt from the hardship or the inevitable fallout. It honestly makes me want to just smack my head against the nearest wall until I’m too numb to think about it.
1.8 million Brits signed a petition to uninvited him to GB.
I didn’t dare to read the article on the people who think he’s doing a great job, though.
Everybody and anybody comments on “he gets things done” (sort of) and this shows a much too common fatigue with the time a democratic process takes to get things done (because discussions and dealing well with differences of POW etc takes time even if you can cut back on interference from lobby groups).
@ StClaire
I think the main reason for this naive idea is the fact that our revolution didn’t fall prey to all the things a revolution can fall prey to. Our founding fathers, or at least George Washington (the most popular) really did believe “no one has the right to boss us around”, not the usual “I, and I alone, have the right to boss us around”. That’s what happened with Cromwell. And Robespierre. And Stalin. And Mao. And Castro. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are only two Revolutions in recorded history that were “successful”: the American Revolution and the Glorious Revolution (which doesn’t really count because no shots were fired – and the “good guys” won long before it began).
Honestly, I’d take Pence right now. He would be awful, no doubt and especially brutal to queer folks like me, but he’s at least not going to normalize nazism, openly defy the rule of law, try and destroy freedom of press, and wouldn’t launch nukes over a bad tweet.
I’m 100% with you on this. Being apart of the same community, I view Pence as a monster, but at least I don’t worry he’ll do something so incredibly stupid that it actually might push North Korea over the edge. This might be one of the only times where I support the idea of the “lesser of two evils”.
Yeah, we’d have to fight his hateful policies much like we’ve fought Trump’s, but the nation would be less likely to burn down in the meantime.
Though if we could give them BOTH the boot, we’d still be stuck with Paul Ryan, but he’d be a return to normal levels of shit in the White House
and this is where we are. this is what it’s come to.
And Pence lacks Trumps apparent complete immunity to the consequences of his actions by dint of some weird twisted charisma that only conservative white people can perceive.
Plus any scenario where Trump is ousted in favor of Pence likely leaves the Republican base split and outraged. The Party can’t help but be weakened in that situation.
Excepting the Trump drops dead scenario, I suppose.
@ “blame white people”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/latinos-voted-donald-trump-president-election-a7412591.html
I believe Trump’s entire campaign and administration is being investigated for Russia. I’m fairly certain any fallout from that will get him out on his ass.
@ Killjoy – …Well, yeah, obviously it wasn’t only white people who voted for him, but that was the majority of his base. Latinx folks overwhelmingly voted for Hillary.
“Him” being Pence if he takes over.
@killjoy
“the president-elect secured at least 18 per cent of the Hispanic-American vote”
Ah yes. That 18% are truly to blame, and not the literal majority of white people who voted for him.
@ Li
In response to yet another “white people did it” post, it was pointed out that people who are not white ALSO voted for Trump.
Somehow, this is taken as “blame Hispanics”.
Oh well.
I probably need to preface this with yet another clear statement that I think Trump is the strutting, grinning incarnation of the dark underbelly of American culture. He’s a bloviating ignoramus, a self-aggrandizing bully, a zero-sum might-makes-right jackass with an infantile ego, who sees life divided into “winners” and “losers”, and “losers” only worthy of scorn and belittlement.
Anyway… instead of concentrating on the pablum of a “stupid ignorant racist old white males” narrative, take a look at the flip-side percentages of how many people who DON’T fit the narrative voted for Trump.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/
43% of women voters, voted for Trump
43% of voters with a college degree, voted for Trump
37% of voters age 18-29, voted for Trump
29% of Hispanic voters, voted for Trump — about 3.77 million voters
8% of black voters, voted for Trump
So let’s not kid ourselves and take the easy narrative here. Whatever happened with Trump, wasn’t only about education, or race, and pointing that out isn’t “blaming” anyone.
And pointing out what the majority of his base was – White, middle to upper class, married, older Christian (especially Evangelical) men without a college education – matters because it tells us the bigger targets for new elections. And most of those aren’t smaller majorities, they’re big ones.
In any election, you can assume a percentage of every demographic will vote for both – what matters is what percentage. And trying to basically reverse engineer NotAllWhiteMen for this is not helping because it ignores who the majority of Trump voters actually are.
For instance – yes, 8% of black people voted for Trump. And? That isn’t anywhere near as helpful in stopping him next election as the fact 80% of Evangelicals voted for him.
@killjoy
You are literally using the fact that a majority of people in America are white to obscure the fact that most of the people voting for Trump were white.
Look at literally any breakdown by race and you will see tha a MAJORITY of white women voted for Trump while a MINORITY, a TINY minority, of Black, Hispanic, and Asian women did.
Most of that 43% of women who voted for him WERE WHITE. Most of that 43% with a college degree WERE WHITE.
I’m white, too. As a college educated white woman, a mere 51% of my pathetic and treacherous voting block went to Hillary, and my voting block is the ONLY group of white peoples which did.
This is on us. Dodging accountability for it? THAT’s taking the easy narrative. THAT’s kidding ourselves.
@ Li
In terms of “we”, there are only two that count — human being, and American.
I voted for Hillary, and I told people to note vote for Trump. I’m not responsible for Trump winning.
I refuse to be held collectively responsible for what other people did based on accidents of skin color or chromosomes or whatever.
Funny, you certainly seemed to feel like you were part of “white people” when you were loudly insisting that it isn’t white peoples fault Trump got elected.
By the by, this kind of thinking? The unwillingness to accept that white people as a whole are racist and that we as white people bear responsibility for both the legacy and ongoing power of white supremacy?
This is literally how a lot of us rationalized voting for Trump. Being “tired of being called racist”. Taking comfort in being told by Baron Fuckface von Clownstick that no, we haven’t done anything wrong; that actually we are the VICTIMS of “racism taken too far”; that we are all humans, equally if not more oppressed than people of color; that our hurt feelings are more important than other people’s systemic disenfranchisement.
Getting mired in self-pity, letting yourself start to believe that people who talk about bad shit white people have done are personally attacking you and need to stop, that is what opens the door to radicalization.
It is those feelings that the ideologue seizes upon, telling you that you’re right to wallow in self-pity and that other people are to blame for the guilt you feel by association to white supremacy.
So if you’re going to refuse something, let it be that. Let it be refusing to let white guilt make you angry at the people who are talking about the shit we’ve done, when you should be angry at us for doing it instead.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-compiles-psychological-dossier-trump-putin-n723196
“Naive risk-taker” is putting it mildly. The Kremlin is now learning how much of a curse is implicit in the old phrase “be careful what you wish for”.
that would be the worst possible option. Trump may be a nutjob, but he is way WAY better than pence on human rights issues and GBLT stuff.
Only in the sense that he believes whatever was last said to him, while Pence is always wrong. The problem here is that Pence will always be the last person to speak to him on this stuff.
The guy who thinks we should bring back torture and would love to round journalists and Muslims up into camps is absolutely not any better on human rights.
At BEST – and this requires taking the Mandarin’s word at face value FAR more than I’m comfortable with – Trump himself isn’t actively against LGBT rights. Even if that’s actually true, you’d be foolish to trust that he’ll lift a finger to defend the LGBT community from action by Congress, or even his own cabinet.
Jeff Sessions has already indicated he won’t be bothering to prosecute anti-LGBT discrimination, and I strongly doubt Piss Hitler would veto an anti-LGBT bill if Congress put one on his desk.
Literally the only reason I could imagine him defending LGBT rights is if it threatened to get in the way of him persecuting Muslims.
MatthewTheLucky: That’s not quite true. Sometimes it’ll be Bannon who speaks to him last. Probably more often. Trump doesn’t actually seem too close to Pence.
Not that this improves things much, though it might change the targets a bit.
I think you overestimate the chances of Trump’s health failing him. He goes to the residence by 6pm when he’s in Washington at all. He’s vacationing in Florida more weekends than he isn’t. He’s keeping his stress under control, don’t worry.
I think our best hope is that he remains too unhinged for the Republicans in Congress to keep tolerating. They only put up with him because he’s nominally in their party and will sign their legislation (and appoint their people to head the various agencies and sit on the court benches). But if his erratic and idiotic behavior keeps sabotaging their ability to advance their agenda – which to a large degree it is – he becomes more of a liability than an asset. The instant that Ryan and McConnell decide that dealing with the fallout of impeaching a president from their own party is less than the chaos that Trump causes, he’s going to be forced out of office.
I’m pretty sure that’s why Pence is Vice President. He’s the Republican establishment’s insurance plan.
She’s a cartoonily silly stalker!
As much as I love Shortpacked I don’t consider Robin/Leslie to be a lodestar of the multiverse. Shortpacked Robin is wrong for this world. She warps it just by existing, and the longer she sticks around the more she retroactively demonstrates just how phenomenally unhealthy her relationship with Leslie has always been. Furthermore, in this universe particularly, she drags Leslie down and undermines her agency and competence as a person with her “wonk wonk wonk, that’s our Robin” reality distortion field.
She should have been out on her ass twice already but she just alters the deal every time it doesn’t work out in her favor. It’s sickening to see.
This isn’t Shortpacked Robin. Besides the obvious point of no powers she got into Congress not by a wacky punchline turned canon but by hiding as much of herself as possible and pandering to her voting base.
At the moment she’s being incredibly immature and irresponsible, but the real difference is in Shortpacked this would mostly work out in her favor. In DoA her job is likely going to crumble around her over this.
It’s not Leslie being controlled somehow by Robin’s charisma which is making her put up with Robin, it’s her own weakness. I don’t mean that in a mean way, but Robin is Leslie’s Achilles’s Heel, she can’t quite bring herself to stand firm against her. This happens in real life all the dang time. No universe altering powers needed.
She’s not a wacky cartoon character in a too realistic setting, she’s a silly person who’s in denial about what is going to happen next. Amazi-girl is the carry-over from Shortpacked that makes the least sense and even she works.
Which further highlights the contrast in people’s reactions.
The story having a superhero is an acceptable break from reality, but essentially reenacting the plot of “One Froggy Evening” splits the story in twain! Oh well, that’s the internet, I guess. ^_^
Well, I mean Amazi-girl is the *least* normal part of this comic, but my point was nothing she does is impossible to my knowledge and her motivations make sense. If you wanted to say DoA happens in real life there’s nothing I see to imply it couldn’t aside from some shifting time-line issues.
Amazi-girl is also a young woman in a costume. She doesn’t have super powers. She’s just a fan of superhero comics working through some huge mental issues and trauma. “One Froggy Evening” didn’t have a scene where a young woman was nearly roofied and date-raped. It didn’t have a scene where a young gay woman was threatened as gunpoint to return back to her abusive father.
I appreciate your sentiment and yeah, the line between cartoony mishaps and ‘reality’ in this comic do stray thin at points, but I don’t think people are wrong to view what Robin as doing as a serious breach of Leslie’s comfort. Not when the comic has tackled serious issues before. Glue on the carpet is one thing, but Leslie has literally kicked Robin out, she snuck INTO Leslie’s house without her knowledge and there is a semi-strained sexual tension between the two. This isn’t goofy “haha she really sticks to you”, this is creepy. And if you don’t see it that way, alright. I can respect that. But please respect when others see it in a more dangerous light?
Thing is, the narrative is still playing it as silly, goofy Robin. Even Leslie is reacting with annoyance rather than treating it as creepy and threatening as it should be.
That may change. Much like Amazi-Girl changes from girl with issues who dresses up in a costume to actual (low-end) superhero from storyline to storyline. Her skills are way beyond anything realistic. She gets the advantage of the whole superhero secret id trope.
Similarly Robin is too over the top wacky to really fit the dangerous stalker role, even if she’s doing dangerous stalker things.
Personally, I do not consider the tonal whiplash a feature.
@Mr.Mendo If you notice, even Amazi-Girl is treated with real-world repercussions. Injuries, mental health issues, a breakdown of social contracts.
Robin has not and will not face the necessary repercussions for her actions here, because as the OP said, she employs a wacky reality distortion field. She will escape any and all real world ramifications because she has to stick around to be goofy. Willis will break his entire lifeblood project in half so Robin can badly re-create Looney Tunes jokes.
I’m in both camps, waging war on myself.
I like how your comment of concern for future arguments became the parent comment of said arguments.
I’m just going to call this strip Meh and walk away.
Robin ’bout to get herself shanked.
I am frankly amazed Robin has survived this long.
If she died, she’d start haunting Leslie, and then Leslie’d really never be rid of her.
She could hire an exorcist, though it still won’t be easy to get rid of Robin.
You could probably lure her away with a trail of Boo Berry. It’s October, they should be able to pick some up.
Maybe Leslie’s regretting her crush a little.
I think she was regretting that a few days ago.
She started regretting it when Robin came to the class to speak.
And it’s gotten worse each time Robin’s done something new.
Robin get the hell out.
Nothing spoils a good celebrity crush like actually meeting the person in question.
Twizzlers: The Breakfast of Champions
Weird thing is, Leslie didn’t have any Twizzlers in the house, and Robin hasn’t left.
“Where’d you even get these twizzlers from if you haven’t left?”
“Are you telling me you don’t keep a pocketful of twizzlers?”
Maybe she used the Postmates app.
“Robin, gimme some of your Twizzlers.”
“Get your own, JEEZ!”
Kurt Vonnegut was a known fan of Twizzlers.
I’ve literally been trying to get my phone to type that for ten minutes, but the browser crashed and refreshed.
Meh, Red Vines are where it’s really at!
Little chocolate donuts, the original Breakfast of Champions. Course, the guy saying so died young, but so what.
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/little-chocolate-donuts/n8655?snl=1
Whenever Willis closes a lesbian suicide pact, he always opens another one.
This is less suicide pact, and more justified homicide.
…. especially if that was her General Organa poster.
….. oh, wait, alt text says otherwise.
…. does it really count as vacuuming if all you suck up is itself a vacuum? Void, empty, and suckiness itself?
It was the Ep. 1 poster. Robin did her a favor, really.
Hey, the Episode I poster actually looked pretty cool! I’d be miffed if I owned one and it was destroyed . . . 😛
It was the second-best part of the movie.
The first, obviously, being Weird Al’s “The Saga Begins”.
But Episode 1 gave us Darth Maul and Duel of The Fates. Now if it were Episode 2, well….
…well, Episode II gave us the lead-in to The Clone Wars – and the film’s soundtrack was pretty damn good, too.
The twizzlers are an appetizer, of course; the real meal is orange juice and a box of cocoa ouffs. Yes, the whole box.
My spelling has finally betrayed me. This is what I get for making comments from my 3DS.
Orange juice and Cocoa Puffs??
I see Robin likes…. acquired tastes…
Unfortunately for Leslie, this version of Robin is akin to Droopy – you literally can’t get rid of them no matter how hard you try.
That actually kinda makes sense. One cartoon ended with the revelation that there are actually a bunch of Droopys.
Could there be more than one Robin? We still don’t know how many DeSantos exist, and she was able to produce a veritable army of lookalikes for her wedding.
Robin is actually octuplets, her parents just named them all Robin so there wouldn’t be any confusion.
I mean, if you think about it, Droopy and Robin are both creatures of emotional extremes, just on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Geez, it’s weird seeing this relationship mirror it’s Walkyverse counterpart in such a twisted way.
And Cerberus’ head will explode in 3… 2… 1…
Don’t worry. They have two more.
well you dont keep her around for her cooking.
Leslie deserves a better life than this.
That’s pretty much her entire character summed up nicely.
Now I know what loving you cost…
Now we’re up to talking divorce
–And we weren’t even married
On My Own
Robin needs to be put into a rubber-room.
A room made entirely of condoms?
An entire building made of condoms!
A condom-inium
Perhaps a building made with just the lowest possible threshold of condoms? Condom-minimum?
“There will be condom on every phallus, and a dental dam in every mouth.” — Herbert Coocher
Robin, you are not a guest if the other person does not want you there.
The impressive part is that Leslie slept soundly enough, with Robin in her apartment, to sleep through the vacuuming.
After the day she had, I’d be out like a log, too.
Leslie is an underpaid gender studies teacher who has to deal with Joe, Joyce, and now Robin on a daily basis. She probably falls right to sleep every night. XD
Back when this storyline was first hinted I really anticipated it. Now I just want it to end as quickly as possible. Holy hell, Robin.
Said it before, will say it again: Robin fucking delenda est.
YES
She has? She doesn’t look destroyed to me yet. Unless you meant to write “esse delendam” which means “should be destroyed” or “needs to be destroyed”.
“Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” or “Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” (English: “Furthermore, (moreover) I consider that Carthage must be destroyed”) often abbreviated to “Carthago delenda est”. Never try to be a Latin grammar Nazi unless you have your tenses right.
noticed hidden text. I have a movie theater movie poster from star wars three.
K, yep, nope. Time for her to go.
This would be considered wacky hijinks in Shortpacked. In this more grounded verse, not so much.
Note that this turn of events is rather similar to how Robin first became Amber’s roommate way, way back in the beginning.
And for much the same reason too! We find out years later that Robin had a crush on Amber at the time.
In the Walkyverse this behavior from Robin was cute and funny. In this more realistic DoA verse, her behavior here is cringeworthy and stalkery.
Willis, can we skip to the part where Robin is arrested and is never seen again in the strip like Toedad?
Robin is really, really, REALLY annoying.
At least Robin realizes she should be grateful Leslie didn’t boot her out a second time! That’s probably an improvement, right?
Though I feel like “thanks for not calling the cops or throwing me to the media” should probably involve less smiling and more groveling
Leslie’s given up. If she were to boot her out and lock the windows, she’d probably break in or convince the landlord to let her back in. And Leslie’s done fighting and failing and feeling like nothing. Much better and safer in her mind to just ride it out, numb, until everything is over.
Yeah, that’s what I figure that was the case too. That was intended less as actual excitement than forced enthusiasm about the very tiny sign that maybe something might be sinking into Robin’s head here.
I’m trying to figure out why a restraining order isn’t an option.
Maybe Leslie doesn’t trust The System enough for that, or maybe she doesn’t want to out Robin in the process.
Maybe she doesn’t want to lose her job over a sex scandal with a congresswoman?
It’s not impossible, but I can’t imagine it would be easy to get a judge to issue one against a sitting congresswoman
“She broke into my house twice” might do it, if you could prove it.
And there’s all those media people allegedly hanging about…
OTOH, while it doesn’t actually change the legal situation – “She broke into my house and then fell asleep and the next day we hung out and watched cartoons and then I threw her out and she snuck back in so we went to bed and now it’s morning and I’m calling the cops” makes it a lot less likely she’ll be taken seriously.
Man, if the world was more just, Leslie could go to the media and tell her side of the story — “Robin is a powerful woman in politics with controversial views. I invited her to speak with my Gender Studies class, but I had to kick her out for her inappropriate comments to my students. She wanted to speak to me afterwards, to clarify why I’d kicked her out, so we met in a public place. We spoke about how her politics had impacted my life. There was also some mutual attraction, but I told her it could never be. Fine. Then, she began stalking me, including sneaking into my bedroom while I was asleep. I literally, physically threw her out, but she will not stop breaking into my house. Please help.”
But no, the media might eat her alive, so she can’t.
As for the ‘why did it take you so long’, the answer could be “I was hoping that she was reasonable, and I could handle it myself without tons of legal and media attention. However, I can’t, as she is not reasonable.”
And/or “I am a new professor without tenure, I’m afraid the university might not want me now that I’m in the middle of a media spectacle.”
and/or “I’m an independent person, so that’s how long it took me to conclude that I actually need your help.”
All relatable, but still so terribly risky. 🙁 sucks to be Leslie.
It’s possible she’s thinking all that, but we’ve seen little sign of it. No hint that she’s even considered and rejected calling the cops or going to talk to the media.
I agree, we have zero indication that Leslie is considering any of this — she appears much more numb and off-balance.
I was writing as if I could coach Leslie on what she might choose to say, which I guess is my cathartic process. 🙂
“She broke into my house twice with a crowbar”
Fixed that for you.
Not that I don’t ultimately trust Willis, but can we move on from pretending Robin’s behavior is even potentially still cute or amusing? It was, at best, creepy-clueless-“cute” to start with, and became insufferable almost instantaneously once Robin woke up and opened her mouth. It was almost cute because Leslie tried to be nice and Robin had a moment of showing her affection, but that is a dubious “high point” at best and quickly sabotaged by Robin’s decision to claim she has the implicit right to stay in Leslie’s house regardless of Leslie’s expressed wish that she leave. Enough is enough. Robin needs to go and get a dose of reality that she can’t do whatever she wants.
I need her to go the hell away. Like, now. And, if possible, forever.
Seriously I need her to go the hell away ASAP.
Her campaign manager might burst into the scene as a Campaign-Manager-Ex-Machina, but yea, Robin, what the fuck?
I’m not sure it’s meant to be cute or amusing. Quite apart from what it’s doing to Leslie, I’m beginning to wonder if Robin has actually had a psychotic break. There’s clueless, there’s bad boundaries, there’s attempted wacky, but I’m starting to watch her with actual alarm. It’s like a dissociative fugue. Why are you here, Robin?
True, that’s what I meant by trusting Willis to resolve this in a way that isn’t just “Lolz, oh Robin.” But it’s still being used as a punchline now, and that’s getting tiresome. If it’s leading up to a reveal that Robin needs to get serious help, and understand the consequences of her actions, GREAT. But personally I don’t want many more “Robin being clueless or willfully ignorant” strips, I think the point was made a few strips ago.
Robin’s isn’t ready to admit to herself that she isn’t straight, but at the same time she doesn’t want to leave Leslie, so she’s stuck in this Odd Couple reality she’s building up around them.
I hope it’s not intentional but at best Willis has severely fumbled the tone here for me because every one of these strips feels like it’s supposed to be “wacky odd-couple antics” and not “Leslie’s stalker has forced her way into her home and will not leave.”
You have been in CONGRESS, how are you this much of a fuck-up at household stuff? Xd
…interns?
Dude, have you SEEN congress?
all of the 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
No, even by Congressional standards Robin’s not cutting it. Even by stereotypes of Congress, she’s not there.
Not so much in this sequence, but she can’t even pander properly without being told explicitly to pander more or less by her handler – in the open where the audience can hear.
Al Franken’s first bill was one that banned government contractors from requiring their employees to go through (company-paid) arbitration instead of court in cases of violence or sexual assault in the workplace.
30 republicans voted against it on the grounds that “regulation bad”, and were subsequently very surprised at the public backlash from their constituents.
More recently, we elected a deformed Cheeto as president, it took weeks after his inauguration, and millions of protestors across the country before congressional Democratic leadership realized “huh, I guess people want us to fight back and actually stand up for progressive values / basic decency”
So frankly, I’d be shocked if the majority of Congressturds are even able to wipe themselves on their own.
This kind of humor worked well in Shortpacked, because the whole comic was silly like this. With the more serious tone of DOA, I automatically take this seriously too. (Part of the reason why Amazi-girl felt so out of place in this comic to me initially. Not so much any more because there are realistic reasons behind it that have been revealed.)
So it does feel more like Robin is creepy rather than silly, because even though she’s doing the exact same stuff she’d do in Shortpacked, it feels out of place here because, this isn’t Shortpacked, it’s Dumbing of Age.
sorry if that makes no sense I’m somewhat drugged up right now.
I think you did a fine job expressing your opinion, Clocky. Basically, it comes down to framing. In Shortpacked, the framing of the series was much more comedic, so things like this were automatically framed in a comedic light.
Dumbing of Age does have comedy within it, but the framing tends to lean more towards the serious side of things, so it’s hard not to see this through that same lens.
I think the fact that we also have more emotional attachment to Leslie and she is clearly not happy with this arrangement contributes to that as well.
Oh, I’m glad it was coherent. But yes you explained it better than I can. And being invested in Leslie is definitely also part of it. At the same time readers of Shortpacked are still invested in Robin, too. So that makes it particularly frustrating to watch because I like Robin, I like her silliness in the framing of Shortpacked, but this type of humor doesn’t work in this context so I can’t root for her.
Oh, believe me, I understand the conflicting emotions surrounding Robin within this subplot. I enjoyed the previous relationship between the two and I was happy the possibility of them getting together here too made me very happy.
That is until we got to see more of this universe’s Robin, which slowly made me want to see Leslie get as far away from her as possible. Part of me hopes this disconnected humor is intentional to highlight Robin’s disconnect with reality and her apparent inability to either read or even care about the needs of others (especially if those needs conflict with her own).
Honestly, I just want to give Leslie the biggest hug right now because I feel like she needs one bad.
Yeah I felt exactly the same way, for the longest time I really wanted more Robin in the comic. And I wanted her to be comedy relief too! But in a way that fits the tone of the story better. Transplanting Robin directly from one universe to the other with no changes just doesn’t mesh well.
If it is intentional then there must be a pretty dramatic shift in tone at some point. I’m at the point where I also just want Leslie to get away from her. I hate seeing someone who is too timid/tired to fight being take advantage of.
The point where my opinion of DoA’s Robin started to sour was her explanation for supporting the bill. I’ll admit, being apart of the community that would be negatively effected by it makes me a little biased, but I felt like I was coming to the same realization that Leslie was within that strip: the person I thought I liked turned out not to be the person I thought she was.
I’ll also admit I was a little bit hopeful near the end of the scene at the bar, especially with how Leslie left. However, that hope came crashing down when Robin showed up at Leslie’s home uninvited, refused to serious acknowledge Leslie’s complaints, broke back into the home after being forcefully evicted, and just dug deeper into her fabricated reality.
It especially hurts because I hate seeing Leslie being taken advantage of by Robin, being worn down slowly.
That’s pretty much the same part where I started feeling really uneasy about her. And the end of the bar scene, god, yes. Leslie stood up for herself, she made it clear that she couldn’t go against her moral code like that, she said NO. I was proud of her. And then Robin just completely ignored it all. And her refusal to accept Leslie’s answer is being played off for laughs. Even if it does take a sharp turn and she faces consequences, these strips were still meant to make the readers laugh as far as I can tell. And I don’t think it’s something to be laughing at.
I agree. I will admit that I do have a bias due to being in an emotionally abusive relationship with someone like Robin who disregarded my boundaries constantly. Probably another reason why this subplot & Leslie’s position within it hits me so hard.
I think that’s the point. You can just assume you’re correct in your interpretation. It’s supposed to feel creepy and out of place. Robin’s antics don’t belong here, and that heightens the absurdity in this strip.
I agree it heightens the absurdity but it also makes it feel really disjointed. It just doesn’t feel like it belongs. Cody C. and Zaidyer explained it better in their replies to my comment.
I also totally agree that it feels disjointed. What I’m trying to say is, if it feels that way to you, maybe it’s completely intentional on the author’s part.
Reading your other comments, I guess we have different levels of trust in the author. That’s okay then. See you!
This makes perfect sense if you ask me. I’m sure Robin is quickly joining Amazi-Girl on the shortlist of “reasons David Willis continues to receive messages accusing him of making up or misrepresenting Joyce and Becky’s religion”. Robin is so wacky you guys that she refuses to let the setting correct her no matter how many definitive attempts it makes. This gets readers to start asking questions about the credibility of the other outrageous things they’ve read.
It’s an indulgence I don’t like and am not comfortable with. Every time I talk about this comic with my friends, they see it and I have to explain to them that the cartoonist obviously just wants it both ways sometimes you see, and they’re like “yeah, I can see that. I’m gonna read something else”.
I didn’t even think about how it affected the credibility of other parts of the story, just that it clashes so greatly with it. But you’re absolutely right. Thanks for the explanation of how it affects the rest of the comic
“…refuses to let the setting correct her…”
Ever tried talking evolution with a Creationist? Or medicine with an anti-vaxxer? Or the Constitution with a Trumpoid? People who refuse to acknowledge they’re contextually insane … are real, and frighteningly common.
I can’t remember where I read it, but the idea is these people have incorporated these beliefs as a part of their identity, making it incredibly hard for them to admit said belief could be wrong or incredibly harmful. Instead, they shut out this new information as propaganda attempting to silence the truth so they can keep their worldview in tact.
Joyce actually talked about it earlier with Becky – http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/originalsin/
Evolution means Original Sin isn’t true and that means everything is a lie. Not all Christians believe that of course, but tying it all together into that one package both makes it harder to reject, because you have to give up everything, but also makes it more likely you’ll reject religion entirely if you’re pushed far enough to reject any of it.
Yeah, I think this makes sense. He does want it both ways sometimes and it doesn’t always work.
Part of me really wishes Leslie would just call the cops on Robin. I mean, Robin did break into her house after being forcefully removed.
Enforcing the law against sitting politicians is a mixed bag. Still, something needs to happen, because this is awful. Which I believe is the point – Robin’s act and issues with seriousness is not something that can be wacky hijinked away in this universe. I think Willis is building to Leslie losing it on Robin.
I hope that’s the case, because each of these strips make me feel worse for Leslie. It also makes me wonder how Robin managed to get a seat in Congress in the first place, but looking at our current state of affairs, that isn’t really that hard to see anymore.
Yeah, but it doesn’t even seem like something Leslie’s considered. She seems more annoyed than scared.
Which is so far out of left field for someone who has already expressed her fears and turbulent history with her own sexuality.
We had Toedad being shown as an -absolute villain- for going overboard with letting his beliefs overwhelm his care for Becky. We’re led to see Joyce’s mom as a ‘live at home’ villain for her religious bigotry.
But Robin is so wacky that she is somehow excused for being a villain? You can’t have wacky slapstick romcom when trying to support social justice and anti-trauma narratives.
As someone who’s had guys who wouldn’t back off (not quite to this point, I admit, thank God) I think it’s valid to be more annoyed than afraid because I’ve been there. I’m sure people who have actually been stalked have felt that way. Hence why I think this is going to build to a blow up on Leslie’s part. The reason things feel ‘wacky’ is because Robin doesn’t let anything NOT be due to her own issues, if my theory is right. But looking at it in the real world lens I can’t see anything but a build up to Leslie snapping.
The wacky goes beyond this interaction and through everything we’ve ever seen of Robin. If we’re taking her seriously, she should be ruled incompetent and assigned a guardian for her own good.
I can’t look at it through a real world lens because I can’t see how this Robin exists in the real world. Sure, she’s a congresscritter now which gets her some privileges, but how did she get there with no comprehension of basic social rules or even laws? Since we don’t get to use sugar-fueled super powers as an excuse here. Nor does she come from the kind of money that lets someone develop even a less exaggerated version of this.
Again, I have known people like Robin, so I have a hard time believing she’s unrealistic. Yeah, it’s been there the entire time – that’s a feature, not a bug, because that’s how Robin operates. And no, she’s not incompetent, she’s an asshole with no sense of boundaries who’s allergic to both consequences and any measure of seriousness. I’m 99% sure that if Robin’s strips feel forced or artificial, it’s because they’re supposed to because ROBIN is forced and artificial all the time.
As for Congress, A) Clearly competence and understanding of the law is not a real barrier and B) While Robin sucks at it, her campaign staff seems pretty competent. That counts for a lot.
Robin’s district must be so heavily gerrymandered as to be impervious to competition and full of people who would vote for a dead mule as long as it had an R next to its name.
I mean loons like Michelle Bachmann or Maxine Waters look competent by comparison.
Robin’s district is a swing district. I’d bet on her campaign staff being utterly brilliant – at least enough to squeak by a tiny victory.
Honestly, I don’t believe you’ve known people like Robin. Or, more accurately, I think your take on Robin is so far off from my take on Robin that saying that is meaningless. 🙂
Robin’s a parody of a Congresswoman. As I said elsewhere, even the worst Congresscritters don’t get told out loud in front of an audience to be “less panderingish” and “more panderingish” and then ask which persona they want to hear. Before the meeting sure, but not so openly.
And the same with the rest of her life, from what we’ve seen. How did this person make it through whatever she did before she became a Congresswoman? College? Some other job? Taken seriously, she needs a keeper.
Fair enough, we’re allowed different takes.
No, which is part of the point – Robin’s a TERRIBLE congressperson. She may not have been so terrible when she first ran (or at least, kept her eye on it) but there’s no question now.
And no. No she really doesn’t. Being an asshole and an idiot is not the same as being mentally or physically disabled or ill to the point she can’t take care of herself.
That’s that different take again: I don’t think she’s an asshole and an idiot (in the colloquial sense) as much as detached from reality enough that she actually can’t take care of herself. She doesn’t appear to understand there’s anything wrong with breaking into Leslie’s place and just hanging out there. She’s not just a TERRIBLE congressperson, but it’s hard to see how she could have gotten there in the first place. She can’t even pander properly!
I mean, she could be a manipulative asshole, just pretending to be massively incompetent to lull everyone into complacency, but I think she’s pretty much what we see. Not stupid, just completely unaware.
I want panel 4 as a poster.
I’m kind of waiting for a payoff I don’t know if it is ever coming. I don’t want Robin redeemed or in a relationship with leslie or any of that. I want her smacked down like Mary.
In wrestling terms, we’re reaching Eva Marie levels of heat.
I can’t see any way she could end up with Leslie that wouldn’t have me beyond creeped out. She can be redeemed – although Grod knows that she’s wracking up a lot to apologize for – but I really do feel you can hit a point where a relationship is out of the question. Like, “good for you, you turned out to be a reasonable, worthwhile human being but no. You broke into my house and destroyed my stuff. Be happy friends is still on the table.”
Why should she get to be redeemed when other villains don’t, especially when she’s objectively worse than them.
She might possibly be worse than Mary, but I kinda wonder if Robin’s “oppresses gay people” is actually worse than Ryan’s “date-rapes girls regularly” and Toedad’s “kidnaps own daughter at gunpoint to subsequently oppress the gay out of her.”
This is the company she keeps, folks.
“Oppresses all of the LGBT people in the state” is worse than “oppresses a single gay person” by any rational metric especially considering her actions enable abusers like Toedad by stripping LGBT youth of protection.
Not that I really want to get into measuring how evil any of these people are, but while she does aid in the oppression of all the LGBT people in the state (or in the country really, since she’s in Congress), but it’s not clear how much impact she’s actually had, being a junior member of Congress and all. The only bill we know of didn’t pass and certainly wasn’t just her work anyway. I don’t believe she has actually stripped LGBT youth of protection – not that they had much to start with.
Ross OTOH, while he’s basically limited his damage to Becky (and to her mother?), is very directly and personally responsible for that damage.
What a nightmare.
Go back to Shortpacked!, Robin.
THE THING THAT WOULDN’T LEAVE
Okay, why does Leslie have posters still on her wall? Doesn’t she know that she’s an adult now… and they should be in a protected frame because come ON, that’s a vintage Back to the Future poster reprint!!!
Poster frames cost money. Would you rather spend money on frames, or more posters?
Bingo. I’m an adult and, while I would love to have frames for all my posters, I lack the funds for them.
Aaaaand Robin is back to her usual self-centered, destructive and oblivious antics. But hey, isn’t she wacky?
(Please, Willis, please, I’m begging you. Get her gone.)
In a few months, it turns out that this whole season is a dream Leslie had after realizing that Robin wasn’t the kind of person she had hoped she would be.
Poor Leslie 🙁
Noir Dumbing of Age
Narrator: After defeating Xavier, Kyle runs towards Robin and Joyce (if you want you may imagine him running ninja style) hoping to reach them before they reach Reginald.
Kyle: (thinking) 40 seconds…35…30…25..20….15….10…there they are!
Kyle: Wait!
Joyce: Huh?
Robin: What is it aide?
Kyle: You can’t go in there.
Joyce: Why not?
Kyle: If you do…
Narrator: Robin is shot through the door.
Joyce and Kyle: What!?
Narrator: The door opens and Reginald calmly steps out, a warm gun in his hand.
Reginald: I can hear you through the door you know. I assume you have determined my plan…
Joyce: Sort of.
Narrator: Kyle whispers information into Joyce’s ear.
Joyce: Ah.
Reginald: Although I planned to kill myself I now realize that offing a congresswomen will work just as well.
Joyce: Why are you doing this. Why do you want a war?
Reginald: My father plans to bring western religion and culture to our country, if that succeeds soon he will bring eastern religion and Christianity and Buddhism, and Hinduism and any others you may have! In the end…
Narrator: Tears start streaming down, Reginald’s face.
Reginald: I…just..didn’t want to lose my culture.
Joyce: But you can end it.
Reginald: Robin will die soon. There is no way to stop a war…unless.
Joyce: What are you doing!?
Reginald: Here I stand, like Spender on the hill.
Narrator: Reginald shoots himself through the head. Collapsing at Joyce’s feet.
Joyce: I..I…AUGH! (Loud crying)
Narrator: Xavier appears behind her and Kyle.
Xavier: the Duke is dead. But we can still save your friend. We must hurry.
Robin: (coughs up blood)
Narrator: They do in fact manage to reach a hospital before Robin expires.
Later…
Ruth enters Joyce’s office
Ruth: I heard about what happened…and thank you.
Joyce: just doing my job.
Ruth: Will there be a war?
Joyce: Thankfully not, since all the evidence for Reginald’s death pointed towards suicide, and the reason why a congresswoman was shot is dead, no party has a reason to start a war.
Ruth: That’s good.
Narrator: Joyce gets up and looks outside her window.
Joyce: I do feel sorry though, all he ever wanted was to protect his way of life.
Ruth: I don’t have an answer for that.
Joyce: Does anybody?
Ruth: Oh by the way…a new case came up!
Joyce: Please, don’t tell me it’s another murder!
Ruth: Oh no..no..but some supplies have gone missing from the chemistry lab.
Joyce: Ah, much easier! On we go!
Narrator: Joyce grabs her fedora, and steps out into the hallway.
The end.
Thanks for an epic story!
Thank you, I also want to give Emporer Daniel credit for solving it.
I participated! 😀
And so ends another epic of the DoA Commenteriat…
Beautiful
Any more thoughts on AG’s attitude towards Amber can go in response to this comment or idk I can make something on the QC boards I guess. Still don’t think there’s a lot of evidence AG has a blanket distrust of Amber so far.
Maybe I’m just stubborn and naïve though
Comic Reactions:
… Oof.
When I was with my ex, there was a thing she would do, wherein she’d suddenly get it into her head that I had done some terrible wrong against her. Some of it was in response to her feeling she’d fucked up with me in some way, a lot of frequently was in response to abuse from her own family who was trying to bully her in the closet and diminish the success she had created for herself.
And I could try to argue with her, show proof that the things she was accusing me of couldn’t have happened, try and have a more neutral conversation where we tried to get to the root of why she felt I wronged her and what I could do in service to those feelings. But those actions were always futile, because in her own mental pathways, I had done wrong and needed to grovel and make up for it by being properly contrite and promising to do things to make up for it.
And it’s possible that the actions were deliberate, a means of gaslighting me out of recognizing negative behavior and impossible demands she was setting for me (like I wasn’t allowed to show signs I had been crying nor signs that I was angry about something even if that something had nothing to do with her). Certainly she did her share of that later. There was one particularly rough moment where some guy basically mused openly in front of me whether or not he should murder me like an after thought. Her response to that was that I was attacking her with this knowledge of what happened to me and trying to scare her and so I needed to never bring it up or show signs of struggling with the emotional fallout and instead take care of her emotional state about it and how I had harmed her by bringing it up.
I still love a lot about that relationship. The good times were very good and I still balk at calling it fully abusive, but those times when I would be put through the ringer of her delusions and her refusal to listen or respect what I wanted or needed, when I’d be asked to apologize for things that never happen and make a good show out of deciphering the exact right apology to make lest I be accused of being disingenuous. When I was caught up in the script she was writing, powerless to have any meaningful mark, trying to meet impossible standards and feeling like even more of a failure or second-guessing myself constantly to try and figure out if I was just blocking out huge swaths of my memories (cause being DID, knowing my memories of events are real and complete is somewhat critical for me and she fucked with my confidence about that pretty bad).
Those times I consider the dark times, and it was brutal. Her delusions could not be argued against and so it was easier to just give in and accept the framing and roll with it. I stopped trying to push back and I stumbled through as best I could hoping one day it would end and we’d be able to talk openly about what had happened.
Why I bring this up, is Leslie’s defeated grimace in Panel 2. Without the will to push back anymore. Just surrendering to the madness because the madness is not going to listen or respect to any attempt to set healthy boundaries or dynamics or dissuade Robin from following the feeling of what is “right” over any silly thing Leslie might actually say or want. I’ve been there and I recognize it.
And it’s breaking my damn heart.
Sympathy via internet comment.
*all the internet hugs*
And I agree. I feel so bad about Leslie. She hardly argues anymore, she just allows the madness to take its toll.
That’s tough hun. Emotional abuse will not only make mental illnesses worse (it did for me and all I have is OCD, depression, and recovering from PTSD so I know it was rough on your mental health), it effects your physical health and can take longer to recover from than physical abuse. It sucks that you had to go through it, but I’m glad you came out the other side and were able to build a life for yourself. Not everybody is able to recover as well as you have which really speaks to how strong a person you are. I hope you know that 🙂
Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you say in a previous discussion that you had found someone? If so, I would love to hear about him/her/them. 🙂
Also some good sources for Ace individuals would be welcome if you get a free minute. One of my friends is trying to figure herself out and thinks she maybe asexual (mid 20s, never had any interest in any gender romantically or sexually, finds sex scenes in web comics and tv/movies to be boring and something she’s happy to be over so she can get back to the story, never ships characters,…), but isn’t really sure. She’s going back to college so a lot of her time is taken up with that right now so no rush, but she would like resources for when she goes on break.
Thanks. It’s still hard to fully wrap my head around it all because it didn’t feel as bad as other abusive situations people were in, but then I’m sure every abused person has said that.
Yeah, 🙂 I have a fiancee who goes by they pronouns and who is ace and trans and DID like me. I met them at Trans March and we bonded over over-analyzing Steven Universe and Sense8. They’re really great, but struggling a lot under Trump and facing a lot of bullshit harassment from folks who are trying to terrorize them by making “jokes” about how they’re going to take their stuff when they get thrown in a camp. I also have a girlfriend (I’m poly and very open about it) and this November we’ll have been together for five years. She’s very nice to cuddle. So I’m a happy Cerberus on all that front. 🙂
Ace individuals. Let’s see (and this probably won’t pop up until morning when Willis approves it):
AVEN (http://www.asexuality.org/) Major forums and general organizational hub.
Adri of the Dead (http://adriofthedead.tumblr.com/post/65540442968/okay-i-realize-this-hilariously-late-for) Really good breakdown ace comic on what it means to be ace or aro.
Swankivy (https://www.youtube.com/user/swankivy/videos) Long running ace youtube vlog covering a number of ace topics
The Asexuality Blog (http://www.theasexualityblog.com/home.html) Run by the tireless Sara covers a lot of topics and has a lot of active projects relating to asexuality and even includes a podcast on asexuality subjects.
And the webcomics Girls with Slingshots, Rain, Ignition Zero, Sister Claire, and GoGetARoomie all have major recurring ace characters in their storylines.
Let me know if you need anything else specific.
Who is ace in GoGetARoomie?
I mean, I know speculation of Lilian being ace, but I don’t think she’s ever said she was or even really knows exactly what she is. Plus she’s a main character, not recurring.
The only other person I can think of is possible WOC, if we are to believe her lover was not sexual. Or maybe who the cast page calls “Garden Boy,” though I thought he had another name. Though, since he’s just now being given access to the world, I’m not sure he knows what he is, either.
(I apologize if “what s/he is” is bad terminology.)
Lilian is pretty hard-coded as ace and Roomie is hard-coded as grey-aro. The words haven’t been used but the dynamics are familiar to ace and aro folks.
That comic is pretty nice, but I kind of balk at the way it tries to exclude ace people from lgbt communities unless they have a ‘truly oppressed’ gender identity/romantic orientation.
Like maybe I’m jumping the gun but I’m reminded instantly of everyone who tried to exclude me from the community when the only part of my identity I had accepted was my being ace and it gets my hackles up.
I should have read the whole thing instead of tabbing out, I admit. It deliberately welcomes them in as part of it later, but I’m still not totally sure what the significance of a supposed lack of institutional discrimination is, especially when it’s that same thing that’s often brought up to exclude ace people from the community.
. . . Oh! Supernormal Step also has an ace protag, to the point that it’s explicitly spelled out.
…is it bad that I just now realized that your avatar is a dog that famously has three minds? Because I feel like I should have pieced that together a long time ago. I’ll go hand over my Greek Mythology Nerd License® now.
I think that’s the norm in fact. My dad is very emotionally abusive, but I always think how my mother was worse. It’s also how I ended up staying with my ex so long.
Wow! Not one but TWO good partners! Extremely jealous here. I love how you and your fiancé met. That’s just beautiful. Although I hate how hard it’s been on them lately. At least they have a supportive and strong partner to lean on. It much be worse for them in so many ways since they don’t fit in a neat little box. People are very binary minded overall. I hope you live in a town that’s more open than my own (it’s really behind with a good chunk of people against homosexuality and a troubling number who didn’t know what trans was especially before the whole bathroom bullshit). If yall are in a backwards area, I hope you both can blend (I know one cis woman who can pass for either gender depending on her clothes and makeup) so yall can avoid most of the idiots. You are a good person and they must be a good person too to be your legal partner and I hate to think of either of you going through any more hell that yall have to.
I hate to admit that I was very binary minded until a few years ago although I never knew there was anything other than (cis and trans) male and female. Imagine my surprise as I studied to find out that I was most likely not born cis! I identify as female which is how I never dug deeper into why I had to be taken into surgery after being born, had a second surgery as a teen, and have a scar and no labia minora. I asked my dad and he said the doctors just told him there was something wrong and they had to fix me. I had to get the inner part of my labia majora fixed when I became sexually active because the skin was paper thin causing me problems. At least I have a uterus and at least 1 ovary (I might have 2 but they have never seen it on tests) so I might be able to have biological children someday, but sometimes I could do without the uterus because periods suck!
Can I ask a DID question? Feel free to skip this by the way. When you meet someone and feel like you hit it off, do all alters have to sign off on them? After you’ve been together a while, is it possible for one alter to want to break up or one alter to want to stay in when the others want out? With Amber saying that Danny is AG’s, was she saying that because of where they were or is it possible for Danny to date one alt?
It’s kinda funny that people often confuse polysexuals like me with poly like you. It’s like saying bi is the same thing as bifocals because they both start with “bi”. XD
I’m monogamous myself in that when I go out with someone I am only with that person until whatever comes of it is over rather it’s one date or many dates or something serious. However, if I found 2 people I had a deep connection with who had the same with each other I might consider life as a 3 piece set. It’s not something I go out and look for and it would have to be something really special. I don’t tell other people either. Too many already think bisexuals and polysexuals are sluts who love threesomes and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna give them ammo! 😉
Honestly? I’ve never had any luck in the romantic department. I pick bad partners. Sometimes I doubt I will ever even find a decent partner much less a great one. I haven’t been on a date in a year and a half. It saddens me sometimes because I would like a partner and to maybe one day be a mother (I asked about adoption and they turned me down hard being single and on disability unable to work). Then I think of the terrible crap I’ve been through and the headaches they caused and want to sign up to be a spinster.
Thanks! I’ll pass all the links on to her. I really appreciate you taking the time 🙂
PS: Sorry for the later reply. I typed you a long response much earlier but my browser crashed and I hadn’t copied what I typed, so in frustration I decided to reply later.
“There was one particularly rough moment where some guy basically mused openly in front of me whether or not he should murder me like an after thought. Her response to that was that I was attacking her with this knowledge of what happened to me and trying to scare her and so I needed to never bring it up or show signs of struggling with the emotional fallout and instead take care of her emotional state about it and how I had harmed her by bringing it up.”
WHAT IS EVEN THIS?! O_o FOR THE EVER-LOVING STABILITY OF THE TIME-SPACE CONTINUUM, WHAT THE EVEN FUCK IS THIS?! o_O
*internet hugs*
I’ve talked about the first part of this before. This was the guy in the car who casually mused about whether or not to circle back and kill me cause I dared trans and be on a date with my girlfriend (same one as current) and that somehow ruined his boner.
My ex’s reaction when I tried to process it afterwards was… novel to say the least. And it ended in me agreeing never to again bring it up and instead help her through the fallout of how I had “tried to harm her” by bringing up something so scary and was thus to never bring it up again or even be seen processing it while simultaneously supporting her in her “hour of need”, because secondary trauma > primary trauma.
She was also present at my public rape and her lack of intervention or alarm was a key part of why I assumed what was happening must have somehow been normal until it was too late as it were. In her defense, she was instrumental in getting me out of there afterwards and in a fit state to function, but once I was stabilized, I wasn’t allowed to really bring it up too much lest I be accused of “trying to make her feel guilty” and had to do a lot of support work for her regarding how scary it was for her to watch that happen.
These parts definitely are her less than stellar moments, but she’s also had a lot of positive moments in my life in the time we’ve been together and I know part of her aversion is because of her own experiences facing emotional abuse and sexual assault. She also had a twisted way of viewing supporting someone else and how to respond to guilt, because her mom liked to use moments of guilt in order to extort an ever-expanding list of abusive favors and subjugations of herself.
So I know a lot of the bad was just because she had a lot of stuff come up when she felt guilty or like she had failed me in some way and handled that poorly and then got caught in a guilt loop where things got… bad. And it probably didn’t help that she got it in her head when I came out that she needed to be the “man” of the relationship and thus protect me from the bad things, so if I was processing something awful or upsetting, then she’d feel guilty about not preventing the bad thing and protecting me from it and thus get locked in the bad guilt mode response.
And the worst part of it was I wasn’t allowed to bring up this cycle because that triggered the guilt as well and wound up her finding ways in which I’d wronged her so we could be equal and then emotionally processing it as we weren’t equal and I’d been the only one who did wrong in order to try and escape the guilt spiral.
She’s not a bad person but yeah, some of the end results of this stuff were… rough to deal with.
But that all said, part of why we fell apart was cause I caught her out using gaslighting tactics intentionally to “win” an argument and she often made me feel like I had to make up for being ace, trans, and DID and insisted my DID made me inherently untrustworthy and dangerous (this was the justification for the no strong emotion ban, because even years into our relationship she was still convinced I would someday snap like the DID people in movies, which was rich because the attempts to repress actually were worse for my condition and meant I self-injured more to cope), so who knows if I was just being naive about it all and being too willing to assume a benign interpretation of things.
Certainly it’s been hard since to assume that partners actually are okay with those traits and aren’t seeing them as something I need to apologize for by being an extra good partner. And it’s hard asking a partner for emotional or physical help or about something that upset me, because part of me still reflexively flinches and assumes the worst.
I dunno, it’s hard to know what even to feel about all of it.
Even with the internet, there are not enough hugs in the world to give you. 8(
*hugs*
I’m not sure what else I can say here, but *hugs*
*hugs*
hmm. I don’t intend to put labels on anyone in that, it all sounds very complicated and tragic 🙁 but I think some of the information here could help you process it: https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/helpfullinks
RBN is a decent community too, they might be able to point you towards resources more relevant to you. I wish I could remember more than that one link.
Hey, you rock. That must have been so taxing, plus getting out of there must have been super hard. Damn. I’m sorry you had to deal with it, it was deeply unfair, major high fives for getting out of there in the end. <3
You said it's hard to know what to feel about it: 'conflicted' is a perfectly valid response. I wanna validate your feels at every moment regarding the end of a relationship that really needed ending.
It's okay & sensible to be mournful and mad and furious and bummed about it. It's okay to be both sorry and glad about losing them, and of course elated to find yourself again (plus people who are way awesomer for you), woo!
You weren't wrong for loving or missing this person's positive traits, either. You have a heart full of love, but some people are just too unhealthy or toxic to properly love you back. (It's totally fine that your partner clearly needed help from a therapist to deal with their many triggers, for example, but not remotely okay to demand their partner become their therapist, and even worse to demand you to become a stone with no feelings.) I wish your ex-partner luck in their therapy, and that they stay far far away, you know?
I am grateful for your emotional and intellectual strength, for your resourcefulness in setting up supports as you and this person split up, and your resilience in rebuilding your life and self-esteem afterwards. Love to you.
*whoops, I missed that your ex’s she/her pronouns, my bad, no disrespect intended to her or anyone else.
Also, any other feels I misread or missed, they are totes valid, too; please consider this an internet flood of appreciation and validation, hooray.
STARS DAMN IT ROBIN
THESE HANDS OF MINE GLOW WITH AN AWESOME THIRST FOR NECKS
Okay, now for a traditional panel breakdown.
Panels 1-2: I’ve gone over the defeated sigh, but it’s worth also noting that Leslie has not once in the last two days been allowed to complete her morning routine in peace, instead having to jump from 1 to crisis management as her literal waking moment both times.
Those who’ve had issues with proper sleep schedules or an inability to establish a safe routine know how disorienting that can be and how that can color the rest of your day. It’s only a small piece of the wrong Robin has done to Leslie, but it’s an important one to note in how she’s not only being run ragged by Robin’s inner monologue but she’s also probably mentally exhausted as well.
Panel 3: Ugh, Robin has moved her script in her head and now has cast herself as the “loyal wife”/”wacky roommate” role, playing to her inner monologue of how that dynamic is supposed to go. Using half-remembered snips probably from a television show about what it means to be a “good guest”, but ignoring the central premise of actually having consent and listening to the boundaries and requests of the person granting you the space. And in that way, it’s practically Trumpian, playing at the structure and the optics of a thing, but understanding nothing of its actual purpose or workings.
Panel 4: And of course, she’s also terrible at it. I have a feeling she’s never once had to live on her own without a staff or a family to ensure she’s eating healthily and dressing herself. She has no life skills, but is convinced she can play a domestic role if it means not having to accept the consequences of her actions.
Panel 5: Is it just me or are all the light colored shirts a soft lilac color, almost as if the purple shirts in that basket bled through on all the white ones. So, I think we can count this one in the list of what she has destroyed.
And of course Leslie’s responses and questions might as well be nothing to Robin. She’s trying to will an alternative reality into being and responding as if it was true and Leslie was super excited to have a new U-haul girlfriend who’s really totes straight but is definitely living her forever and never leaving and trying to fit a sitcom idea of what it means to be a roomie or a girlfriend.
Panel 6: Which makes her face here tragic. She’s given up on setting anymore boundaries, on trying to correct Robin’s behavior. But she’s still got the little bit of life in her to object to the destruction of things that matter to her. And it’s tragic, because it seems on this current path, she’ll become numb to that as well.
That certainly was the case for me. It all just became… what you did to get by. And I learned to minimize when they came up by never bringing up any issues and just riding through the bad and saying whatever caused the least damage. Knowing nothing I did or said mattered to the psychodrama playing in her own head.
Fuck, I feel so bad for Leslie here. 🙁
Your insights are a high point of coming back to this train wreck. Your pathos is a source of no small amount of sorrow.
Seconded. 🙁
As I mentioned below I am legitimately scared for Leslie’s well being. This, this horrifying. And to see Leslie so crushed is tear jerking. Speaking of tearjerking, I wasn’t here to comment yesterday because my friends and I all got together to watch a movie, and it’s been about a year since all of us were together in the same room. Long story short, we had to stop the movie about half an hour in because I was bawling my eyes out uncontrollably, and kept crying for about two hours. After an hour of calming down after that we continued said movie. Then afterwards I kept remembering the scene that made me cry every couple of hours and I’d start sobbing again for twenty minutes. So I was not in an emotionally set state to comment yesterday, and am barely holding it together today. I’m just so glad I had the weekend off from the bar. A crying bouncer is not an intimidating one.
1. Sympathies, and I hope that at least the catharsis and/or the closeness was/were worthwhile.
2. I dunno, I think I’d find a crying bouncer quite intimidating, in a “how do I deal with this?” sense. Like, “Are you okay, dude who could break me in half?”
In response to statement 2, I’m not very tall (only 5’11”) and I couldn’t break someone in half. Arms are easy to break, spines are much more difficult.
…
Don’t ask me how I know that.
All that, and no mention of the fact that Robin appears to have no pants on? :v
OMG foamy thank you! LITERALLY NOBODY but you in the comments has mentioned this and I thought I might be seeing things!!
Look at her!! she’s clearly butt naked!!
This is getting messy. If Robin is falling from grace as an adult, heaven forbid she take Leslie down with her.
Alright, this is getting a little tiresome.
So in shortpacks Leslie was trying to win Robin over but in this AU it’s Robin trying to win Leslie over.
Eh…If it’s just and Episode I poster then the vacuum damage is minimal. However, this is just nuts and scary. Good god almighty but Robin must have already taken at least a decade off of Leslie’s life from the sheer amount of stress. Cerberus mentioned in part of her analysis above proper sleep cycles and routines, the difficulty of reestablishing them and the fact that Leslie has to wake up and immediately enter damage control mode. The physical and mental strain this is putting on her is alarming and dangerous to her health.
Not sure what to say in a coherent manner. Maybe because it’s 7am in the morning or maybe because of how fucked up this is. I’m scared. Robin scares me. This whole forcefully making herself a part of Leslie’s life is extremely uncomfortable on every level and the slapstick shenanigans whatever going on in the last panel just makes it confusing too. I really can’t tell what the mood of this page is supposed to convey.
The more of these comments I read, the less apologetic I feel about how much I hate Robin.
Because I hate Robin. Her reality distortion field refuses to be switched off and it is bad writing to continue rewarding it with cheap laughs. Leslie should have made her peace, parted ways, and never seen Robin again. Leslie should have thrown Robin out the door and never seen Robin again, except in the tabloids, who should have annihilated Robin the moment all those news vans parked outside should have seen her getting forcibly thrown out the door.
I don’t care why the story needs her to stick around. Robin needs to go away and stay gone. She needs to stop ruining Leslie’s life and undermining her character. She needs to stop watering down the tone of the comic by continuing to get away with violating it.
IMO, it’s not bad writing.
That reaction you’re having, the way you’re feeling towards Robin?
That is how you are supposed to feel.
I should hope so. Bad writing is such an awful accusation to make and I often regret making it, because it shouldn’t be made lightly and certainly not about a story in progress.
Bottom line is Robin needs to be dealt with and her antics should not be normalized. Not by the “that’s our Robin!” effect she’s angling for, and sure as hell not by Leslie letting herself get worn down.
I think the point is that in most of pop culture, this would be played for cheap laughs (think of how many rom-coms are basically the leading man stalking the leading woman because ~*~wacky hi-jinks~*~ until she’s worn down and gives in), but it’s actually supremely creepy behavior.
This isn’t funny – but I think that’s the point.
I don’t being funny and creepy are mutually exclusive. Horrible things are often also prime subjects for humor. We just avoid making jokes about these things to just anyone, so as to avoid being assholes to people are deeply personally affected by them.
Maybe. I’m far from convinced of that. I’d be much more convinced if the narrative wasn’t playing the wacky pretty much straight. I’m not getting the creepy tone. It should be there, given the situation. I get it recaps like Cerberus’s, but not from the actual strips.
Robin’s too much like a toon for it work for me.
And I don’t believe this storyline ends with Robin in jail. Or better yet in an institution, because this Robin, taken seriously, shouldn’t be capable of living without a keeper.
Or a hospital, for heaven’s sake. At this point Leslie is entirely justified — morally and legally — in physically restraining Robin and having her arrested.
I hope and trust that the reason she hasn’t goes beyond “lol zany”; I can think of a few, such as active reluctance to avoid the publicity or a distrust of the justice system given her and Robin’s positions, but this underreaction thing is really bugging me 🙁
I’m still surprised we haven’t seen any news within the comic of Robin being spotted breaking into a place of residence after being thrown out since Leslie’s condo was supposed to be surrounded by the press.
Yes, this is even stranger than her reappearing in Leslie’s apartment after being thrown out.
Leslie seems to have given up a being able to eject her, which is heartbreaking.
Yeah, Robin is fucking terrible. I hope she goes to jail or something. ugh.
I hate that I still like her. 🙁
..well, actually I think I’m starting to forgive myself after reading a zillion comments, but, it still hurts, liking someone who’s doing terrible things. every robin-comic is another kick to the stomach. And she’s just a fictional character, she can’t come into *my* room and destroy *my* stuff.
Look at the bright side, Leslie: all the while Robin is there, she isn’t in office making decisions that will affect the fate of thousands! You’re doing a service to the whole state!
Like some kind of lesbian sin eater, taking all the horrible shit Robin COULD be doing to Indiana’s queer community onto herself.
Clearly, Robin doesn’t make any decisions, ever. Whatever she does as a Congressperson is a result of her staff telling her what to do. Which means she’s doing all the damage even when she’s here.
Dunno… Won’t they need her around to, like, sign things and such?
Oh good heavens, she’s turning into one of those room-mates!
You can’t help but wonder just how long she’s planning to hide away from the world in Leslie’s apartment. You also can’t help but wonder why she so desperately wants to hide away like this.
She wants.
She’s not fully aware of what she wants, or willing/capable of admitting it to herself, and certainly not one for examining the matter at all.
She just wants, and she will ignore or deflect anything stopping her from getting what she wants.
Absolutely self-focused.
Absolutely terrifying.
This is what happens when you invite vampires in.
Yikes. You’re right. Horribly so.
Twizzlers, the less-fatty bacon substitute. 😛
It’s some crazy mix of The Man Who Came to Dinner and The Ransom of Red Chief.
I mean this is DoA, where shitty things happen to almost everyone consistently. Didn’t know what else I was expecting.
This level of buildup usually carries some severe repercussions though. I’m curious to see how this ends. Not too interested on following this train wreck any longer though.
I hate Robin so much.
Hell is paved with good intentions (french proverb rough translation)
Same proverb in English, except it usually starts “the road to hell…”
Soggies may rule.
What’s your endgame here Willis? I’m perplexed
Hopefully Robin in prison.
ROBIN!
HAHAHA WACKY HIJINKS
Robin, you’re approaching Mary levels of The Scrappy (see Tvtropes.org).
I’d rather more Mary than more Robin. I’d rather more ANYONE ELSE than more Robin. No-one else’s evil gets played as wacky hijinks. The other villains are shit people, but they’re at least acknowledged by the rest of the cast as shit people. Ryan’s fully aware he’s horrible, Blaine outright acknowledges it with sadistic glee, and Mary at least has this grim acceptance that everyone else is against her side (even if she’s wrong that her side isn’t shit).
This, of course, may be the point that Willis is trying to get across with this arc – that shit people are not just the grim, serious, and gleeful sadistic, but they can sometimes present their shit under a facade of friendly smiles and wacky jokes.
I dunno, Mary’s meanness got briefly played as Wacky Hijinks with Carla’s skates and the glue, before getting turned to something more serious. Hopefully a similar turn is coming here, but it’s been a long time coming.
And that was another tone shift that didn’t work for a lot of people.
I still can’t take the “glue in the skates” strip seriously, due to the comicness of the faceplant panel.
I DO think it makes a difference that, in that arc, Mary was awful AFTER the comic relief strip – once you hit the transphobia, there were no laughs to be had – while Robin is being awful DURING the comical strips.
Yeah agreed, it did seem like the storyline was two parts, the Wacky Hijinks part and the shit got real part and it was quite an abrupt change
It also left comic relief a lot faster – even before the transphobia became open, Carla stopped treating it as a joke after the glue.
But that tonal shift is part of what led to all the “Mary just wanted to study” nonsense.
It was well done though because at the start it was whacky then in the middle part it was left quite ambiguous or at least arguments could be made for Mary then it all got very serious
Very good point for demonstrating just how quickly things can change
Again, the only solution to make Robin stay gone once she goes is Mace, a Taser and a firearm.
Some of that seems unnecessary. I mean, after you’ve bashed Robin in the face with the mace, there’s no point to the other two.
What I find in these comics is actually a reason why Leslie could like Robin, while still acknowledging how awful she is. Forever, I couldn’t understand why Leslie was ever attracted to Robin. But all this goofy stuff makes it make so much more sense.
Don’t get me wrong. Robin is awful. But she’s really good at seeming endearing, even when you know how awful she’s being.
ZERO of Robin’s appearances in DoA strike me as endearing. Creepy. Stalkery. Call SWAT-y. But not endearing. The more Robin shows up, the LESS I understand how someone who isn’t in desperate need of an education in healthy personal relationships could be attracted to her. I could see it (if I squinted really hard and it was twilight) when Robin was just a nebulous presence defined as a beautiful woman who is successful in a difficult career path; but the more we see of her the more I wish for the serendipitous truck of the poll.
Exactly what part of breaking into someone’s home and destroying/commandeering their possessions is endearing? This isn’t goofy it’s deeply inappropriate and unsettling.
Anyone reminded of Stephen King’s Misery?
I assume these comic strips with Robin being annoying fool and invading Leslie privacy just cause she likes to do it should make us feel funny inside, right?
It makes me rage if anything wanting to remove Robin from the comic completely.
i think it’s actually supposed to make us angry because this isn’t that type of wacky comic of hijinks
Jesus her immaturity is more than walky and Joyce at the beginning combined
Can’t Leslie just call someone to force her out? Even roz, as unprofessional as that may be
Yes, she can. She could call Roz, she could call campus security, she could call the police.
I’m not familiar with US Universities organisation, but since Leslie has a landlord, wouldn’t it mean she lives off campus (and therefore campus security wouldn’t be an option)? But yessss, the police. Or an exterminator.
The odds of the law being enforced against a sitting Congresswoman is low. I think Leslie knows that.
I don’t think they would proscecute her, but I can promise you they would escort her off the property.
A sitting assistant state AG was nailed to the wall for stalking, harrassment, etc, of a college student.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/17/justice/michigan-shirvell-defamation/
So there’s some hope.
Or she could give Carla cookies. (No I will NEVER stop advocating Carla cookie combo!)
Yay, more tonal whiplash.
The more DoA-Robin we see, the more she fills me with loathing. I’m losing all ability to feel any sympathy for her at all.
Also, Robin, you are not a guest, you are engaged in a prolonged home invasion.
As someone who owns many posters, almost all of them first press bonuses for CD’s and DVDs of my favorite Japanese Idols, I would probably kill Robin if I was in Leslie’s position.
Okay. I’m going to offend some people here – well alot of people, but this really needs to be said.
HOLY FUCK YOU GUYS IT’S JUST A WEB COMIC
Robin isn’t a horrible person. ROBIN IS NOT A PERSON AT ALL. She is a caricature that is deliberately exaggerated. Her behavior isn’t damaging anyone because .. OMG LESLIE ISN’T A REAL PERSON EITHER.
Seriously though on some level I bet that Willis is glad people cared so much about something he created, but there’s also the opposite side that obsesson is not a healthy thing and some of you really REALLY need to take a step back and ground yourself, because I’m seeing alot of shitting your pants crazy when it comes to people’s reactions to what a bunch of fictional characters are up to.
Dude/Gal I really hope you’re not talking about Cerberus here and the way she opens up with her personal history in these comics, because if so you’re way out of line.
And while there is a certain silliness to overanalyzing fiction (it’s called “fan wank” for a reason) you’re exaggerating yourself if you think it’s so unhealthy. It’s the mark of GOOD fiction if the audience can identify with the characters and relate them to their real life. It’s the mark of VERY GOOD fiction if the story helps people get through their real hard times
Have you considered that this comic might be cathartic for some people, that the issues raised allows people to talk about similar issues they’ve experienced, to unload and feel better?
That the comic might be useful for helping change attitudes by helping people see mirrors of themselves and then discuss those changes?
I personally can identify with a number of characters on here as I’m sure a lot of other people can as well so of course when that happens storylines are going to effect people as they will have experienced what the characters are going through
It’s almost as if, when presented with a piece of artwork, different people choose different levels of emotional investment in it, and may have different feelings (largely based on their life experiences). Fancy that!
Also please allow me to introduce you to the comments section, it is on the Internet, where some people enjoy chatting about fiction at length.
Why does this bother you, really?
I care about real people. I care about artwork. Mephisto destroyed Spiderman’s marriage. Robin is keeping Leslie prisoner in her own home.
I disaprove of everything you said, as it implies Carla is fake.
Honestly, yeah. It is just a comic, but that doesn’t mean it can’t tackle tough topics or create relatable characters that let people open up about their lives. I tend to take things like Mike’s mistreatment of others in stride, as just a (terrible) joke, but when poeple in the comments discuss real world implications of these things, I find it interesting. It gives a view into the experiences of others because they are willing to open up after reading the comic, and that’s really cool. Half the reason I read this is because i like seeing how the other folks down here interpret it.
I still have some faith that Willis won’t actually go with “lol wacky” Robin and let her get away with her gross ignoring of boundaries; but this storyline is running ragged. That’s three times that Leslie wakes up/turns around to see the annoying pest refuses to leave. I think we’ve had enough
Weird. Robin in Shortpacked! was funny and endearing. Robin in Dumbingo Fage is just tragically inept.
I found Robins treatments of Leslie in SP to be emotionally abusive so I’m not seeing much difference here
Shortpacked Robin was in a goofy comics featuring reality-bending wacky hi-jinks, and her legislative agenda while a US Congressperson was decidedly less bigoted.
I just didn’t like the way she minimized Leslie to the point of not even mentioning her name and using her as a convenient doormat
That’s a totally justified reaction.
I think for a lot of readers, it didn’t strike the same note as it does here, because this “wacky hijinks” in DoA have a tonal dissonance that they lacked in a comic that had a resurrected Reagan and Jesus, and an AI car, and a “drama tag” and inter-dimensional travel, all based on a sort of rubber “rule of funny” reality.
Oh yeah she’s certainly coming off worse here then in SP
So just to clarify, Robin has at this point pretty much deep-sixed her political career at this point, right? I mean, she’s a family-values candidate who got caught (apparently) smooching a lady at a bar and has since stayed at that lady’s house for two days, with the press gathered outside. I mean, unless her opponent has already weathered decades of political character assassination and the head of the FBI comes out the week before the election with a vague “we suppose something we found might lead to something but not really” letter right before the election, I can’t really see Robin’s campaign bouncing back from this. Indiana isn’t that red.
Robin would be far from the only family values or reactionary homophobe who survived a gay scandal. Usually, though, it requires doubling down on the homophobia.
Robins opposition could go complete SJW/Pro Islam and loose that way.
The simple fact is even if Robin is an enormous hypocrite, she’s still the Republican candidate and the other guy is the Democrat. Of course she’s going to win.
Except this isn’t a Republican district, it’s a swing one. Robin’s seat is far from secure, especially with this scandal blowing wide open.
So, what, is Robin just going to squat there, Assange-style?
If she does, the next step will be revealing her true colors as a mouthpiece and sockpuppet for the Kremlin.
Why is this dumb bongo still there? Shouldn’t Leslie have called the cops by now?
Some parts of Lelsie is adimant that Robin stays.
I’m going to suggest that those parts changed their mind about Robin staying several panels ago
It’s also worth noting that the parts of Leslie that control her mouth and therefor the granting of consent are the only ones that count.
It’s cute that you think the cops would actually help Leslie.
Wait, not cute, the other thing.
Wow, that is a mean poll:
Robin should:
[ ] Get hit by a truck
[ ] Die in a fire
[ ] Be appointed to a Cabinet position
If I don’t want her appointed to Cabinet but also don’t want her to suffer bodily harm what do I select? Get hit by a truck and hope that it’s either a toy truck or a very slow moving truck?
I want Twizzlers for breakfast.
They don’t serve that in the cafeteria, though.
Robin for Presi…err congre…errrr cabinet.
Any way Joces would be rapist is the opositions son. (Plausible reason for Lesbian cabinet-women)
Ehhh. I’m all for cute lesbian couples and I was really hoping it would work out between these two. But the more wacko junk Robin pulls, the less endearing and joyful it is. It’s getting kind of painful and irritating at this point.
Yes.
Was Leslie holding a monkey’s paw when she invited Robin to speak before her class?
+1, +all
you do not mess with a nerd’s posters. You are officially banned from this house
Is Willis deconstructing his own previous stories, cause that is a hella awesome concept