Plastic in general seems to be popular, now that I Google it.
Also, damn you, butts and Willis, for getting me to Google sex toys at 1:40 in the morning. I will take your families as payment, and sell their organs.
A lesbian co-worker once griped that she didn’t understand “the dildo thing”… and wondered why people thought she’d want a fake D when she wasn’t into real ones.
I guess that while one can be not attracted to men, the act of being penetrated can still be pleasurable. Granted, you don’t have to use a dildo to do that, but they *do* come in a variety of shapes and sizes, which means they can be used to satisfy a large variety of people.
I’m curious how common it is for lesbians to be particularly attracted to trans women with penises (“gynandromorphs”). Is it as common as it is among straight men?
Yes, a time travelling Mike wearing a high tech disguise suit. You would not believe how many billions of dollars he spent just so he could return from the late 21st Century to prank Robin.
“Being the bigger person” is a noble concept that, like any noble concept, is often abused by bullies to get what they want. It is no more a sham than honor, duty and patriotism.
Honor – Behave as is expected of you
Duty – Do what is expected of you
Patriotism – Think how it you are expected to
I sense a pattern here and yet something is missing…. what could it be?
They could be interpreted as the definitions of those words, if one were sufficiently nihilistic. And a hipster.
Still they’re not far off. I’ve always interpreted them as ‘behave as you expect yourself to’, and etc. The enforcement of ideal behavior must come from within, else it’s nothing but intimidation.
Honor- Acting in a way that respects others and yourself.
Idk about you, but I would respect someone, or myself, for punching out a bully.
Duty- To act as expected of your position.
You aren’t wrong in your definition of duty, but you are looking at it from only one negative perspective. It is a parent’s DUTY to take care of their children.
Patriotism- Love or devotion for one’s country.
This is not a requirement of any person. As an American, I’m not exactly feeling very patriotic about my country right now. Also, it is a very American concept to stand up to bullies.
I think it’s important to note patriotism does not mean blind to the fualts and flaws of your country’s system, you can love your country but also want to it to improve. So even criticising your country when it falls short of what it could is a form of patriotism. The best kind, because it’s not blind.
“Being the bigger person” isn’t about meekly taking whatever bullies dish out.
It’s about not sinking to their level while you defend yourself and fight back. It’s about being careful to not become prejudiced in the course of fighting prejudice, for example
Killjoy! Thank you! That’s a definition of being “bigger” that I can get behind. Becoming another bully isn’t going to help anyone. Most bullies already have another, stronger bully making their lives miserable and have chosen to deal with that misery by passing it on to other people. Failing to pass that toxic legacy on to someone else while addressing the problem is one of the greatest things you can do and not something to be looked down upon.
Ranking could get pretty philosophical. Is blackmail between “intentionally anti-gay” and “inadvertently anti-gay”? Is homophobia not as bad when it’s borne of ignorance rather than hatred? Does intent weigh into how good/bad one’s actions are? Not sure there are any easy answers here.
Agreed. Plus the nature of the blackmail would be a factor as well. (what kinds of things you’re asking someone to do in return for not releasing blackmail material, how serious the consequences of said release would be for the person, etc) So yeah I don’t think this is something where you can unnuancedly say one is categorically worse than the other. : /
except for the part where she knowingly entered into scheming with a second party who was explicitly intending blackmail or at least non-consensual outing with intent to cause scandal.
Well, that actually backs me up better anyway, since if Roz said it Leslie really shouldn’t have believed her. But if Leslie said it that means she at least believed it to be true.
1) Blackmail and anti-gay stuff both fall into the category of “ruining a life”. Both are too repulsive to be worthy of labels like “better than”
B) She was loudly musing about Robin’s political point of view and her status as a lesbian before taking the picture and making sure both of them are on it. She was not just getting a souvenir.
III) Your numbering system’s a bit wonky.
Hurting people is not inherently repulsive. Hurting innocent people is repulsive. Hurting people as a goal is repulsive.
Hurting bad people to protect the innocent people they’re trying to hurt is not only justifiable, but sometimes failing to do it is not.
Also neither of those things fall into that category anyway, and even if they did you’d be backing me up.
Souvenir and blackmail are not the only two things that exist.
I know it says “Delete”, but I like to imagine Leslie’s phone actually saying “Deleted!” in Strong Bad’s voice. She’s a geek, she probably watched that.
I’m ashamed of Leslie. How could you delete that picture out of something as simple as morality? You’re a college professor! You’re supposed to teach children the power of hate and revenge! *pause* Wait, was that just me? Was I the Sith Lord?
The thing that happened in the place with the stuff. Seriously, my wife and children talk like this all the time and are actually communicating something.
“In other news GLEENN is reporting about a Strange incident involving a US senator who is a republican who is lot leaving a doorstep, is it a protest? is it a secret trist? is it…butts? WHO KNOWS, but GLEENN is here to find the Tooth! er, I mean truth!”
yeah that falls under the category of creepy, also under that category, sewer clowns, shadows, and that guy in a tree with the binoculars who may or may not be the worlds wurst NSA agent.
At some point in the future, Becky might be mentally ready for Joyce to share her knowledge of sparkly man-dangles. Hopefully in the form of a birthday present
I’m honestly torn between being happy Les did the right thing, and disappointed that she could have blackmailed Robin into being a better LGBTQ advocate… Aah but in the end we should be good people, so yeah let’s just be proud of Leslie and hope she can sway Robin with less ethically questionable methods.
I mean it could be argued that NOT taking advantage of this opportunity to hinder Robin’s endangerment of queer folk is the ethically questionable outcome here. It really depends on what you prioritize in your moral code.
I think they mean that Robin’s version of “tuckered out” is closer to what most people call “hammered” than what other people use the term “tuckered out” for.
Robin’s dialogue seems to suggest that not only is she still half asleep, but half drunk, or entirely hungover. I doubt if she was in her right mind that she would use the “My Lesbian” line, at least, not so soon after last night. I think you’d need at least five successful dates and to have reached Jailbreak first.
Um, wait, I must have missed something, but WHY would Leslie’s landlord let a drunk stranger into Leslie’s living space? And if there’s no obvious reason, then Leslie might want to go smack the landlord for letting a drunken person (politician or not) into her room without at least waking her first. Either way…no, Robin, don’t do that, there are some boundaries even after bar bongoing sessions. I get it, you’re drunk, you weren’t intentionally weird, but if I were Leslie I would have woken up with a shout and a punch, not an “Oh” and a gentle poke.
Ah, profanity filter, I see. Or, I assume that’s what it is, either that or my keyboard is vomiting the same autocorrect. Whatever, I’m more concerned with how Robin casually B and E’ed into Leslie’s home, it didn’t seem as if the Congress Thing had Robin boarding with Leslie. Perhaps I’m just too prudish, but that still seems a little intrusive and a lot awkward. Par for the course in DoA, but still intrusive and awkward.
The worst part of it is that Leslie doesn’t really have any recourse. She’s queer and looks visibly so. If her landlord wanted to, that would be enough to evict her. So Leslie kind of needs the landlord to be on her side, even if it means ignoring things like letting a congresswoman commit breaking and entering against you.
I don’t think MM was saying that it’s a good thing because it’s less icky; I think they were saying that it’s a good thing that, in this universe, Leslie isn’t a passive doormat who eats up Robin’s bullshit because at least it means Robin-senpai noticed her.
Well, if MM didn’t mean it this way, I apologize for reacting how I did, but, it read to me as an attempted rebuttal of my distaste for Robin’s behaviour.
Les’s reaction is a tangent that I didn’t mention, and IME, when that comes up, especially with the ‘good thing’ phrasing, that tends to be an attempt to claim that the speaker’s feelings are invalid.
‘That’s bad.’ ‘Well, it’s a good thing [irrelevant fact], then!’ is, as I very explicitly stated, a common tactic to dismiss the first statement by pretending that the irrelevant fact changes the equation.
I was, 100% commenting on Robin’s behaviour. Not Leslie’s behaviour, not how Robin’s behaviour would affect Leslie if she responded differently. What Robin said. Leslie’s reaction is irrelevant.
And, again, ‘irrelevant point’ paired with the ‘good thing’ phrasing is very common dismissive behaviour. ‘Shut up, there’s nothing wrong with it as long as it doesn’t harm this particular person.’
Except that Leslie agreeing with you is not really irrelevant and is the exact opposite of dismissive. Maybe it’s just I haven’t run into that pattern of invalid reasoning much and you have.
I was DDD until I lost weight. Now I’m a snug C.
It
is
AWESOME!
Bras that fit. No back or shoulder pain. It’s divine. I will never understand anyone who wants them bigger when smaller is so much better! ^_^
Man, I really expected that blackmail pic plot point to hang around a little longer.
Though, the way Robin’s explaining it, it sounds like they didn’t actually have sex, just slept in the same bed, so I guess it’s not great blackmail anyway. (I like how the art is careful not to show is Robin is actually on top of the sheets or not)
Regardless of whether hanky-pankying occurred, a picture like that could probably still be used as blackmail, considering the kind of platform Robin is running on and the people she’s trying to appeal to. (source: the popularity of fake news)
Panel One: Leslie’s having a hard time. We’ve seen how passionate she is about LGBT+ rights, but she has her own line of ethics in pursuing them. Outing is highly contentious even among the LGBT+ community, so I can see why Leslie has her qualms about it.
Panel Two: Yeah, I saw this coming. Leslie seems like the kind of person who would save choices like this for when there are literally no options left, if not personally off the table entirely.
And this is a hard choice for her. She looks like she wants to cry. And that might not just be because of sadness – she might feel guilty for not being able to do this even when Robin’s supports the type of bill that gets people killed. She is definitely thinking of people she’s known, loved, and lost. She breaks my heart. </3
Panel Three: But that doesn't mean she's taking any shit! Aw yeah! Go, Leslie! She wants to know what the hell this lady is doing here and get her out. And she's done referring to her as any kind of authority, if only due to the boundary violations. And FUCK YES to her reaction to 'my lesbian'. I realize it became a term of affection in SP!, but it's also fetishizing, dehumanizing, and tokenizing when you don't know them. She has had it. Robin came in her house and broke her boundaries.
Panel Four: Oh, good, confirmation she did not invite her into her bed. Thaaaaat's great. Boundary violation ahoy! And Leslie is RIGHTFULLY pissed. Jesus, Robin, what the shit?
Panel Five: See, normally I think Robin sounding five is adorable, but it's really not right now since she's describing how she TALKED HER WAY INTO LESLIE'S HOUSE. Dear LORD, landlord what the SHIT? Leslie, that has to be a violation of tenant law of some kind! Then again, even if it is, what's the over under on Leslie being able to get a new apartment? Housing laws are not kind to lesbians.
Panel Six: And once again, Robin illustrates how much she DOES NOT GET IT. This isn't about sexiness – this about boundaries and the massive violation thereof. What the hell, Robin? And I am glad Leslie is not having her shit. She's had quite enough of it already and it was too much.
Good, I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks Robin casually (though admittedly drunkenly) talking her want into Leslie’s home/bed is pretty out of line. I get DoA puts the characters in exaggerated situations, but it’s still not a good thing for Robin to do.
Robin is pretty over the top by virtue of her trying to keep things whacky, zany, and up up up and make herself lovable and keep bad things from happening/people from leaving. That doesn’t excuse her lack of boundaries today.
But yeah, even for people who think outing anti-gay politicians is a moral right, the individual acts of outing are hard thought decisions regarding the morals surrounding each case.
And for Leslie, she is finding a moral line she can’t quite cross. And yeah, I also think she’s thinking of all the people she’s lost as she makes that choice to let go of this angle once and for all.
And yeah, all the yay of how much Leslie is standing up for herself here and taking no shit. A very welcome departure of their dynamic in Shortpacked!
I’ve heard a variety of things about it, and ultimately I’m not sure how to feel. Ultimately, it feels like a ‘don’t take it lightly, no matter what’ kind of choice.
I can respect that for Leslie, but it has to make that kind of thought harder.
YES. Leslie has her limits – she can’t be a doormat forever.
In fairness, Leslie appears to have been sufficiently drunk that she either didn’t realize or didn’t care at the time that Robin was in her bed. Leslie’s bed is against the wall, so unless Robin’s got ninja skills it appears unlikely she got in there after Leslie without waking her.
But yeah, I have no idea what the landlord was thinking. Robin wanting to go to Leslie’s home and passing out I can sort of understand though she’s taking the realization too lightly here, but I don’t see anything mitigating the landlord’s actions.
It could also be Robin climbed in from the foot of the bed instead of over Leslie. The bed doesn’t have a foot board and is only a mattress on the floor.
Okay, upon second glance, we don’t see the foot of the bed, but it looks like it’d be low enough to climb over anyways, as the bed is still floor level.
“my lesbian” was pretty damn “fetishizing, dehumanizing, and tokenizing” for a long time in SP! too. Back when Robin didn’t even bother with her lesbian’s name.
That changed as Robin actually admitted she was serious about Leslie, but IIRC the usage dropped off dramatically.
Nice callback though, and a nice pointer to the difference in self-respect between the two Leslies.
I’ve only read through SP! once, so correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Robin originally obtain “her lesbian” not out of personal interest but as a ploy to seduce some man because “all guys thinks lesbians are hot”?
It was more to seem over Ethan so he would kiss her to prove her straight (early Shortpacked! plotlines were sometimes super messed up). And the relationship in the early days with Leslie seemed a sort of queer-platonic thing with Robin blaming the desire to hang out with Leslie all the time in a quasi-relationship a result of Leslie seeing something positive in her that noone else seemed to (largely because she couldn’t fully admit to herself that she was actually attracted to Leslie and wanted a romantic relationship with her).
But yeah, early representation in SP! was awkward to say the least but still better than the horrible fetishization of the bi characters in It’s Walky! which was in turn better than the horror-show that was the handling of queer issues in Roomies.
The horror-show that was the handling of sexual issues in general in Roomies. Were there even any queer issues in Roomies? I may have blocked them out.
Because of the thing. Obviously. I mean, why else would a landlord let a complete stranger into a tenant’s room in the middle of the night? Only the thing could be that important!
Step one: Turn on the phone voice recorder.
Step two: Call the cops.
Step three: Accuse Robin of Trespassing
Step four: Sue the landlord
Step five: Enjoy instant fame and monies by ruining lives that need to be destroyed.
(So happy both me and BBCC are doing these of late 😀 )
Panel 1: I noted yesterday that the debate is fraught on the ethics of outing and outing bigoted politicians had real and measurable effects on queer rights and may in fact have been necessary for queer rights on adoption and marriage to progress as quickly as it did in public perception.
But it’s still not an easy decision to make to out someone. Especially for another queer individual who understands just how disruptive and painful outing can be on a personal level, especially when done against the powerless.
And I noted that I don’t think Leslie would make the decision of what to do next lightly and we’re seeing that inner torment here. And for her own moral calculus, we see the results in Panel 2.
Panel 2: As BBCC notes, she’s about to cry here. This is not a line she can personally cross, but letting this go… I have no doubt that she’s been thinking a lot about those she lost on the streets. Friends who died because of hateful laws like Robin tried to pass. I think she’s been being haunted since Robin tried to do her bullshit defense of her support of her bigoted laws in minimizing the cost of them in terms of “nothing probably would have happened”.
Leslie has lived on the streets. She knows not everyone survives them or escapes them the way she was able to.
Choosing to let this go, it hurts. It’s a line she’s not willing to cross, but you can tell she wishes it was. That it feels like a betrayal to those she lost to not be able to fight for them in this way.
Panel 3: Someone in the Patreon thread noticed that Jayne is cut out of her Firefly poster, which is just beautiful knowing the role his actor played in the hate movement in gaming that helped marry the toxic masculinity of nerd culture with white supremacist and male terrorist organizations.
And oh my, I’m so thrilled at her here and especially that little callback.
Because in SP! that was a pet name to acknowledge a relationship Robin wasn’t quite ready to admit and which Leslie was so head-over-heels to take umbrage to.
Here? It’s a diminution and a familiarity that is not earned. Leslie is not her lesbian, because Leslie categorically rejected that type of relationship and views Robin as a danger to herself and other queer women. And because she had real things to communicate to Robin beyond just happening to be queer and someone Robin wants to bang. Real hurts and injustices that Robin has helped to make worse.
And especially in rejection to the reality that, to Robin, Leslie is only “my lesbian” because Robin still after Leslie poured her heart and story to her, STILL viewing her only as important in the way other queer folk aren’t because of Robin’s crush.
Robin only values Leslie’s opinion and presence, because of her attraction and even that’s not enough to have communicated effectively enough the boundary she set and what Robin has done against those like her.
And in combination to a breaking and entering, it’s extra gross, because it’s an implied ownership of “your boundaries and wants don’t matter, only mine do” that is deeply creepily predatory and thus worthy of aggressively outing.
Poor Leslie. You can see it in her face – she’s thinking of friends gone by. Some are here, some aren’t, some she wasn’t able to save, maybe some it was too dangerous to save, some she still knows, some she hasn’t heard from in years.
And yeah, sometimes it hurts just as much not to be able to fight every way you know how because you can only hope you made the right call to hold back.
I FORGOT TO MENTION THE POSTER GDI. Note to self: Work on those more thoroughly on Patreon’s bonus strip panel analyses tomorrow.
And yes, Leslie has a combination to spine and self worth that was hard won, and now she gets to stand up because FUCK Robin getting to come in and act like she owns Leslie.
It’d actually be really easy to defend him. All you have to do is put him on the stand, point to various members of the jury, and ask him what race, gender, etc., they are.
Galasso is incapable of discrimination, because Galasso is literally incapable of identifying the traits he’d like to discriminate against.
You might be able to prove it using expert testimony from someone who’s administered an implicit-bias test. Especially if that expert gets to enter in his personal observations from the testing as part of the evidence.
“The subject spent a lot of time squinting at the pictures, trying to discern what gender they were. He seemed genuinely confused about what was being asked. At four different points during the testing process, he asked me if I had a gender. Not WHAT my gender was, but IF I had a gender. At the end of the process, he asked if HE had a gender. These inquiries were accompanied by bluster and aggrandizement that conformed to textbook defensiveness.”
Oh sure, of course Galasso’s lawyer would want to get a supporting professional opinion, most likely a medical one.
It’s just that (a) expert witnesses are paid by the party utilising them and (b) the jury is free to give weight or disregard expert testimony as they see fit. Galasso’s obliviousness to gender has never been documented – he’s too unique to convince a jury his condition is real. It would smell of a total bullshit defense.
Panel 4: Leslie’s murder face here gives me strength, because it is such a welcome departure of her comically forgiving doormat role her namesake was in Shortpacked! Like, yeah, I loved that couple there, but the universe allowed that to be adorable and heart-warming and the reality of this Leslie and this Robin’s situation makes this similar familiarity creepy and possessive and disrsespectful to Leslie’s stated boundaries.
And Leslie’s rage at that utter dismissal of her humanity based on the narrative Robin is writing in her head about her is such a strong example of who this Leslie is and what drives her and feels real.
And she has a damn good reason to be murderously angry. She gave Robin a lot of second and third chances for humanity and really reached out to her better self at great personal cost, ending it with setting a firm boundary and a final hard-chosen goodbye.
For Robin to have not only ignored that but also broken into her home, violating nearly every possible boundary to sneak into her bed… it’s unconscionable and vile and deeply dangerous.
Like this isn’t a normal creepy stalker situation, this is a creepy stalker with governmental powers and authority.
Panel 5: I mentioned above, but the worst part of this is Leslie can’t even complain. In Indiana, it is 100% legal to fire someone or deny housing to someone because they are gay because there are no real anti-discrimination protections on the basis of sexuality.
So, what is keeping her in housing is having a “good” relationship with her landlord. So even with this major violation of her boundary, she must keep quiet with her head down if she still wants a roof and that’s one of the nasty microaggressions that comes with having no real reliable protections for your right to work or your right to a roof over your head.
And hoo boy, what a violation this is. And even more scary to think that Robin may have casually used her position as a Congresswoman to press the issue and “convince” the landlord to violate this boundary.
Robin in this universe is at times legitimately terrifying. And the way she doesn’t even think twice of how fucked up it was to climb into someone’s bed while they were sleeping. Someone who did not part on friendly bed-climbing-into terms?
Yeah. Holy fuck.
Panel 6: And in that last panel we see the terrible consent and boundaries respect she embodies. She doesn’t even realize why this is a violation of Leslie’s boundaries. Why this is terrifying for anyone to experience.
Because in her mind and in the mind of the culture she is courting votes from, it doesn’t matter that she ignored stated boundaries and assumed non-existent familiarity, because it didn’t involve sexy or naked times, so it’s “all good” because it’s not “dirtied” with the hanky-panky.
And it hints that this Robin is not entirely unaffected by the value system of the folks she is eagerly courting for votes. She is cynical in her exploitation and apathetic to the populations she hurts, but part of her also buys in fully to the twisted value system she is inclined to parrot.
And it makes this Robin far more insidious and dangerous and genuinely unsettling.
Like, holy fuck, if someone I set a boundary with broke into my home to slip into my bed, I’d probably have trouble sleeping for the next month straight and start waking up with panic attacks.
Like that’s deeply unsettling stalker behavior and Leslie’s ability to feel fully safe in her home is deeply diminished by the knowledge that her landlord will gleefully let any stalker of hers break in while she sleeps.
And yes, ugh, the disgusting boundary destruction ew ew ew.
Yes, sadly, that landlord probably has Leslie’s arm in a twist. She can’t afford to raise a fuss.
Robin uses her power for evil in more ways than one – possibly confirmed.
Robin doesn’t even recognize what she did wrong, I swear to god. It’s obnoxious as hell because at some point, she needs to be held accountable and it doesn’t happen if she keeps quiet.
And ewwww, yes, to boundaries not counting for non-sexy stuff. It’s fucking creepy and unwelcome.
I’ve mentioned already you should not touch or surprise me when I am asleep or waking up. If I were Leslie, Robin’d get screamed at at least, and slapped awake at worse, just as a jerk reflex. What the fuck why are you in my room and moreso in my bed? This whole apartment situation is now officially gross and toxic. *shudders*
Waking up in the early morning next to someone I thought I said a final no to who then goes on to say they’ve had my landlord help them break in would have me hyperventilating and flashbacking in the worst way and I doubt I would be able to feel safe in that apartment again.
I was hoping there would be a lot more freaking out and/or crying on Robin’s part as she explained what she was doing here, and a lot less “well I was drunk and I was able to get in, so…”
I mean, it’d still be a huge breach either way, but if it had been motivated by emotional distress, that would have made it slightly less worrying, at least
Being as fair as possible, Robin might be too groggy still-waking-up to be in the tearful apology stage. But yeah, just shrugging and saying “Well, someone LET me in, I didn’t technically break in through the window, no biggie” is not as cute as Robin seems to think it is. Even if Leslie hadn’t been firm at the bar and had just say “Bye, maybe we’ll drink again later,” breaking into anyone’s house when they aren’t expecting you AND climbing into their bed is crossing a line. That’s a pretty obvious boundary of having a private residence, not something anyone should have to clarify.
FWIW, Cerberus, if this Robin is anything like her DoA counterpart, she doesn’t respect or even fully comprehend anyone’s boundaries.
As I say in my comment below, I’m really starting to wonder if Robin has some kind of sociopathic behaviour disorder. In essence, if she wants something, she will do whatever it takes to get it and basically view the other party as being defective in some way for wanting to deny it to her because she cannot see any reason why they should do so.
I dunno if it’s a disorder. It may be as simple as her just not caring about anyone else to value their boundaries as important.
What is interesting to me though is how Robin, like Mike, has similar actions take on a dark meaning in a more realistic context. Like SP! Robin was similarly terrible about boundaries and random decisions with other people’s lives, but it was more forgivable because it was a wacky land and she was a chaotic superhero and we got to see how deeply she cared underneath.
But in this universe, she’s just a spoiled and dangerous figure with little empathy for those lives she hurts.
100% agreement that Robin’s worldview is colored by the culture she inhabits, hence her failing to appreciate the gravity of how Leslie is feeling in this moment. It certainly doesn’t help that she’s too sleepy to process anything right now, but it’s still Robin’s instinctive reaction to shrug it off.
I wouldn’t go so far as to accuse Robin of breaking into Leslie’s home though. Using her Congressional position to get into Leslie’s bed seems far removed from Robin’s established character. In her drunken state she thought she’d visit Leslie, gave the proverbial knock on the door and was let in by the landlord. The big wrong thing she’s done appears to be passing out on Leslie’s bed without permission, and judging from how the bed is against the wall and Robin is on the wall-side of the bed, Leslie was not in the bed at the time.
At this point we’re speculating, but in Robin’s case I’m inclined to think she assumed the landlord did whatever necessary checks with Leslie. I mean, why would anyone suspect the landlord would let them into the tenant’s home without the tenant’s permission?
“Imma here ta see Leslie.”
“Oh sure, come on in.”
“Thank you’ze…”
It seems out of Robin’s character to purposely sneak into Leslie’s home if she knows she’s not welcome there.
Yeah, I think you’re right on that. I interpret Robin’s boundary (and general behavioral) issues as not understanding where to stop in the absence of permission rather than in the face of it. It fits her general pattern of daring obliviousness.
Yeah, though I’d argue that being ignorant of where to stop is not actually better – like I like to say, stepping on someone’s foot doesn’t only hurt when you do it on purpose.
It’s a culpability rather than responsibility thing for me. Robin is still responsible for whatever she does when she gets herself drunk, but the reasons can affect whether it merits condemnation. I wouldn’t condemn someone for accidentally stepping on my foot after they tripped on a stone.
I’m pretty sure that it’s going to turn out that Robin came to Leslie’s apartment (after a long counselling session with a bottle of Single Malt) to apologise to Leslie. She didn’t know what she was supposed to be apologising for but she’d figured out that she’d done something wrong and wanted to apologise anyway.
As Falcon suggests, a drunken woman begging entry into Leslie’s apartment late at night was abnormal but Leslie’s landlord was probably too tired himself to think too much about it; she knew enough about his tenant for him to be sure that she wasn’t some random weirdo. Robin probably didn’t have any clear intentions at this point – it was too late and she was too drunk, tired and dispirited to be thinking straight. That bed looks so comfy! Crawl on and fall asleep! Zzzzz!
What makes this situation so uniquely Robin is that she’s going to be hard-pressed to understand why Leslie isn’t impressed by Robin’s story or chain of unreasoning.
I’d argue she should be cut some slack if she was THAT drunk and explains some good intentions, but not necessarily immediately forgiven. Doing stupid things while drunk is common, sure, but that doesn’t negate the repercussions. And, Robin’s a grown woman, she can take some responsibility for getting THAT drunk. People’ll cut other people some slack for being a drunken ass, but that doesn’t mean the person WASN’T a drunken ass.
It took me a few moments to realise *exactly* what happened, due to how Robin seems to treat it has no big thing.
I mean, in this exact situation, I am not worried because, hey, it’s Robin; worst thing she could do is eat all of her sweets. But generally speaking, the idea that someone could just enter my house by virtue of being famous enough is chilling.
Leslie may not be in quite such a bad situation legally. Indiana has no such protections, but Bloomington seems to. I’m not sure exactly what the consequences would be for the landlord, but there is some legal protection.
Of course, those kinds of local protections are under attack.
I want to make cutsey jokes, but this situation is just too friggin’ DANGEROUS, for Robin and her career, but more importantly for Leslie and her basic safety.
I can honestly see the whole thing blowing up in Robin’s face and her becoming sort of like Becky only from a radically different background.
Willis may use this as a way of exploring how differently society treats ‘anonymous’ victims of homophobia like Becky and ‘celebrity’ victims, as Robin will be seen. Additionally, Leslie’s own life will get harder as she’ll be a celebrity by one remove because of her alleged relationship (whether or not such is extant and to what degree) with Robin.
Can’t be mad at Leslie. Even if I think, in isolation, it’s the right thing to do to out a hypocritical homophobic politician, it would also harm Leslie to go this route. And she can do a lot more good if she remains the gender studies teacher at the college than if she winds up fired.
As she very likely would. That dean did not like the idea of negative attention on his university.
It is much harder to “strike down your foes” when they have a face and you’ve been getting to know them and realise they are not the amoral monsters you believed they were. Leslie did it because Robin isn’t simply an anti-LGBT politician to her, and she couldn’t bring herself to out Robin (with false evidence, too, since they didn’t actually do *anything*)
Roz’s and Leslie’s situations seem pretty far removed from each other. Roz was making amateur porn in a student dorm. Leslie’s residence and supposed sanctuary were violated by a member of Congress. With IU being as progressive as it supposedly is (my real world experience with it is highly limited), I have trouble seeing Dean McHenry giving Leslie the boot.
Since she is likely an adjunct professor, Les has nearly no protection. Just non-renew her if there is any issue at all. No reason needed. No need for the Dean to even be involved. No more job security than McDonalds, except that they won’t fire you mid-semester.
Yeah, I kind of thought that Leslie wouldn’t be able to do it; it’s just not in her nature to do something like that.
You know what else is entirely in-character? Robin’s whole story from beginning to end as well as her attitude towards Leslie and the whole situation. Sometimes, I don’t know if she’s charmingly and simply innocent or if she’s just a complete sociopath. She literally seems to have no clue and little interest in how her whims affect anyone else.
That said, it’s kind of sweet that she sort of followed Leslie home like a lost puppy that had been shown affection and curled up on her bed. I wonder what the ‘thing’ was? Is Leslie’s landlord a DeSanto voter? 😉
It’s sweet, from Robin as a character, until you think about the real-world equivalent and the burden it puts on Leslie. Not to say you aren’t right that it’s cute Robin is attached to her, but this is not a good way to express that. The idea of someone, even an uninvited friend or crush, climbing into such a personal space without even announcing they’re there while the other person is sleeping and oblivious, is unsettling. Even if Robin is genuinely clueless, this is an almost dangerous extreme , and a pretty self-centered way of showing affection. Sorry, I’m probably taking this comic and Robin’s drunken shenanigans way too seriously. It’s like Ruth and Billie’s antics: they’re kind of dysfunctionally cute, until I think about them too much.
‘Sometimes, I don’t know if she’s charmingly and simply innocent or if she’s just a complete sociopath.’
She is neither. She is just too self-absorbed in her own little image of the world to stop for a moment and realize what she does miiight not work out so hot, for other people and otherwise.
To elaborate, she is perfectly capable of feeling for others, and she doesn’t actively avoid it. Most of the time, though, that might as well be the case since whatever EXCITING AWESOMENESS is more deserving of attention than, say, oh, a couple LGBTQ folks starving to death on the streets as a result.
It’s possible that Leslie only deleted the email she was about to send to all of her LGBTQ+ friends with the picture, and not the picture itself. Or, deleted her Facebook post with the pic, or whatever method she was going to use to ‘out’ Robin. The pic itself may still be intact.
This is fine. As I stressed yesterday, it wouldn’t had been a good thing to hold over Robin. Everything would had been twisted against Leslie, she would had lost the fight. This wasn’t the exact moment to ‘strike’, as it is.
Well, fine as in the deletion of the picture and the termination of the ‘blackmail’ arc. The rest of the strip goes into ‘wooooooooo…what’ territory quickly.
I mean, I’m fan of a good redemption arc, but breaking into people’s homes in creepy stalker fashion after they set a firm boundary is… dangerous.
I’m not sure how Leslie’s “weakness” is responsible for it as she did a good job setting that boundary and outing Robin happened to be over her personal moral line (which is totally cool). But it smacks a little of victim-blaming Leslie for aspects of Robin’s character she is powerless to control.
Leslie tried to kick her out when she realized she made a mistake and put her students’ well-being at stake, had Robin demanding what the deal was, accepted her offer and tried to explain her painful personal history and how Robin’s policies affect people like her, and pushed past her own attraction to set a firm boundary and a hopeful note for Robin to change and acknowledge herself before she wrecked herself and others.
It’s potentially naive, but well-meaning and Leslie set a firm boundary and a final goodbye when it was clear that Robin wasn’t fully ready to process all that yet.
That Robin ignored that, broke into her house, and has crawled into her bed makes her a much more dangerous person and that’s not on Leslie’s “weakness”, that’s on Robin being terrifying in this universe.
Frankly I’m really worried about Leslie’s safety that Robin has the means to access her while she’s sleeping and thinks that whatever “that thing” is justifies pushing past multiple personal and societal boundaries.
Like, I’m trying to think of an instance where a creepy stalker was a sitting congressperson and the only thing I can think of is that really creepy Assistant Attorney General who angrily stalked a college kid for awhile:
Creepy stalker I will give you, but it’s not a new low for Robin – she probably does this sort of nonsense (if to a lesser extent) every day, given how casual she is about the whole ordeal.
There is no GUARRANTEE, but I withold the right to hope and see this instance as an opportunity for Leslie to teach her breaking and entering is (what a shocker) not okay. Her yes men and parents obviously didn’t do a good job of it.
It shouldn’t in the sense it’s not her responsibility, but I believe she will regardless. She is the kind of person who would even when it’s not her job to.
I hope to god this doesn’t end in another fucking redemption arc; they are bullshit – and frankly, it would smack of us minorities having to swallow being used as a prop by some asshole to show that they’ve changed again; either for or against, we’re just props to people like Robin, and that won’t change when she realizes her orientation.
I think you may end up sorely disappointed on that score. Redemption arcs are fairly common in this comic for obvious reason, though there are also irredeemable assholes as well for the realism factor (Toedad, Mary, Carol, John, most of Joyce’s old church, Mike).
Mike goes all the way around the scale and pops up on the opposite side.
Panel 3: Someone in the Patreon thread noticed that Jayne is cut out of her Firefly poster, which is just beautiful knowing the role his actor played in the hate movement in gaming that helped marry the toxic masculinity of nerd culture with white supremacist and male terrorist organizations.
What??? Do you (or someone) have some informative links, please.
Pretty much going at it like Roz, really. The sheltered little girl takes her first step towards understanding lesbians. The sane response would be to encourage her while maaaybe gently dropping she herself did the same thing not long ago. Your response would be ‘TOO LATE YA JINXED IT’, encouragement undeserved. Never you mind Joyce met a lesbian a total of a night ago, and she herself left college from her homeschooling in a month or so.
Neither mind this probably is the first personal contact Robin ever had with any lesbian. These people are growing at rocket speed, here. How FAST do you need them to change for the better before you are satisfied?
It’s possible, but unlikely. In the other universe she started out in serious denial about her bisexuality. By all appearances, that’s the same in this universe.
To some extent you’re right – she’s here because she has a crush on Leslie and no sense of boundaries. But I doubt she’s actually thinking of it in anything like those terms. If she does get far enough to accept the crush, even to herself, I expect her to be open about it. She’s never been good at keeping secrets.
She’s not coming here hoping to have sex and keep it a secret. That’s not Robin. If she was, she would have acted on it, not just gone to sleep.
In about the same sense that anyone going to see someone they’ve got a crush on is “trying to get her cooch licked” (or the equivalent).
You know – with no actual plan to do so or, in her case, more than a vague understanding that she might be interested.
Should’ve kept it. Leslie doesn’t have to use it ever, but it’s nice having that bit of power that she could use at any time to destroy Robin’s political career.
You know, wishing that people who disagree with you “die in a fire” is probably the same hateful rhetoric that the other side uses against you. Maybe try to class it up slightly by treating humans like human beings rather than chess pieces.
A) “Die in a fire” is an internet phrase that basically means ‘fuck off’.
B) Pretending Robin is just ‘someone who disagrees with Leslie’ is bullshit. Differences of opinion are one thing, bigotry is another. Robin’s policies cause actual harm to Leslie and the rest of the LGBT+ community.
C) Saying people are inferior and deserve to die and wanting people who are trying to hurt/kill you to die are not morally equivalent.
A) OTOH, doesn’t that just normalize death threats on the Internet as “just joking” and no big deal? OTGH, Robin’s fictional and thus not actually threatened.
B) Absolutely, normalizing bigotry as “just differences of opinion” is one of the cute rhetorical tricks the alt-right uses that I absolutely loathe. It’s a clever bit of rhetorical ju-jitsu because liberal types do actually care about respecting other’s opinions, while the right doesn’t care.
A) It’s not usually meant as a joke – usually it means ‘fuck off’ pretty seriously. Kind of like ‘go jump off a cliff’. You don’t actually want them to jump off a cliff, you just want them to go away and leave you alone.
B) I’ve been seeing it so often lately I am seeing red oh dear lord.
B) Seriously. It’s a clear tactic too, which makes it much more infuriating as it’s deliberately equating things like harassment, abuse, rape, and legislative violence as simply “other opinions” and then acting like people being dismayed at being the target of such things is somehow “censorship” of “free speech”.
Worse yet is the second phase of this shit, where they pretend these “opinion differences” are the equivalent of an identity you are born into and petitioning for “opinion diversity” as a back-alley method of slipping more underqualified harassing bigots into things like universities and other organizations.
And it’s somewhat terrifying in combination with the rise of literal nazism that’s using all these tactics to mainstream themselves and act like not giving “equal” (i.e. one-sided fawning) coverage to them is an act of discrimination or bias. Not to mention mainstreaming things like literal attempts to murder someone or actual literal camps into “political issues” open to “debate”.
You know, suggesting someone vaguely wishing death on a fictional character is in any way comparable to kind of shit real-life politicians like Robin (and much, much worse) is probably a load of ignorant, self-righteous bullshit. Maybe remove your head from your ass
Once again, the white cis gayz demonstrate that bullshit moralizing means more to them than the lives that Robin causally takes with her politics. White liberals are worthless allies to any kind of minority, because they value respectability over actual life, 99 times out of a hundred, and the whiteness will always come before their queer bretheren, or PoC sisters.
I dunno. I think if people have a moral line they can’t cross, they have a moral line they can’t cross, no use banging on someone for that.
Especially if they are not being shitty to more marginalized folks about being morally superior to them because the marginalized folk’s lines are different or their risks are different.
Leslie just didn’t have it in her, but I doubt she’d lord it over a homeless sex worker who would make a different decision in this moment.
I’m also really not buying the “white cis gayz/white liberals” are worthless thing. Any group can let allies down and white privilege lets whites do so more easily, but here we’re dealing with a white cis lesbian being a worthless ally(?) to other gayz, including white ones – her own group. This happens and not just with whites, but it’s also not like white homosexuals have been on the sidelines of the fight for at least L&G rights while other non-whites struggled for it.
You want to talk about white gayz ignoring issues more specific to minority gays, that’s reasonable. Or prejudice among homosexuals against bisexuals. Or against transfolk among other queer folk. All of that is stuff that happens.
But using Leslie as an example of a worthless liberal ally to her queer bretheren? Because white gays are worthless allies to the gay movement?
Makes no sense to me.
It’s called ‘historical precedent’. The only interests they will serve is their feelz, no matter what will actually help poor queer kids, or any other minority – look up how they paid for the rebuilding of an NC repub office.
But it’s using this particular case that doesn’t make sense to me. If you’re talking “white liberals” in general, I can see the argument, though I could argue the point.
But if you’re arguing as you seemed to be that white gays were worthless in the gay rights struggle, that’s just bullshit. Leslie was a poor queer kid. Leslie is that “queer brethren”.
There has been a long standing pattern of white gays using the rest of us to get what they want and then abandoning the rest of us as a collective for as long as there’s been a lgbt movement – so long as they can have their comfortable jobs and their marriage and the right to fuck, they don’t give a tinker’s damn for the rest of us.
I don’t think you can say actions. There is only one action here – her momentary impulse to take a photo has been cancelled by her momentary impulse not to out people. Now it seems she is figuring out what is going on instead.
I will trust you about historical precedents; it sounds like what sadly happens with many cases of intersectionality. But as for this character, I think these few seconds of being startled aren’t enough to condemn her as awful or exonerate her as reasonable. She’s still taking her actions.
On the breaking and entering thing, now I am wondering was BSing the landlord Robin’s first tactic, or something she resorted to after she tried ringing the doorbell?
In the latter case, why didn’t Leslie answer the door? Too drunk/Heavy sleeper/never answers the door at night?
Maybe she had to go to the landlord first because she didn’t know Leslie’s apartment number, and as long as she was there with them already, why not cut to the chase?
Some of the comments that posters are making about Robin… and evidently about other posters here as actual people… make me REALLY hope that Robin is here trying to do something right by following up on “The Intern Question”.
I dunno, if she was just really worried about the intern thing, this is still a really gross boundary violation. Like, that’s a question that can wait til morning when Leslie is in her office with an opening of “hey, sorry to bother you again, but I couldn’t sleep thinking about this intern thing, can you help me narrow this down?”
Honestly, I’m not sure what would justify the B&E. Actual literal zombie invasion and Leslie’s home was next to the bar? The ground is literally lava? Aliens are killing anyone who does not look like a paired queer couple?
What we could be seeing from the pattern of her behavior is that DoA!Robin has a pathological difficulty in foreseeing the negative consequences of her actions on her own, and they have to be spelled out for her in big letters. Just a random idea.
We’ll see what’s really going on, but it’s possible that she literally told the landlord “I’m helping Leslie ID a suspected serial rapist” or whatever, and as a recognizable Congressperson, that was enough for the landlord to let her in.
OK, yeah, on the consent issue, you’re making total sense.
Sometimes it’s easy to let the “wacky hijinks” slide past the radar without considering the deeper implications, because it’s a comic, and because I’ve been reading Willis’s work since Roomies, so I’ve seen a lot of wacky.
Yeah, it’s what makes this universe interesting, because it doesn’t run as much on wacky hijinks and is much more realistic, which makes moments like this a lot darker and more disturbing as a result.
Even if the landlord was somehow justifiably convinced to let her in, not just to the building, but to Leslie’s apartment, he didn’t even knock/go in with her to make sure everything was on the up & up?
Several weeks later it is revealed that the landlord let Robin in because they were intending to blackmail or out her. The comments section explodes three times over.
The comment section for this arch disappoints me.
I mean yea Robin has done some shit.
But Robin is flawed just like a ton of the other characters in this comic. It’s what makes them believable.
She doesn’t really seem malicious, just very ignorant and flighty and short sighted.
And Leslie, I’m proud of you, taking pix of sleeping people is bad. That IS malicious. It’s good you thought better of it.
Most of the other characters are teenagers or in their early twenties, Robin is not so no she doesn’t get a pass like the others also as an elected representative she should be held to a higher standard
Leslie isn’t the one who not only broke into someone’s home, but crawled into their bed. Taking a photo of Robin in this situation is completely acceptable, if only as documentation for the police report.
And as has been noted, the fact that the harm she does lacks real, dedicated malice doesn’t actually make it any less harmful.
Yes, the thing.
And to all the commentators sitting on my bed and reading ShortPacked at me, Gedoffa my Lawn! Per WoWillis, DoA is a stand alone creation independent of SP. So I will consider it on its own merits, thank you very much.
Wait, I just realised – maybe “the thing” is Robin’s glasses, that Les took as she left? And Robin intended to retrieve them? It’s definitely not B&E worthy, but might explain what “the thing” is at least.
The thing could be the glasses thing. The thing could be the intern thing. The thing could be the Robin actually owns the building and the landlord works for her family thing. The thing could be the weapon she pointed at the landlord before tying him up and knocking him on the head. With Robin it’s hard to tell.
“I also ate yur porridge and sat in yur chair, BTW. Felt appropriate for some reasons. Have you considered getting two roommates that are taller and shorter than you.”
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I believe that the only D in the room at the moment is made of rubber.
That’s assuming a bit much of Leslie my good fellow reader!
Seriously, she probably has a few made of silicon, and one made of glass for special occasions
Glass? Surely you meant “Pyrex.”
Or “transparent plastic”.
Plastic in general seems to be popular, now that I Google it.
Also, damn you, butts and Willis, for getting me to Google sex toys at 1:40 in the morning. I will take your families as payment, and sell their organs.
You assume I haven’t already done that to mine.
A silicon dildo would be interesting, but probably kinda crumbly. I’d recommend silicone instead.
If you wish to invent a dildo from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Who said anything about a Dildo? There is clearly at least one great big Donk in that bed.
You need to start with a big bang.
Teehee… It is funny because ‘D’ can also mean penis.
And also because I am butts.
But that’s always funny, so it doesn’t count.
DAMN IT! that was too good, butts. (applauds)
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Do lesbians ever use anatomically correct dildos?
I’m a lesbian and i use an anatomically correct dildo sometimes. Helps that it’s always with me, but still
I read this comment in Steve Buscemi’s voice and nearly injured myself laughing
I don’t use them. I prefer to use my own body.
Interesting…
A lesbian co-worker once griped that she didn’t understand “the dildo thing”… and wondered why people thought she’d want a fake D when she wasn’t into real ones.
Preferences vary.
I guess that while one can be not attracted to men, the act of being penetrated can still be pleasurable. Granted, you don’t have to use a dildo to do that, but they *do* come in a variety of shapes and sizes, which means they can be used to satisfy a large variety of people.
I’m curious how common it is for lesbians to be particularly attracted to trans women with penises (“gynandromorphs”). Is it as common as it is among straight men?
Sounds cis but okay
Sounds judgmental but okay.
…is the landlord Mike by any chance
almost-congrats on your near-win, Willis!
Quite frankly, you got screwed.
Don’t be that dude.
Near win? What did I miss?
Yes, a time travelling Mike wearing a high tech disguise suit. You would not believe how many billions of dollars he spent just so he could return from the late 21st Century to prank Robin.
Finely a logical explanation I can believe.
Finally damnit.
i guess it’s finally time to see what the comments are like, october willis!
Yesterday’s comments.
…. be sure to bring a machette.
To fend off the ghosts of commentators past.
*cue sitcom music*
Who else but Robin? 😉
Good on you Leslie for deleting the picture. Anti-Gay stuff is very bad but Blackmail is worse
Ranking them is hard, but let us agree that they are both bad and that we prefer the two of them to be involved in neither =)
I think Leslie is just the bigger person by deleting it
Leslie is massive. Just saying I’d love for these two to have perfect, no wrong-doing, Steven Universe-watching interactions
‘Being the bigger person’ is a sham invented by bullies to trick their victims into letting their actions go without consequences.
“Being the bigger person” is a noble concept that, like any noble concept, is often abused by bullies to get what they want. It is no more a sham than honor, duty and patriotism.
Honor – Behave as is expected of you
Duty – Do what is expected of you
Patriotism – Think how it you are expected to
I sense a pattern here and yet something is missing…. what could it be?
Are those actual definitions of those words, or just hipster nihilism?
They could be interpreted as the definitions of those words, if one were sufficiently nihilistic. And a hipster.
Still they’re not far off. I’ve always interpreted them as ‘behave as you expect yourself to’, and etc. The enforcement of ideal behavior must come from within, else it’s nothing but intimidation.
I disagree with those definitions.
Honor- Acting in a way that respects others and yourself.
Idk about you, but I would respect someone, or myself, for punching out a bully.
Duty- To act as expected of your position.
You aren’t wrong in your definition of duty, but you are looking at it from only one negative perspective. It is a parent’s DUTY to take care of their children.
Patriotism- Love or devotion for one’s country.
This is not a requirement of any person. As an American, I’m not exactly feeling very patriotic about my country right now. Also, it is a very American concept to stand up to bullies.
I think it’s important to note patriotism does not mean blind to the fualts and flaws of your country’s system, you can love your country but also want to it to improve. So even criticising your country when it falls short of what it could is a form of patriotism. The best kind, because it’s not blind.
SMBC did an excellent comic depicting the difference between patriotism and nationalism
The extreme form of patriotism — jingoism.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism
Honor is not behave as expected. That ones pretty far off.
(and who’s expectations?)
“Behave as expected” would be more like etiquette.
“Being the bigger person” isn’t about meekly taking whatever bullies dish out.
It’s about not sinking to their level while you defend yourself and fight back. It’s about being careful to not become prejudiced in the course of fighting prejudice, for example
Killjoy! Thank you! That’s a definition of being “bigger” that I can get behind. Becoming another bully isn’t going to help anyone. Most bullies already have another, stronger bully making their lives miserable and have chosen to deal with that misery by passing it on to other people. Failing to pass that toxic legacy on to someone else while addressing the problem is one of the greatest things you can do and not something to be looked down upon.
+1
Its also insidious to infer you have to lower your standards in order to fight various social nastys.
Ranking could get pretty philosophical. Is blackmail between “intentionally anti-gay” and “inadvertently anti-gay”? Is homophobia not as bad when it’s borne of ignorance rather than hatred? Does intent weigh into how good/bad one’s actions are? Not sure there are any easy answers here.
Agreed. Plus the nature of the blackmail would be a factor as well. (what kinds of things you’re asking someone to do in return for not releasing blackmail material, how serious the consequences of said release would be for the person, etc) So yeah I don’t think this is something where you can unnuancedly say one is categorically worse than the other. : /
I’ll agree that they’re all pretty rank.
That’s nonsense. The picture could have been very useful.
A) It’s definitely, objectively, NOT.
2) There is no reason to think she ever considered blackmail anyway.
except for the part where she knowingly entered into scheming with a second party who was explicitly intending blackmail or at least non-consensual outing with intent to cause scandal.
Roz was explicitly not planning that. Leslie asked her outright.
And that’s not what we’re talking about here anyway.
No, Dorothy asked Leslie that. We still only know what she told Leslie way back when she tried to sell her on the idea, and that’s pretty vague.
Ah. Oops.
Well, that actually backs me up better anyway, since if Roz said it Leslie really shouldn’t have believed her. But if Leslie said it that means she at least believed it to be true.
1) Blackmail and anti-gay stuff both fall into the category of “ruining a life”. Both are too repulsive to be worthy of labels like “better than”
B) She was loudly musing about Robin’s political point of view and her status as a lesbian before taking the picture and making sure both of them are on it. She was not just getting a souvenir.
III) Your numbering system’s a bit wonky.
Hurting people is not inherently repulsive. Hurting innocent people is repulsive. Hurting people as a goal is repulsive.
Hurting bad people to protect the innocent people they’re trying to hurt is not only justifiable, but sometimes failing to do it is not.
Also neither of those things fall into that category anyway, and even if they did you’d be backing me up.
Souvenir and blackmail are not the only two things that exist.
This is in no way true whatever moral calculus you did to come to that conclusion is irrevocably flawed.
Because you said so.
I wasn’t assuming blackmail, I was assuming “Publicly Outing”
uhhhhhh ehhhhhhh
I know it says “Delete”, but I like to imagine Leslie’s phone actually saying “Deleted!” in Strong Bad’s voice. She’s a geek, she probably watched that.
BALEETED
Delteeted!
Del taco?
Yessssss!
I guess Matt Hardy saying it would be too much.
DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!
Or, you know. Cybermen.
Dalek would be just as good / bad.
it is, indeed, a D of Unusual Size
I don’t think it exists.
Aaaaand now that scene becomes much, much worse.
Is it a D of enormous, throbbing proportions?
Pretty sure it’s a sparkling man-D.
I’m ashamed of Leslie. How could you delete that picture out of something as simple as morality? You’re a college professor! You’re supposed to teach children the power of hate and revenge! *pause* Wait, was that just me? Was I the Sith Lord?
Always two, there are. And I think I worked with the other one.
I’ve heard your side has cookies. Seems like a sweet (ha! because they’re cookies!) deal.
They can’t be that sweet, can they?
Of course I would accidentally delete “oatmeal” from the hover text right before posting.
Well, depends on how much sugar you add! Or if it’s with banana, how ripe the banana was before squashing it and putting it into the dough!
And what about “sweet but also nutritious”? Would that work as a label?
This comment feels like being stabbed with my old deviantart account.
Are cookies a sweet deal if they’re made of sourdough? 😀
The picture should be sealed away until 2117 CE, when it will be released to bona fide historical researchers.
Maybe. You had some serious respirator-hiss going on there…
“You know what, you’re in my bed, so I’m calling you Robin.”
Best line of dialog ever.
And following the Law of Willis, Batman would INDEED make that line even funnier.
Beautiful.
Spit-take.
Bean/Shepherd 2020. PLEASE.
Also, “‘Cuzza the thing” is an excellent excuse and I should use it sometime.
One of Batman’s lesser known catchphrases.
Good on you, Les.
Also, Shortpacked!Robin seems to be leaking slightly into DoA!Robin. Maybe a side effect of her Cadbury cereal power thing?
Maybe she’s still a little drunk from last night
Or Shortpacked Robin accidentaly swapped places with Doa Robin.
This is SP!Robin, mid-Cadbury blackout, buzzing at the multiverse’s harmonic frequency and phasing between universes.
Dammit, I knew this DC Rebirth Three Jokers thing would have negative fallout.
How many Robin DeSantoes are there in our universe now?!
Robin exists simultaneously in all possible universes.
Not so. Only Mike is that invariant.
The thing? What thing?
I was thinking the same thing…about the thing.
I don’t know, but if I had to guess… probably the big D.
The Thing! I found The Thing!
The three possibilities I can think of are an animated severed hand, a shape shifting monster frozen in Antarctica, and a super hero made of rocks.
And honestly, if I was the landlord? Any of those would be a good reason to let someone in.
And leave the state. And call the cops. And maybe the army.
I am wondering what this thing is too.
My best guess is the glasses. Or maybe the thing is that she actually owns the building.
You know, the noodle incident. The one with the noodles.
Let’s see. Where there noodles involved?
ZHU LI!
Do the thing!
The thing is her close personal friend, Benjamin Franklin.
Or personal assistant
The thing that happened in the place with the stuff. Seriously, my wife and children talk like this all the time and are actually communicating something.
You know, the thing! The thing with the thing. The thing hat things when you thing it! THAT thing!
Perhaps the intern thing.
We must not forget the “Thing Your Aunt Gave You Which You Don’t Know What It Is”.
Robin is always Robin.
….I’m not going to make a joke off that last line, It’s to easy.
Awwww?
“MY LESBIAN”. IT’S BACK.
“you make me not wanna run”
“THAT’S NICE, NOW GET OUT OF MY HOUSE.”
“Okay, but I’m staying right outside the door. Because, I like it here!”
“In other news GLEENN is reporting about a Strange incident involving a US senator who is a republican who is lot leaving a doorstep, is it a protest? is it a secret trist? is it…butts? WHO KNOWS, but GLEENN is here to find the Tooth! er, I mean truth!”
Lot leaving a doorstep? I hope no one gets turned into a pillar of salt.
I love the callback, and I also love how this relationship is starting. 😛
Now Robin, your very own lesbian is a lot of responsibility. Maybe someday you’ll be grown up enough to take care of one, but not yet.
*cry cry cry* I knowwww I’m so sp!happy
OH good. Other people are exited. Now I don’t have to feel bad about mostly being exited about that part.
Any good for Leslie she did the right thing in the end.
Damm it Leslie you got rid of the blackmail you could have made her screw you and skip the bullshit Willis is putting us through.
That’s… that’s rape, sib.
What maxh said.
uhh
butts does not advocate nonconsensual blackmail-fueled hatefuckin’
seriously, not okay
yeah that falls under the category of creepy, also under that category, sewer clowns, shadows, and that guy in a tree with the binoculars who may or may not be the worlds wurst NSA agent.
…
Yeah I know it’s bad…..
I want to see them have kids again. Though now thinking about it Robin doesn’t have superpowers here so shit.
This is also a good example of why I shouldn’t stay up till midnight for these and then comment. Why do I have 2 different Gravatars?
Different email address? Possibly just by capitalization?
I think that works best as a Walky remark. I considered Joe but he’d make fun of people who say “D”, not say it himself.
But, having Becky (your — I assume random — avatar) saying it is equally, or perhaps even more, hilarious.
At some point in the future, Becky might be mentally ready for Joyce to share her knowledge of sparkly man-dangles. Hopefully in the form of a birthday present
I suspect Becky’s already more ready than Joyce is. That might not be very ready, mind you.
“My lesbian”
Ahhhhhhhh
*notices that the hacked Muzak has suddenly gone to the selection of incidental music from various Batman cartoons, in particular the Filmation ones*
Robin your Shortpacked! is showing
I’m honestly torn between being happy Les did the right thing, and disappointed that she could have blackmailed Robin into being a better LGBTQ advocate… Aah but in the end we should be good people, so yeah let’s just be proud of Leslie and hope she can sway Robin with less ethically questionable methods.
Or at least used that photo as evidence when she reports her hideously inappropriate landlord.
Yes, that too.
In any case, Leslie is temperamentally unsuited to blackmail. I’d have had less of a problem with Mike or Amber blackmailing Robin.
I mean it could be argued that NOT taking advantage of this opportunity to hinder Robin’s endangerment of queer folk is the ethically questionable outcome here. It really depends on what you prioritize in your moral code.
Going by Kant, Leslie did the right thing.
I prioritize not hurting people if I can. Unless, you know, they really annoy me.
(my first comment seems kinda deadpan, but I’m actually super happy about it!:D)
Wilkommen. Ana Chronistic posts first, John has a timeline, and I am legion. You now know everything you need to know about this comments section.
Ah, but little do you know, I have been here before! I used to comment daily! You know nothing, Jon Butts! 😉
I remember you! Or at least your gravatar looks familiar. I couldn’t say anything about you as a person or commentator.
That’s ridiculous. Everyone knows I know nothing.
Don’t forget about Yotomoe’s art, the Muzak, bongos, and the wisdom of Cerberus!
of course, i am a fool
(wait… muzak?)
Aw, I’m a notable feature of the comments section! I’m so proud.
Everyone uses the John.
Timelinewise.
I’m assuming “tuckered out” translates to “completely hammered” in the non-Robin dialect of English.
It means sleepy. It might be caused by drinking, but not necessarily.
Next level is “plum tuckered out”.
I’m aware of what it ordinarily means.
What color would constitute “tuckered out plum”?
I don’t know exactly, but Googling ‘tired looking purple’ is helping me get the right idea, I think.
Tuckered out means tired. But she is likely a mix of both tired and still a bit drunk.
I think they mean that Robin’s version of “tuckered out” is closer to what most people call “hammered” than what other people use the term “tuckered out” for.
“Tired and emotional,” to put it in the language of tabloids
Possibly best that this stay out of the language of tabloids.
“Emotional as a newt,” as Yes, Minister once had it.
(special mention: “I gather he was as drunk as a lord. So after a decent interval, they’ll probably make him one.”)
Well that’s very disappointing. That picture could have been useful in so many ways. Frustrating to see Leslie ditching the opportunity.
Robin’s dialogue seems to suggest that not only is she still half asleep, but half drunk, or entirely hungover. I doubt if she was in her right mind that she would use the “My Lesbian” line, at least, not so soon after last night. I think you’d need at least five successful dates and to have reached Jailbreak first.
Um, wait, I must have missed something, but WHY would Leslie’s landlord let a drunk stranger into Leslie’s living space? And if there’s no obvious reason, then Leslie might want to go smack the landlord for letting a drunken person (politician or not) into her room without at least waking her first. Either way…no, Robin, don’t do that, there are some boundaries even after bar bongoing sessions. I get it, you’re drunk, you weren’t intentionally weird, but if I were Leslie I would have woken up with a shout and a punch, not an “Oh” and a gentle poke.
*bar bongoing, I typoed hard on that one
I wouldn’t have known it was a typo if you hadn’t said anything!
Ah, profanity filter, I see. Or, I assume that’s what it is, either that or my keyboard is vomiting the same autocorrect. Whatever, I’m more concerned with how Robin casually B and E’ed into Leslie’s home, it didn’t seem as if the Congress Thing had Robin boarding with Leslie. Perhaps I’m just too prudish, but that still seems a little intrusive and a lot awkward. Par for the course in DoA, but still intrusive and awkward.
It’s only for the B word specifically – too many folks used it when Roz chewed out Joyce.
Thanks, that makes sense. I didn’t mean to ruffle any feathers, but I get it.
Nah, no worries. It just got uncomfortable when so many through round a gendered insult so it’s since been changed to bongo.
…throw around?
also oh so that’s why it’s only bongo and not stuff like slut or whore
It’s not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any percussion-based instrument.
i admire you much right now slartibutts
Fuuuuuuuck typos.
And yeah, slut and whore haven’t been thrown around as much yet.
I just pictured Frank Miller stumbling across this comic.
I trust Willis’ ban hammer to prevent him from being a problem if he ever does.
I’m not sure what Robin meant by “the thing” either.
The Congress thing, perhaps?
Friendly reminder to all curious that Patreon has tomorrow’s strip early.
I’ve been meaning to get on that, though I worry that I cannot be trusted with such knowledge of the future.
Just thought I’d offer. 😉
The worst part of it is that Leslie doesn’t really have any recourse. She’s queer and looks visibly so. If her landlord wanted to, that would be enough to evict her. So Leslie kind of needs the landlord to be on her side, even if it means ignoring things like letting a congresswoman commit breaking and entering against you.
And now I am sad. Forever.
fuck this country.
Leslie’s landlord is secretly a bunch of aliens in a trenchcoat.
Why? Robin clearly explains: “Cuzza the thing.”
We’ll see if Leslie follows up on that or just gets on with the business of throwing Robin out.
WHY would Leslie’s landlord let a drunk stranger into Leslie’s living space? — Because of the thing! Weren’t you paying attention?
Phew!
And it was nice to see “My Lesbian” make a comeback, even if it is markedly less welcome than in the Walkyverse.
That last line, though – solid gold!
Yeah, to both.
Ugh…I never liked Robin calling Les ‘My Lesbian’ over in Shortpacked!, where at least they were in a relationship…
Good thing Leslie doesn’t seem to either here, then.
Not sure what Leslie’s reaction does to lessen the ickiness of Robin’s phrasing.
I don’t think MM was saying that it’s a good thing because it’s less icky; I think they were saying that it’s a good thing that, in this universe, Leslie isn’t a passive doormat who eats up Robin’s bullshit because at least it means Robin-senpai noticed her.
Well, if MM didn’t mean it this way, I apologize for reacting how I did, but, it read to me as an attempted rebuttal of my distaste for Robin’s behaviour.
Les’s reaction is a tangent that I didn’t mention, and IME, when that comes up, especially with the ‘good thing’ phrasing, that tends to be an attempt to claim that the speaker’s feelings are invalid.
I’m just not sure how we go from Leslie agreeing with you to “your feelings are invalid.” There seems to be a jump there somewhere.
No, there is no jump.
‘That’s bad.’ ‘Well, it’s a good thing [irrelevant fact], then!’ is, as I very explicitly stated, a common tactic to dismiss the first statement by pretending that the irrelevant fact changes the equation.
I was, 100% commenting on Robin’s behaviour. Not Leslie’s behaviour, not how Robin’s behaviour would affect Leslie if she responded differently. What Robin said. Leslie’s reaction is irrelevant.
And, again, ‘irrelevant point’ paired with the ‘good thing’ phrasing is very common dismissive behaviour. ‘Shut up, there’s nothing wrong with it as long as it doesn’t harm this particular person.’
Except that Leslie agreeing with you is not really irrelevant and is the exact opposite of dismissive. Maybe it’s just I haven’t run into that pattern of invalid reasoning much and you have.
D is definitely not a trivial size. They are heavy and finding a sports bra is an ordeal!
Wait til you hit G…
I was DDD until I lost weight. Now I’m a snug C.
It
is
AWESOME!
Bras that fit. No back or shoulder pain. It’s divine. I will never understand anyone who wants them bigger when smaller is so much better! ^_^
That has. To be. The best. Comic punchline I have ever read. Also, half-asleep Robin looks even more like glasses-less Roz.
TBH the deSantos all pretty much resemble their mother when she was their ages.
Man, I really expected that blackmail pic plot point to hang around a little longer.
Though, the way Robin’s explaining it, it sounds like they didn’t actually have sex, just slept in the same bed, so I guess it’s not great blackmail anyway. (I like how the art is careful not to show is Robin is actually on top of the sheets or not)
Regardless of whether hanky-pankying occurred, a picture like that could probably still be used as blackmail, considering the kind of platform Robin is running on and the people she’s trying to appeal to. (source: the popularity of fake news)
Panel One: Leslie’s having a hard time. We’ve seen how passionate she is about LGBT+ rights, but she has her own line of ethics in pursuing them. Outing is highly contentious even among the LGBT+ community, so I can see why Leslie has her qualms about it.
Panel Two: Yeah, I saw this coming. Leslie seems like the kind of person who would save choices like this for when there are literally no options left, if not personally off the table entirely.
And this is a hard choice for her. She looks like she wants to cry. And that might not just be because of sadness – she might feel guilty for not being able to do this even when Robin’s supports the type of bill that gets people killed. She is definitely thinking of people she’s known, loved, and lost. She breaks my heart. </3
Panel Three: But that doesn't mean she's taking any shit! Aw yeah! Go, Leslie! She wants to know what the hell this lady is doing here and get her out. And she's done referring to her as any kind of authority, if only due to the boundary violations. And FUCK YES to her reaction to 'my lesbian'. I realize it became a term of affection in SP!, but it's also fetishizing, dehumanizing, and tokenizing when you don't know them. She has had it. Robin came in her house and broke her boundaries.
Panel Four: Oh, good, confirmation she did not invite her into her bed. Thaaaaat's great. Boundary violation ahoy! And Leslie is RIGHTFULLY pissed. Jesus, Robin, what the shit?
Panel Five: See, normally I think Robin sounding five is adorable, but it's really not right now since she's describing how she TALKED HER WAY INTO LESLIE'S HOUSE. Dear LORD, landlord what the SHIT? Leslie, that has to be a violation of tenant law of some kind! Then again, even if it is, what's the over under on Leslie being able to get a new apartment? Housing laws are not kind to lesbians.
Panel Six: And once again, Robin illustrates how much she DOES NOT GET IT. This isn't about sexiness – this about boundaries and the massive violation thereof. What the hell, Robin? And I am glad Leslie is not having her shit. She's had quite enough of it already and it was too much.
Good, I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks Robin casually (though admittedly drunkenly) talking her want into Leslie’s home/bed is pretty out of line. I get DoA puts the characters in exaggerated situations, but it’s still not a good thing for Robin to do.
Robin is pretty over the top by virtue of her trying to keep things whacky, zany, and up up up and make herself lovable and keep bad things from happening/people from leaving. That doesn’t excuse her lack of boundaries today.
Panel 1: Yeah, I posted the Michael Rogers article yesterday: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/mike-rogers-outed-gay-republicans-108368
But yeah, even for people who think outing anti-gay politicians is a moral right, the individual acts of outing are hard thought decisions regarding the morals surrounding each case.
And for Leslie, she is finding a moral line she can’t quite cross. And yeah, I also think she’s thinking of all the people she’s lost as she makes that choice to let go of this angle once and for all.
And yeah, all the yay of how much Leslie is standing up for herself here and taking no shit. A very welcome departure of their dynamic in Shortpacked!
I’ve heard a variety of things about it, and ultimately I’m not sure how to feel. Ultimately, it feels like a ‘don’t take it lightly, no matter what’ kind of choice.
I can respect that for Leslie, but it has to make that kind of thought harder.
YES. Leslie has her limits – she can’t be a doormat forever.
In fairness, Leslie appears to have been sufficiently drunk that she either didn’t realize or didn’t care at the time that Robin was in her bed. Leslie’s bed is against the wall, so unless Robin’s got ninja skills it appears unlikely she got in there after Leslie without waking her.
But yeah, I have no idea what the landlord was thinking. Robin wanting to go to Leslie’s home and passing out I can sort of understand though she’s taking the realization too lightly here, but I don’t see anything mitigating the landlord’s actions.
She might just be a deep sleeper. I’ve had partners climb into bed with me without noticing, even when climbing over me.
But yeah, terrifying boundary violation and unconscionable action on behalf of the landlord.
Hmm, it’s possible that Leslie’s as deep a sleeper as you are, yes.
It could also be Robin climbed in from the foot of the bed instead of over Leslie. The bed doesn’t have a foot board and is only a mattress on the floor.
Okay, upon second glance, we don’t see the foot of the bed, but it looks like it’d be low enough to climb over anyways, as the bed is still floor level.
It’s an EGS moment. Sleepy little ninja.
“my lesbian” was pretty damn “fetishizing, dehumanizing, and tokenizing” for a long time in SP! too. Back when Robin didn’t even bother with her lesbian’s name.
That changed as Robin actually admitted she was serious about Leslie, but IIRC the usage dropped off dramatically.
Nice callback though, and a nice pointer to the difference in self-respect between the two Leslies.
I’ve only read through SP! once, so correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Robin originally obtain “her lesbian” not out of personal interest but as a ploy to seduce some man because “all guys thinks lesbians are hot”?
It was more to seem over Ethan so he would kiss her to prove her straight (early Shortpacked! plotlines were sometimes super messed up). And the relationship in the early days with Leslie seemed a sort of queer-platonic thing with Robin blaming the desire to hang out with Leslie all the time in a quasi-relationship a result of Leslie seeing something positive in her that noone else seemed to (largely because she couldn’t fully admit to herself that she was actually attracted to Leslie and wanted a romantic relationship with her).
But yeah, early representation in SP! was awkward to say the least but still better than the horrible fetishization of the bi characters in It’s Walky! which was in turn better than the horror-show that was the handling of queer issues in Roomies.
The horror-show that was the handling of sexual issues in general in Roomies. Were there even any queer issues in Roomies? I may have blocked them out.
Ruth and Billie. That, ah, did not end well. At all.
So… it gets better?
a) nice ethics there les b) yell at your landlord c) call the cops holy shit o_o
b) But the thing!!!
Faith in Leslie restored. You may now continue with your scheduled television program.
“What. Are. You. Doing. In. My. Bed?” Was read as Shrek. Sorry not sorry.
Ben Grimm or From Another World? This is important!
(And if the latter, Who Goes There/Carpenter or Hawks’ Space Carrot? Even more important!)
I was always irrationally fond of the space carrot.
*uses Tanuki powers to shape shift into Super Kami Guru*
“So, Willis… how does it feel being the siiiilver medal..?”
What if that’s not Robin but Roz? I mean the lack of sclerae…hmm, nah.
Roz is her student so I’d hope not.
Yeah, that would be immeasurably worse.
Some of the teachers here have ethics!
About 3 out of 5, but that’s not terrible!
Um, we’ve got Leslie, Rees (even though he’s still a crappy teacher). Who else?
Jason, Penny, and Alex
Ohhhhh. I always forget Alex.
^ BBCC, speaking on behalf of the Walkyverse.
If he didn’t want to be forgotten, he should’ve tried doing relevant things! 😛
At least he’s in the majority that don’t sleep with their students in a gross violation of a teacher’s duty.
“…of nontrivial size,” will be worked into my daily conversations, I think.
“Yer landlord let me in”
what. why the fuck.
Yeah. Time to start using a doorknob brace.
Because of the thing. Obviously. I mean, why else would a landlord let a complete stranger into a tenant’s room in the middle of the night? Only the thing could be that important!
MY LESBIAN
“I LICKED HER, SO NOW SHE’S MINE”
Step one: Turn on the phone voice recorder.
Step two: Call the cops.
Step three: Accuse Robin of Trespassing
Step four: Sue the landlord
Step five: Enjoy instant fame and monies by ruining lives that need to be destroyed.
Step six: Get fucked over because Robin can hire better lawyers and is a famous politician.
So were a lot of anti-gay politicians. And they all fell hard and became unelectable.
But whatever. This is the author’s world, not mine.
But is this a tenacious D?
Comic Reactions:
(So happy both me and BBCC are doing these of late 😀 )
Panel 1: I noted yesterday that the debate is fraught on the ethics of outing and outing bigoted politicians had real and measurable effects on queer rights and may in fact have been necessary for queer rights on adoption and marriage to progress as quickly as it did in public perception.
But it’s still not an easy decision to make to out someone. Especially for another queer individual who understands just how disruptive and painful outing can be on a personal level, especially when done against the powerless.
And I noted that I don’t think Leslie would make the decision of what to do next lightly and we’re seeing that inner torment here. And for her own moral calculus, we see the results in Panel 2.
Panel 2: As BBCC notes, she’s about to cry here. This is not a line she can personally cross, but letting this go… I have no doubt that she’s been thinking a lot about those she lost on the streets. Friends who died because of hateful laws like Robin tried to pass. I think she’s been being haunted since Robin tried to do her bullshit defense of her support of her bigoted laws in minimizing the cost of them in terms of “nothing probably would have happened”.
Leslie has lived on the streets. She knows not everyone survives them or escapes them the way she was able to.
Choosing to let this go, it hurts. It’s a line she’s not willing to cross, but you can tell she wishes it was. That it feels like a betrayal to those she lost to not be able to fight for them in this way.
Panel 3: Someone in the Patreon thread noticed that Jayne is cut out of her Firefly poster, which is just beautiful knowing the role his actor played in the hate movement in gaming that helped marry the toxic masculinity of nerd culture with white supremacist and male terrorist organizations.
And oh my, I’m so thrilled at her here and especially that little callback.
Because in SP! that was a pet name to acknowledge a relationship Robin wasn’t quite ready to admit and which Leslie was so head-over-heels to take umbrage to.
Here? It’s a diminution and a familiarity that is not earned. Leslie is not her lesbian, because Leslie categorically rejected that type of relationship and views Robin as a danger to herself and other queer women. And because she had real things to communicate to Robin beyond just happening to be queer and someone Robin wants to bang. Real hurts and injustices that Robin has helped to make worse.
And especially in rejection to the reality that, to Robin, Leslie is only “my lesbian” because Robin still after Leslie poured her heart and story to her, STILL viewing her only as important in the way other queer folk aren’t because of Robin’s crush.
Robin only values Leslie’s opinion and presence, because of her attraction and even that’s not enough to have communicated effectively enough the boundary she set and what Robin has done against those like her.
And in combination to a breaking and entering, it’s extra gross, because it’s an implied ownership of “your boundaries and wants don’t matter, only mine do” that is deeply creepily predatory and thus worthy of aggressively outing.
I apologize for responding jus to the first line but I need to. I will respond to the rest later after I have finished squeeing.
😀 😀 😀 😀
Poor Leslie. You can see it in her face – she’s thinking of friends gone by. Some are here, some aren’t, some she wasn’t able to save, maybe some it was too dangerous to save, some she still knows, some she hasn’t heard from in years.
And yeah, sometimes it hurts just as much not to be able to fight every way you know how because you can only hope you made the right call to hold back.
I FORGOT TO MENTION THE POSTER GDI. Note to self: Work on those more thoroughly on Patreon’s bonus strip panel analyses tomorrow.
And yes, Leslie has a combination to spine and self worth that was hard won, and now she gets to stand up because FUCK Robin getting to come in and act like she owns Leslie.
Oh, I didn’t even notice the Jayne thing. That’s awesome.
I hereforth choose to believe that Leslie’s landlord is Galasso.
If that’s the case at least Leslie doesn’t have to worry about housing discrimination on account of her being a lesbian. He wouldn’t be able to tell.
I would hate to be Galasso’s lawyer in an employment-discrimination case.
On the other hand, I’d be laughing my ass off on the jury.
It’d actually be really easy to defend him. All you have to do is put him on the stand, point to various members of the jury, and ask him what race, gender, etc., they are.
Galasso is incapable of discrimination, because Galasso is literally incapable of identifying the traits he’d like to discriminate against.
That kind of defense depends heavily on the jury finding such statements credible. And Galasso’s too incredible.
Him denouncing everyone as “FOOLS!” doesn’t really help, no.
You might be able to prove it using expert testimony from someone who’s administered an implicit-bias test. Especially if that expert gets to enter in his personal observations from the testing as part of the evidence.
“The subject spent a lot of time squinting at the pictures, trying to discern what gender they were. He seemed genuinely confused about what was being asked. At four different points during the testing process, he asked me if I had a gender. Not WHAT my gender was, but IF I had a gender. At the end of the process, he asked if HE had a gender. These inquiries were accompanied by bluster and aggrandizement that conformed to textbook defensiveness.”
Oh sure, of course Galasso’s lawyer would want to get a supporting professional opinion, most likely a medical one.
It’s just that (a) expert witnesses are paid by the party utilising them and (b) the jury is free to give weight or disregard expert testimony as they see fit. Galasso’s obliviousness to gender has never been documented – he’s too unique to convince a jury his condition is real. It would smell of a total bullshit defense.
And thus Leslie renders half of yesterday’s comments moot. Well done Willis and Bean.
Panel 4: Leslie’s murder face here gives me strength, because it is such a welcome departure of her comically forgiving doormat role her namesake was in Shortpacked! Like, yeah, I loved that couple there, but the universe allowed that to be adorable and heart-warming and the reality of this Leslie and this Robin’s situation makes this similar familiarity creepy and possessive and disrsespectful to Leslie’s stated boundaries.
And Leslie’s rage at that utter dismissal of her humanity based on the narrative Robin is writing in her head about her is such a strong example of who this Leslie is and what drives her and feels real.
And she has a damn good reason to be murderously angry. She gave Robin a lot of second and third chances for humanity and really reached out to her better self at great personal cost, ending it with setting a firm boundary and a final hard-chosen goodbye.
For Robin to have not only ignored that but also broken into her home, violating nearly every possible boundary to sneak into her bed… it’s unconscionable and vile and deeply dangerous.
Like this isn’t a normal creepy stalker situation, this is a creepy stalker with governmental powers and authority.
Panel 5: I mentioned above, but the worst part of this is Leslie can’t even complain. In Indiana, it is 100% legal to fire someone or deny housing to someone because they are gay because there are no real anti-discrimination protections on the basis of sexuality.
So, what is keeping her in housing is having a “good” relationship with her landlord. So even with this major violation of her boundary, she must keep quiet with her head down if she still wants a roof and that’s one of the nasty microaggressions that comes with having no real reliable protections for your right to work or your right to a roof over your head.
And hoo boy, what a violation this is. And even more scary to think that Robin may have casually used her position as a Congresswoman to press the issue and “convince” the landlord to violate this boundary.
Robin in this universe is at times legitimately terrifying. And the way she doesn’t even think twice of how fucked up it was to climb into someone’s bed while they were sleeping. Someone who did not part on friendly bed-climbing-into terms?
Yeah. Holy fuck.
Panel 6: And in that last panel we see the terrible consent and boundaries respect she embodies. She doesn’t even realize why this is a violation of Leslie’s boundaries. Why this is terrifying for anyone to experience.
Because in her mind and in the mind of the culture she is courting votes from, it doesn’t matter that she ignored stated boundaries and assumed non-existent familiarity, because it didn’t involve sexy or naked times, so it’s “all good” because it’s not “dirtied” with the hanky-panky.
And it hints that this Robin is not entirely unaffected by the value system of the folks she is eagerly courting for votes. She is cynical in her exploitation and apathetic to the populations she hurts, but part of her also buys in fully to the twisted value system she is inclined to parrot.
And it makes this Robin far more insidious and dangerous and genuinely unsettling.
Like, holy fuck, if someone I set a boundary with broke into my home to slip into my bed, I’d probably have trouble sleeping for the next month straight and start waking up with panic attacks.
Like that’s deeply unsettling stalker behavior and Leslie’s ability to feel fully safe in her home is deeply diminished by the knowledge that her landlord will gleefully let any stalker of hers break in while she sleeps.
Agreed, Leslie is badass here and I love it.
And yes, ugh, the disgusting boundary destruction ew ew ew.
Yes, sadly, that landlord probably has Leslie’s arm in a twist. She can’t afford to raise a fuss.
Robin uses her power for evil in more ways than one – possibly confirmed.
Robin doesn’t even recognize what she did wrong, I swear to god. It’s obnoxious as hell because at some point, she needs to be held accountable and it doesn’t happen if she keeps quiet.
And ewwww, yes, to boundaries not counting for non-sexy stuff. It’s fucking creepy and unwelcome.
I’ve mentioned already you should not touch or surprise me when I am asleep or waking up. If I were Leslie, Robin’d get screamed at at least, and slapped awake at worse, just as a jerk reflex. What the fuck why are you in my room and moreso in my bed? This whole apartment situation is now officially gross and toxic. *shudders*
Yeah, I’ve dealt with a stalker before.
Waking up in the early morning next to someone I thought I said a final no to who then goes on to say they’ve had my landlord help them break in would have me hyperventilating and flashbacking in the worst way and I doubt I would be able to feel safe in that apartment again.
*gesture of appropriate support*
I was hoping there would be a lot more freaking out and/or crying on Robin’s part as she explained what she was doing here, and a lot less “well I was drunk and I was able to get in, so…”
I mean, it’d still be a huge breach either way, but if it had been motivated by emotional distress, that would have made it slightly less worrying, at least
Being as fair as possible, Robin might be too groggy still-waking-up to be in the tearful apology stage. But yeah, just shrugging and saying “Well, someone LET me in, I didn’t technically break in through the window, no biggie” is not as cute as Robin seems to think it is. Even if Leslie hadn’t been firm at the bar and had just say “Bye, maybe we’ll drink again later,” breaking into anyone’s house when they aren’t expecting you AND climbing into their bed is crossing a line. That’s a pretty obvious boundary of having a private residence, not something anyone should have to clarify.
FWIW, Cerberus, if this Robin is anything like her DoA counterpart, she doesn’t respect or even fully comprehend anyone’s boundaries.
As I say in my comment below, I’m really starting to wonder if Robin has some kind of sociopathic behaviour disorder. In essence, if she wants something, she will do whatever it takes to get it and basically view the other party as being defective in some way for wanting to deny it to her because she cannot see any reason why they should do so.
I dunno if it’s a disorder. It may be as simple as her just not caring about anyone else to value their boundaries as important.
What is interesting to me though is how Robin, like Mike, has similar actions take on a dark meaning in a more realistic context. Like SP! Robin was similarly terrible about boundaries and random decisions with other people’s lives, but it was more forgivable because it was a wacky land and she was a chaotic superhero and we got to see how deeply she cared underneath.
But in this universe, she’s just a spoiled and dangerous figure with little empathy for those lives she hurts.
100% agreement that Robin’s worldview is colored by the culture she inhabits, hence her failing to appreciate the gravity of how Leslie is feeling in this moment. It certainly doesn’t help that she’s too sleepy to process anything right now, but it’s still Robin’s instinctive reaction to shrug it off.
I wouldn’t go so far as to accuse Robin of breaking into Leslie’s home though. Using her Congressional position to get into Leslie’s bed seems far removed from Robin’s established character. In her drunken state she thought she’d visit Leslie, gave the proverbial knock on the door and was let in by the landlord. The big wrong thing she’s done appears to be passing out on Leslie’s bed without permission, and judging from how the bed is against the wall and Robin is on the wall-side of the bed, Leslie was not in the bed at the time.
*Edit* Leslie was *probably* not in the bed at the time. As Cerberus pointed out, some people are really deep sleepers.
I have to disagree. Asking the landlord to let her in without Leslie’s permission is still shitty and creepy.
At this point we’re speculating, but in Robin’s case I’m inclined to think she assumed the landlord did whatever necessary checks with Leslie. I mean, why would anyone suspect the landlord would let them into the tenant’s home without the tenant’s permission?
“Imma here ta see Leslie.”
“Oh sure, come on in.”
“Thank you’ze…”
It seems out of Robin’s character to purposely sneak into Leslie’s home if she knows she’s not welcome there.
I don’t know – Robin has some pretty bad boundaries and consent, especially lately. I can see her doing that. I guess we read her differently.
Yeah, I think you’re right on that. I interpret Robin’s boundary (and general behavioral) issues as not understanding where to stop in the absence of permission rather than in the face of it. It fits her general pattern of daring obliviousness.
Yeah, though I’d argue that being ignorant of where to stop is not actually better – like I like to say, stepping on someone’s foot doesn’t only hurt when you do it on purpose.
It’s a culpability rather than responsibility thing for me. Robin is still responsible for whatever she does when she gets herself drunk, but the reasons can affect whether it merits condemnation. I wouldn’t condemn someone for accidentally stepping on my foot after they tripped on a stone.
Neither would I, but I’d still probably say “Ow, what the fuck?” before they told me they tripped.
I’m pretty sure that it’s going to turn out that Robin came to Leslie’s apartment (after a long counselling session with a bottle of Single Malt) to apologise to Leslie. She didn’t know what she was supposed to be apologising for but she’d figured out that she’d done something wrong and wanted to apologise anyway.
As Falcon suggests, a drunken woman begging entry into Leslie’s apartment late at night was abnormal but Leslie’s landlord was probably too tired himself to think too much about it; she knew enough about his tenant for him to be sure that she wasn’t some random weirdo. Robin probably didn’t have any clear intentions at this point – it was too late and she was too drunk, tired and dispirited to be thinking straight. That bed looks so comfy! Crawl on and fall asleep! Zzzzz!
What makes this situation so uniquely Robin is that she’s going to be hard-pressed to understand why Leslie isn’t impressed by Robin’s story or chain of unreasoning.
If Robin’s taste favors single malt, all should be forgiven.
I’d argue she should be cut some slack if she was THAT drunk and explains some good intentions, but not necessarily immediately forgiven. Doing stupid things while drunk is common, sure, but that doesn’t negate the repercussions. And, Robin’s a grown woman, she can take some responsibility for getting THAT drunk. People’ll cut other people some slack for being a drunken ass, but that doesn’t mean the person WASN’T a drunken ass.
To sleepy Robin, all beds are the same.
I’d like to see more of this landlord. He sounds like a interesting person.
I’m pretty sure Robin, and especially drunk Robin is completely unaware how unwelcome she is.
It took me a few moments to realise *exactly* what happened, due to how Robin seems to treat it has no big thing.
I mean, in this exact situation, I am not worried because, hey, it’s Robin; worst thing she could do is eat all of her sweets. But generally speaking, the idea that someone could just enter my house by virtue of being famous enough is chilling.
*as no big thing
(dammit, I wish we could edit those comments)
Leslie may not be in quite such a bad situation legally. Indiana has no such protections, but Bloomington seems to. I’m not sure exactly what the consequences would be for the landlord, but there is some legal protection.
Of course, those kinds of local protections are under attack.
Oh….. um….
I want to make cutsey jokes, but this situation is just too friggin’ DANGEROUS, for Robin and her career, but more importantly for Leslie and her basic safety.
I can honestly see the whole thing blowing up in Robin’s face and her becoming sort of like Becky only from a radically different background.
Willis may use this as a way of exploring how differently society treats ‘anonymous’ victims of homophobia like Becky and ‘celebrity’ victims, as Robin will be seen. Additionally, Leslie’s own life will get harder as she’ll be a celebrity by one remove because of her alleged relationship (whether or not such is extant and to what degree) with Robin.
Can’t be mad at Leslie. Even if I think, in isolation, it’s the right thing to do to out a hypocritical homophobic politician, it would also harm Leslie to go this route. And she can do a lot more good if she remains the gender studies teacher at the college than if she winds up fired.
As she very likely would. That dean did not like the idea of negative attention on his university.
I’d probably be more sympathetic if I wasn’t dead certain she deleted it to protect Robin rather than herself.
It is much harder to “strike down your foes” when they have a face and you’ve been getting to know them and realise they are not the amoral monsters you believed they were. Leslie did it because Robin isn’t simply an anti-LGBT politician to her, and she couldn’t bring herself to out Robin (with false evidence, too, since they didn’t actually do *anything*)
Roz’s and Leslie’s situations seem pretty far removed from each other. Roz was making amateur porn in a student dorm. Leslie’s residence and supposed sanctuary were violated by a member of Congress. With IU being as progressive as it supposedly is (my real world experience with it is highly limited), I have trouble seeing Dean McHenry giving Leslie the boot.
Since she is likely an adjunct professor, Les has nearly no protection. Just non-renew her if there is any issue at all. No reason needed. No need for the Dean to even be involved. No more job security than McDonalds, except that they won’t fire you mid-semester.
Yeah, I kind of thought that Leslie wouldn’t be able to do it; it’s just not in her nature to do something like that.
You know what else is entirely in-character? Robin’s whole story from beginning to end as well as her attitude towards Leslie and the whole situation. Sometimes, I don’t know if she’s charmingly and simply innocent or if she’s just a complete sociopath. She literally seems to have no clue and little interest in how her whims affect anyone else.
That said, it’s kind of sweet that she sort of followed Leslie home like a lost puppy that had been shown affection and curled up on her bed. I wonder what the ‘thing’ was? Is Leslie’s landlord a DeSanto voter? 😉
It’s sweet, from Robin as a character, until you think about the real-world equivalent and the burden it puts on Leslie. Not to say you aren’t right that it’s cute Robin is attached to her, but this is not a good way to express that. The idea of someone, even an uninvited friend or crush, climbing into such a personal space without even announcing they’re there while the other person is sleeping and oblivious, is unsettling. Even if Robin is genuinely clueless, this is an almost dangerous extreme , and a pretty self-centered way of showing affection. Sorry, I’m probably taking this comic and Robin’s drunken shenanigans way too seriously. It’s like Ruth and Billie’s antics: they’re kind of dysfunctionally cute, until I think about them too much.
‘Sometimes, I don’t know if she’s charmingly and simply innocent or if she’s just a complete sociopath.’
She is neither. She is just too self-absorbed in her own little image of the world to stop for a moment and realize what she does miiight not work out so hot, for other people and otherwise.
To elaborate, she is perfectly capable of feeling for others, and she doesn’t actively avoid it. Most of the time, though, that might as well be the case since whatever EXCITING AWESOMENESS is more deserving of attention than, say, oh, a couple LGBTQ folks starving to death on the streets as a result.
Thus, no, not entirely innocent, either.
To quote… someone:
“Privilege. It’s a helluva thing.”
This is one of the best twists I’ve seen in just about any story of any kind. Congrats. I love it. ;0
You know, I like how this is not even a week after Amazi Girl specified that she ALTERED her phone to make sure things are permanently deleted.
Indeed. Hark, do I hear the sound of Checkov’s gun being loaded?
Glad to know that I’m not the only one thinking of this. If Robin continues to ignore Leslie’s boundaries, we may soon see “restore”.
If Robin continues to ignore Leslie’s boundaries, she’s likely to have the opportunity for more pictures.
It’s possible that Leslie only deleted the email she was about to send to all of her LGBTQ+ friends with the picture, and not the picture itself. Or, deleted her Facebook post with the pic, or whatever method she was going to use to ‘out’ Robin. The pic itself may still be intact.
This is fine. As I stressed yesterday, it wouldn’t had been a good thing to hold over Robin. Everything would had been twisted against Leslie, she would had lost the fight. This wasn’t the exact moment to ‘strike’, as it is.
Well, fine as in the deletion of the picture and the termination of the ‘blackmail’ arc. The rest of the strip goes into ‘wooooooooo…what’ territory quickly.
Ok, I think I know what Robin is doing here. She’s here to find out which of interns she needs to kick the butt of.
That would be a great twist, after all the comments of the yesterday and today.
“I’m here about the intern you wanted to know about, you left before we could figure out who he was.”
That’s also how I refer to my D.
All that (more or less) well-thought-out discussions of morality, ethical decisions and revenge vs. fairness on yesterdays comic strip for nought!!
Leslie what are you talking about, Joe’s not even in this strip
side note: “D of Some Nontrivial Size” is some Fallen London-type writing if I ever saw it.
Leslie you are weak and Robin you are incredibly vile.
And Leslie’s weakness renders her vile.
Uh…huh.
Well forgiveness and giving people who make steps towards progress is not your forte, you guys.
I mean, I’m fan of a good redemption arc, but breaking into people’s homes in creepy stalker fashion after they set a firm boundary is… dangerous.
I’m not sure how Leslie’s “weakness” is responsible for it as she did a good job setting that boundary and outing Robin happened to be over her personal moral line (which is totally cool). But it smacks a little of victim-blaming Leslie for aspects of Robin’s character she is powerless to control.
Leslie tried to kick her out when she realized she made a mistake and put her students’ well-being at stake, had Robin demanding what the deal was, accepted her offer and tried to explain her painful personal history and how Robin’s policies affect people like her, and pushed past her own attraction to set a firm boundary and a hopeful note for Robin to change and acknowledge herself before she wrecked herself and others.
It’s potentially naive, but well-meaning and Leslie set a firm boundary and a final goodbye when it was clear that Robin wasn’t fully ready to process all that yet.
That Robin ignored that, broke into her house, and has crawled into her bed makes her a much more dangerous person and that’s not on Leslie’s “weakness”, that’s on Robin being terrifying in this universe.
Frankly I’m really worried about Leslie’s safety that Robin has the means to access her while she’s sleeping and thinks that whatever “that thing” is justifies pushing past multiple personal and societal boundaries.
Like, I’m trying to think of an instance where a creepy stalker was a sitting congressperson and the only thing I can think of is that really creepy Assistant Attorney General who angrily stalked a college kid for awhile:
http://wonkette.com/481393/totally-not-gay-andrew-shirvell-ordered-to-pay-4-5-million-for-heterosexually-stalking-gay-college-student
Creepy stalker I will give you, but it’s not a new low for Robin – she probably does this sort of nonsense (if to a lesser extent) every day, given how casual she is about the whole ordeal.
There is no GUARRANTEE, but I withold the right to hope and see this instance as an opportunity for Leslie to teach her breaking and entering is (what a shocker) not okay. Her yes men and parents obviously didn’t do a good job of it.
I dunno, it shouldn’t be on Leslie to teach her basic humanity, especially when Leslie is the one whose boundaries are being violated by her.
It shouldn’t in the sense it’s not her responsibility, but I believe she will regardless. She is the kind of person who would even when it’s not her job to.
I hope to god this doesn’t end in another fucking redemption arc; they are bullshit – and frankly, it would smack of us minorities having to swallow being used as a prop by some asshole to show that they’ve changed again; either for or against, we’re just props to people like Robin, and that won’t change when she realizes her orientation.
I think you may end up sorely disappointed on that score. Redemption arcs are fairly common in this comic for obvious reason, though there are also irredeemable assholes as well for the realism factor (Toedad, Mary, Carol, John, most of Joyce’s old church, Mike).
Mike goes all the way around the scale and pops up on the opposite side.
Panel 3: Someone in the Patreon thread noticed that Jayne is cut out of her Firefly poster, which is just beautiful knowing the role his actor played in the hate movement in gaming that helped marry the toxic masculinity of nerd culture with white supremacist and male terrorist organizations.
What??? Do you (or someone) have some informative links, please.
Thanks in advance.
Pretty much going at it like Roz, really. The sheltered little girl takes her first step towards understanding lesbians. The sane response would be to encourage her while maaaybe gently dropping she herself did the same thing not long ago. Your response would be ‘TOO LATE YA JINXED IT’, encouragement undeserved. Never you mind Joyce met a lesbian a total of a night ago, and she herself left college from her homeschooling in a month or so.
Neither mind this probably is the first personal contact Robin ever had with any lesbian. These people are growing at rocket speed, here. How FAST do you need them to change for the better before you are satisfied?
Or maybe she’s stalking her downlow crush trying to get her cooch licked; she’s always been calavier with the boundaries of others.
I opposed her lack of boundaries in the comment section of my comic, myself.
My point is baby steps. Her respect for boundaries isn’t going to spontaneously appear, either.
‘my’ comic? Last comic, I had meant.
Under no circumstances did or will I delude myself I own this comic. Please don’t ban me, Willis.
It’s possible, but unlikely. In the other universe she started out in serious denial about her bisexuality. By all appearances, that’s the same in this universe.
To some extent you’re right – she’s here because she has a crush on Leslie and no sense of boundaries. But I doubt she’s actually thinking of it in anything like those terms. If she does get far enough to accept the crush, even to herself, I expect her to be open about it. She’s never been good at keeping secrets.
She’s not coming here hoping to have sex and keep it a secret. That’s not Robin. If she was, she would have acted on it, not just gone to sleep.
It doesn’t mean she’s thinking of it in that many words, but that is what she’s doing.
In about the same sense that anyone going to see someone they’ve got a crush on is “trying to get her cooch licked” (or the equivalent).
You know – with no actual plan to do so or, in her case, more than a vague understanding that she might be interested.
Phew.
I hear “my lesbian” and my brain leaps to “My Alien” by Simple Plan.
I caught the Slipshine reference lol.
Punchline: That’s what she said.
Yesterday’s comments were like a philosophical argument on the Streetcar Problem.
your FACE is like a philosophical argument on the streetcar problem
You derail the streetcar. No problem.
> You have now killed all the people inside the streetcar. (There were babies)
Well, at least the nuclear weapon didn’t go off.
(Where did the nuclear weapon come from? Same place as the babies,)
You see, when a mom nuclear weapon and a daddy nuclear weapon love each other very much …
Though I suppose it could have been two lesbian nuclear weapons who loved each other very much and an accident with a time machine.
And a nuclear supersoaker full of Ethan’s nuclear nano-hijacked sperm.
SP! was weird.
i can’t tell if she’s hungover or just groggy.
She’s Robin. It’s normal for her to bounce back and forth between manic pixie hero and monosyllabic mumbling facedives.
Should’ve kept it. Leslie doesn’t have to use it ever, but it’s nice having that bit of power that she could use at any time to destroy Robin’s political career.
Panels 1 and 2: Leslie imagines several scenarios in which she outs Robin, and doesn’t like any of them.
Hope the thing isn’t her glasses, but instead nailing Ryan. It would save Robin from being a monster and lead to hijinks.
The more I see of Robin, the more I want her to die in a fire. And she can take Leslie’s landlord with her, for the record. What the inimitable fuck?
You know, wishing that people who disagree with you “die in a fire” is probably the same hateful rhetoric that the other side uses against you. Maybe try to class it up slightly by treating humans like human beings rather than chess pieces.
A) “Die in a fire” is an internet phrase that basically means ‘fuck off’.
B) Pretending Robin is just ‘someone who disagrees with Leslie’ is bullshit. Differences of opinion are one thing, bigotry is another. Robin’s policies cause actual harm to Leslie and the rest of the LGBT+ community.
C) Saying people are inferior and deserve to die and wanting people who are trying to hurt/kill you to die are not morally equivalent.
A) OTOH, doesn’t that just normalize death threats on the Internet as “just joking” and no big deal? OTGH, Robin’s fictional and thus not actually threatened.
B) Absolutely, normalizing bigotry as “just differences of opinion” is one of the cute rhetorical tricks the alt-right uses that I absolutely loathe. It’s a clever bit of rhetorical ju-jitsu because liberal types do actually care about respecting other’s opinions, while the right doesn’t care.
A) It’s not usually meant as a joke – usually it means ‘fuck off’ pretty seriously. Kind of like ‘go jump off a cliff’. You don’t actually want them to jump off a cliff, you just want them to go away and leave you alone.
B) I’ve been seeing it so often lately I am seeing red oh dear lord.
B) Seriously. It’s a clear tactic too, which makes it much more infuriating as it’s deliberately equating things like harassment, abuse, rape, and legislative violence as simply “other opinions” and then acting like people being dismayed at being the target of such things is somehow “censorship” of “free speech”.
Worse yet is the second phase of this shit, where they pretend these “opinion differences” are the equivalent of an identity you are born into and petitioning for “opinion diversity” as a back-alley method of slipping more underqualified harassing bigots into things like universities and other organizations.
And it’s somewhat terrifying in combination with the rise of literal nazism that’s using all these tactics to mainstream themselves and act like not giving “equal” (i.e. one-sided fawning) coverage to them is an act of discrimination or bias. Not to mention mainstreaming things like literal attempts to murder someone or actual literal camps into “political issues” open to “debate”.
It’s some evil vile shit.
See also nazis and other bigots deflecting their crimes onto their opponents so there’s no accountability for anything.
You know, suggesting someone vaguely wishing death on a fictional character is in any way comparable to kind of shit real-life politicians like Robin (and much, much worse) is probably a load of ignorant, self-righteous bullshit. Maybe remove your head from your ass
Once again, the white cis gayz demonstrate that bullshit moralizing means more to them than the lives that Robin causally takes with her politics. White liberals are worthless allies to any kind of minority, because they value respectability over actual life, 99 times out of a hundred, and the whiteness will always come before their queer bretheren, or PoC sisters.
I dunno. I think if people have a moral line they can’t cross, they have a moral line they can’t cross, no use banging on someone for that.
Especially if they are not being shitty to more marginalized folks about being morally superior to them because the marginalized folk’s lines are different or their risks are different.
Leslie just didn’t have it in her, but I doubt she’d lord it over a homeless sex worker who would make a different decision in this moment.
I’m also really not buying the “white cis gayz/white liberals” are worthless thing. Any group can let allies down and white privilege lets whites do so more easily, but here we’re dealing with a white cis lesbian being a worthless ally(?) to other gayz, including white ones – her own group. This happens and not just with whites, but it’s also not like white homosexuals have been on the sidelines of the fight for at least L&G rights while other non-whites struggled for it.
You want to talk about white gayz ignoring issues more specific to minority gays, that’s reasonable. Or prejudice among homosexuals against bisexuals. Or against transfolk among other queer folk. All of that is stuff that happens.
But using Leslie as an example of a worthless liberal ally to her queer bretheren? Because white gays are worthless allies to the gay movement?
Makes no sense to me.
It’s called ‘historical precedent’. The only interests they will serve is their feelz, no matter what will actually help poor queer kids, or any other minority – look up how they paid for the rebuilding of an NC repub office.
But it’s using this particular case that doesn’t make sense to me. If you’re talking “white liberals” in general, I can see the argument, though I could argue the point.
But if you’re arguing as you seemed to be that white gays were worthless in the gay rights struggle, that’s just bullshit. Leslie was a poor queer kid. Leslie is that “queer brethren”.
And she’s turning her back on those people with her actions.
There has been a long standing pattern of white gays using the rest of us to get what they want and then abandoning the rest of us as a collective for as long as there’s been a lgbt movement – so long as they can have their comfortable jobs and their marriage and the right to fuck, they don’t give a tinker’s damn for the rest of us.
I don’t think you can say actions. There is only one action here – her momentary impulse to take a photo has been cancelled by her momentary impulse not to out people. Now it seems she is figuring out what is going on instead.
I will trust you about historical precedents; it sounds like what sadly happens with many cases of intersectionality. But as for this character, I think these few seconds of being startled aren’t enough to condemn her as awful or exonerate her as reasonable. She’s still taking her actions.
Well. Now the only option left is to get married, have kids, and change her ways.
Hopefully not in exactly that order
Knowing Robin…
On the breaking and entering thing, now I am wondering was BSing the landlord Robin’s first tactic, or something she resorted to after she tried ringing the doorbell?
In the latter case, why didn’t Leslie answer the door? Too drunk/Heavy sleeper/never answers the door at night?
Maybe she had to go to the landlord first because she didn’t know Leslie’s apartment number, and as long as she was there with them already, why not cut to the chase?
oh thank god
Some of the comments that posters are making about Robin… and evidently about other posters here as actual people… make me REALLY hope that Robin is here trying to do something right by following up on “The Intern Question”.
I dunno, if she was just really worried about the intern thing, this is still a really gross boundary violation. Like, that’s a question that can wait til morning when Leslie is in her office with an opening of “hey, sorry to bother you again, but I couldn’t sleep thinking about this intern thing, can you help me narrow this down?”
Honestly, I’m not sure what would justify the B&E. Actual literal zombie invasion and Leslie’s home was next to the bar? The ground is literally lava? Aliens are killing anyone who does not look like a paired queer couple?
What we could be seeing from the pattern of her behavior is that DoA!Robin has a pathological difficulty in foreseeing the negative consequences of her actions on her own, and they have to be spelled out for her in big letters. Just a random idea.
We’ll see what’s really going on, but it’s possible that she literally told the landlord “I’m helping Leslie ID a suspected serial rapist” or whatever, and as a recognizable Congressperson, that was enough for the landlord to let her in.
Maybe. I dunno. People who need to be carefully taught consent and don’t seem to take initial lessons about consent make me super nervous.
OK, yeah, on the consent issue, you’re making total sense.
Sometimes it’s easy to let the “wacky hijinks” slide past the radar without considering the deeper implications, because it’s a comic, and because I’ve been reading Willis’s work since Roomies, so I’ve seen a lot of wacky.
Yeah, it’s what makes this universe interesting, because it doesn’t run as much on wacky hijinks and is much more realistic, which makes moments like this a lot darker and more disturbing as a result.
Even if the landlord was somehow justifiably convinced to let her in, not just to the building, but to Leslie’s apartment, he didn’t even knock/go in with her to make sure everything was on the up & up?
Several weeks later it is revealed that the landlord let Robin in because they were intending to blackmail or out her. The comments section explodes three times over.
The comment section for this arch disappoints me.
I mean yea Robin has done some shit.
But Robin is flawed just like a ton of the other characters in this comic. It’s what makes them believable.
She doesn’t really seem malicious, just very ignorant and flighty and short sighted.
And Leslie, I’m proud of you, taking pix of sleeping people is bad. That IS malicious. It’s good you thought better of it.
It. (Clap) Doesn’t. (Clap) Matter. (Clap) If. (Clap) She’s. (Clap) Malicious.(Clap.) She. (Clap) Murders. (Clap) Queer. (Clap) Folks. (Clap) By. (Clap) Proxy. (Clap) For. (Clap) Votes.
You seem to have a bad case of The Clap. Next time, remember to wrap your junk.
And so. (Clap) We. (Clap) Should. (Clap) Murder. (Clap) All. (Clap) Politicians. (Clap) Like. (Clap) Her. (Clap) In. (Clap) Defense. (Clap) (Clap) (Clap) (Clap) ? (Clap)
Cause I think that’s where that logic leads.
Most of the other characters are teenagers or in their early twenties, Robin is not so no she doesn’t get a pass like the others also as an elected representative she should be held to a higher standard
Leslie isn’t the one who not only broke into someone’s home, but crawled into their bed. Taking a photo of Robin in this situation is completely acceptable, if only as documentation for the police report.
And as has been noted, the fact that the harm she does lacks real, dedicated malice doesn’t actually make it any less harmful.
cuzza the thing?
Yes.
Yes, the thing.
And to all the commentators sitting on my bed and reading ShortPacked at me, Gedoffa my Lawn! Per WoWillis, DoA is a stand alone creation independent of SP. So I will consider it on its own merits, thank you very much.
Wait, I just realised – maybe “the thing” is Robin’s glasses, that Les took as she left? And Robin intended to retrieve them? It’s definitely not B&E worthy, but might explain what “the thing” is at least.
The thing could be the glasses thing. The thing could be the intern thing. The thing could be the Robin actually owns the building and the landlord works for her family thing. The thing could be the weapon she pointed at the landlord before tying him up and knocking him on the head. With Robin it’s hard to tell.
“I also ate yur porridge and sat in yur chair, BTW. Felt appropriate for some reasons. Have you considered getting two roommates that are taller and shorter than you.”
I could fake being both taller and shorter than you, and that would be just right.
Boom! Phrasing!!
You should also use “A D of Non-Trivial Size” as a book title someday.