I pretty highly doubt that; Ava and Mindy used to date. They seem to be friends still, and they were together in high school, and now theyre roommates, even if Ava’s kind of an ass to her. I think Mindy’s self-esteem issues are probably pretty unrelated, and it’s not Ava she’s talking about. Definitely not stalking her.
I felt like the implication was that Mindy still has some unresolved feelings left over. Like Anna was the one who broke things off and Mindy was left heartbroken over that.
I didn’t really get the stalker-vibe from Mindy’s statement.
It’s been a long time, though- I think Anna might have influence on Mindy’s self-esteem issues but is likely not the sole cause of them or the only thing she’s talking about here.
I actually get the vibe that Anna might be emotionally abusive toward Mindy, and Mindy sticks around because she’s gaslit and desperate for someone to care about her. I think this strip is us seeing the first cracks of how Mindy is hurt by this. So far Anna has berated Mindy for being friendly and said she can’t get dates because she has “caterpillar eyebrows”, and she’s only been in a couple strips – it’s no wonder Mindy has self-confidence issues, living with that every day. Anna acted shocked that anyone could be interested in Mindy and aggressively corrected the idea that her and Mindy were together. Plus, they say you can judge someone by how they treat strangers, and so far the first thing she’s said to Becky is that she ought to feel sorry for being slow, and pretty much the first thing she said to Leslie is that she has an unattractive big nose. Maybe I’m reading too much into this because I’m naturally polite, but Anna really rubs me the wrong way. I hope Mindy can get out of that situation and find someone who isn’t actively harmful to her sense of self worth.
That’s the worst part of all this, I live in a rural community, have lived in one or another rural community for at least a year and a half (Mum doesn’t want to move to the city yet, but the plan is to move to my hometown by the end of the year), so these places don’t have an ACTUAL internet service, I had to look at all my local internet companies until I found one with a mobile internet dongle that wasn’t limited by a data cap. the “Rural Internet MObile Internet” I hired has a 2mb connection. Yes, that bad. It means I can barely download at 120 KB/S, and that means NOBODY else is using internet until that download is done.
I think all that extra bandwidth we are being told we can’t live without is for the benefit of advertisers. Screw them and the Little Pony they rode in on. I got slow DSL and Adblock.
Tell me about it. One of the adds on the page keeps loading a video, and every time it cycles, it drags me back to the top of the comments, so it is taking me forever to read through them. So fast internet actually makes it worse.
Oooh, that sounds fun! Can I join? I am so cripplingly lonely! Oh, but if I joined the club, then I wouldn’t feel unwanted anymore, and then I couldn’t be part of the club anymore! What do I do?
For all your jokes, I was actually serious. As someone who suffers from severe depression and anxiety, my sense of self worth is fucking shot. To actually think someone would care about me is a foreign concept. So how about you fucking think before you reply?
Well yeah, I’ve been diagnosed with depression too, it’s a common problem…
The only reason I live is because I know some people do care about me, despite me having no skills or potential…
As for friends, I basically use that term for anyone I have no reason to hate, with a proper definition, I have none, just relatives.
Anyway, sorry, sometimes I forget people don’t share my sense of humour…
Yeah, the fantasy romance of the lover who will ignore any boundary to prove their love may be glossed up in the movies, but in reality is terrifying and full of red flags.
And that’s their difference here. Mindy is wrapped up in the romantic fantasy. Leslie is just breaking out of that into the reality.
I truly and earnestly hope you get that feeling one day. With boundaries respected, of course!
And for what it’s worth, and knowing that this is not in the romantic way you hope for: I do read your comments (even if I don’t always respond), and I do think you add something important to this comment field.
That depends on whether this place is so fancy that you get your own fresh three-pack of red, green, and brown birthday candles, or just fancy enough that you get your turn with the plastic kid’s cup full of random well-used Crayolas.
Wait, so Mindy thinks Robin throwing away her career was a grand romantic gesture and NOT Robin just screwing up her life because she was a bigot with poor impulse control and boundaries?
In fairness, she doesn’t know the full story. All she knows is, “Formerly homophobic congresswoman suddenly pivots in support of gay marriage and gets caught in a lesbian affair.”
Exactly! I DO hope that Leslie won’t be guilt-tripping, because everything that happened at her house (with the press etc.) was Robin’s (and her sister’s) own making. She can feel bad for Robin as a person – because that just shows that she is a genuinely nice person, but that doesn’t mean she should feel guilty.
And now I wonder if Robin’s still standing in front of her office (or voting office? Idk, I have no idea what they are called) without any pants on.
Yes, I know it must’ve been quite some time since that happened (weeks? or just about one week? It’s difficult to be sure, with all the other storylines in between).
I think it would help her a lot to get away from Anna. Sharing a space with someone you have a one-sided crush on is super destructive to one’s romantic self-worth. Combine that with Anna’s possibly abusive way of treating her (if we are to read into her being based on Walkyverse Mike) and you’ve got someone who’s basically been thrown into a blender.
Outside of that unhealthy space, it will hurt for a time, but I think Mindy will be a lot healthier for it.
Likely a combination of actually Robin threw away her career because she was not willing to face reality, and she was willing to drag my life down with it and the way she talked around everything I said did not exactly worth something and poor girl needs therapy and a friend friend right not a girlfriend.
I know SF is pretty damn gay, but it seems like it might be more mlm? But still a lot more LGBTQ+ than Bloomington. Seattle is my personal queer mecca, but that’s for various reasons that my not be universal. Though I imagine it’s gay ranking is up there.
According to The Advocate, Seattle is number 24 on the list of queerest cities in America. I’m afraid they didn’t break the list down more granularly, but the number of lesbian bars is one of the criteria.
Their list is always somewhat random, as if they’re trying to be inclusive to as many cities as possible rather than come up with an actually useful list. I mean, Knoxville was in the top 10 a few years back, during the infamous Stacey Campfield era.
I wonder is this an evening which is dragging on or is this a date where Leslie was bored after “I was a dental hygienist” and Mindy was dumping her past on Leslie in her second sentence?
Considering they’re still reading the menu, I’d say it’s option #2. And boy oh boy, am I ever identifying with Mindy here. Awkward silence? Fill it by nervously spewing TMI about your issues!
I wonder a little if Leslie’s seeing some of herself in that, like if she’d have seen romance in the situation like Mindy would, without having appreciated the negatives until she was in that situation herself.
The Pimento Mac looks good; not pure mac n’ cheese but adding bacon isn’t actually a downside.
. . . kinda disconcerting to see PEI mussels on the menu. I’m in Nova Scotia and that degree of specificity always struck me as being for local seafood.
Do people actually like Mindy for Leslie? I mean, she seems like a nice person but I don’t think she’s a good match for Leslie. It’s a bit like Ethan and his no-drama lover in SP. You need some drama.
Ethan and no drama guy were great together. Ethan’s crowning moment of awesome in SP! was telling Drew to fuck off because he doesn’t need another drama queen in his life. (After all, he’ll always have Mike and Robin.)
Though that relationship came together as he was being written out of the strip, IIRC. That’s easier to make work for no-drama relationships in a drama based story.
We don’t really know much about her yet, besides her occupation and her unrequited crush on her roommate.
I want to see the two of them get together, at least for a while. For one thing Leslie needs a healthy relationship built off mutual respect, instead of her tendency to be a doormat. Also because I think Mindy’s friggin cute.
I’m going to assume that you don’t mean raping criminals, because rape is not acceptable under any circumstances. But consensual sex? With Catwoman? Maybe.
Where is Robin, anyway? Hopefully she didn’t stay in the parking lot and get flattened by a distracted driver. Part of me wants to think she’s taking shelter in a nearby tree, taking selfies and calling it her legislative retreat.
Ffffffff, I can’t write anything funny today without it becoming depressing. I guess it’s just been a weird day.
She just lives in that parking lot now. Not in a homeless way, mind you; she just owns the parking lot… not the business, just the parking lot. This may be an alternate universe, but this is still Robin we’re talking about.
I imagine her looking like one of the Lumberjacks from Twin Peaks: The Return now. Covered in grime and in dark clothes, wandering around working dark magic.
Nah, it’s complimenting the ex due to abuse mentality while being inwardly depressed and scared by the whole situation. No insulting, really… although it certainly doesn’t speak good things about Anna, at least for someone listening with an outside perspective less poisoned by abuse
…And now I have to explain to the roommates why I’m going to be a little teary for the rest of tonight. Otherwise they’ll worry that I’m worried, and then I worry that they’re worried, and we’ll create a negative feedback loop of worried anxiety. But damnit all if I didn’t have way to keen an understanding of what Mindy is saying.
I dunno how much it means for a random internet person to say this, but the fact that you have guy friends that apparently won’t mock you for crying means you’re doing better on this front than most.
Panels 1-2: I feel bad for Mindy here. She’s clearly trying to fill some of the dead air of the conversation and try and rescue the date by referencing recent events and hopefully prompting a longer story.
It’s not a bad tactic in most cases for getting a more lively conversation going… except Leslie’s Robin experiences are a source of fresh trauma for her. A terrifying ordeal where she was stalked into her home by a delusional homophobic congresswoman who refused to leave and tried to force her into some weird closeted 1950s roleplay relationship thing.
It’s something that still will likely have consequences for her at work and her daily life given how recognized she is (and for sleeping with a homophobe in the public’s notion) and how she left her classroom last week in the middle of a class and then got filmed going home with at least one student during that session she was supposed to be teaching.
So yeah, Mindy just accidentally tripped into a minefield here.
Panels 3-4: I feel like this date being paralleled with Becky and Dina is not an accident given the parallel feeling between Mindy’s fantasy and Becky’s fantasy with Joyce. That notion that there’s a romantic comedy narrative that says that the person having strong feelings for another must end in mutual love and happy endings. That it fitting a movie script means it’s destined.
So yeah, I get Mindy buying the fantasy, the narrative. It’s a sexy story. I’ve read several lesbian romances with variations on it. But in reality, it’s an awful story. Someone willing to destroy their life to be with you is putting an intense amount of pressure on you and makes the stakes feel higher if things don’t work out. Plus, no amount of strong feelings will make those feelings mutual on all sides or a relationship healthy for either party.
And the other interesting parallel is that this is a fantasy Leslie did entertain with Robin. That there was some perfect world where she could reach Robin and Robin could have been that woman of her dreams saved by her love and brought to the light. But the reality of it was a traumatizing horrorshow of stalking.
Even in movies, the only reason fitting a movie script means something is destined is because they’ve gotten really lazy about providing real reasons for things to happen.
“Because it fits a movie script…”
I’ve had crushes that were really strong and felt really right, where my feelings were telling me that this was the person for me, while they were just not romantically interested in me. I’m not sure if this is a universal thing, but to lay it all on movies, I don’t know…
I’m not sure if you really meant to say that situations like mine are actually caused by indoctrination by romantic comedies. I can certainly agree with you that they don’t help…
I think the situation prompts a longing in the heart that movie and other fiction narratives fill with bad reinforcements and often model bad ways of handling that heartbreak of unrequited love/lust.
Put another way – the success of Twilight, despite not being very well-written (IMO), indicates just how many people are primed to believe and want relationships that go far, far beyond “problematic” (and into “run awayyyyyy“). And when something comes along that lets them project themselves into the protagonist and have that, vicariously…
Uh, that’s a tough one (and with that I mean: finding good non-cliché romances in themselves is pretty difficult + sometimes tastes vary greatly). I sadly don’t know any, but do you know the goodreads-platform? Searching on there with keywords could provide you with a few good suggestions. 🙂
And I just remembered, about ten years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting an author and poet from the UK at a poetry slam (she was a judge) named Jackie Kay. I bought a collection of some of her shorter stories which I really liked (“Wish I was here”) – she might have written something that could interest you (she’s openly lesbian, though she does write about e.g. love in general, non-gender or sexual-interest related).
Hope this could help in some way
This is a dangerously seductive notion when you have shit for self-esteem and you’re lonely. The idea that someone loving you can externally finally give you worth, can show you that you are better off alive than dead.
But the reality is most everyone (outside of a small sect of truly deplorable dedicated bigots) are better off alive than dead. That almost everyone has true internal value no matter how their brainmeat lies to them about it. That almost every life matters, needs to hold on.
But the alloromantic cultural narrative is strong and feeds into that deep longing so very well. The notion that someone else’s love will complete you, make you worthy. That someone wanting you with all the fibers of their being is sexy, romantic, a glorious love story…
But the reality is that a good love for those who are alloromantic is very fulfilling in key emotional ways, but that doesn’t make the fantasy a good reality. One-sided desire sucks and being under the pressure of someone who loves intensely when you don’t share those feelings can be legitimately scary at times, especially if they are self-destructing to try to be with you or making continual showings of their “love”.
People who feel their strong feelings can rise to the level where they “can’t help” how they act on it is a red flag nightmare and the prelude to some horrific situations that many folks have only just barely survived and some have not.
And it’s understandable that Mindy feels this way. She’s been nursing a one-sided crush since high school nearly a decade ago to an emotional distant person who frequently mocks and belittles her to her face and undermines her confidence fairly consistently based on the full scope of what we saw at the grocery store and the fact that she’s based on Mike.
The fantasy of someone craving her like she craves Anna probably feels amazing… just as it did to Joyce before she faced the reality of not being able to reciprocate those feelings. Just as it did to Leslie before she faced feeling those strong feelings for someone dangerous to her well-being.
And the worst part is her face here. She’s dead serious, looking deep in her self and her lack of worth and speaking truth from that point… but that’s also likely the proof that she’s not ready to date yet. That she needs to finish getting her life decoupled from Anna if it’s at all economically feasible and do some real healing before she’s ready to date…
And if we’re being honest, Leslie likely has some healing to do from the horrorshow that was Robin before she’s fully ready to date as well.
Panels 6-7: And I’m hoping these last two panels are her realizing that rather than her thinking about giving Robin another chance.
“The notion that someone else’s love will complete you, make you worthy. ”
ooh. that reminds me of something that reminded me of the relationship between Pearl and Rose… like, I have my suspicion that as wonderful as Rose was, boundaries were not a concept she encountered. And there are plenty of episodes where Pearl’s lack of self-worth shows through, hurting both herself and others. And Homeworld’s attitude towards pearls is probably a huge part of that, too. Pearl was made as a tool, to be used, and there’s clearly baggage from that still in her.
And it’s quite disturbing that I was also brought up to think that was a *good* thing, that my worth was in what people could use me for. I look back on things I said 4+ years ago and cringe at how they sound now that I know what boundaries are and why they’re important. I’m incredibly lucky that much worse things didn’t happen, since I was basically undermining my subconscious’s attempts at self-defense, trying to *help* people use me. :/
“…rather than her thinking about giving Robin another chance.”
ohhhh nope. Nope nopety nope-nope. Allll aboard the Nopetopus, next stop Nopesville!
…but there’s a twisted part of my mind that kinda wants to see Mindy and Robin interact. noo, that is not a good idea. (in with it! shove it right back in! 😉 )
Definitely there’s elements of that in Pearl, I feel, which is why it was so liberating to see her finally try starting the process of moving on with Mystery Girl.
And yeah, I think it’s an easy headspace to fall into when you are clinically depressed or coming out of abusive situations (Pearl out of her abusive society and raising). Especially the latter as abusers have a way of just taking all the confidence a person has and laying utter waste to it (which was the most depressing part of Kai Cole’s letter about the shit Joss Whedon put her through).
Yeah, there were parts infuriating and parts depressing, and the damage he’s done to her is massive amounts of both thrown into a blender and turned into a bitter rotten smoothie.
I’ll give you the very quick summary, last chance to look away.
After the divorce Joss Whedon sent Kai Cole a message confessing that he did in fact cheat on her, despite all his insurances during their marriage that he as feminist simply liked having women around him more. A LOT of cheating. With actresses and such that worked underneath him. But it’s not his fault since he felt like a God with all those young women around him, so obviously he had to taste the forbidden fruit or whatnot. That’s roughly how he defended it.
She has Complex PTSD as a result of the gaslighting and such. No idea what damage he’s done to the people he had sex with while he had power over them through his position.
Still stuck in rage due to the deluge of people claiming that ‘hey he cheated, that’s their business, who cares’ without addressing the feminism-as-shield or power-imbalances, as well as people going ‘hey so he had sex with actresses he worked with, unless we know their stories it doesn’t matter’, as if a power imbalance suddenly magically disappears. Even got people shoving all the blame on monoganism being evil. My blocklist is quickly growing as a result.
♫ Yeah ♪ Turn down the love songs that you hear ♪ ‘Cause you can’t avoid the sentiment ♪ That echoes in your ear ♪ Saying love will stop the pain ♪ Saying love will kill the fear ♪
If happy-ever-afters did exiiiiissst…
I would still be holding you like thiiiiiisss!
And all these fairy tales are full of sh*****t!
One more f**king love song, I’ll be siiick!
Oooh, oh oh…
I now think that looking for someone as a means for self validation is the reason that I haven’t found a partner in 10+ years of dating. That, and possibly being aro.
I know that something similar to that is one of the reasons why I only found someone for like 1 1/2 months, about two years ago.
For me it’s not really self-validation though – it would be in my very darkest times, but personally those 1 1/2 months had made everything so much better, probably because at least for me, they were based on genuine feelings.
A very good friend of mine (he’s something of a little brother, but actually somewhat of one of the few friends of the opposite sex that I have) recently told me that nothing is wrong with me – I’m just more advanced than most people with regards to knowing my emotions and knowing what I’d want and need in a relationship. Which I found very sweet as an idea, rather than my ‘fresh’ realisation some months ago that it might’ve been because I’m demi. So there can be a bunch of reasons for still being single for many people out there – the key is to not see yourself as being a lesser being than someone with a partner.
Yeah, that was also something I did for a long time, seeing myself as less of a man for not having a girlfriend. But I abandoned that notion thankfully.
That’s good 🙂 For me it also took quite some time (I suffered through puberty and early twens because of that notion), but I’ve mostly put it behind me as well, or rather, shook it (the idea of being somehow less without a partner) of.
I liked Sara Eckel ” it’s not you” on the topic.
I never realized the stuff friends tell me on how to stop being single were so commonplace and it’s nice seeing her decompose them.
I know it’s early to say, so just consider this a bet that I might well lose, but I don’t think Anna is “based on Mike” in that way. I don’t think she takes the satisfaction we have seen Mike take on actively deliberately fucking over people close to him. When Willis said she was a loathed character who, “psst, her dialogue is like copy pasted from early Mike, my most popular character for a decade”, I don’t think he meant Anna was going to follow that same trajectory.
I think he meant more that abrasive people who say mean shit for no reason are far more tolerated when they’re white straight cis guys.
And I expect Anna is more a character without a filter than a schemer who is deliberately destroying people’s self-esteem.
Which doesn’t mean that that’s great to be around, and doesn’t mean that Mindy’s self-esteem issues aren’t exacerbated by it (or heck even caused by it, I guess).
Anyway it’s just my wager right now. We’ll soon see.
I hope Mindy gets to a more emotionally healthy place whatever the cause!
Probably should elaborate on this since I just realized how awful it sounds.
Basically how I view Mike is that he’s not really a character, but he’s more of a plot device who does awful shit to facilitate growth in other characters. He’s preying on Ethan because that advances Ethan’s arc. He bangs Ethan and Amber in Shortpacked! because it causes them misery and causes his romance with Amber down the line.
A person identifying as “whatever you don’t want me to be”, that makes sense if, say, Malaya did that. There’s stuff to mine out of that, but I don’t believe Mike as he’s written is meant to be a real character.
This is a fair point but I know Mike isn’t straight, and I think he’s queer enough to “count”. (No gatekeeping from me, heh.) That was just a rattled off list of privileges and I added straight without thinking about it because I was in a rush.
I would say that the rush you often see from fans of Mike to answer Amy sexuality questions with Willis’s old nugget do sort of indicate that his fans tend to SEE him as straight — or to at least be unconsciously quite opposed to actually seeing him as not straight.
I’m not entirely sure I don’t see him that way myself TBH.
Like, he only ever macks on a dude if it’s for a joke. He kisses Ethan because it makes Robin angry. One of the only times he’s ever slept with a dude was to make his actual love interest angry. The closest he’s gotten to every sleeping with a guy in a context that an actual person would do it in is with Eric, and that’s still just to make Ethan angry. He only ever does something queer if it makes someone miserable.
It reminds me of, IDK, Family Guy or Penny Arcade, where a character sleeps with a guy every once in a while for a joke, but is still ostensibly a straight man.
To be clear, I don’t think Mike needs to prove his queer humanity to truly count, as a bi dude that’s something I deal with a lot, but I feel as if Mike is written just to be a plot device rather than as an actual queer man like Danny or Ethan.
Just because you mean something to someone doesn’t mean it’s always in a healthy way. If my SO threw away his/her life for me, I wouldn’t feel in a healthy relationship anymore, because that means that my life is worthier than hers/his, to which I think no one should put the life of someone else (in regular, not extreme conditions like accidents or such) before his/her own. Everyone should learn how love oneself before loving someone else.
I so know where she is right now. That was me straight off an abusive relationship, and occasionally I still have to stop and think, really think about it when I get an impulse like that. Because while the thought of someone caring for you above anything else in the world like that, to the point of throwing away all else, is superficially attractive, it ain’t healthy or smart.
But it’s also totally what Leslie needed to hear, to put a mirror up to her own face.
So is this guilt or shame ? Because I can’t tell if they’re speaking from the stance of being the ones throw their lives away or having someone throw their lives away for you.
In some ways, it’s both. Relationships don’t easily fit into neat stereotypes. Although it was Robin who was the one to throw away her life rather than Leslie, that didn’t make the interaction any more potentially abusive in the emotional coercion used. Mindy, on the other hand, may have been the one who has thrown away her own happiness and prospects to keep Anna something approaching happy.
slightly offtopic, but I got a private message from someone asking for DID info, and I’m planning to round up some links for them tomorrow; I’d be happy to take suggestions from people here too if that’s not too much trouble 🙂
Oh Mindy! Now I know that you’re an abuse victim when you’re mistaking Robin’s selfish whim for something romantic. The thing is… Leslie clearly has those thoughts too! Even if they don’t end up meshing romantically, I at least hope that Leslie and Mindy can help convince each other that love is give-and-take and thinking about each other.
I am so grateful I’m someone who felt like this and got what they needed. Two specific occasions on how I know: when we were not yet living together, we had a big argument on the way to my place, so he reiterated in the middle of the house and went home. Then reiterated again, and after more than an hour arrived at my place to clear things. I was still up, and I felt appreciated. On an another occasion, when I lived abroad for a while, he was scheduled to visit for some days. On the day before the flight he complained of some stomach aches, and then went offline. Next morning I learned the pain got so severe he went to the hospital and they kept him overnight, he got IV, and was totally beaten up, be he did come to visit. They ruled out appendicitis before, so it wasnt as scary as it could have been. No big conclusion, just wanted to share that I do have someone in my life who is willing to take the risks for me.
Seems so. The previous comic featured the words “Lesbian dates” along with depictions of two Lesbian dates. It got called “Lemongrass”. What other explanation could there be?
Poor Mindy doesn’t even the half of it… and the way she talks about being worth something to someone sure does not put her relationship with that previous girlfriend of hers in a good light…
Usually people who are too similar make bad couples.
Or at least that’s the stereotype. My boyfriend and I have like two-thirds of everything in common and we’re a great match. :3 I don’t know if Leslie and Mindy would be right for each other romantically, but I sense a great friendship in the making at least. That’s usually how the best romantic couples start anyway. (I’ma say that one’s not a stereotype; that’s how literally all my relationships started.)
My general assessment is that for a relationship to really work, you need to be sufficiently similar to understand each other and get along, but still different enough to be interesting to one another. The ideal balance seems to vary from person to person
She is and she would be inhuman if she wasn’t. However, I’m hoping that she is able to use Robin’s negatives to help Mindy learn a lesson: It doesn’t matter how totally focussed on you someone is if they’re only in it for their own satisfaction and your wishes don’t matter to them.
Because it would make her completely unable to understand human motives and mistakes and not feel even the slightest twinge of empathy for someone else’s misguided behaviour.
buying into this dangerous love story notion /=/ being compassionate and able to feel for other people
conflating the two is harmful and ingenuous.
anyway, it’d be nice if Leslie didn’t think that, but she’s not in a place where that’s realistic yet. hopefully she will at some point realize that she needs to work against that sort of thinking, and not let it control her actions.
I don’t know what’s hurts more: the totally unsuitable topic for flirting, the clarity that Mindy’s not sure she is worth anything to anyone or Leslie feeling bad about wishing Robin out of her life.
Well – it depends on whether she wants to shallowly flirt or have a meaningful conversation, or at least being truthful. If that’s what’s going on in her head, why not share it? (well – but maybe it is a bit much for the first few minutes of a date + she didn’t know much of the DeSanto-situation)
Yeah; the LesBin ship needs to be shot in the head, have a stake driven through the heart, drawn and quartered, those quarters burned to ashes, those ashes exorcised by a set of several priests, preferably of more than one religion and said ashes then taken to the four quarters of the world and scattered to the four winds.
I really have no stomach for reformed abuser redemption porn. Once, I’ll maybe give a side-eye in the case of Ruth, although I find the way her critic was responded to very… worrysome. But twice, and I am out.
Can you please just finally tell me I am a worthless human being without a chance of ever being or creating good the rest of my life, and be done with me? No more of this “just one more time and I’m done” stuff. Just… leave and stop whispering into my head that I have no right to matter again to anyone.
You’ve read this comic. You must know who I am. I am a (hopefully, potentially, in an ongoing sort of way) reformed bigot, like Joyce, raised and molded to hurt other people. And I have done so. I spent the first twenty-five years of my life being shit to a group of people, an overlapping 30 years another, an overlapping 35 years another, and I’m still working on not being shit to additional groups as I am made aware of my shittiness. And this, through Joyce, is what this comic strip is. It is about becoming better. And every time that super-obvious central theme, one that’s both the core to this comic and the core to myself, the core to my personal shame — every time that central theme is hinted by the story or by other people in the comments, you make sure to remind everyone that getting better is awful and repugnant, because we are all ruined forever. That the very idea of becoming better is problematic.
So, please know that you even reading this strip, a creative work done by a ruined person, is advocating for a person being better. And so maybe you should stop, if you believe your own words. I have been awful. I am currently awful, but trying. You should not be patronizing my work.
FWIW and IMO:
Despite what both this yahoo and the character in my grav think/say, change and growth and even redemption are possible.
Not quick, not easy, and not guaranteed to be successful (or accepted by others), as you well know.
But possible.
I’ve always personally thought that Rachel just worded herself badly in her anger.
I think she tried to say that -quick- redemption is a fake story, something that doesn’t exist. That one apology is supposed to make up for it all. That a promise to be better is all that’s needed… Those are usually the elements in typical redemption stories, and they are false. Redemption takes a hell of a lot more than that.
She’d probably hate Joe’s donut stand too, if she saw it.
But I understand her anger. I mean, from -our- point of view, we know that Ruth’s actually truly regretting all she did. From our point of view, we know that she’s actually trying very hard to be better and to make up for her bad shit. From our point of view, we know that Ruth is under no illusions whatsoever that this will be a quick and painless process. From our point of view, Ruth is attempting to redeem herself the right way.
But Rachel never had our knowledge, and from where she was standing, it looked suspiciously similar to a “quick redemption story”. And that’s what she reacted to.
And I don’t blame her for that. I don’t even blame her for not coming across as more nuanced in that moment. I just wish she had the knowledge we readers have.
I feel your reply so deeply David, being in just that same spot as an older guy trying to not be shitty to people. I look back on so much of my own life with shame of hurting others; it is the reason my nym on this forum is that of a very primitive dinosaur. Reading DOA has been incredibly helpful, and I have to believe in redemption or stop having any hope for myself. Please accept my encouragement and sincere admiration.
OK the Commodore has left, but I can’t let his comment about believing ‘easily’ in redemption go by without saying something. With all the characters in the strip have been through I wouldn’t call their progress ‘easy’. And then there’s us in the comments. Cerberus has paid in pain and loss for every step forward, and so have many others. I know I have. If I stop believing I could do better, I start feeling like I’d be better off not being. Every day I’m pushing toward the one to stay away from the other. I feel like I’m trying to make a worthwhile person out of scraps of wreckage. It is overwhelming at times so I got rid of my guns. Hardly ‘easy’.
Also on second thought, good luck to Robin, reflecting and trying to be better.
Hey, I just duct-taped 3 brooms together to make a 15-foot pole and I’m STILL not touching this discussion. I just wanted to let you know that I’m glad nothing particularly disastrous has happened to you, what with you not having posted for a while.
Oh, whatever, does it really matter what DeSanto feels? she’s basically a one night stand, a very BAD one night stand for Leslie (even if the sex was amazing) how can you justify “liking” such an painfully oblivious person that just “wings it” because “approval ratings” and “political agenda”?…
although DeSanto did try to change…
and she got abandoned by everyone…
and she did it with the knowledge she actually learned fro Leslie…
she wasn’t entirely ready to face the fact her whole life was a farce but when push came to shove she stood firm in her actual, real beliefs…
But your point still stands in general: Good sex is not worth a lot of BS surrounding it. -If- (colloquial) you actually just want a good one-night-stand sexual encounter full of mutually respectful and pleasing things happening; that can be found lots of places. Drama not included.
There’s so much “not ready for a relationship” in Mindy’s dialogue here, and so much need to be taken care of that Leslie may not be able to meet, given that Leslie herself is also in a vulnerable, recovering place.
But that’s also okay. Dates can be good for their own sake too. It can just be nice to get dressed up and go out for a nice meal.
I think that might be the best ending happening. That both of them realise that this is not the right time for either, and they agree to separate on friendly terms.
Of course, this isn’t QC, so the odds of that happening is… about 0.02%.
Patreon subscribers see an “enhanced view” of today’s strip with an 8th panel showing Robin still standing out there, confident smile still on her face.
Man, I am so bad at reading why characters are reacting a certain way I’m beginning to think there’s something wrong with me. I’m sitting here thinking maybe Leslie was thinking back to the grocery store when Becky tried to introduce her to Mindy and she ignored her. That maybe she was thinking she had piled onto the feeling of Mindy thinking she didn’t matter to anyone.
I am legitimately concerned I might be doing this in real life.
That awkward moment when you realize that you might be on a date with what is essentially all of your worst character traits combined into a single other human.
This makes me sad, I used to feel that way all the time, these days it only happens from time to time. It’s so hard to feel evil and irredeemable and have to struggle and scrape to build some self-esteem and even then you hit a low place and it all falls away and you have claw your way back up again.
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oops?
That is just softly said.
I think it is more:
Ý “BOINK!!!”.
What have i done.
No oopses!
Leslie will date this cute lady and it’s final!
I am Willis’s secret boss you see
Hmm, Galasso avatar…
Everything seems correct here.
I know, right?
What kind of place doesn’t serve mac & cheese?!
..at the very least, it’s certainly no place that Walky would patronize. 😛
You’d think she’d try MacDaddy FIRST
or, like, Amanda’s Dream Daddy graduation party
I assume Mindy has been quietly stalking Anna for, what, a decade?
I don’t think it’s stalking if it’s your roommate.
I mean. You have to live together then.
It depends on which came first, the stalking or the roommate arrangement.
Yeah, but arranging to be roommates with someone in the hopes they’ll finally fall for you/come back to you is kind of stalkerish.
We have no evidence that that’s what’s going on, so I prefer to not make that assumption.
Because there is entirely too much assuming the worst of everyone on the internet… I was gonna say now, but really always.
I pretty highly doubt that; Ava and Mindy used to date. They seem to be friends still, and they were together in high school, and now theyre roommates, even if Ava’s kind of an ass to her. I think Mindy’s self-esteem issues are probably pretty unrelated, and it’s not Ava she’s talking about. Definitely not stalking her.
…Why did I say Ava when I knew for a fact it was Anna. What the fuck. Anyway, point still stands!
I felt like the implication was that Mindy still has some unresolved feelings left over. Like Anna was the one who broke things off and Mindy was left heartbroken over that.
I didn’t really get the stalker-vibe from Mindy’s statement.
It’s been a long time, though- I think Anna might have influence on Mindy’s self-esteem issues but is likely not the sole cause of them or the only thing she’s talking about here.
I actually get the vibe that Anna might be emotionally abusive toward Mindy, and Mindy sticks around because she’s gaslit and desperate for someone to care about her. I think this strip is us seeing the first cracks of how Mindy is hurt by this. So far Anna has berated Mindy for being friendly and said she can’t get dates because she has “caterpillar eyebrows”, and she’s only been in a couple strips – it’s no wonder Mindy has self-confidence issues, living with that every day. Anna acted shocked that anyone could be interested in Mindy and aggressively corrected the idea that her and Mindy were together. Plus, they say you can judge someone by how they treat strangers, and so far the first thing she’s said to Becky is that she ought to feel sorry for being slow, and pretty much the first thing she said to Leslie is that she has an unattractive big nose. Maybe I’m reading too much into this because I’m naturally polite, but Anna really rubs me the wrong way. I hope Mindy can get out of that situation and find someone who isn’t actively harmful to her sense of self worth.
I hate my sloe fucking internet
It’s the woreste
Agered
You just have to get a fatster momed.
When life comes at you sloe make gin fizz.
(But really, when someone has a slow internet it’s no surprise they don’t have a chance to correct typos)
That’s the worst part of all this, I live in a rural community, have lived in one or another rural community for at least a year and a half (Mum doesn’t want to move to the city yet, but the plan is to move to my hometown by the end of the year), so these places don’t have an ACTUAL internet service, I had to look at all my local internet companies until I found one with a mobile internet dongle that wasn’t limited by a data cap. the “Rural Internet MObile Internet” I hired has a 2mb connection. Yes, that bad. It means I can barely download at 120 KB/S, and that means NOBODY else is using internet until that download is done.
The internet doesn’t get any smarter when your connection gets faster.
Well, the Skynet parts of it do, but not anything that benefits the user.
What if the user is Ultron?
Asking for a friend.
I think all that extra bandwidth we are being told we can’t live without is for the benefit of advertisers. Screw them and the Little Pony they rode in on. I got slow DSL and Adblock.
Tell me about it. One of the adds on the page keeps loading a video, and every time it cycles, it drags me back to the top of the comments, so it is taking me forever to read through them. So fast internet actually makes it worse.
Oh no. She’s flashing back to the good times!
The half a second before Robin got to say or do anything each time Leslie saw her? *Badum-tish.*
Mindy and I can form the “People who Feel Unwanted Club”. Clearly complete with a host of mental health issues. Join now and get a sad face badge.
Can it join? I understand how Mindy feels all too well. Damn it.
*I not it, what the hell
Keulan, I understood what you meant. You get a stranger’s sympathy and concern. For whatever it may be worth.
Oooh, that sounds fun! Can I join? I am so cripplingly lonely! Oh, but if I joined the club, then I wouldn’t feel unwanted anymore, and then I couldn’t be part of the club anymore! What do I do?
I’m pretty sure you have to join the club ironically.
I’m joining, just let me abandon my friends real quick.
For all your jokes, I was actually serious. As someone who suffers from severe depression and anxiety, my sense of self worth is fucking shot. To actually think someone would care about me is a foreign concept. So how about you fucking think before you reply?
=< Ghosthug? https://media.giphy.com/media/g8rhUpt0ounKM/giphy.gif
Well yeah, I’ve been diagnosed with depression too, it’s a common problem…
The only reason I live is because I know some people do care about me, despite me having no skills or potential…
As for friends, I basically use that term for anyone I have no reason to hate, with a proper definition, I have none, just relatives.
Anyway, sorry, sometimes I forget people don’t share my sense of humour…
Forgot to say in the first paragraph, our reasons for this seem to be different so I don’t fully understand, just have a basic idea
How bout a civil and depressed club? That won’t require the abandonement of anyone or any grumpyness.
I mean, I’d like to be worth something to somebody too, but maybe without the home invasion and boundary bulldozing and denial.
THANK YOU.
Leslie, don’t listen to her. You are so much better off without Robin it’s not funny.
Yeah, the fantasy romance of the lover who will ignore any boundary to prove their love may be glossed up in the movies, but in reality is terrifying and full of red flags.
And that’s their difference here. Mindy is wrapped up in the romantic fantasy. Leslie is just breaking out of that into the reality.
I truly and earnestly hope you get that feeling one day. With boundaries respected, of course!
And for what it’s worth, and knowing that this is not in the romantic way you hope for: I do read your comments (even if I don’t always respond), and I do think you add something important to this comment field.
It was a bit of a slap to the face upon discovering that what’s romantic in movies isn’t.
/sigh
I miss those face-slapped-free days.
excuse me waiter i believe i asked for crayons over here?
I think Velma C. Rabner took them all.
That depends on whether this place is so fancy that you get your own fresh three-pack of red, green, and brown birthday candles, or just fancy enough that you get your turn with the plastic kid’s cup full of random well-used Crayolas.
Ohhhhh
If there’s no Man and Cheese, do they at least have chicken fingers?
As a kid, that was always my “safe” order when I was at a new place. It’s hard to mess up chicken fingers.
“Man and Cheese”
That’s hardly the kinda thing you offer to a lesbian.
I would totally eat Man and Cheese if I was a lesbian cannibal.
…or if I was just a cannibal, I suppose.
…
I like cheese.
I will lick every inch of your body…then I will tell you to get out of my house!
I only wanted the cheese.
“You only love me for my cheese!”
“Pretty much.”
TFW your pred decides they’re not really into vore and just want your cheese
Apparently at midnight my spelling skills turned into a pup-tent. A pipkin. A pumpernickel.
…A gourd.
Sweet Grass also has Chicken Fingers (and chips). See earlier link below.
Oh, Mindy. And oh, dear, this relationship will not end well will it?
*pause*
Wait, so Mindy thinks Robin throwing away her career was a grand romantic gesture and NOT Robin just screwing up her life because she was a bigot with poor impulse control and boundaries?
Huh.
Cool.
Nah, it sounds more like she’s trying to draw parallels with her own life.
In fairness, she doesn’t know the full story. All she knows is, “Formerly homophobic congresswoman suddenly pivots in support of gay marriage and gets caught in a lesbian affair.”
Exactly! I DO hope that Leslie won’t be guilt-tripping, because everything that happened at her house (with the press etc.) was Robin’s (and her sister’s) own making. She can feel bad for Robin as a person – because that just shows that she is a genuinely nice person, but that doesn’t mean she should feel guilty.
And now I wonder if Robin’s still standing in front of her office (or voting office? Idk, I have no idea what they are called) without any pants on.
Yes, I know it must’ve been quite some time since that happened (weeks? or just about one week? It’s difficult to be sure, with all the other storylines in between).
Whoa now, it’s just a date. Nothing about a relationship just yet.
Poor choice of words. Mea culpa.
Think nothing of it.
Me thinks, they will just end up being friends, but Mindy needs that, probably. He other friend is her ex and mean to her.
Man, lesbian dates are friggin’ bad ass!
Thank you, Becky
Right now, I’m thinking it looks like the “ass” part of that comment can be taken away.
Will that just swerved into the bleachers
Yer a real laugh a minute there Mindy.
I hope Mindy gets to move to the gayest city in America and find a lady who’s absolutely crazy about her.
Ft. Gay?
someone who knows what boundaries are, because oh dear has she got a lot of learning to do… >.<
I think it would help her a lot to get away from Anna. Sharing a space with someone you have a one-sided crush on is super destructive to one’s romantic self-worth. Combine that with Anna’s possibly abusive way of treating her (if we are to read into her being based on Walkyverse Mike) and you’ve got someone who’s basically been thrown into a blender.
Outside of that unhealthy space, it will hurt for a time, but I think Mindy will be a lot healthier for it.
ouch, yeah, I’d forgotten they were living together. :/
…
I wonder whether leslie’s now thinking about how not-cool it actually was, or if she’s thinking something about Mindy…
She’s thinking “This Mindy gal is gonna be lucky if we get through dinner, because I am ready“.
Likely a combination of actually Robin threw away her career because she was not willing to face reality, and she was willing to drag my life down with it and the way she talked around everything I said did not exactly worth something and poor girl needs therapy and a friend friend right not a girlfriend.
I know SF is pretty damn gay, but it seems like it might be more mlm? But still a lot more LGBTQ+ than Bloomington. Seattle is my personal queer mecca, but that’s for various reasons that my not be universal. Though I imagine it’s gay ranking is up there.
Anyway, what would be the gayest wlw city?
Walla Walla?
No, it’s ok, I’ll show myself out.
That’d be Northampton, MA. I’m pretty sure we have more lesbians per capita than anywhere but the isle of Lesbos.
Northampton, Massachusetts.
According to The Advocate, Seattle is number 24 on the list of queerest cities in America. I’m afraid they didn’t break the list down more granularly, but the number of lesbian bars is one of the criteria.
Their list is always somewhat random, as if they’re trying to be inclusive to as many cities as possible rather than come up with an actually useful list. I mean, Knoxville was in the top 10 a few years back, during the infamous Stacey Campfield era.
According to Autostraddle in their 2012 rankings, the top place would indeed be Northampton/Amherst.
And from the “how far we’ve come” department: in 2012, one of the positives was, “it’s Massachusetts which means same-sex marriage is legal.”
Burlington, VT (the place I just moved across the country to) is pretty – well, as my gf likes to put it “everyone here is trans and gay”
Mlm? What does multi level marketing have to do with sexual orientation?
You want Mindy to move to Jersey City? It’d certainly be a long way from Bloomington.
I have to admit to being surprised that SF is only 17th on this list.
I wonder is this an evening which is dragging on or is this a date where Leslie was bored after “I was a dental hygienist” and Mindy was dumping her past on Leslie in her second sentence?
Considering they’re still reading the menu, I’d say it’s option #2. And boy oh boy, am I ever identifying with Mindy here. Awkward silence? Fill it by nervously spewing TMI about your issues!
As “right in the feels” as this is, that’s maybe not the best thing to lead with on a first date. Throwing up some relationship red flags there, Min.
but – but LESLIE wasn’t actually worth that much to Robin, only the FEELINGS she got from being around Leslie
also: oh Mindy, honey, no :C
I wonder a little if Leslie’s seeing some of herself in that, like if she’d have seen romance in the situation like Mindy would, without having appreciated the negatives until she was in that situation herself.
I just want to give Mindy a hug, pat her on the back, and tell her it will be okay.
Leslie and Mindy are probably too into the same thing which isn’t each other to ever date
Sweet Grass does too have Mac n’ Cheese.
http://sweetgrassbloomington.com/menu-and-specials/food-menu/
Of course, it’s under the Kids Menu, and does say For guests 12 and under please.
(Leslie: This is ageist!)
The Pimento Mac looks good; not pure mac n’ cheese but adding bacon isn’t actually a downside.
. . . kinda disconcerting to see PEI mussels on the menu. I’m in Nova Scotia and that degree of specificity always struck me as being for local seafood.
I think outside the Canadian Maritimes it’s seen more as a brand. “Oh, PEI Mussels, those are the good ones!”
And then they can charge more…
see also “Key Lime Pie”. Odds that the lime juice actually came from the Florida Keys…?
The juice comes from Key Limes, not regular limes.
Hey Leslie, how about you drop the whole self-destructive need for abusive lovers for a little while, and give this Mindy woman a real chance?
Or, you know, you could continue on the course, and end up horrifically murdered by someone claiming to love you…
Do people actually like Mindy for Leslie? I mean, she seems like a nice person but I don’t think she’s a good match for Leslie. It’s a bit like Ethan and his no-drama lover in SP. You need some drama.
I feel like Mindy could do better than Leslie right now, she just has a whole host of self-esteem issues.
Ethan and no drama guy were great together. Ethan’s crowning moment of awesome in SP! was telling Drew to fuck off because he doesn’t need another drama queen in his life. (After all, he’ll always have Mike and Robin.)
Yeah, the two were a really nice match. Iirc it took him time to get used to that.
Though that relationship came together as he was being written out of the strip, IIRC. That’s easier to make work for no-drama relationships in a drama based story.
So, intensely healthy, and not borderline abusive (or even over that line) as what they left?
Works for me.
We don’t really know much about her yet, besides her occupation and her unrequited crush on her roommate.
I want to see the two of them get together, at least for a while. For one thing Leslie needs a healthy relationship built off mutual respect, instead of her tendency to be a doormat. Also because I think Mindy’s friggin cute.
Ethan and his no-drama lover stayed together, because Ethan understood that he DESERVES someone who is nice and supportive.
These two need to team up and go after the ones they really want.
Or fight crime. Crimefighting might work, too.
Crimefighting, YES!
But: poets? Or street musicians?
The ones they really wanted were not good for them at all, so yes, the crime fighting
I’m going to assume that you don’t mean raping criminals, because rape is not acceptable under any circumstances. But consensual sex? With Catwoman? Maybe.
Well… this is awkward…
Ergly?
Where is Robin, anyway? Hopefully she didn’t stay in the parking lot and get flattened by a distracted driver. Part of me wants to think she’s taking shelter in a nearby tree, taking selfies and calling it her legislative retreat.
Ffffffff, I can’t write anything funny today without it becoming depressing. I guess it’s just been a weird day.
Robin downloaded Tinder and is using it as her new campaign platform.
Seems like a good way to find potential voters.
Swipe right for America
More like legislative retreet
She just lives in that parking lot now. Not in a homeless way, mind you; she just owns the parking lot… not the business, just the parking lot. This may be an alternate universe, but this is still Robin we’re talking about.
That sounds very likely.
I imagine her looking like one of the Lumberjacks from Twin Peaks: The Return now. Covered in grime and in dark clothes, wandering around working dark magic.
Stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back.
And both of you run screaming…
I was the abyss all along? Shyamalan twist!
And if you stare into the abbess, she’ll ask you kindly to leave her convent.
Stare into the abscess and go straight to your dentist.
Where Mindy the overeager dental hygienist will be waiting to provide existential confrontation yet again.
Mindy has a GREAT self esteem!
The greatest.
This is going as well as all my dates went.
That’s rough, buddy.
Well, no offence, but those glowing blue eyes would be a little off-putting.
Likelihood of there being a second date: decreasing.
Still a better first date conversation than complaining about the ex.
Well…except it actually is complaining about the ex, just in an oblique way.
Nah, it’s complimenting the ex due to abuse mentality while being inwardly depressed and scared by the whole situation. No insulting, really… although it certainly doesn’t speak good things about Anna, at least for someone listening with an outside perspective less poisoned by abuse
Don’t do it Leslie!
Damn…all the feels on that count. All of them.
…And now I have to explain to the roommates why I’m going to be a little teary for the rest of tonight. Otherwise they’ll worry that I’m worried, and then I worry that they’re worried, and we’ll create a negative feedback loop of worried anxiety. But damnit all if I didn’t have way to keen an understanding of what Mindy is saying.
I dunno how much it means for a random internet person to say this, but the fact that you have guy friends that apparently won’t mock you for crying means you’re doing better on this front than most.
Thank you.
Comic Reactions:
Panels 1-2: I feel bad for Mindy here. She’s clearly trying to fill some of the dead air of the conversation and try and rescue the date by referencing recent events and hopefully prompting a longer story.
It’s not a bad tactic in most cases for getting a more lively conversation going… except Leslie’s Robin experiences are a source of fresh trauma for her. A terrifying ordeal where she was stalked into her home by a delusional homophobic congresswoman who refused to leave and tried to force her into some weird closeted 1950s roleplay relationship thing.
It’s something that still will likely have consequences for her at work and her daily life given how recognized she is (and for sleeping with a homophobe in the public’s notion) and how she left her classroom last week in the middle of a class and then got filmed going home with at least one student during that session she was supposed to be teaching.
So yeah, Mindy just accidentally tripped into a minefield here.
Panels 3-4: I feel like this date being paralleled with Becky and Dina is not an accident given the parallel feeling between Mindy’s fantasy and Becky’s fantasy with Joyce. That notion that there’s a romantic comedy narrative that says that the person having strong feelings for another must end in mutual love and happy endings. That it fitting a movie script means it’s destined.
So yeah, I get Mindy buying the fantasy, the narrative. It’s a sexy story. I’ve read several lesbian romances with variations on it. But in reality, it’s an awful story. Someone willing to destroy their life to be with you is putting an intense amount of pressure on you and makes the stakes feel higher if things don’t work out. Plus, no amount of strong feelings will make those feelings mutual on all sides or a relationship healthy for either party.
And the other interesting parallel is that this is a fantasy Leslie did entertain with Robin. That there was some perfect world where she could reach Robin and Robin could have been that woman of her dreams saved by her love and brought to the light. But the reality of it was a traumatizing horrorshow of stalking.
eeeee! comic reactions! 🙂
huh. I didn’t think of the becky thing.
Even in movies, the only reason fitting a movie script means something is destined is because they’ve gotten really lazy about providing real reasons for things to happen.
“Because it fits a movie script…”
I’ve had crushes that were really strong and felt really right, where my feelings were telling me that this was the person for me, while they were just not romantically interested in me. I’m not sure if this is a universal thing, but to lay it all on movies, I don’t know…
I’m not sure if you really meant to say that situations like mine are actually caused by indoctrination by romantic comedies. I can certainly agree with you that they don’t help…
I think the situation prompts a longing in the heart that movie and other fiction narratives fill with bad reinforcements and often model bad ways of handling that heartbreak of unrequited love/lust.
Yup, this.
Put another way – the success of Twilight, despite not being very well-written (IMO), indicates just how many people are primed to believe and want relationships that go far, far beyond “problematic” (and into “run awayyyyyy“). And when something comes along that lets them project themselves into the protagonist and have that, vicariously…
Cerberus, any recommendations for good lesbian romances? I don’t generally read romantic books, but I have a feeling you’d know some good ones!
Uh, that’s a tough one (and with that I mean: finding good non-cliché romances in themselves is pretty difficult + sometimes tastes vary greatly). I sadly don’t know any, but do you know the goodreads-platform? Searching on there with keywords could provide you with a few good suggestions. 🙂
And I just remembered, about ten years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting an author and poet from the UK at a poetry slam (she was a judge) named Jackie Kay. I bought a collection of some of her shorter stories which I really liked (“Wish I was here”) – she might have written something that could interest you (she’s openly lesbian, though she does write about e.g. love in general, non-gender or sexual-interest related).
Hope this could help in some way
Thanks, CoMa, those are good starting points 🙂
Hey, you’re beanie Carla now. Cool!
And I have no idea who I am now? Is this supposed to be Ruth
I think someone read or watched pride and prejudice as a child…
Leslie (thinking): aw shit…I completely forgot to bring Robin to a barn! How could I miss the most important step?
This is going badly. But can it go badly enough to turn Leslie on?
LOL 🙂
Panel 5: And this.
This is a dangerously seductive notion when you have shit for self-esteem and you’re lonely. The idea that someone loving you can externally finally give you worth, can show you that you are better off alive than dead.
But the reality is most everyone (outside of a small sect of truly deplorable dedicated bigots) are better off alive than dead. That almost everyone has true internal value no matter how their brainmeat lies to them about it. That almost every life matters, needs to hold on.
But the alloromantic cultural narrative is strong and feeds into that deep longing so very well. The notion that someone else’s love will complete you, make you worthy. That someone wanting you with all the fibers of their being is sexy, romantic, a glorious love story…
But the reality is that a good love for those who are alloromantic is very fulfilling in key emotional ways, but that doesn’t make the fantasy a good reality. One-sided desire sucks and being under the pressure of someone who loves intensely when you don’t share those feelings can be legitimately scary at times, especially if they are self-destructing to try to be with you or making continual showings of their “love”.
People who feel their strong feelings can rise to the level where they “can’t help” how they act on it is a red flag nightmare and the prelude to some horrific situations that many folks have only just barely survived and some have not.
And it’s understandable that Mindy feels this way. She’s been nursing a one-sided crush since high school nearly a decade ago to an emotional distant person who frequently mocks and belittles her to her face and undermines her confidence fairly consistently based on the full scope of what we saw at the grocery store and the fact that she’s based on Mike.
The fantasy of someone craving her like she craves Anna probably feels amazing… just as it did to Joyce before she faced the reality of not being able to reciprocate those feelings. Just as it did to Leslie before she faced feeling those strong feelings for someone dangerous to her well-being.
And the worst part is her face here. She’s dead serious, looking deep in her self and her lack of worth and speaking truth from that point… but that’s also likely the proof that she’s not ready to date yet. That she needs to finish getting her life decoupled from Anna if it’s at all economically feasible and do some real healing before she’s ready to date…
And if we’re being honest, Leslie likely has some healing to do from the horrorshow that was Robin before she’s fully ready to date as well.
Panels 6-7: And I’m hoping these last two panels are her realizing that rather than her thinking about giving Robin another chance.
“The notion that someone else’s love will complete you, make you worthy. ”
ooh. that reminds me of something that reminded me of the relationship between Pearl and Rose… like, I have my suspicion that as wonderful as Rose was, boundaries were not a concept she encountered. And there are plenty of episodes where Pearl’s lack of self-worth shows through, hurting both herself and others. And Homeworld’s attitude towards pearls is probably a huge part of that, too. Pearl was made as a tool, to be used, and there’s clearly baggage from that still in her.
And it’s quite disturbing that I was also brought up to think that was a *good* thing, that my worth was in what people could use me for. I look back on things I said 4+ years ago and cringe at how they sound now that I know what boundaries are and why they’re important. I’m incredibly lucky that much worse things didn’t happen, since I was basically undermining my subconscious’s attempts at self-defense, trying to *help* people use me. :/
“…rather than her thinking about giving Robin another chance.”
ohhhh nope. Nope nopety nope-nope. Allll aboard the Nopetopus, next stop Nopesville!
…but there’s a twisted part of my mind that kinda wants to see Mindy and Robin interact. noo, that is not a good idea. (in with it! shove it right back in! 😉 )
Definitely there’s elements of that in Pearl, I feel, which is why it was so liberating to see her finally try starting the process of moving on with Mystery Girl.
And yeah, I think it’s an easy headspace to fall into when you are clinically depressed or coming out of abusive situations (Pearl out of her abusive society and raising). Especially the latter as abusers have a way of just taking all the confidence a person has and laying utter waste to it (which was the most depressing part of Kai Cole’s letter about the shit Joss Whedon put her through).
Yeah, there were parts infuriating and parts depressing, and the damage he’s done to her is massive amounts of both thrown into a blender and turned into a bitter rotten smoothie.
what.
… do I want to know?
Usually not.
No.
I’ll give you the very quick summary, last chance to look away.
After the divorce Joss Whedon sent Kai Cole a message confessing that he did in fact cheat on her, despite all his insurances during their marriage that he as feminist simply liked having women around him more. A LOT of cheating. With actresses and such that worked underneath him. But it’s not his fault since he felt like a God with all those young women around him, so obviously he had to taste the forbidden fruit or whatnot. That’s roughly how he defended it.
She has Complex PTSD as a result of the gaslighting and such. No idea what damage he’s done to the people he had sex with while he had power over them through his position.
Huh. Interesting, but not so surprising.
Still stuck in rage due to the deluge of people claiming that ‘hey he cheated, that’s their business, who cares’ without addressing the feminism-as-shield or power-imbalances, as well as people going ‘hey so he had sex with actresses he worked with, unless we know their stories it doesn’t matter’, as if a power imbalance suddenly magically disappears. Even got people shoving all the blame on monoganism being evil. My blocklist is quickly growing as a result.
Joss Whedon is aa scumbag. Quelle surprise.
I usually would disagree with you, but lately it turns out everyone I admired is turning out to be a scumbag, so …yeah
C’est la vie. =/
♫ Yeah ♪ Turn down the love songs that you hear ♪ ‘Cause you can’t avoid the sentiment ♪ That echoes in your ear ♪ Saying love will stop the pain ♪ Saying love will kill the fear ♪
If happy-ever-afters did exiiiiissst…
I would still be holding you like thiiiiiisss!
And all these fairy tales are full of sh*****t!
One more f**king love song, I’ll be siiick!
Oooh, oh oh…
I now think that looking for someone as a means for self validation is the reason that I haven’t found a partner in 10+ years of dating. That, and possibly being aro.
I know that something similar to that is one of the reasons why I only found someone for like 1 1/2 months, about two years ago.
For me it’s not really self-validation though – it would be in my very darkest times, but personally those 1 1/2 months had made everything so much better, probably because at least for me, they were based on genuine feelings.
A very good friend of mine (he’s something of a little brother, but actually somewhat of one of the few friends of the opposite sex that I have) recently told me that nothing is wrong with me – I’m just more advanced than most people with regards to knowing my emotions and knowing what I’d want and need in a relationship. Which I found very sweet as an idea, rather than my ‘fresh’ realisation some months ago that it might’ve been because I’m demi. So there can be a bunch of reasons for still being single for many people out there – the key is to not see yourself as being a lesser being than someone with a partner.
Yeah, that was also something I did for a long time, seeing myself as less of a man for not having a girlfriend. But I abandoned that notion thankfully.
That’s good 🙂 For me it also took quite some time (I suffered through puberty and early twens because of that notion), but I’ve mostly put it behind me as well, or rather, shook it (the idea of being somehow less without a partner) of.
I liked Sara Eckel ” it’s not you” on the topic.
I never realized the stuff friends tell me on how to stop being single were so commonplace and it’s nice seeing her decompose them.
I know it’s early to say, so just consider this a bet that I might well lose, but I don’t think Anna is “based on Mike” in that way. I don’t think she takes the satisfaction we have seen Mike take on actively deliberately fucking over people close to him. When Willis said she was a loathed character who, “psst, her dialogue is like copy pasted from early Mike, my most popular character for a decade”, I don’t think he meant Anna was going to follow that same trajectory.
I think he meant more that abrasive people who say mean shit for no reason are far more tolerated when they’re white straight cis guys.
And I expect Anna is more a character without a filter than a schemer who is deliberately destroying people’s self-esteem.
Which doesn’t mean that that’s great to be around, and doesn’t mean that Mindy’s self-esteem issues aren’t exacerbated by it (or heck even caused by it, I guess).
Anyway it’s just my wager right now. We’ll soon see.
I hope Mindy gets to a more emotionally healthy place whatever the cause!
Mike isn’t straight. He’s not particularly queer either, but he’s not straight.
Probably should elaborate on this since I just realized how awful it sounds.
Basically how I view Mike is that he’s not really a character, but he’s more of a plot device who does awful shit to facilitate growth in other characters. He’s preying on Ethan because that advances Ethan’s arc. He bangs Ethan and Amber in Shortpacked! because it causes them misery and causes his romance with Amber down the line.
A person identifying as “whatever you don’t want me to be”, that makes sense if, say, Malaya did that. There’s stuff to mine out of that, but I don’t believe Mike as he’s written is meant to be a real character.
This is a fair point but I know Mike isn’t straight, and I think he’s queer enough to “count”. (No gatekeeping from me, heh.) That was just a rattled off list of privileges and I added straight without thinking about it because I was in a rush.
I would say that the rush you often see from fans of Mike to answer Amy sexuality questions with Willis’s old nugget do sort of indicate that his fans tend to SEE him as straight — or to at least be unconsciously quite opposed to actually seeing him as not straight.
*any
*amomg other typos I’m sure
I’m not entirely sure I don’t see him that way myself TBH.
Like, he only ever macks on a dude if it’s for a joke. He kisses Ethan because it makes Robin angry. One of the only times he’s ever slept with a dude was to make his actual love interest angry. The closest he’s gotten to every sleeping with a guy in a context that an actual person would do it in is with Eric, and that’s still just to make Ethan angry. He only ever does something queer if it makes someone miserable.
It reminds me of, IDK, Family Guy or Penny Arcade, where a character sleeps with a guy every once in a while for a joke, but is still ostensibly a straight man.
To be clear, I don’t think Mike needs to prove his queer humanity to truly count, as a bi dude that’s something I deal with a lot, but I feel as if Mike is written just to be a plot device rather than as an actual queer man like Danny or Ethan.
Just because you mean something to someone doesn’t mean it’s always in a healthy way. If my SO threw away his/her life for me, I wouldn’t feel in a healthy relationship anymore, because that means that my life is worthier than hers/his, to which I think no one should put the life of someone else (in regular, not extreme conditions like accidents or such) before his/her own. Everyone should learn how love oneself before loving someone else.
Nice Aleph grav.
Thanks mate.
Oh…oh honey :c
I so know where she is right now. That was me straight off an abusive relationship, and occasionally I still have to stop and think, really think about it when I get an impulse like that. Because while the thought of someone caring for you above anything else in the world like that, to the point of throwing away all else, is superficially attractive, it ain’t healthy or smart.
But it’s also totally what Leslie needed to hear, to put a mirror up to her own face.
So is this guilt or shame ? Because I can’t tell if they’re speaking from the stance of being the ones throw their lives away or having someone throw their lives away for you.
In some ways, it’s both. Relationships don’t easily fit into neat stereotypes. Although it was Robin who was the one to throw away her life rather than Leslie, that didn’t make the interaction any more potentially abusive in the emotional coercion used. Mindy, on the other hand, may have been the one who has thrown away her own happiness and prospects to keep Anna something approaching happy.
I’d settle for someone who would tolerate me enough to settle for me.
Hooray for low standards!
well damn mindy just cut right to the chase why dontcha
slightly offtopic, but I got a private message from someone asking for DID info, and I’m planning to round up some links for them tomorrow; I’d be happy to take suggestions from people here too if that’s not too much trouble 🙂
Oh Mindy! Now I know that you’re an abuse victim when you’re mistaking Robin’s selfish whim for something romantic. The thing is… Leslie clearly has those thoughts too! Even if they don’t end up meshing romantically, I at least hope that Leslie and Mindy can help convince each other that love is give-and-take and thinking about each other.
I am so grateful I’m someone who felt like this and got what they needed. Two specific occasions on how I know: when we were not yet living together, we had a big argument on the way to my place, so he reiterated in the middle of the house and went home. Then reiterated again, and after more than an hour arrived at my place to clear things. I was still up, and I felt appreciated. On an another occasion, when I lived abroad for a while, he was scheduled to visit for some days. On the day before the flight he complained of some stomach aches, and then went offline. Next morning I learned the pain got so severe he went to the hospital and they kept him overnight, he got IV, and was totally beaten up, be he did come to visit. They ruled out appendicitis before, so it wasnt as scary as it could have been. No big conclusion, just wanted to share that I do have someone in my life who is willing to take the risks for me.
Yesterday’s title conspiracy continues! Today’s comic is titled “From the News”, but the filename (which usually matches the CMS) is “tenderloin”.
But what does it mean?
Tenderloin is a cut of meat, I think. Maybe that’s what they’re ordering?
Signature Pork Tenderloin
Choice of roasted with an apple-bacon burre-monte or grilled with a BBQ glaze. Served with two sides of your choice. 18.95
http://sweetgrassbloomington.com/menu-and-specials/food-menu/
So it’s settled: Willis wrote this one when hungry.
Seems so. The previous comic featured the words “Lesbian dates” along with depictions of two Lesbian dates. It got called “Lemongrass”. What other explanation could there be?
Sweetgrass I mean. Apparently when I talk I may accidentally mention citrus, for some reason or other.
At least you didn’t say Lemongrab…
To add.
Willis only occasionally does multi-word titles, this is one after a long stretch of single word titles.
Coincidence? Who knows.
Poor Mindy doesn’t even the half of it… and the way she talks about being worth something to someone sure does not put her relationship with that previous girlfriend of hers in a good light…
Yikes. I wanna give poor Mindy a hug.
Usually people who are too similar make bad couples.
Or at least that’s the stereotype. My boyfriend and I have like two-thirds of everything in common and we’re a great match. :3 I don’t know if Leslie and Mindy would be right for each other romantically, but I sense a great friendship in the making at least. That’s usually how the best romantic couples start anyway. (I’ma say that one’s not a stereotype; that’s how literally all my relationships started.)
Also adding my name to the “Mindy needs hugs and affirmation” petition.
Also I can’t help wondering whether Anna started this or just made Mindy’s already-low self-esteem worse.
Also, either way: Fuck Anna.
Mindy would love to.
But it’s not happening, nor should it (IMO).
My general assessment is that for a relationship to really work, you need to be sufficiently similar to understand each other and get along, but still different enough to be interesting to one another. The ideal balance seems to vary from person to person
It really depends in what ways they’re similar and what ways they’re different, I’d say.
Two control freaks, frex, will likely end up clashing, and having a really bad time of it…
I hope Leslie isn’t thinking what I think she’s thinking.
She is and she would be inhuman if she wasn’t. However, I’m hoping that she is able to use Robin’s negatives to help Mindy learn a lesson: It doesn’t matter how totally focussed on you someone is if they’re only in it for their own satisfaction and your wishes don’t matter to them.
“Oh my gosh, Robin did throw her career away for me! She must truly love me!” How would not thinking that make her inhuman?
Because it would make her completely unable to understand human motives and mistakes and not feel even the slightest twinge of empathy for someone else’s misguided behaviour.
buying into this dangerous love story notion /=/ being compassionate and able to feel for other people
conflating the two is harmful and ingenuous.
anyway, it’d be nice if Leslie didn’t think that, but she’s not in a place where that’s realistic yet. hopefully she will at some point realize that she needs to work against that sort of thinking, and not let it control her actions.
*disingenous
just woke up lol
Also she was THERE, she knows Becky messed with her phone, for one.
I don’t know what’s hurts more: the totally unsuitable topic for flirting, the clarity that Mindy’s not sure she is worth anything to anyone or Leslie feeling bad about wishing Robin out of her life.
Well – it depends on whether she wants to shallowly flirt or have a meaningful conversation, or at least being truthful. If that’s what’s going on in her head, why not share it? (well – but maybe it is a bit much for the first few minutes of a date + she didn’t know much of the DeSanto-situation)
FWIW, I think that we’ll find out the outcome of Leslie’s ruminations tomorrow (or, at the most, a few strips down the line).
Yeesh that’s a bit heavy for the first date
Great Scott! Do you think there’s any chance of a second date?
Please oh please don’t let this arc back to Leslie being with Robin.
Not before Robin has considerably changed her character anyway , and that would take longer than the runtime of this comic.
We haven’t seen what’s become of her since being left outside the convenience store (I think it was) for an entire day (some days ago, in-story-time)
Maybe she’s had a rude awakening of some sort?
(I secretly hoped she would still be there when Becky and Leslie went shopping right after the timeskip. I love Robin I just want her back!)
I honestly doubt a “rude awakening” would be enough to facilitate the changes necessary to make this a healthy relationship.
Yeah; the LesBin ship needs to be shot in the head, have a stake driven through the heart, drawn and quartered, those quarters burned to ashes, those ashes exorcised by a set of several priests, preferably of more than one religion and said ashes then taken to the four quarters of the world and scattered to the four winds.
I really have no stomach for reformed abuser redemption porn. Once, I’ll maybe give a side-eye in the case of Ruth, although I find the way her critic was responded to very… worrysome. But twice, and I am out.
Ugh.
Can you please just finally tell me I am a worthless human being without a chance of ever being or creating good the rest of my life, and be done with me? No more of this “just one more time and I’m done” stuff. Just… leave and stop whispering into my head that I have no right to matter again to anyone.
You’ve read this comic. You must know who I am. I am a (hopefully, potentially, in an ongoing sort of way) reformed bigot, like Joyce, raised and molded to hurt other people. And I have done so. I spent the first twenty-five years of my life being shit to a group of people, an overlapping 30 years another, an overlapping 35 years another, and I’m still working on not being shit to additional groups as I am made aware of my shittiness. And this, through Joyce, is what this comic strip is. It is about becoming better. And every time that super-obvious central theme, one that’s both the core to this comic and the core to myself, the core to my personal shame — every time that central theme is hinted by the story or by other people in the comments, you make sure to remind everyone that getting better is awful and repugnant, because we are all ruined forever. That the very idea of becoming better is problematic.
So, please know that you even reading this strip, a creative work done by a ruined person, is advocating for a person being better. And so maybe you should stop, if you believe your own words. I have been awful. I am currently awful, but trying. You should not be patronizing my work.
You have no stomach for me.
[mic drop and standing ovation]
I can’t tell if I want to offer you a hug or just join in on the standing ovation.
FWIW and IMO:
Despite what both this yahoo and the character in my grav think/say, change and growth and even redemption are possible.
Not quick, not easy, and not guaranteed to be successful (or accepted by others), as you well know.
But possible.
I’ve always personally thought that Rachel just worded herself badly in her anger.
I think she tried to say that -quick- redemption is a fake story, something that doesn’t exist. That one apology is supposed to make up for it all. That a promise to be better is all that’s needed… Those are usually the elements in typical redemption stories, and they are false. Redemption takes a hell of a lot more than that.
She’d probably hate Joe’s donut stand too, if she saw it.
But I understand her anger. I mean, from -our- point of view, we know that Ruth’s actually truly regretting all she did. From our point of view, we know that she’s actually trying very hard to be better and to make up for her bad shit. From our point of view, we know that Ruth is under no illusions whatsoever that this will be a quick and painless process. From our point of view, Ruth is attempting to redeem herself the right way.
But Rachel never had our knowledge, and from where she was standing, it looked suspiciously similar to a “quick redemption story”. And that’s what she reacted to.
And I don’t blame her for that. I don’t even blame her for not coming across as more nuanced in that moment. I just wish she had the knowledge we readers have.
I feel your reply so deeply David, being in just that same spot as an older guy trying to not be shitty to people. I look back on so much of my own life with shame of hurting others; it is the reason my nym on this forum is that of a very primitive dinosaur. Reading DOA has been incredibly helpful, and I have to believe in redemption or stop having any hope for myself. Please accept my encouragement and sincere admiration.
OK the Commodore has left, but I can’t let his comment about believing ‘easily’ in redemption go by without saying something. With all the characters in the strip have been through I wouldn’t call their progress ‘easy’. And then there’s us in the comments. Cerberus has paid in pain and loss for every step forward, and so have many others. I know I have. If I stop believing I could do better, I start feeling like I’d be better off not being. Every day I’m pushing toward the one to stay away from the other. I feel like I’m trying to make a worthwhile person out of scraps of wreckage. It is overwhelming at times so I got rid of my guns. Hardly ‘easy’.
Also on second thought, good luck to Robin, reflecting and trying to be better.
Later dude, because I can’t feel fucking safe anymore because I can’t trust folks who’d believe the story of ‘reformed’ abusers too easily.
And BTW, I apply that standard to myself, given what I did to a close friend.
I include you in the folks, not the ‘reformed’ abusers.
Lot of stones you’re castin’ there, mate.
Hey, I just duct-taped 3 brooms together to make a 15-foot pole and I’m STILL not touching this discussion. I just wanted to let you know that I’m glad nothing particularly disastrous has happened to you, what with you not having posted for a while.
Mindy and Leslie are thinking, methinks, of different halves of the Leslie-Robin dynamic.
god damn… STOP TRYING TO HUMANIZE THE MONSTER!
Oh, whatever, does it really matter what DeSanto feels? she’s basically a one night stand, a very BAD one night stand for Leslie (even if the sex was amazing) how can you justify “liking” such an painfully oblivious person that just “wings it” because “approval ratings” and “political agenda”?…
although DeSanto did try to change…
and she got abandoned by everyone…
and she did it with the knowledge she actually learned fro Leslie…
she wasn’t entirely ready to face the fact her whole life was a farce but when push came to shove she stood firm in her actual, real beliefs…
…;_;
Doesn’t seem like they actually had sex, though: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/landlord/
But your point still stands in general: Good sex is not worth a lot of BS surrounding it. -If- (colloquial) you actually just want a good one-night-stand sexual encounter full of mutually respectful and pleasing things happening; that can be found lots of places. Drama not included.
They have lots of great faces almost mirroring each other.
Mindy panel 1 – Leslie panel 2
Mindy panel 5 – Leslie panel 7
Mindy panel 3 and Leslie panel 6 don’t have a match however. I find this significant.
There’s so much “not ready for a relationship” in Mindy’s dialogue here, and so much need to be taken care of that Leslie may not be able to meet, given that Leslie herself is also in a vulnerable, recovering place.
But that’s also okay. Dates can be good for their own sake too. It can just be nice to get dressed up and go out for a nice meal.
I think that might be the best ending happening. That both of them realise that this is not the right time for either, and they agree to separate on friendly terms.
Of course, this isn’t QC, so the odds of that happening is… about 0.02%.
Well robin lost everything absolutely everything and even her own sister was happy about it.
Patreon subscribers see an “enhanced view” of today’s strip with an 8th panel showing Robin still standing out there, confident smile still on her face.
Don’t spoil it!
Patreon subscribers see that panel appended to each and every strip.
Including the Slipshines.
In fact, Robin is personally watching each and every Patreon subscriber.
Huh, that *is* a trope, isn’t it? “I’m royalty/rich/powerful but I’ll give it all up for you!”
Any chance Leslie just feels bad for Mindy in that last panel?
Man, I am so bad at reading why characters are reacting a certain way I’m beginning to think there’s something wrong with me. I’m sitting here thinking maybe Leslie was thinking back to the grocery store when Becky tried to introduce her to Mindy and she ignored her. That maybe she was thinking she had piled onto the feeling of Mindy thinking she didn’t matter to anyone.
I am legitimately concerned I might be doing this in real life.
Leslie:… Please make fun of me for it. It’s way less awkward
Just another heads-up that I’m still getting automatically redirected to “isolate.hahi.gdn”. Only happens on dumbingofage.com.
Telling Hiveworks.
Gosh, I know that “no Mac & Cheese” feel D:
That awkward moment when you realize that you might be on a date with what is essentially all of your worst character traits combined into a single other human.
This makes me sad, I used to feel that way all the time, these days it only happens from time to time. It’s so hard to feel evil and irredeemable and have to struggle and scrape to build some self-esteem and even then you hit a low place and it all falls away and you have claw your way back up again.