So does this mean I pack my bags? Head out of the comments section?
It’s been a good time hanging out with you all, I’ll never forget the laughs we shared. Look after each other, keep the place going. Don’t let The Faz back in.
*Takes one last look at the comments page, sadly puts on a hat, and turns to walk out the door pausing only to turn out the light.*
-scene.
Emperor Daniel
Buuuuuuuuuuuuullshit.
Tacos
You could always come back via Netflix. It worked for Young Justice.
TheTJ
I’m actually in talks trying to get a spinoff show going.
Failing that we’ll see how test markets deal with my leaving and if it’s bad I’ll get a half-episode subplot midway next season explaining how I had been framed for the Bullshit by a heretofore unknown archenemy from childhood.
KFGatri
You know, I’m still disappointed that Young Justice wasn’t an adaptation of the comic by Peter David …
Omg I never realized Leslie & Robin’s initials were L & R! I’d say it’s conveniently appropriate for their political views if Leslie’s name weren’t already conveniently appropriate for her sexuality.
Sadly, charmingly wacky though this is, I fear we’re in for another turf war between the “cartoony silliness” crowd and the “Robin’s a stalker” crowd. Oh well…
What irks me, to the extent that it does, is that the types of behaviors Robin’s exhibiting (or “folkway violations”) are perfectly acceptable fodders for comedy specifically because this is not how normal people are supposed to behave. Contrast between expectation and presentation and such.
And now, I think I’m thinking way too hard about this! LOL
I think Leslie’s reaction go a long way to showing that what Robin’s doing clearly doesn’t fly in this universe. It’s a brilliant subversion of an otherwise-harmful message that I’ve noticed is somewhat typical of Willis’ work. In fact, I’m writing an essay on that right now!
Cody C.
I think Commodore has a rather valid point. Since we know Leslie better, a lot of us are relating to her. She is clearly not finding this funny, causing us to not find it funny, seeing it as Robyn refusing to think of someone else’s feelings beyond her own to the point of breaking into Leslie’s house after she was thrown out.
Jhon
With a crowbar!
timemonkey
It would be funnier if this didn’t have the large chance of destroying Leslie’s career and life. Also if Robin was just some random woman instead of an asshole politician that’s been actively making life worse for people like Leslie.
And if it didn’t echo a really big problem we’re facing politically where a critical mass of the US and many other countries are straight up refusing to believe in reality and trying to brute force their fictional world so hard that people will stop fighting them while they get angrier and angrier that reality doesn’t cow as easily.
It becomes way less cute and more, yeah, our president who has been linked to Robin in other ways before does do that thing of openly and blatantly breaking the law or committing treason and we all shrug and normalize it because he’s a “force of nature” who refuses to follow any legal law or greater good.
At the rate Trump is going, I honestly think it may only be a month or two before he dies of either a heart attack, a stroke, or both. Now, normally I’m not one to wish for somebody else’s death, but he passed beyond the line of “I would feel guilty about shooting this person in the head” a long time ago. But then we’re stuck with Pence. Who, at this point, may actually be the greater of the two when it comes to evil. Because at this point practically no one is willing to deal with Trump. The NSA doesn’t trust him with secure intelligence because they think he’ll give classified intel over to the Russians, the court system is currently fighting him hard, the entire press aside from Breitbart (including Fox News) is actually doing the job of a free press in a democracy by calling him on his bullshit, some federal agencies or branches of federal agencies are ignoring his orders, he pissed off a ton of police and mayors of “sanctuary cities” by threatening federal funding, and his attempted Muslim ban pissed off major elements within the military because now it will be harder to get local translators to help American troops. The only people currently in favor of pisshair are the people who wanted that wall (which a large portion of the border patrol thought and still think is a bad idea) which doesn’t even cover the Texas-Mexico border or a 24-mile long stretch of the Arizona border because those are natural borders formed by rivers that legally cannot be blocked due to international treaty. His latest “press confrence” might as well have been called a meltdown. The increased hate and violence created by his campaign is still a major problem but it’s one that’s being fought by organizations who have also received a groundswell of support in response to said hatred. I’m still worried about my friends as I’ve mentioned before, but the Orange bastard may have already lost and he just doesn’t know it yet. Hopefully.
Cody C.
Honestly, it is staggering the amount of damage that rotting pumpkin wearing a poorly constructed human costume has done in such an incredibly short time. Before Election Day, I heard some Trump Voters explain they were voting for him because they saw him as a bomb that would blow up the establishment so it could be rebuilt. Unfortunately, I think they failed to realize they would most likely be caught in the explosion.
StClair
A lot of people here in America, on both sides, have an astonishingly naive idea of how revolutions work, including the cost (human and otherwise) involved and how much the part in the middle sucks, and an assumption that what comes out of the revolution is always better than what preceded it.
Cody C.
There’s also the assumption they’ll be exempt from the hardship or the inevitable fallout. It honestly makes me want to just smack my head against the nearest wall until I’m too numb to think about it.
CJ
1.8 million Brits signed a petition to uninvited him to GB.
I didn’t dare to read the article on the people who think he’s doing a great job, though.
Everybody and anybody comments on “he gets things done” (sort of) and this shows a much too common fatigue with the time a democratic process takes to get things done (because discussions and dealing well with differences of POW etc takes time even if you can cut back on interference from lobby groups).
No Name
@ StClaire
I think the main reason for this naive idea is the fact that our revolution didn’t fall prey to all the things a revolution can fall prey to. Our founding fathers, or at least George Washington (the most popular) really did believe “no one has the right to boss us around”, not the usual “I, and I alone, have the right to boss us around”. That’s what happened with Cromwell. And Robespierre. And Stalin. And Mao. And Castro. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are only two Revolutions in recorded history that were “successful”: the American Revolution and the Glorious Revolution (which doesn’t really count because no shots were fired – and the “good guys” won long before it began).
Honestly, I’d take Pence right now. He would be awful, no doubt and especially brutal to queer folks like me, but he’s at least not going to normalize nazism, openly defy the rule of law, try and destroy freedom of press, and wouldn’t launch nukes over a bad tweet.
Cody C.
I’m 100% with you on this. Being apart of the same community, I view Pence as a monster, but at least I don’t worry he’ll do something so incredibly stupid that it actually might push North Korea over the edge. This might be one of the only times where I support the idea of the “lesser of two evils”.
Yeah, we’d have to fight his hateful policies much like we’ve fought Trump’s, but the nation would be less likely to burn down in the meantime.
Though if we could give them BOTH the boot, we’d still be stuck with Paul Ryan, but he’d be a return to normal levels of shit in the White House
StClair
and this is where we are. this is what it’s come to.
Emily
And Pence lacks Trumps apparent complete immunity to the consequences of his actions by dint of some weird twisted charisma that only conservative white people can perceive.
thejeff
Plus any scenario where Trump is ousted in favor of Pence likely leaves the Republican base split and outraged. The Party can’t help but be weakened in that situation.
Excepting the Trump drops dead scenario, I suppose.
I believe Trump’s entire campaign and administration is being investigated for Russia. I’m fairly certain any fallout from that will get him out on his ass.
@ Killjoy – …Well, yeah, obviously it wasn’t only white people who voted for him, but that was the majority of his base. Latinx folks overwhelmingly voted for Hillary.
BBCC
“Him” being Pence if he takes over.
Li
@killjoy
“the president-elect secured at least 18 per cent of the Hispanic-American vote”
Ah yes. That 18% are truly to blame, and not the literal majority of white people who voted for him.
Killjoy
@ Li
In response to yet another “white people did it” post, it was pointed out that people who are not white ALSO voted for Trump.
Somehow, this is taken as “blame Hispanics”.
Oh well.
I probably need to preface this with yet another clear statement that I think Trump is the strutting, grinning incarnation of the dark underbelly of American culture. He’s a bloviating ignoramus, a self-aggrandizing bully, a zero-sum might-makes-right jackass with an infantile ego, who sees life divided into “winners” and “losers”, and “losers” only worthy of scorn and belittlement.
Anyway… instead of concentrating on the pablum of a “stupid ignorant racist old white males” narrative, take a look at the flip-side percentages of how many people who DON’T fit the narrative voted for Trump.
43% of women voters, voted for Trump
43% of voters with a college degree, voted for Trump
37% of voters age 18-29, voted for Trump
29% of Hispanic voters, voted for Trump — about 3.77 million voters
8% of black voters, voted for Trump
So let’s not kid ourselves and take the easy narrative here. Whatever happened with Trump, wasn’t only about education, or race, and pointing that out isn’t “blaming” anyone.
BBCC
And pointing out what the majority of his base was – White, middle to upper class, married, older Christian (especially Evangelical) men without a college education – matters because it tells us the bigger targets for new elections. And most of those aren’t smaller majorities, they’re big ones.
In any election, you can assume a percentage of every demographic will vote for both – what matters is what percentage. And trying to basically reverse engineer NotAllWhiteMen for this is not helping because it ignores who the majority of Trump voters actually are.
For instance – yes, 8% of black people voted for Trump. And? That isn’t anywhere near as helpful in stopping him next election as the fact 80% of Evangelicals voted for him.
Li
@killjoy
You are literally using the fact that a majority of people in America are white to obscure the fact that most of the people voting for Trump were white.
Look at literally any breakdown by race and you will see tha a MAJORITY of white women voted for Trump while a MINORITY, a TINY minority, of Black, Hispanic, and Asian women did.
Most of that 43% of women who voted for him WERE WHITE. Most of that 43% with a college degree WERE WHITE.
I’m white, too. As a college educated white woman, a mere 51% of my pathetic and treacherous voting block went to Hillary, and my voting block is the ONLY group of white peoples which did.
This is on us. Dodging accountability for it? THAT’s taking the easy narrative. THAT’s kidding ourselves.
Killjoy
@ Li
In terms of “we”, there are only two that count — human being, and American.
I voted for Hillary, and I told people to note vote for Trump. I’m not responsible for Trump winning.
I refuse to be held collectively responsible for what other people did based on accidents of skin color or chromosomes or whatever.
Li
Funny, you certainly seemed to feel like you were part of “white people” when you were loudly insisting that it isn’t white peoples fault Trump got elected.
By the by, this kind of thinking? The unwillingness to accept that white people as a whole are racist and that we as white people bear responsibility for both the legacy and ongoing power of white supremacy?
This is literally how a lot of us rationalized voting for Trump. Being “tired of being called racist”. Taking comfort in being told by Baron Fuckface von Clownstick that no, we haven’t done anything wrong; that actually we are the VICTIMS of “racism taken too far”; that we are all humans, equally if not more oppressed than people of color; that our hurt feelings are more important than other people’s systemic disenfranchisement.
Getting mired in self-pity, letting yourself start to believe that people who talk about bad shit white people have done are personally attacking you and need to stop, that is what opens the door to radicalization.
It is those feelings that the ideologue seizes upon, telling you that you’re right to wallow in self-pity and that other people are to blame for the guilt you feel by association to white supremacy.
So if you’re going to refuse something, let it be that. Let it be refusing to let white guilt make you angry at the people who are talking about the shit we’ve done, when you should be angry at us for doing it instead.
“Naive risk-taker” is putting it mildly. The Kremlin is now learning how much of a curse is implicit in the old phrase “be careful what you wish for”.
Locke
that would be the worst possible option. Trump may be a nutjob, but he is way WAY better than pence on human rights issues and GBLT stuff.
MatthewTheLucky
Only in the sense that he believes whatever was last said to him, while Pence is always wrong. The problem here is that Pence will always be the last person to speak to him on this stuff.
The guy who thinks we should bring back torture and would love to round journalists and Muslims up into camps is absolutely not any better on human rights.
At BEST – and this requires taking the Mandarin’s word at face value FAR more than I’m comfortable with – Trump himself isn’t actively against LGBT rights. Even if that’s actually true, you’d be foolish to trust that he’ll lift a finger to defend the LGBT community from action by Congress, or even his own cabinet.
Jeff Sessions has already indicated he won’t be bothering to prosecute anti-LGBT discrimination, and I strongly doubt Piss Hitler would veto an anti-LGBT bill if Congress put one on his desk.
Literally the only reason I could imagine him defending LGBT rights is if it threatened to get in the way of him persecuting Muslims.
thejeff
MatthewTheLucky: That’s not quite true. Sometimes it’ll be Bannon who speaks to him last. Probably more often. Trump doesn’t actually seem too close to Pence.
Not that this improves things much, though it might change the targets a bit.
I think you overestimate the chances of Trump’s health failing him. He goes to the residence by 6pm when he’s in Washington at all. He’s vacationing in Florida more weekends than he isn’t. He’s keeping his stress under control, don’t worry.
I think our best hope is that he remains too unhinged for the Republicans in Congress to keep tolerating. They only put up with him because he’s nominally in their party and will sign their legislation (and appoint their people to head the various agencies and sit on the court benches). But if his erratic and idiotic behavior keeps sabotaging their ability to advance their agenda – which to a large degree it is – he becomes more of a liability than an asset. The instant that Ryan and McConnell decide that dealing with the fallout of impeaching a president from their own party is less than the chaos that Trump causes, he’s going to be forced out of office.
I’m pretty sure that’s why Pence is Vice President. He’s the Republican establishment’s insurance plan.
As much as I love Shortpacked I don’t consider Robin/Leslie to be a lodestar of the multiverse. Shortpacked Robin is wrong for this world. She warps it just by existing, and the longer she sticks around the more she retroactively demonstrates just how phenomenally unhealthy her relationship with Leslie has always been. Furthermore, in this universe particularly, she drags Leslie down and undermines her agency and competence as a person with her “wonk wonk wonk, that’s our Robin” reality distortion field.
She should have been out on her ass twice already but she just alters the deal every time it doesn’t work out in her favor. It’s sickening to see.
This isn’t Shortpacked Robin. Besides the obvious point of no powers she got into Congress not by a wacky punchline turned canon but by hiding as much of herself as possible and pandering to her voting base.
At the moment she’s being incredibly immature and irresponsible, but the real difference is in Shortpacked this would mostly work out in her favor. In DoA her job is likely going to crumble around her over this.
It’s not Leslie being controlled somehow by Robin’s charisma which is making her put up with Robin, it’s her own weakness. I don’t mean that in a mean way, but Robin is Leslie’s Achilles’s Heel, she can’t quite bring herself to stand firm against her. This happens in real life all the dang time. No universe altering powers needed.
She’s not a wacky cartoon character in a too realistic setting, she’s a silly person who’s in denial about what is going to happen next. Amazi-girl is the carry-over from Shortpacked that makes the least sense and even she works.
Which further highlights the contrast in people’s reactions.
The story having a superhero is an acceptable break from reality, but essentially reenacting the plot of “One Froggy Evening” splits the story in twain! Oh well, that’s the internet, I guess. ^_^
TheTJ
Well, I mean Amazi-girl is the *least* normal part of this comic, but my point was nothing she does is impossible to my knowledge and her motivations make sense. If you wanted to say DoA happens in real life there’s nothing I see to imply it couldn’t aside from some shifting time-line issues.
Doopyboop
Amazi-girl is also a young woman in a costume. She doesn’t have super powers. She’s just a fan of superhero comics working through some huge mental issues and trauma. “One Froggy Evening” didn’t have a scene where a young woman was nearly roofied and date-raped. It didn’t have a scene where a young gay woman was threatened as gunpoint to return back to her abusive father.
I appreciate your sentiment and yeah, the line between cartoony mishaps and ‘reality’ in this comic do stray thin at points, but I don’t think people are wrong to view what Robin as doing as a serious breach of Leslie’s comfort. Not when the comic has tackled serious issues before. Glue on the carpet is one thing, but Leslie has literally kicked Robin out, she snuck INTO Leslie’s house without her knowledge and there is a semi-strained sexual tension between the two. This isn’t goofy “haha she really sticks to you”, this is creepy. And if you don’t see it that way, alright. I can respect that. But please respect when others see it in a more dangerous light?
thejeff
Thing is, the narrative is still playing it as silly, goofy Robin. Even Leslie is reacting with annoyance rather than treating it as creepy and threatening as it should be.
That may change. Much like Amazi-Girl changes from girl with issues who dresses up in a costume to actual (low-end) superhero from storyline to storyline. Her skills are way beyond anything realistic. She gets the advantage of the whole superhero secret id trope.
Similarly Robin is too over the top wacky to really fit the dangerous stalker role, even if she’s doing dangerous stalker things.
Killjoy
Personally, I do not consider the tonal whiplash a feature.
NoOneLikesRobin
@Mr.Mendo If you notice, even Amazi-Girl is treated with real-world repercussions. Injuries, mental health issues, a breakdown of social contracts.
Robin has not and will not face the necessary repercussions for her actions here, because as the OP said, she employs a wacky reality distortion field. She will escape any and all real world ramifications because she has to stick around to be goofy. Willis will break his entire lifeblood project in half so Robin can badly re-create Looney Tunes jokes.
336 thoughts on “Grateful”
Doctor_Who
“Also I spayed your dog!”
“I don’t have a- you know what? I don’t want to know.”
thebombzen
Now if it was her cat, however…
Shade
“Where’d you even get these twizzlers from if you never left the house?”
“Are you telling me you don’t keep a pocketful of twizzlers?”
Shade
Hmm that’s not where I was trying to comment.
Historyman68
Replying to a thread about fixing an unknown cat with the creation of mystery twizzlers brings some unpleasantly evocative images to mind.
TheTJ
“Since we’re apparently doing sitcom stuff I also painted a line down the middle of your apartment dividing my stuff from yours.”
“It’s ALL my stuff!”
MatthewTheLucky
I call bullshit.
TheTJ
??? On what exactly?
Doctor_Who
Too late. Bullshit has been called.
TheTJ
Well dang.
So does this mean I pack my bags? Head out of the comments section?
It’s been a good time hanging out with you all, I’ll never forget the laughs we shared. Look after each other, keep the place going. Don’t let The Faz back in.
*Takes one last look at the comments page, sadly puts on a hat, and turns to walk out the door pausing only to turn out the light.*
-scene.
Emperor Daniel
Buuuuuuuuuuuuullshit.
Tacos
You could always come back via Netflix. It worked for Young Justice.
TheTJ
I’m actually in talks trying to get a spinoff show going.
Failing that we’ll see how test markets deal with my leaving and if it’s bad I’ll get a half-episode subplot midway next season explaining how I had been framed for the Bullshit by a heretofore unknown archenemy from childhood.
KFGatri
You know, I’m still disappointed that Young Justice wasn’t an adaptation of the comic by Peter David …
Needfuldoer
R: “Okay then.” *Starts painting lines down the middle of every individual object*
L: *SIGH*
Historyman68
Omg I never realized Leslie & Robin’s initials were L & R! I’d say it’s conveniently appropriate for their political views if Leslie’s name weren’t already conveniently appropriate for her sexuality.
Mr. Mendo
Sadly, charmingly wacky though this is, I fear we’re in for another turf war between the “cartoony silliness” crowd and the “Robin’s a stalker” crowd. Oh well…
Mr. Mendo
Though, I have to say, this has all made me curious how a modern audience would respond to “The Cat Came Back”…
Reltzik
I think we’ve crossed the line from stalker to squatter-slash-home-invader.
Mr. Mendo
What irks me, to the extent that it does, is that the types of behaviors Robin’s exhibiting (or “folkway violations”) are perfectly acceptable fodders for comedy specifically because this is not how normal people are supposed to behave. Contrast between expectation and presentation and such.
And now, I think I’m thinking way too hard about this! LOL
Commodore Counterintuitive
I think Leslie’s reaction go a long way to showing that what Robin’s doing clearly doesn’t fly in this universe. It’s a brilliant subversion of an otherwise-harmful message that I’ve noticed is somewhat typical of Willis’ work. In fact, I’m writing an essay on that right now!
Cody C.
I think Commodore has a rather valid point. Since we know Leslie better, a lot of us are relating to her. She is clearly not finding this funny, causing us to not find it funny, seeing it as Robyn refusing to think of someone else’s feelings beyond her own to the point of breaking into Leslie’s house after she was thrown out.
Jhon
With a crowbar!
timemonkey
It would be funnier if this didn’t have the large chance of destroying Leslie’s career and life. Also if Robin was just some random woman instead of an asshole politician that’s been actively making life worse for people like Leslie.
Cerberus
And if it didn’t echo a really big problem we’re facing politically where a critical mass of the US and many other countries are straight up refusing to believe in reality and trying to brute force their fictional world so hard that people will stop fighting them while they get angrier and angrier that reality doesn’t cow as easily.
It becomes way less cute and more, yeah, our president who has been linked to Robin in other ways before does do that thing of openly and blatantly breaking the law or committing treason and we all shrug and normalize it because he’s a “force of nature” who refuses to follow any legal law or greater good.
Rukduk
At the rate Trump is going, I honestly think it may only be a month or two before he dies of either a heart attack, a stroke, or both. Now, normally I’m not one to wish for somebody else’s death, but he passed beyond the line of “I would feel guilty about shooting this person in the head” a long time ago. But then we’re stuck with Pence. Who, at this point, may actually be the greater of the two when it comes to evil. Because at this point practically no one is willing to deal with Trump. The NSA doesn’t trust him with secure intelligence because they think he’ll give classified intel over to the Russians, the court system is currently fighting him hard, the entire press aside from Breitbart (including Fox News) is actually doing the job of a free press in a democracy by calling him on his bullshit, some federal agencies or branches of federal agencies are ignoring his orders, he pissed off a ton of police and mayors of “sanctuary cities” by threatening federal funding, and his attempted Muslim ban pissed off major elements within the military because now it will be harder to get local translators to help American troops. The only people currently in favor of pisshair are the people who wanted that wall (which a large portion of the border patrol thought and still think is a bad idea) which doesn’t even cover the Texas-Mexico border or a 24-mile long stretch of the Arizona border because those are natural borders formed by rivers that legally cannot be blocked due to international treaty. His latest “press confrence” might as well have been called a meltdown. The increased hate and violence created by his campaign is still a major problem but it’s one that’s being fought by organizations who have also received a groundswell of support in response to said hatred. I’m still worried about my friends as I’ve mentioned before, but the Orange bastard may have already lost and he just doesn’t know it yet. Hopefully.
Cody C.
Honestly, it is staggering the amount of damage that rotting pumpkin wearing a poorly constructed human costume has done in such an incredibly short time. Before Election Day, I heard some Trump Voters explain they were voting for him because they saw him as a bomb that would blow up the establishment so it could be rebuilt. Unfortunately, I think they failed to realize they would most likely be caught in the explosion.
StClair
A lot of people here in America, on both sides, have an astonishingly naive idea of how revolutions work, including the cost (human and otherwise) involved and how much the part in the middle sucks, and an assumption that what comes out of the revolution is always better than what preceded it.
Cody C.
There’s also the assumption they’ll be exempt from the hardship or the inevitable fallout. It honestly makes me want to just smack my head against the nearest wall until I’m too numb to think about it.
CJ
1.8 million Brits signed a petition to uninvited him to GB.
I didn’t dare to read the article on the people who think he’s doing a great job, though.
Everybody and anybody comments on “he gets things done” (sort of) and this shows a much too common fatigue with the time a democratic process takes to get things done (because discussions and dealing well with differences of POW etc takes time even if you can cut back on interference from lobby groups).
No Name
@ StClaire
I think the main reason for this naive idea is the fact that our revolution didn’t fall prey to all the things a revolution can fall prey to. Our founding fathers, or at least George Washington (the most popular) really did believe “no one has the right to boss us around”, not the usual “I, and I alone, have the right to boss us around”. That’s what happened with Cromwell. And Robespierre. And Stalin. And Mao. And Castro. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are only two Revolutions in recorded history that were “successful”: the American Revolution and the Glorious Revolution (which doesn’t really count because no shots were fired – and the “good guys” won long before it began).
Cerberus
Honestly, I’d take Pence right now. He would be awful, no doubt and especially brutal to queer folks like me, but he’s at least not going to normalize nazism, openly defy the rule of law, try and destroy freedom of press, and wouldn’t launch nukes over a bad tweet.
Cody C.
I’m 100% with you on this. Being apart of the same community, I view Pence as a monster, but at least I don’t worry he’ll do something so incredibly stupid that it actually might push North Korea over the edge. This might be one of the only times where I support the idea of the “lesser of two evils”.
Fart Captor
Yeah, we’d have to fight his hateful policies much like we’ve fought Trump’s, but the nation would be less likely to burn down in the meantime.
Though if we could give them BOTH the boot, we’d still be stuck with Paul Ryan, but he’d be a return to normal levels of shit in the White House
StClair
and this is where we are. this is what it’s come to.
Emily
And Pence lacks Trumps apparent complete immunity to the consequences of his actions by dint of some weird twisted charisma that only conservative white people can perceive.
thejeff
Plus any scenario where Trump is ousted in favor of Pence likely leaves the Republican base split and outraged. The Party can’t help but be weakened in that situation.
Excepting the Trump drops dead scenario, I suppose.
Killjoy
@ “blame white people”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/latinos-voted-donald-trump-president-election-a7412591.html
BBCC
I believe Trump’s entire campaign and administration is being investigated for Russia. I’m fairly certain any fallout from that will get him out on his ass.
@ Killjoy – …Well, yeah, obviously it wasn’t only white people who voted for him, but that was the majority of his base. Latinx folks overwhelmingly voted for Hillary.
BBCC
“Him” being Pence if he takes over.
Li
@killjoy
“the president-elect secured at least 18 per cent of the Hispanic-American vote”
Ah yes. That 18% are truly to blame, and not the literal majority of white people who voted for him.
Killjoy
@ Li
In response to yet another “white people did it” post, it was pointed out that people who are not white ALSO voted for Trump.
Somehow, this is taken as “blame Hispanics”.
Oh well.
I probably need to preface this with yet another clear statement that I think Trump is the strutting, grinning incarnation of the dark underbelly of American culture. He’s a bloviating ignoramus, a self-aggrandizing bully, a zero-sum might-makes-right jackass with an infantile ego, who sees life divided into “winners” and “losers”, and “losers” only worthy of scorn and belittlement.
Anyway… instead of concentrating on the pablum of a “stupid ignorant racist old white males” narrative, take a look at the flip-side percentages of how many people who DON’T fit the narrative voted for Trump.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/
43% of women voters, voted for Trump
43% of voters with a college degree, voted for Trump
37% of voters age 18-29, voted for Trump
29% of Hispanic voters, voted for Trump — about 3.77 million voters
8% of black voters, voted for Trump
So let’s not kid ourselves and take the easy narrative here. Whatever happened with Trump, wasn’t only about education, or race, and pointing that out isn’t “blaming” anyone.
BBCC
And pointing out what the majority of his base was – White, middle to upper class, married, older Christian (especially Evangelical) men without a college education – matters because it tells us the bigger targets for new elections. And most of those aren’t smaller majorities, they’re big ones.
In any election, you can assume a percentage of every demographic will vote for both – what matters is what percentage. And trying to basically reverse engineer NotAllWhiteMen for this is not helping because it ignores who the majority of Trump voters actually are.
For instance – yes, 8% of black people voted for Trump. And? That isn’t anywhere near as helpful in stopping him next election as the fact 80% of Evangelicals voted for him.
Li
@killjoy
You are literally using the fact that a majority of people in America are white to obscure the fact that most of the people voting for Trump were white.
Look at literally any breakdown by race and you will see tha a MAJORITY of white women voted for Trump while a MINORITY, a TINY minority, of Black, Hispanic, and Asian women did.
Most of that 43% of women who voted for him WERE WHITE. Most of that 43% with a college degree WERE WHITE.
I’m white, too. As a college educated white woman, a mere 51% of my pathetic and treacherous voting block went to Hillary, and my voting block is the ONLY group of white peoples which did.
This is on us. Dodging accountability for it? THAT’s taking the easy narrative. THAT’s kidding ourselves.
Killjoy
@ Li
In terms of “we”, there are only two that count — human being, and American.
I voted for Hillary, and I told people to note vote for Trump. I’m not responsible for Trump winning.
I refuse to be held collectively responsible for what other people did based on accidents of skin color or chromosomes or whatever.
Li
Funny, you certainly seemed to feel like you were part of “white people” when you were loudly insisting that it isn’t white peoples fault Trump got elected.
By the by, this kind of thinking? The unwillingness to accept that white people as a whole are racist and that we as white people bear responsibility for both the legacy and ongoing power of white supremacy?
This is literally how a lot of us rationalized voting for Trump. Being “tired of being called racist”. Taking comfort in being told by Baron Fuckface von Clownstick that no, we haven’t done anything wrong; that actually we are the VICTIMS of “racism taken too far”; that we are all humans, equally if not more oppressed than people of color; that our hurt feelings are more important than other people’s systemic disenfranchisement.
Getting mired in self-pity, letting yourself start to believe that people who talk about bad shit white people have done are personally attacking you and need to stop, that is what opens the door to radicalization.
It is those feelings that the ideologue seizes upon, telling you that you’re right to wallow in self-pity and that other people are to blame for the guilt you feel by association to white supremacy.
So if you’re going to refuse something, let it be that. Let it be refusing to let white guilt make you angry at the people who are talking about the shit we’ve done, when you should be angry at us for doing it instead.
Killjoy
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-compiles-psychological-dossier-trump-putin-n723196
“Naive risk-taker” is putting it mildly. The Kremlin is now learning how much of a curse is implicit in the old phrase “be careful what you wish for”.
Locke
that would be the worst possible option. Trump may be a nutjob, but he is way WAY better than pence on human rights issues and GBLT stuff.
MatthewTheLucky
Only in the sense that he believes whatever was last said to him, while Pence is always wrong. The problem here is that Pence will always be the last person to speak to him on this stuff.
Fart Captor
The guy who thinks we should bring back torture and would love to round journalists and Muslims up into camps is absolutely not any better on human rights.
At BEST – and this requires taking the Mandarin’s word at face value FAR more than I’m comfortable with – Trump himself isn’t actively against LGBT rights. Even if that’s actually true, you’d be foolish to trust that he’ll lift a finger to defend the LGBT community from action by Congress, or even his own cabinet.
Jeff Sessions has already indicated he won’t be bothering to prosecute anti-LGBT discrimination, and I strongly doubt Piss Hitler would veto an anti-LGBT bill if Congress put one on his desk.
Literally the only reason I could imagine him defending LGBT rights is if it threatened to get in the way of him persecuting Muslims.
thejeff
MatthewTheLucky: That’s not quite true. Sometimes it’ll be Bannon who speaks to him last. Probably more often. Trump doesn’t actually seem too close to Pence.
Not that this improves things much, though it might change the targets a bit.
Taellosse
I think you overestimate the chances of Trump’s health failing him. He goes to the residence by 6pm when he’s in Washington at all. He’s vacationing in Florida more weekends than he isn’t. He’s keeping his stress under control, don’t worry.
I think our best hope is that he remains too unhinged for the Republicans in Congress to keep tolerating. They only put up with him because he’s nominally in their party and will sign their legislation (and appoint their people to head the various agencies and sit on the court benches). But if his erratic and idiotic behavior keeps sabotaging their ability to advance their agenda – which to a large degree it is – he becomes more of a liability than an asset. The instant that Ryan and McConnell decide that dealing with the fallout of impeaching a president from their own party is less than the chaos that Trump causes, he’s going to be forced out of office.
I’m pretty sure that’s why Pence is Vice President. He’s the Republican establishment’s insurance plan.
Wack'd
She’s a cartoonily silly stalker!
Zaidyer
As much as I love Shortpacked I don’t consider Robin/Leslie to be a lodestar of the multiverse. Shortpacked Robin is wrong for this world. She warps it just by existing, and the longer she sticks around the more she retroactively demonstrates just how phenomenally unhealthy her relationship with Leslie has always been. Furthermore, in this universe particularly, she drags Leslie down and undermines her agency and competence as a person with her “wonk wonk wonk, that’s our Robin” reality distortion field.
She should have been out on her ass twice already but she just alters the deal every time it doesn’t work out in her favor. It’s sickening to see.
TheTJ
This isn’t Shortpacked Robin. Besides the obvious point of no powers she got into Congress not by a wacky punchline turned canon but by hiding as much of herself as possible and pandering to her voting base.
At the moment she’s being incredibly immature and irresponsible, but the real difference is in Shortpacked this would mostly work out in her favor. In DoA her job is likely going to crumble around her over this.
It’s not Leslie being controlled somehow by Robin’s charisma which is making her put up with Robin, it’s her own weakness. I don’t mean that in a mean way, but Robin is Leslie’s Achilles’s Heel, she can’t quite bring herself to stand firm against her. This happens in real life all the dang time. No universe altering powers needed.
She’s not a wacky cartoon character in a too realistic setting, she’s a silly person who’s in denial about what is going to happen next. Amazi-girl is the carry-over from Shortpacked that makes the least sense and even she works.
Mr. Mendo
Which further highlights the contrast in people’s reactions.
The story having a superhero is an acceptable break from reality, but essentially reenacting the plot of “One Froggy Evening” splits the story in twain! Oh well, that’s the internet, I guess. ^_^
TheTJ
Well, I mean Amazi-girl is the *least* normal part of this comic, but my point was nothing she does is impossible to my knowledge and her motivations make sense. If you wanted to say DoA happens in real life there’s nothing I see to imply it couldn’t aside from some shifting time-line issues.
Doopyboop
Amazi-girl is also a young woman in a costume. She doesn’t have super powers. She’s just a fan of superhero comics working through some huge mental issues and trauma. “One Froggy Evening” didn’t have a scene where a young woman was nearly roofied and date-raped. It didn’t have a scene where a young gay woman was threatened as gunpoint to return back to her abusive father.
I appreciate your sentiment and yeah, the line between cartoony mishaps and ‘reality’ in this comic do stray thin at points, but I don’t think people are wrong to view what Robin as doing as a serious breach of Leslie’s comfort. Not when the comic has tackled serious issues before. Glue on the carpet is one thing, but Leslie has literally kicked Robin out, she snuck INTO Leslie’s house without her knowledge and there is a semi-strained sexual tension between the two. This isn’t goofy “haha she really sticks to you”, this is creepy. And if you don’t see it that way, alright. I can respect that. But please respect when others see it in a more dangerous light?
thejeff
Thing is, the narrative is still playing it as silly, goofy Robin. Even Leslie is reacting with annoyance rather than treating it as creepy and threatening as it should be.
That may change. Much like Amazi-Girl changes from girl with issues who dresses up in a costume to actual (low-end) superhero from storyline to storyline. Her skills are way beyond anything realistic. She gets the advantage of the whole superhero secret id trope.
Similarly Robin is too over the top wacky to really fit the dangerous stalker role, even if she’s doing dangerous stalker things.
Killjoy
Personally, I do not consider the tonal whiplash a feature.
NoOneLikesRobin
@Mr.Mendo If you notice, even Amazi-Girl is treated with real-world repercussions. Injuries, mental health issues, a breakdown of social contracts.
Robin has not and will not face the necessary repercussions for her actions here, because as the OP said, she employs a wacky reality distortion field. She will escape any and all real world ramifications because she has to stick around to be goofy. Willis will break his entire lifeblood project in half so Robin can badly re-create Looney Tunes jokes.
Tenn
I’m in both camps, waging war on myself.
Fridge_Logik
I like how your comment of concern for future arguments became the parent comment of said arguments.
I’m just going to call this strip Meh and walk away.
JetstreamGW
Robin ’bout to get herself shanked.
foamy
I am frankly amazed Robin has survived this long.
Wack'd
If she died, she’d start haunting Leslie, and then Leslie’d really never be rid of her.
inqntrol
She could hire an exorcist, though it still won’t be easy to get rid of Robin.
Needfuldoer
You could probably lure her away with a trail of Boo Berry. It’s October, they should be able to pick some up.
Kris
Maybe Leslie’s regretting her crush a little.
Victor Riley
I think she was regretting that a few days ago.
Kamino Neko
She started regretting it when Robin came to the class to speak.
And it’s gotten worse each time Robin’s done something new.
Doopyboop
Robin get the hell out.
butts
Nothing spoils a good celebrity crush like actually meeting the person in question.
Jay Eff
Twizzlers: The Breakfast of Champions
Doctor_Who