290

Jumped
Posted on February 6, 2017 by David M Willis

290 thoughts on “Jumped”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “I mean, you got Netflix AND Crunchyroll, what else do I need”

    “um”

    “BESIDES Pop Tarts”

    1. Danni

      frozen pizza and mini corn dogs!

    2. Jay Eff

      *thinking to herself* “Hopefully, she has real Pop-Tarts, an’ not, like, ‘Kroger Toaster Pastries’ or some other junk…”

      1. Danni

        toaster pastries are heathen food

        1. Opus the Poet

          Heathens don’t like them either.

        2. Pablo360

          #NotAllHeathens

        3. Reltzik

          They got more popular when the new music sensation Breakfast Ninja’s single topped the pop charts.

          ….. wait, Breakfast Ninja isn’t even on the charts? What? Then what did I rea–

          OH. Chopped the Pop Tarts. Yeah, okay, that makes more sense.

        4. Danielle

          Excellent.

        5. Ghostforge

          but surely not Toaster Strudle though?

      2. a snow ʍousɐ

        it isn’t PopTarts unless it’s got trans fats

      3. xtravisage

        Gonna say it right now, Kroger Pop tarts are better than the actual thing

        They got more filling in them

    3. Psyme

      Hulu?

      1. Pablo360

        A digital antenna for free over-the-air channels?

    4. Dark

      Cadbury Cereal, obviously.

  2. butts

    “come on, don’t kick me off, the big game’s on”

  3. Dreadhawk177

    Damn. 12:08. Your server schedule must be off a lot.

    1. Doctor_Who

      You don’t get a three month comic buffer while raising twins without a little spacetime continuum manipulation.

  4. Doctor_Who

    As someone who just binged Steven Universe at a friend’s house, I have never related to Robin more. I have better memories of that couch than my last apartment.

    1. Bluewind

      All this does is make me insanely jealous that I have never had the chance to watch it :\

      1. BBCC

        Most of it is probably on Youtube or Daily Motion, rightly or wrongly. I don’t know if Crunchyroll or iTunes or somewhere else more legal has it, but hopefully it does. It’s also not on netflix, I know that.

        1. C.

          It’s on Hulu, and iTunes, and a few episodes are free on Cartoon Network’s website.

        2. BBCC

          ^ Perfect!

          That said – I am still pissy about Hulu because it does not work in Canada. XD

        3. zoomer296

          The Dailymotion app allows you to save videos to your phone, just download a few in low-quality while you’re out.

        4. zoomer296

          My phone flipped out and caused me to reply to the wrong comment…

        5. Bluewind

          The problem is that the only Internet I have is through my phone. I burn through my high speed a couple weeks in each month on comics, dragon cave, and Minecraft, so no data left for streaming. It bums me out! There are shows I miss from when I had cable and shows I would love to see, but either have to resign myself to never seeing or fork over the cash for the box set. It’s not a great risk for new seasons shows I use to watch and can catch on sale (especially on Black Friday), but new shows or shows I never got to watch when I had cable are a greater risk.

        6. trlkly

          Sounds like you need to only read comics after your data has been capped. So, watch a bunch of shows at the beginning of the month–at as low quality as you can. (I actually found that Netflix’s lowest quality can work over the low speed on my phone. Plus, now it has downloads, which I would guess would mean you could download it over night and such.)

        7. zoomer296

          The Dailymotion app allows you to save videos to your phone, just download a few in low-quality while you’re out.

      2. Doctor_Who

        Well worth a look, but a disclaimer: it’s kind of a slow burn.

        There’s no info-dump at the beginning to explain the premise, and at first the show is more interested in developing the characters and setting than getting the plot rolling, which can be a little frustrating. You learn what’s going on at the same rate the main character does, and he’s a little boy whose guardians aren’t always super-forthcoming with the heavier details.

        As time goes by this problem lessens and turns out to be a good decision because the show spent so much time developing characters, so the whole cast is very well-rounded.

        If you want the basics here is a good start.

        1. BBCC

          Depends what you mean by ‘getting the plot rolling’. It takes a while to learn more about the Gems, sure. But Steven’s not just a gem. That’s kind of the point – he’s learning to navigate the human AND the gem worlds. That does not make the human episodes ‘filler’. Sure, I like the gem side of the show more, but the human side is just as much part of the plot as the gem episodes and both are about developing Steven and the others.

      3. Marisa Mockery

        KissCartoon is where I go!

    2. ValdVin

      I never heard of Steven Universe until it was name-dropped in this storyline.

      I don’t have kids, and I’m not so young, but.I find it quite good fun and interesting stoytelling. Plus great use of music.

  5. Haven

    That was quick.

    1. butts

      Robin’s a speedster.

  6. Mr. Mendo

    Ah, Robin. You’re more mature than you look, after a fashion! LOL

  7. Some1

    Noir Dumbing of Age

    Narrator: After a while of going through various files, Robin found one that seemed promising.

    Robin: Yo Joyce, there is this one person who worked with me for a while, and has an unsavory history.

    Joyce: What’s his name?

    Robin: Ryan.

    Narrator: A file slipped out of Joyce’s hands and her knees wobbled a bit.

    Joyce: It can’t be.

    Robin: Joyce you’re shaking.

    Joyce: Please…anyone but him…

    Robin: Maybe he didn’t do it.

    Joyce: But I still have to question him!

    Robin: I’ll come with you for shizz.

    Joyce:…thanks

    Narrator: Meanwhile one of Ryan’s cronies is standing outside the doorway, listing in on the conversation, while on the phone with Ryan.

    Crony: Ryan…the detective is coming for you.

    Ryan: Oh how long I have waited for this moment.

    1. Emperor Daniel

      So . . . it has come to this.

  8. achallenger

    snack me like one of your french girls

  9. Solenoid

    Meanwhile, the press’s siege on the residence continues. Chances of Prof. Bean cancelling the next gender studies class?

    1. butting

      Cancel? Ffttt. Next class is at Prof Bean’s apartment. Bring snacks and Steven Universe fanart.

      1. pl0x

        YES LET’S GO

    2. John

      Unlikely; there have been a couple preview panels from next storyline that look to be set in her classroom. From the expressions, I think “Robin smooches Leslie at the classroom door before going back to her daily routine of oppressing their civil rights” may be more likely.

      1. Schpoonman

        Aaaaahhh Joyce in a ponytail remains adorable.

  10. Carms

    haha it looks like Rey has a villain stache

  11. Danni

    robin and becky shop at the same store

    1. JessWitt

      Holy smokes, I thought that outfit looked familiar.

  12. Shiro

    I can’t tell whether that’s dangerously close to sincerity or Robin is just fresh outta fucks.

    1. Emperor Norton II

      I think it’s sincerity, because she -is- out of fucks to give, though probably not the way you mean.

      I think she’s starting to be out of fucks for the whole politician’s life with all the falsehoods and attacks and making other people’s lives worse for no reason and spending her life pandering to a voter base that just barely tolerates her existence as a hispanic woman because she acts like they are the best and wisest; and fights against whatever they say she should fight against, no matter how horrible the consequences are…

      And as she’s realising that she’s out of fucks to give for this life. That this is no life at all. And thus, she can finally start to be sincere with herself and what -she- wants.

      Of course, being Robin, her sincerity wouldn’t be complete without being… well, being totes. Not totes anything, just being totes.

      1. Rukduk

        I honestly really hope this is true. Also, hope she can help mitigate any damage this whole debacle might have caused to Leslie’s relationship with the rest of the LGBT community. But then again, what has hope ever gotten me?

        1. Emperor Norton II

          A candy bar?

        2. Rukduk

          And now I’m trying to remember the last time I ate any form of candy. I think it was in a DQ Blizzard four years ago in a moment of weakness.

      2. Shiro

        Makes sense! Sorry, I want to be more eloquent, but I’ve got this weird achy/fevery/fatigue thing going on and it’s stealing all my words.

        1. Emperor Norton II

          Take care of yourself now!

        2. Cerberus

          You too? I’ve had that all weekend and it’s been super annoying.

    2. Plasma Mongoose

      No more fucks? Poor Leslie will end up with blue ovaries for sure now.

      1. Shiro

        [insert wink wink comment regarding where all of Robin’s fucks went]

        1. Plasma Mongoose

          *waggle waggle*

        2. Reltzik

          [generic eyebrow fetish pun]

    3. OnyxIdol

      Implying Robin had any fucks to begin with – which is doubtful.

    4. Commodore Jeep-Eep

      More likely, Leslie gets a knife out her back.

  13. wynne

    This is like that time a friend asked two acquaintances if they were a thing, and they ostensibly said “yes,” but in a way that somehow left me more confused than I was before.

    1. Romanticide

      yes…

    2. Bluewind

      Everything is a thing even nothing

  14. C.T. Phipps

    I kind of like the idea Robin has learned absolutely nothing and will go back to doing script for the Republican party. Mostly because I really like reprehensible Robin.

    1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

      Also becasue I hate, Hate *Hate* this liberal fetish for minorities forgiving their oppressors and getting them to the light through opening up to them, largely because it only exists on their own minds, letting them shit on people who use methods that actually work.

      1. Killjoy

        Yeah, because seeing enemies behind every bush and coming out of the woodwork, and going on the attack against anyone who doesn’t share your exact opinions, works out so well..

        1. C.T. Phipps

          Eh, it’s more the fact sometimes you have to deal with the fact hugging and love just doesn’t mean squat. I also think it’s ncie to believe this Robin’s immaturity will be deconstructed in a way which Shortpacked!’s Robin wasn’t. Yes, she cheated on Leslie and got consequences but ended up with her and a bunch of science babies. SCIENCE!

        2. Killjoy

          To me, it comes across not as “sometimes love isn’t the answer” — I agree with that.

          It comes across as more of the political version of “burn them all, god will know his own”, and “you’re either with us, or you’re against us”.

        3. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          No, it’s an abandonment the liberal fetishization of minorities shedding tears/blood and sacrificing and bashing our brains out against walls the scum who hurt us so liberals can feel righteous about how good and self-sacrificing beatific minorities are, always struggling, but never being transgression and actually striking in a meaningful fashion against those who hurt them, and in ways that get liberals clutching their pearls.

          We struggle for our rights, not so liberals can shed tears about our bravery.

        4. Killjoy

          OK, now that, I can see. I have run into the strain of “liberal”, most common around college campuses, that is more about feeling good about what they do, than about making an actual difference.

        5. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          Leslie was an absolute fool to delete those pictures.

          And she would be well advised to buy a tin of mace, and if Robin shows her disgusting face again, give her both barrels. As I said before, she’s quite immune to civilized methods of persuasion.

        6. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          How did that get here?

        7. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          No, I’m talking about the folks who complain about Rox outing her sister. Sorry, but I care about ending that vermin’s reign of terror more than anything else, and outing her as the classic repub closet case is effective toward that end. Roz did the right thing, absolutely.

        8. Spencer

          Roz wasn’t the one who outed Robin.

          She did gleefully show it off because she thought it would make her popular though, so I still think she’s a shithead.

        9. Killjoy

          Spencer ninja’d my response.

  15. CanadianShinobi

    This can only lead to good things! (he says with great sarcasm)

    1. SgtWadeyWilson

      Ehh… I’d call that good sarcasm at best, mediocre if I’m being honest, but lying is fun, so let’s go with: okay. (Sarcasm dripping, possibly intravenous.)

      It could lead to bad things, but c’mon, this is DoA, nothing bad happens here!

  16. Van Jealous

    “YOU ARE WHAT YOU IS!”….Frank Zappa, 1980.

  17. Rukduk

    Is that fear and depression being covered up with snark I detect?

    1. SgtWadeyWilson

      Curses! What gave me away?

      1. Rukduk

        The hat. And the katana on your back.

        1. SgtWadeyWilson

          I’m just drawn that way! (Ba-dum tish!)

          I kid, I know what I’m about. (About three sentences too far into this self-deprecating humor shtick!)

  18. Nono

    ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ now has Simba and Nala replaced with Leslie and Robin.

    1. Spencer

      Dumbing of Age only every line of dialogue is replaced with the script from the Bee Movie.

  19. Guairdean

    “You’ve got to learn to live with what you are” is a lot easier than learning to live with what you aren’t.

  20. miados

    this one i cant really relate to personally. mostly because well…… i dont really care for who i am.

  21. Bluewind

    This worries me. Is she done pretending to be straight or is she still so in denial that she thought just now with Leslie was her trying out being into girls and thus pretend?

    1. Pigeon Pollyx

      I seem to recall it taking considerably longer for her to come to terms with it in Shortpacked than one afternoon would really allow, soooo…

      1. Emperor Norton II

        True, but Shortpacked Robin didn’t have Steven Universe to guide her.

    2. Fart Captor

      I think she’s at the very least done pretending that her reasons for wanting to live on her couch forever are at all platonic.

    3. Cerberus

      I think Leslie’s hope is that she’s started to realize the truths she can’t deny.

      I think Leslie might be underestimating Robin’s capacity for denial.

      1. Bluewind

        Oh yes. I agree with you there. I met a woman once who admitted to going all the way with a woman, but said she didn’t get a lot out of it. That you could be straight and “appreciate the beauty of a woman”. She even said she never met a bisexual that wasn’t loose and said some (I think well meaning) insulting things to me. I tried to explain it all to her but she wouldn’t have it. She was TOTALLY straight with an appreciation for the beauty of women and not bisexual at all (one justification was that she wasn’t a slut). Denial can run so deep that it surpasses all logical thought.

        1. Socks

          Eeehhhh it’s quite possible to sleep with a lady and then decide that sex with women isn’t really your thing, but you still think they’re pretty, just not in a way that causes you desire for their junk. The weird slut-shaming biphobia is bad in its own right, but absent other information, she could very easily not be bisexual. It’s not necessarily denial. Discovering you’re actually not interested in dating or sleeping with women is a valid outcome to sexual experimentation, too. And I’m saying that as a bisexual, myself, no denial here.

          We just happen to know that Robin is definitely queer because sexualities all carry over from the walkyverse.

        2. Bluewind

          Polysexual here so I get it too. The way she talked she was most definitely attracted to women, but had this twisted distorted idea of what bisexuals are. She also became super Christian afterward to boot. The way she described it, it sounded more like bad sex than anything.

  22. Cerberus

    Must… resist… U-haul lesbians joke… especially since… one is… bisexual…

    1. Danni

      robin wont go bi bi

    2. Rukduk

      I don’t…oooohhhh. Never mind I get it now. Also dammit a 28 professional (substitute) educator who hopes to become a professor of history someday. How do these things keep going over my head?!?

    3. Reltzik

      Nonono. U-haul is for trucking stuff around. Robin can carry stuff by hand. She totes.

      1. Spencer

        She has the biggest hands. The greatest. She can carry all sorts of things.

  23. Stephen Bierce

    Night After Night/I’ll think of you and smile…Darling
    Night After Night/But only for a while/Night After Night (Whoa)
    Then I’ll find someone new/Someone who’s not dumb like you
    Someone who won’t know how to fight
    And make me sleep on the sofa Night After Night!    –Lenny & The Squigtones

  24. Mr D

    <_< So, can someone exlpain who Malaya is with in the banner to those of us who won't shell out for porn?

    1. BBCC

      Probably not Marcie, sadly for her.

    2. Emperor Norton II

      She might just be masturbating. It looks like she’s looking at a phone screen.

      Some people would say she’s looking at porn. I think she’s probably looking at some super-cool looking fancy new robot that moves better than any robot has done so far.

      1. John

        She’s probably watching Ultra Car cartoons.

        1. Emperor Norton II

          Ding ding ding, we have a winner!

          John, We hereby bestow upon you Three Imperial Internet Points.

          And a candy bar.

    3. LeslieBean4Shizzle

      Actually, I HAVE shelled out for a Slipshine account. I saw on the banner that there was a new page, went to check it out… and I’m STILL confused.

      I will say this: Whomever her partner is, that individual is wearing a condom. Also, that character is not Joe (wrong skin tone). I have no idea who this pale skinned partner is, but… actually, but nothing, I have seriously no idea what is going on in that picture apart from “Mayala is having some sort of sex with another person of some sort”

      1. LeslieBean4Shizzle

        I seriously started reading the comments on this strip not because of the strip but because I was wondering what was supposed to be going on with Mayala and hoped that someone else had figured it out and commented on it.

        1. Yumi

          Maybe she’s using a dildo? With a condom? I don’t have Slipshine, but I felt like guessing.

        2. Spencer

          From the banner it looks like she’s preparing a makeshift tourniquet for an impromptu amputation.

  25. Thevoiceoftreason

    Has even the obvious changed for her?

  26. DarkoNeko

    3that’s nice and all, congresswoman, but some of us have an actual job”

  27. Danni

    marcy, probably

  28. tim gueguen

    So. I guess this means we aren’t going to see a new spinoff, The Houseguest That Never Leaves.

  29. Fart Captor

    Yesssss 😀

  30. Reltzik

    Leslie’s only got so much patience.

    No, seriously. I swear that we’re about to converge on her limit thanks to Robin’s couchy sequence.

    1. Emperor Norton II

      We’ll see. If she gets the full realisation of what Robin is really saying*, she might suddenly have all her patience restarted and then some.

      But the problem with Robin is that she can be hard to read, because if anyone’s putting on a mask in this comic, it’s her. She’s even less able than Walky to state her true feelings straight; she just has to throw in a bunch of wackiness and “cool kids” words into her speech all the time.

      And so, it might very well be that Leslie’s not quite getting what Robin’s really trying to say here. And I for one can’t blame her for that.

      And if Leslie’s not getting it… If she’s still feeling she’s only talking to a mask… Yeah, her patience will soon wear out.

      *Or at least, what I hope she is really saying (see my reply to Shiro above).

      1. Reltzik

        …. I was just going for the obscure math pun.

        *flees for dear punning life*

        1. Emperor Norton II

          Yeah, obscure math puns flies further above my head than the International Space Station.

        2. Reltzik

          AHA, I say, something that is clearly and obviously an invitation to explain math, or at least remotely possible to interpret as such!

          CAUCHY sequences are sequences of numbers which… well, short version, converge to a limit.

          Long version, for any tolerance e that we might name, there will be some point of the sequence after which all elements of the sequence will be within e of the limit. I feel like I missed an opportunity not sliding “tolerance” into the pun sequence as well, but I’d already worked a lot of things in there and after a certain point I’d hit my limit.

        3. Emperor Norton II

          …

          …

          …

          …

          …

          …

          …

        4. SgtWadeyWilson

          Not even a nibble.

        5. Reltzik

          Yes! Exactly! Ellipses signify sequences! You are succumbing!

          Come to the math side!

          We have pie! (On March 14th.)

        6. Neeks

          math side’s international holidays are pie day on March 14 and avocado day on October 23

        7. Tan

          You are a delight.

        8. butting

          That’s an awful long proof of the argument that Robin needs to get real.

        9. xKiv

          You don’t name your e. You enemy names your e.

        10. Streeter

          I got it, if that’s any solace. >_>

          Math minor, whoo.

  31. MissFortune

    Ben Folds lyrics apply to every situation, apparently, but I might have gone with “You don’t know me at all.”

  32. Archivist

    Ah, such strength of character. …Sorta.

  33. Fart Captor

    “Ugh, fine, I’ll grow as a person already”

    1. Reltzik

      “But only because I’m under pressure to and not because I’ve actually come to value awareness or virtue or feelings or anything.”

  34. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    So much here to analyze!

    Panel 1: I love the framing here. Leslie’s pose is awkward, dwarfed by the large sweeping shot of the space, makes her seem small and vulnerable, especially as her pose looks so stiff compared to the lounge that Robin has going on. Also, hell yeah, General Organa poster, nice callback to SP! Leslie’s lesbian awakening occurring watching Princess Leia (I initially wrote this as President Leia and then cried for a full minute).

    And that makes a lot of sense, because this moment is a very vulnerable one. It’s her gearing up to setting another boundary and so far that’s been a failure every time because Robin has just bulldozed right over that. And before she’s even begun, Robin already counters it and derails it, just asking for snack food and acting like a roommate instead of someone who’s invaded her home in the middle of the night.

    Panels 2-3: And we see that break Leslie a bit. Her face is in genuine pain and distress here. And she’s pretty much begging to see even the slightest hint that for all she’s sacrificed of her reputation and dignity over this whole affair she’s penetrated even a little bit through Robin’s self-denial and tendency to harm others. That she’s being seen as a person rather than a pretty little toy to get what she wants from. That what she says matters.

    And that’s fucking heart-breaking cause I’ve been in that situation, having to beg for one’s humanity, living for fucking scraps, and having to swallow the dismissal of incredibly painful and vulnerable moments by assholes who couldn’t care less.

    Those last two lines are the meat of it. That story, isn’t just a story, it was her life. It was living on the streets because a parent’s love was conditional and her being gay didn’t fit that condition. And before she can even begin to feel good about losing so often to Robin’s onslaught against her boundaries and resolve, she needs some hint that Robin recognizes that story and the pain she’s caused supporting bigoted laws. That she’s internalized that she’s been hurting kids like herself and that Leslie didn’t just ruin her reputation for a bigot seeking a deniable one-night stand.

  35. Cerberus

    Panel 4: And Robin’s answer is so dismissive of that. It’s the weakest of sauces as far as an answer goes and is the equivalent of a student snowing me about how they got “so much work” done on their project when they haven’t even begun.

    And that’s devastating, because it shows that Robin hasn’t listened to jack shit, hasn’t internalized jack shit and certainly doesn’t have any respect for the parts of Leslie’s conversation that were most important, that were hardest for her to say, that bear the hallmark of still too fresh wounds. That that critical part went in one ear and out the other.

    And that is why I’ll never hate on Roz the way some do. Because growing up with that active dismissal of what you consider important? Not because of disagreement, but because you can’t even be bothered to act as if it is important enough to even hear? And especially when it is about stuff that really matters to you and directly affects your life and the person has real genuine power to do something?

    That’s brutal. And Roz grew up with that and both sisters have noted that Roz has genuinely tried over and over again to explain the very basics of empathy and humanity to her sister. To fight for people and causes she believes in to explain at the most basic level and just like here, all Robin did was listen for enough key phrases to bullshit her way out of having the conversation at all.

    Yeah, after years of that, yeah, never going to begrudge Roz celebrating that level of open disrespect not ever having institutional power over her again.

  36. Cerberus

    Panel 5: And this is the saddest panel of all for me, because Robin’s answer was bullshit, openly dismissive of Leslie’s humanity and vulnerability, but Leslie is in a state where she is looking for even the slimmest scrap. The tiniest hint that she’s making a difference, that she’s getting through, that there’s someone redeemable underneath there to justify giving in to the attraction. And I know from being in that position, how that tiny worthless scrap feels like a hard-won victory up until it’s revealed to be the swamp bubble it always was.

    That soft hope where she even has to fill in the blanks of what Robin merely hinted at, but it’s a tiny sign and seeing Leslie getting her hopes up, falling into this pattern once again is so painful, because I think this Robin is in a space where she’ll happily get what she wants all while denying every ounce and changing nothing of her bigoted views.

    And Leslie deserves so much more than that especially as she likely has had that hope once before with her parents and watched it get snuffed out with her disownment and banishment to the streets.

    Panel 6: And of course, Robin immediately shits on Leslie’s glimmer of hope, twisting her words to justify what she wanted to do, which is ignore the consequences of her actions and let Leslie clean it up for her. Cause that’s the pattern that Robin is more and more establishing, Leslie sets a boundary, Robin says something right that puts a chink in her armor, Leslie relents, and then Robin uses that to get another intimacy that she wants while still retaining full deniability and demanding greater access to Leslie’s time and life.

    And so it also fits that this panel is a near perfect mirror of the first panel. With Leslie back where she began at this iteration of the cycle, still vulnerable, still hurt, with Robin circling back to where she began, lounging, taking Leslie’s kindness for granted*.

    *And I don’t want to make a grand sweeping point of this, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the obvious parallel of the liberal minded queer woman telling her story full of compassion and empathy for Robin’s position and experiences, reaching out and being willing to genuinely work with her and the close-minded conservative shutting it down and exploiting that kindness and willingness to reach out to get what she wants instead with no consequences for her own mistakes. It’s kinda too good a microcosm of the two parties and the trap liberals have found themselves in to not point out.

    1. Emperor Norton II

      I’ll be honest, one of the things that makes me look forward to the next strip in a storyline is when you and I have a different interpretation of a particular scene (in this case, panel six), and I want to find out which interpretation is correct, or at least closer to being correct.

      I usually hope the most optimistic interpretation is the correct one, whoever has it.

      1. Emperor Norton II

        Like, two days ago, you and I had somewhat different interpretations (though not necessarily all that mutually exclusive) of Dorothy’s actions, and then yesterday’s comic happened, and it was clear to me that you were closer. And since you were also the more optimistic one, that made me glad.

    2. Fart Captor

      I’m hopeful that Robin is at least admitting that she should seriously think about all of what Leslie has told her, and is only complaining because that involves a lot of painful, difficult introspection and she really doesn’t wanna.

      I felt like her comment in the last panel wasn’t more denial, so much as her starting to lower the wall of stubborn deflection. Though I suppose the next words out of her mouth could swing it wildly in either direction

    3. Schpoonman

      I would like to preface this by saying I mostly agree that this storyline has been Leslie trying to deal with her own desires with dignity and grace and Robin actually quite successfully blitzing through every attempt to keep the situation in control and escalating and making it worse.

      But from most of your comments, I get the feeling that you think of Robin as an actively malevolent force, someone who is gleefully and viciously anti-anything-but-straight-cis-white-men-and-occasionally-women. I am a straight white cis-gendered man, so I’ve never been on the wrong sode of harassment the way you have, so I have a question:

      While there may not be an effective difference sometimes between the Richard Spicers and Robin DeSantos of the world (one actively wants you dead, the other is inadvertently but still undeniably also working to that end), does the intent make a difference to you? When I see Spicer, I know “He’s an unapologetic Neo-Nazi, he’s a lost cause, fight him where we can, don’t engage him when it won’t help.” When you see Robin, energy and cause willing, do you reach out? When you AREN’T capable of fighting on a given day, should I be the one to stand up and say “Hey, that’s wrong. You didn’t know then, but you know now”? Or, since they’re inflicting the same damage, are they also not a concern worth writing in when there are much more immediate problems?

      1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

        The latter. Both are enemies to be destroyed, as they will do the same to you.

        1. thejeff

          Just to be clear here: I’m a straight white guy. I should be treating the bi Latino woman as an enemy to be destroyed?

        2. Spencer

          She’s campaigned to ruin lives so yes.

          The only thing that makes Robin redeemable, purely as a fictional character, is that she hasn’t succeeded.

        3. Killjoy

          Which is a short step from seeing even in people who share many of one’s values but see different methods of pushing them as preferable… as “the enemy”.

        4. Spencer

          If you don’t want to be reduced to “the enemy” then maybe stop acting like a two dimensional caricature of fucking Cobra Commander.

        5. Killjoy

          ????

        6. Spencer

          You keep spewing this “don’t generalize you guys” bullshit like it means something. Like calling the people who happily voted in a fascistic orangutan who has literally denounced all critical media outlets as fake news a pack of mongoloid twatmouths somehow makes us as bad.

          Do you know why they’re “the enemy” to us? Because they’re trying to ruin our fucking lives you fucking gibbon. Because they would gleefully fucking see us dead but we’re supposed to turn the other cheek while it’s getting stomped into the fucking pavement.

        7. Killjoy

          OK.

          First, the fact that you can only resort to name-calling here pretty much reduces your comments to the level of the people you’re denouncing.

          Second, lashing out and insulting people who AGREE with you about Trump — because they’re not ready to dehumanize and belittle and demean, because they’re not ready to join in the Balkanization and tribalism — pretty much demonstrates what I was just talking about. If you’re going to treat everyone who doesn’t “sufficiently hate the enemy”, AS the enemy… you’ve already lost.

          Third, I live in a county that “went blue” and work in a county that “went red”. The know some judgemental, selfish, ignorant idiots who voted for Hillary for all the wrong reasons, and I know some smart, giving, selfless, humble people who voted for Trump… for all the wrong reasons. If you’re going to call someone who I know for a fact would give the last $20 to his name to a random homeless stranger, and would take a bullet for someone regardless of race or gender or identity or religion, a “m******** t***mouth”… why should I care what you think?

          (And never mind the irony of someone expressing “outrage” about bigotry using that sort of terminology.)

        8. Spencer

          I’m too much of a smug liberal to care.

        9. Cerberus

          Dude, don’t use those slurs. That’s not cool.

          That said… yeah, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive Trump voters. Because their actions are going to be fatal for so many of me and mine and very likely for me in specific. How do you forgive a person who voted for an open rapist fascist because you were swayed by his calls to hate?

          Who watched people in love being able to get married, people like me being able to speak their truth to the world, people like my cousins trying to believe they won’t get shot by a cop just for walking down the street and thought “I’m gonna show those bastards”? Who cheered for our deaths because at least now they didn’t have to pretend to believe we are worthy of life?

          I’m going to watch so many people I love die the longer this nightmare goes on, people with beautiful lives and minds and dreams that some bastard who’s never met them hates and seeks to harm because of something their pastor or bar mate said.

          Because they didn’t want to grow to allow people like them to exist in the same pluralistic society.

          I would never seek to take away their rights, to seek their deaths, to actively harm them the way they do me. Simply because I exist.

          How do you forgive that? How do you see such open disregard for your very humanity and right to exist and go, cool mate, I’m okay dying so long as you didn’t really mean to be a fascist piece of shit.

          I’m okay not having rights because you’re scared that me being allowed to exist like you do in society will somehow harm you, will force you to grow. I’m okay bleeding and suffering and dying and agreeing that my humanity is worth less.

          I’m not that big of a person. I’m not. I hate those people. I would never seek to oppress them the way they have me, but I hate them for the lives they snuff and make worse. I hate them for ruining this country. I hate them for viewing the feelings of nazis and the location of trash bins as more important than my right to live.

          I hate them.

        10. Killjoy

          @ Cerberus

          I think it’s necessary to distinguish between those who were actually swayed by calls to hate, and those who cast their ballot that way for entirely different reasons. Between those who are horrible people, and those who are good people who’ve enable something horrible by making a mistake.

          I know a couple who spend a good chunk of their time off volunteering to help migrant workers from Latin America deal with labor laws and health care issues and overcoming language barriers. And yet, because of things that the Democrats have actually said and actually done over the years, they voted for Trump. They told themselves that it was all just “Trump the showman” and “campaign rhetoric” and “no one could actually do that stuff once they’re in office”, because they were desperate for something other than another 4-8 years of “the urban academics looking down their nose at us from NYC and LA and DC.”

        11. Spencer

          Oh. Well shit.

          Sorry.

        12. Spencer

          You, though, who fucking cares why they voted him in when he proudly boasted about all the evil shit he had done and would continue to do so. No amount of “economic anxiety” and “but her emails” makes them any less responsible for their vote.

          So, what, I’m supposed to feel bad that obsolete jobs have been lost and that totally makes up for the thousands of refugees Trump tried to ban.

        13. Killjoy

          It appears that you’re inferring things about what I’m saying, that aren’t there in my statements. I don’t know if this is because you have someone you’d like to argue with who isn’t here, or for the same sorts of presumptuous drawing of lines that makes people presume that any opposition to illegal immigration is about race.

          I cannot answer questions directed at statements I have not made and positions I do not hold.

        14. Li

          You’re literally saying that poor rural white people feeling like “Democrats” en masse were looking down our noses at them somehow justifies voting for the, again, openly racist, self-described rapist who never did anything to give them any reason beyond wishful thinking to believe he wasn’t going to be a tyrannical dictator.

          Also, can we please stop entertaining the notion that Trump “won” (for a value of winning that includes both losing the popular vote and apparently electoral tampering with the smallest voter turnout in 20 years) because of downtrodden white people in poverty who felt betrayed by Democratic rhetoric?

          Because Trump got a majority of white voters from all socio-economic groups (with the very slim exception of college educated women). The majority of the people who voted for him were middle class or wealthy, while the majority of people in poverty voted for Hillary.

          It’s a race thing. It is really obviously conclusively a race thing. Even for people who claim they only voted for him for economic reasons (which, again, amount to mere wishful thinking because he never even tried to explain how he was going to help anyone in poverty), the racism and the misogyny and the virulent queerphobia weren’t deal-breakers, and that’s something they should be accepting responsibility for instead of trying to get everyone else to give them head-pats and reassure them that we all know they’re not ~really~ racist.

        15. Cerberus

          What Li said. Also…

          It’s a white supremacist recruitment tool to be nice and friendly to those from the same in-group while being brutally vile towards those outside of it. There are plenty of violently racist folks who are outwardly very nice and kind who nonetheless support violent hatred and lend support to dangerous terrorists and fascists.

          And even the most virulent KKKer and nazi has a giant fantasy of why they aren’t a bigot for believing the bigoted things they believe and doing the bigoted things they do.

          And at the end of the day, let’s be frank. I’m not likely to survive the next however many years Trump decides to reign. I’ve resigned myself to likely having to bury close friends. I’ve already lost some of the kids I’ve mentored over the years.

          So the distinction you’re trying to draw here doesn’t really affect whether or not I get to survive this and certainly does not dissuade my perspective that they at the least looked at an open bigoted fascist who promised all manner of human rights abuses and went “yup, that seems like our kind of guy”. They saw his promises to hurt vulnerable people and did not see that as a reason to not vote for him. They saw his promises to grift them and take advantage of them and ruin what little recovery they’ve seen and said “that’s a fair price for hurting those folks over there”.

          The last second justification they paint on that to try and avoid the consequences from their victims does not endear me to them. It makes me think they are cowards who will kill me and then not even do me the disservice of being honest as to why.

          Maybe that’s because they’re deluding themselves. Perhaps. But frankly, if they aren’t massively regretting their vote after seeing all this he has wrought, they can go fuck themselves regardless of their “internal reasons” that they want to sell to me.

        16. Cerberus

          Also “urban academics” is code for brown people. What they were saying is that they were tired of brown people thinking they were equal human beings and holding middle class jobs. You might not like that but that’s what that code word means. Trust me, I grew up with that dog-whistle shit.

          Also, there’s no such thing as illegal immigration, only undocumented immigrants and the movement to render a people illegal is heavily based on race, which is why all the undocumented folks I knew in college never got half the shit the “family lived in California since before it was a state” folks who were latinx got with regards to that “illegal” rhetoric (did I mention the undocumented folks were white and had no intention of ever seeking to immigrate legally? But hey, that was all and good among the people who rant about “illegals” stealing their jobs 24/7, because at least those people were white).

          It’s always been a tactic to A) get dumbass white people to blame a powerless group for the active undermining of labor by rich white men, B) attempt to argue that all latinx people are not real citizens and thus deny them their full right to vote and justify harassment and violence against them, and C) attempt to escape the consequences of deliberately sinking an entire region of a country in exploitative capitalism living the people there no means of earning their way but to migrate to other nearby cities.

          So yeah, it’s always been racist and classist as fuck.

        17. Killjoy

          First, “urban academics” is NOT “code” for “brown people”.

          Take this excerpt as an example of the impression many MANY people outside of university campuses and “the new hip downtowns” view the American left:

          “Well before Donald Trump declared he was running—to the amusement of the liberal media and Washington establishment, who didn’t stop laughing until Nov. 8—and long before Hillary Clinton dismissed half of Trump’s supporters as “deplorables,” the right had gotten used to being looked down upon by liberals. The general attitude of the left was: Disagree with us? You’re probably racist, xenophobic, sexist, bigoted or all of the above. Indeed, for many liberal Americans, these prejudices have come to be seen as inseparable from identity of the Republican Party itself. And when the GOP went all-out Trump, it only confirmed to many liberals that their ideological opponents were no longer worthy of respect.”

          That’s not about “code for brown people”. And reading the comments section here, it often sounds like the author of that piece is not so wrong.

          Second, I’m not saying that Trump voters were right to vote for him even on purely economic grounds — the idea that Trump is anything other than the most “elite” of the economic “elite” or that he has the economic or policy chops to fix anything is laughable — I’m saying that the only way to change their votes coming up is to understand why they actually voted the way they did, instead of bitterly chalking it up to bigotry even to the point that even the clearly not bigoted are accused of “having bigotry in their heart” or some nonsense.

        18. Killjoy

          As for illegal immigration:

          “Illegal immigration is the migration of people across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country.”

          So… the US doesn’t have immigration laws?

          “There’s no such thing as illegal immigration” is like saying “there’s no such thing as trespassing, or breaking and entering, just laws to make undocumented occupancy of someone else’s house a crime”.

          It’s not about race or class or jobs, it’s about people whose literal first act upon entering the country, is to say “your laws don’t mean shit to us, fuckers”.

        19. Fart Captor

          People who continue to ignore the threat that Trump poses to our very system of government are ABSOLUTELY no longer worthy of respect.

          He has proven time and time again that he has no respect for the rule of law, the judicial system, the media, the American people, or basically anyone whose face is has not fully disappeared up his ass. Every single thing he attacked Hillary for he has already done himself, and this is only week two.

          None of this is surprising to anyone who has been taking him at face value since before the election.

        20. BBCC

          A) Speak for yourself. I’ve absolutely seen folks who use urban academics as a code for brown people.

          B) If they do not want to be seen as xenophobic, racist, sexist, and heterosexist, maybe they should STOP RUNNING CANDIDATES WHO USE THOSE THINGS AS THEIR PLATFORM. Just a thought.

          C) Yeah, I’m okay with saying ‘people who vote for someone as Islamophobic, xenophobic, racist, sexist, heterosexist, cissexist, ableist, classist, anti-Semitic, Christian centric, immature, and obnoxious as Trump are not worthy of respect’. People who look at that and do not see a problem? Or not enough of a problem to be swayed from voting for him? Are people who do not give a fuck he is going to get people killed. And I absolutely refuse to respect them.

          D) People who voted for Trump have done a bigoted thing. Even if they themselves are not generally more bigoted than anyone else, they have done a bigoted thing. Voting for Trump was a racist thing to do. A xenophobic thing to do. A sexist thing to do. A hetero and cissexist thing to do. An ableist thing to do. A classist thing to do. And ultimately, a hurtful, selfish, and BIGOTED thing to do. What motivated them only matters in that it can help keep them from doing it again. It does not actually make their action not bigoted, because the effects – putting that bigot in the White House – are bigoted. The least they can do is own it. Even if they were motivated by something else, their actions were bigoted and if they’re not willing to accept that, they are not taking responsibility for the damage their actions will do to everyone, including themselves, but far moreso for marginalized people. And I have seen very few Trump supporters who have been willing to oppose his bigoted propositions since he came to office, even though they’re just so non-bigoted. Do they exist? Probably, and good for them, but there’s also plenty who did a bigoted thing and then started whining when people pointed out that their actions were bigoted, regardless of their motivation. And frankly, I’m sick of you coming in to go ‘Not All Trump supporters’ every time people talk about how a sizeable chunk of his base wants them dead. It’s obnoxious, insensitive, condescending, and rapidly becoming more and more infuriating.

          Whether or not someone is overall a bigot depends on who is judging that because people weigh things differently. Someone can be the nicest person ever who would take a bullet for anyone and give their last $20 to a homeless person, and still do something bigoted. And whether or not that person is now a bigot for good very much depends who you ask. If the folks that person put in Trump’s firing line decide the answer is yes, I cannot blame them in good conscience.

          As for illegal immigration, again, when it by and large gets flung at Latinx people as opposed to literally every other person who is undocumented? Yeah. It’s about race. And your summation of it ignores the plethora of reasons people cross the border illegally, the fact it does not actually cause anyone harm, and the fact a house is private property owned by someone.

        21. Li

          What BBCC, FartCaptor, and Cerberus said. It would also behoove you to stop trying to address people who are telling you their actual stories of oppression as if they are speaking in hypotheticals.

          Like. We DO understand why Trump voters voted the way they did. Every single poll of his base revealed strong correlations between likelihood to vote for Trump and racist beliefs, for example. What you’re actually asking us to do is to believe their excuses for voting for him over their actual motivations.

          I repeat: Trump’s single biggest voting block was middle class and wealthy white people, while a majority of just the poor people in this country still voted for Hillary, and the turnout was the smallest in 20 years. There literally is no referendum here, and the lesson for Democrats to take away from it is that we need to turn up at the polls (and work on doing away with voter ID laws, and other suppression tactics), NOT that the minority of Trump voters who say they were “just” turned off by liberal elitism need to be catered to.

          Like, it is almost the least productive use of Democrat funding, because that voting block was just not even remotely the deciding force you are trying to paint it as.

        22. Cerberus

          What BBCC said.

          Also:

          Urban is usually code for black (which is why you’ll see people mention “urban youth” to describe folks who live in rural areas or suburbs because well, yeah…). Liberal is usually code for Jewish (which is why the “liberal media” will never ever be seen as unbiased by the people using this term, because what they are saying is that there are too many Jews working there and thus it must be evil) . Academics is usually code for someone who knows more than me about a subject regardless of whether or not they’ve had a formal education (I’ve seen teenage dropouts dismissed as “academics” before and it’s part of an overall suite of anti-intellectualism that is poisoning the right, making it seem “disloyal” to learn more about the way the world works and react accordingly). “Tumblr-culture” is usually code for trans folks and some of the more marginalized sexualities. “Illegals” is usually code for latinx folks.

          It’s dog-whistles. Coded phrases so that the horribleness of one’s actual position is not immediately apparent, especially for someone who hasn’t been on the receiving end of a lot of these terms and seen how disconnected they often are from the reality of the situation.

          Often times, the reality of the situation is revealed by the actions. Because the dog-whistle is usually about crafting an excuse to get angry about the mere existence of folks who are born different. So urban gets to wink wink nudge nudge about how areas with majority people of color are crime-filled hellscapes and thus justify bigoted policies with regards to their policing. Liberal gets to make it seem like the media is balanced and needs more and more conservative representation to make it “fair”. Academics conjures up images of rich snooty white folks when the reality is that most academics are frequently barely making middle class money and tend to be very excited about the subjects they teach. And illegals allows one to fixate on the idea of people breaking the law while all the policies are aimed at latinx folks at a group.

          And it makes a lot of attempts to push back at this difficult, because pointing out the reality of the situation doesn’t matter much, because that’s not what’s got them incensed. Saying that our immigration laws makes it almost impossible to get legal citizenship in our country especially if you come from certain countries, that we destroyed an entire sector of Mexican farmland and refuse to deal with the consequences of that, or that most of our entire food supply is currently dependent on migrant labor and that there are organizations run by undocumented folks to try and train people to take over as it would help in unionization for rights because undocumented folks get heavily abused. All that doesn’t matter, because it’s all about finding an excuse to think that every latinx person you see is a “lawbreaker”.

          And it’s a major problem because white people by and large, or really dominant groups in general by and large, hate having to accept responsibility for institutional bigotry and bigoted attitudes because that seems scary and like it makes them bad people if they acknowledge where their viewpoints have been twisted with regards to the humanity of others. It’s much easier to deny it has ever existed than to acknowledge the very real way the lives of others are harmed.

          We see that in Robin’s eeling away from responsibility for passing a bigoted law. It’s not really bigoted and if it is it’s not her fault and if it is, then she’s not really a bigot because she doesn’t actually hold those beliefs, and hey, it’s not like it’s going to affect anyone “important”.

          And well, people who voted for Trump because they were once called a bigot? Who voted for pure unadulterated bigotry because of the mere idea that they may be the type of people to do that to hurt others? People who say that’s their reason for voting Trump?

          Are bigots. Because it took that little for them to go all in with literal fascists who will tear this country apart. Because their ego and desire to never be corrected by “lesser folk” trumped said “lesser folk’s” right to live.

          And so. Fuck them. Maybe they can clean up the country after me and mine are dead and gone. Maybe they will regret their decisions. But right now and right here, they risked my life and those of everyone I loved for a bunch of bullshit excuses for naked unapologetic unmistakable bigotry with no upside.

          The hurting us was the point. Was the only point. And that’s been shit to swallow. But it does us no benefit to ignore the reality of that.

        23. Cerberus

          What Li said.

          Plus, fuck, the whole thing with “we voted for a bigot who promised to kill you because you called us bigots” is that it is a threat to begin with.

          It’s basically: Shut up about bigotry and your experiences of oppression or else we’ll hurt you so much you won’t have the emotional energy or space to talk about bigotry. And I’ve been on the end of that too many damn times and realized the hard way that you can never be too silent while still alive to satisfy them. Even if you form your own communities and only talk about it there, they still invade those areas and engage in harassment, because we exist and that’s enough.

          And we see it in so many Trump voters incensed after the vote that it didn’t make all the marginalized people shut up and go away. That we’re still talking about our life experiences and are not shying away from calling out bigotry where we encounter it. Where it harms our actual lives.

          And that’s beyond fucked up. They abuse us, they kill us, they pass laws specifically designed to make our lives harder, and then they threaten us with more if we dare point it out.

          How the hell am I ever to respect that?

        24. Li

          Pretty much everything Cerberus said, but especially this:

          Plus, fuck, the whole thing with “we voted for a bigot who promised to kill you because you called us bigots” is that it is a threat to begin with.

        25. Killjoy

          Here’s a great example:

          “I was then dragged kicking and screaming into admitting that the crowd wouldn’t have been so open to the claim that we who disagree with them are evil if they weren’t hungry for that message. For reasons that have to be bigger than education reform, many of them must have already been ready for battle, and they craved the reassurance that they are righteous crusaders and their enemies deserve to be destroyed. ”

          That was written about the people who think education can be saved by burning it down. And yet… in my experience… that attitude knows no political boundaries or affiliation.

        26. Cerberus

          Honestly? I just want me and those I care about not to die. I have no intention of going to the himes and livelihoods of these cosplay crusaders aching for a great moral war to avoid recognizing the advantages and comfort their privilege and good fortune bring.

          I am not going into their churches and pissing on the cross. I am not threatening them as they try and get healthcare and honestly, if they weren’t so addicted to translating their hate to legislative and harmful action, I wouldn’t much mind that they hate me because of factors I could never change.

          I have no real impact on their lives. I have no real power and yet…

          Am I supposed to lay down and die peacefully? Am I to ignore those on te brink being shoved over and mocked? Am I to try and see the viewpoint of those who want to harm me?

          Cause I have. I know their perspective. I grew up surrounded by their perspective. I know exactly why they hate me. I hear them when they say they want us all dead or that we’re a disease that needs fixing.

          I hear them. Me responding “fuck you, I won’t let you kill my friends, harm my students, hurt those I love.” Me saying any means by which we can repel those who recruit for our literal elimination. Me saying I cannot ever forgive the people who picked this fight.

          That the rage of the unheard harmed who whave suffered “properly” for years while the fuckers who took over our country practiced on recruited on our suffering is the same as their fascism? Fuck that.

        27. Cerberus

          And sorry everyone for the politics derail, but it’s a sore spot for me at the moment.

        28. Killjoy

          No, you should not lie down and die. You should not accept injustice directed at you, or anyone you care about. You should never put up with having your rights as Americans and as human beings violated.

          No one should ever respond that way, and others should not stand by and say nothing, or do nothing.

          But understand that I come to that statement 100% from the point of view of your rights being violated and injustice being done to you as an individual American and individual human being.

          My frustration is not with you, or with your position. You are literally trying to survive and see the future, in a country that has an insane clown president serving as a sock puppet for hard-right Christian dominionists and a god damn fascists. Depending on which advisors win out and how others things go, it could go BADLY.

          My frustration is with the attitude some have that anyone to the “right” of X just must, just MUST be a bigot of at least one kind, and that all positions to the “right” of X must be motivated by ignorance and selfishness and bigotry. With those who can’t see anything other left-v-right, us-v-them, linear-scale politics, and can’t see the other axes upon which political positions plot out, or how authoritarianism and oligarchy aren’t exclusive to social or economic particulars.

          My frustration is with those who take a “kill them all, god will know his own” attitude towards anyone who isn’t part of their “identity”, or at least a good little ally who knows when to shut up and let the oppressed talk. With those who are more interested in fighting the war and rooting out “enemies” than they are in actually making things better… or who believe only in purging by fire.

          My frustration comes from people who can ONLY see their little sliver of the current crisis, and can’t look beyond to how this threatens EVERYONE, even people who aren’t really “the enemy” in any meaningful way.

        29. Spencer

          Trump voters aren’t going to get dragged out into the street. Trump voters aren’t going to be murdered by cops. Trump voters aren’t going to be subject to massive amounts of hate crime.

          The election, and the climate of the United States, disproportionately affects certain groups more than it affects poor rural voters who voted to take their health care away in exchange for not getting their jobs back, and they have the right to be as infuriated as they please.

        30. Pablo360

          The problem is that the right’s platform IS bigotry, and calling it “the right” doesn’t mean it’s not bigotry.

          Evan McMullin is fine. Evan McMullin is a linchpin of the Republican anti-Trump resistance, and a noteworthy figure in the resistance in general. Anything to the right of him? That’s when you get acquiescence to Trumpism, and acquiescence to Trumpism is bigotry.

        31. Mav

          Nope. Actions have consequences. I’d be more interested in the sudden attack of conscience when many of these people were voting in decades of these terrible all the way right types. A lot of the “you all just need to understand” stuff is just people being defensive or realizing they’ve made a humongous mistake without actually admitting it. Trump is for the neo-nazi cause. The truth is, his whole administration is full of rich white americans who do not give two shits about how the rest of us live except to “punish” us for existing, basically. It’s hilarious because everything purists accused Clinton of doing, Trump is actually doing, and many of them are getting a rude wake-up call.

          That was his whole platform. Us “liberals” are gonna pay for daring to want equal treatment and rights. They’ve been oppressed because we got out of the recession, women have access to birth control, everyone has access to the ACA, people that they don’t even know can be legally married. That’s why so many of these people are so gleeful when they hear about families being ripped apart and people bing forced to deport from the country as we speak. They’re so focused on “winning” they have no idea they’ve actually lost.

          Instead of being defensive about us painting all Trump supporters in that way, consider that you’ve been doing that for liberals as well. Consider that many of us in marginalized groups have lived our whole lives being judged by the worst of our humanity, and that if you are white you generally have the luxury of being seen as an individual and being given the benefit of the doubt. Consider that not wanting persecution based on identity is not “purist” logic at all, and even the idea that it is impossible to accomplish is utter bullshit.

          We pose no threat to you, we never have, they are just doing everything they can not to look in the mirror. Last I checked “liberals” weren’t shooting people cause they couldn’t get women to obey them or shooting up churches and killing people in mosques because “they don’t belong in this country.” Read up on your history and realized that many of these marginalized groups are actually the ones being terrorized and it’s been that way since the moment of first contact. Realize that many of these groups have contributed to society in ways his constituents will ever care to realize, we are here, we are not “all american” and we are here to stay. Even if they stamp us down or make us leave, they are not going to be better for it. And they know it, too.

          Also: believing that people shouldn’t have freedom or should be punished just by virtue of existing without hurting anyone is not an opinion nor is it hurtful for anyone else to point that out. It’s not “free speech”, that’s hate speech and it makes that person an asshole. Words still have the power to kill, as we saw just a few weeks ago.

        32. Jake

          For what it’s worth, Killjoy, I think I agree with you. And I am coming from a privileged place of being white, able, and mostly cisgender, although that’s… up for debate. I can live with it, at least. (P.S. Despite my handle, I am not actually a guy).

          I can totally understand where Cerberus et al. are coming from, though. But. That approach is not going to win over anyone who voted for Trump and may be regretting their decision. Yelling at them and telling them they’re awful people will only solidify their (bad) position. Yes, they were wrong to vote for Trump. Absolutely. But I also very firmly believe that some people can correct those mistakes if given time.

          A lot of this hate and sense of entitlement is something people get taught inadvertently. It’s going to take time and effort to re-teach them. People don’t like thinking badly of themselves, obviously, so I try to not condemn all of them as Nazies. Instead I want to help the people who actually are redeemable instead of damning them to be my eternal enemy. And I know that not everyone is capable of that, nor should they be forced to forgive. If you are looking to survive, that’s where all your energy should go, and hell, even if you have gotten past sheer survival, I’m still not going to tell you forgiveness is essential.

          It’s just. I know for a fact not everyone who voted for Trump is an irredeemable asshole. I sort of view it like buying a smartphone. Smartphones are built using what amounts to child and slave labor. It’s so convenient for me, with my smartphone, to forget the human cost that’s gone into it. Am I bad people for enabling child labor? Probably. But I did it knowing that factory conditions suck for the people making my phone because honestly? I don’t know those people, I haven’t met them, their existence is just sort of intellectual knowledge. I think there are some Trump voters who had the same mentality. They didn’t personally know any of the people who were going to be affected, didn’t realize how much hard work and blood and life went into the progress made and didn’t realize how quickly all that progress would drop away.They didn’t WANT to see it. Does that make their vote a terrible one? Yes. Absolutely. But again, I think at least some of those people can help us win more battles against Trump. The more people standing against him, the better right now.

          And like, please don’t get me wrong. I get how personal it feels, how scary it is to wake up in the current world and not know if you’ll make it through the day. I feel attacked and hopeless and I am still pretty darn privileged. I have a hard time getting important things done because everything feels pointless right now. I know it’s even worse for a lot of you. The only thing I’m trying to say is that I just want Trump voters to not all be painted with the same brush. Some of them are actually evil, yes. Some of them just made a really terrible decision and can be cultivated to help CHANGE THINGS and make it better.

          Sorry for bringing this topic up again.

        33. BBCC

          @ Jake – Trump supporters are not all actively malicious, no, but they all have done a bigoted thing. If they’re interested in taking responsibility for that, that’s something they’ll have to own. The fact they may be able to see that and come around to make fewer bigoted decisions does not change that they have done something wrong here and now and they deserve to be called on it. That can be done nicely, sure, but it is not reasonable to expect people to nicely argue for their humanity. It’s also true that there are plenty of people who learn better from being (or watching someone be) verbally hit with a brick. That’s how I learned a lot about racism – watching others being called on it. I believe others on this board have said the same thing. It’s also, in universe, how Walky learned why he was the favourite and Joyce was made to face her own acts of heterosexist bigotry – not from someone explaining it gently, but from Sal or Roz yelling in their faces exactly what was going on. Some people benefit from more patient explanations and others benefit from being the target of an angry call out. Pretending it only works when people are patient and politely hand hold people through the discovery they’re human is simply not true.

        34. Jake

          @BBCC – Those are all good points.

        35. Falcon

          Hell Killjoy, just letting you know I understand where you’re coming from and have been doing and feeling the same. It’s immensely frustrating to see the left self-destruct. We style ourselves the group of clear eyes and open minds, yet fail the moment people vote for the candidate we didn’t support. Is it perfectly understandable why some people lash out and paint everyone with a convenient brush? Certainly. As a straight male with a legal education, I have been relatively privileged despite my Chinese ethnicity and visa status. I might have been in the same boat as Spencer if I’d experienced worse discrimination and strife.

          It’s important to remember that pain can blind us just as much as shelter. We can’t expect the LGBT community fighting for their lives to be the nonpartisan folk reaching out. That’s not how human nature works generally. People in a position to reach out to winnable Trump voters should do so, and we’re the ones with the energy and mental space to condemn nutjobs on our own side like the Antifa protestors beating up Trump supporters.

        36. BBCC

          A) “The candidate we don’t support”

          Try “the candidate who has threatened to kill a bunch of people via his policies”. If you’re gonna talk about how folks fail to be clear eyed and open minded, at least say what actually happened instead of making this some ‘my team choked on the big game’ thing, as its incredibly condescending when people do that.

          B) Again, people who have voted for Trump have done a bigoted thing. That’s not ‘painting with a convenient brush’ or ‘pain blinding them’, it is what happened. They saw his vile and bigoted policies and voted him into office, regardless of whether they were motivated by said policies or decided they’d accept them to get whatever else they wanted.

          Whether or not its big enough to make them a bigot overall depends heavily who is doing the weighing because things like how important something is to being non-bigoted overall is subjective.

          C) Calling out folks for doing bigoted things is not the same as supporting folks like Antifa.

          D) Again, while plenty of people benefit more from gentle hand holding them through the realization that marginalized people are in fact people, there’s also plenty of people who benefit more from having their bigotry yanked into centre stage and called for what it is.

        37. Falcon

          You can try to make things feel more real, more abstract, it doesn’t change what it is. The same people who voted for Clinton voted for Bush and then voted for Obama. What *does* change is how you’re communicating. It feels nice and cathartic and like simple truth-telling to call out people for doing bigoted things. And you’re right that some people will benefit from such confrontation.

          But you know what? I don’t believe the way you’re talking about works overall. People do not generally react well to being called bigots. They do not start thinking “gee golly, maybe I am bigoted” when people start shouting in their face that they’re murderers because they voted a certain way. Roz shouting Joyce’s ignorant, bigoted opinions down might feel good if you agree with Roz anyway, but most people don’t react like Joyce especially from an entrenched starting. The way of Dorothy is what does the hard work of softening people up.

          And I never even implied that criticizing Trump supporters was the same as supporting Antifa. What I said that was that the people who aren’t busy just actually trying to survive in the Trump administration have important functions to play in preserving progressive credibility by condemning Antifa’s proactive violence, prizing integrity over sports team mentality.

        38. BBCC

          1) Acting like this is an issue of Trump being a simple candidate people don’t like underscores how dangerous the situation is and what people are actually upset about – that a candidate who has made numerous campaign promises that will get them killed has been elected. If this were an issue of Trump being the candidate for the other party, people wouldn’t be this upset and this scared for this long. Addressing this like he’s just the other candidates party is insensitive and condescending as hell.

          2) Again, I have to disagree. I’ve seen it work that way too often to believe it doesn’t work. And I never said ‘shouting in their face they’re murderers because they voted a certain way’. I said calling them out. That entails telling them what they’ve actually done wrong and why this connects to it, whether nicely or heatedly. For example, Roz wasn’t just screaming Joyce was a bigot – she told her exactly what she was doing wrong (pretending she was never the bigot and didn’t cheerfully do the church’s dirty work with regards to LGBT+ folks) and the consequences (contributing to homelessness and abuse rates for LGBT+ children). If you never make people realize what they’ve done, they’re never going to change that. And no, it is not on people to be nice about it. If people aren’t willing to think about something because it’s not nicely and gently delivered, they’re probably not ready to face what they’ve actually done and the damage it’s actually caused.

          3) Dorothy’s way also causes people to shrug and ignore them because if this was a big deal they’d be upset. Actually, what exactly has Dorothy done for Joyce regarding her heterosexism? I don’t recall her ever telling Joyce to stop, never saying boo, etc. All she did was exist while atheist, and while that got Joyce to back off on Atheism as Satanism, Dorothy did JACK to help with Joyce’s other bigotry. Dorothy even admitted she’d basically enabled Joyce on that front and that Joyce needed to be called on that, whether nicely or not. Becky existing may have softened Joyce up, but she was still trying to shove Becky back in the closet, still basically trying to reparative therapy Ethan, and still pretending it was not her who had ever harmed a gay person in any way, whether emotionally, financially, etc. or done the church’s dirty work. Just politely existing and reminding people that you exist was not enough. It rarely is. That’s why call outs are necessary, whether they’re nicely done or not. I’m not saying its not ever necessary to be nice about it – for instance, if someone accidentally stepped on your foot because they didn’t see it, saying ‘Ow, that was my foot’ is enough. Probably they’ll apologize and all’s good. If they stamp down on your foot hard enough to break it because they saw it and wanted to hurt you (or, in the case of the non-bigoted Trump supporters) saw it but it was in their way so they stepped on it anyways, you’re more justified in yelling at them and asking for their insurance to pay for the cast you’re gonna need for your now broken foot. In the same way, a Trump supporter is going to need to know they hurt people. The insurance in this scenario is their vote next election – or at least their opposition to Trump’s bigoted policies. Asking someone purported not to be bigoted to put their money where their mouth is when bigoted shit they voted for is going down is not unwarranted.

          4) It feels like truth telling because it is. It’s not a truth some people react well too, but that does not make it not true because it doesn’t feel nice. For example, if you call your friend on lying to you, the fact they don’t appreciate being called a liar doesn’t make it untrue. Also, though I can’t speak for anybody else, calling people out is not super cathartic – it’s stressful and frustrating because this person is saying something shitty and if somebody doesn’t stop them there, they’re going to continue saying shitty things. Any catharsis coming from watching someone else do it comes after being incredibly pissed off and frustrated with the other person being a shitheel, so I’d rather it not be necessary.

          5) In my experience, people don’t actually just want to be called out nicely (which, in my opinion, still takes some titanic sized nerve to ask people you’ve been spitting on to be nice about it if it’s been intentional, the way a Trump vote is). They don’t want to be called out period because they don’t want to be told they’ve done something wrong. Asking for it to be polite is one thing and it’s generally reasonable, as most of the time bigotry is out of ignorance not active malice or indifference (though, again, voting for it requires one of those). Asking not to be called out period is, to be frank, utter bullshit. Nobody deserves not to be told they’ve done something wrong. People certainly won’t learn if they’re never told they haven’t done something wrong.

          6) I’m sorry for misreading what you were saying about Antifa. The comments about being the ones to reach out and condemn Antifa made me bristle because it seemed like the connection was ‘and those who are not reaching out are not condemning antifa’. Evidently that’s not the way you were thinking and I am sorry for snapping at that.

        39. Li

          “I might have been in the same boat as Spencer if I’d experienced worse discrimination and strife.” — I’m sorry, I’m just. Very distracted by this sentence. Are you… are you saying you think you’d have fallen in with Neo Nazis?

          Richard Spencer is a Nazi, and he deserved to be punched in the face, but other claims that Antifa has been “beating up” Trump supporters badly need citations. Honestly, if you don’t have a healthy dose of skepticism every time you hear a protest called a riot after the last few years of personally watching the way BLM protests have been treated, infiltrated by police intent on causing riots to discredit them, then……… I don’t know what to say.

          There are rumors flying around that “Trump supporters” have been beaten up by Antifa. There are not, however, concrete reports of such injuries in the news. (On the contrary, the person who got shot at UC Berkley was a protester.)

        40. BBCC

          I think that he meant the user Spencer, Li.

        41. Spencer

          Yo.

        42. Li

          Ahahaha that’s embarrassing. Thanks!

      2. Cerberus

        Well, it’s complicated.

        First up, one of the big reasons I’m heavily negative on Robin here is the constant pressing on boundaries. I think that’s a major red flag and watching the constant dismissal of Leslie’s begging of her humanity hits home to some very personal moments in my life and utterly heartbreaking.

        Second up, I believe that Robin is a bigot in that she’s supporting bigoted laws and helping to enact them. Yes, this is more out of tribalism than out of active malice, but the end result is still the same with regards to effect.

        Like, if someone voted Trump, they’ve helped usher in a candidate who poses a direct threat to me and mine whether or not they bother to actively hate me or mine or they just value their tribal loyalty over all the red flags of bigotry that Trump represented.

        And for Robin, it’s even more complicated, because she cannot claim simple ignorance. Her position has been held despite Roz explaining why it is bigoted repeatedly, despite the life experiences of constituents who’ve tried to tell their stories or the stories of those close to them to try and sway her away from supporting hateful laws (we saw that with Joyce), and despite folks like Leslie being exceedingly vulnerable and explaining exactly how laws and attitudes like Robin contribute to horrific life experiences.

        And someone who repeatedly clings to bigoted beliefs when they don’t have to, when they know better, when they can see it is hurting real people is very very bigoted even if they’ve convinced themselves that they don’t hold “real” hate in their heart (and it’s worth noting that most bigots convince themselves they aren’t haters in their heart when they enact bigotry. Even active Klanmembers will deny they are racist and have lengthy justifications as to why their actions aren’t actually hateful).

        The fact that those attitudes are internalized against themselves as well does not mitigate that fact.

        Third, yes, Robin is not Punch-me-again Spencer. She’s not an open nazi recruiting for a hate movement who must be put down when given a platform because he poses an active threat to folks if allowed to use his platforms to recruit.

        And there’s even a glimmer of a hope that she’s convinceable and redeemable. And heck, I’d argue there’s a very good chance that in the course of this comic, we’ll actually see Robin redeemed, because redemption arcs are a key part of Dumbing of Age.

        But that’s… that’s where it gets complicated. Because while Robin may in the fullness of time be swayed, right now, she’s a character who is actively ignoring deeply personal outpourings of people’s souls and frequently only really gleans enough information in order to justify continuing to avoid introspection and getting what she wants at the expense of another’s boundaries.

        And that is a very familiar type of person. Cause I’ve had family who played that game. Of making me beg for my humanity, pour tons of emotional labor, vulnerability, and hope into trying to redeem them, and having to work for tiny scraps that were ephemeral and frequently disappeared before the next time I conversed with them.

        And the thing about that is that it was soul-crushing and in the end absolutely worthless for anything other than getting me to a point where I no longer had my self-respect and no longer viewed myself and my emotional well-being as valuable enough to matter.

        Robin, in her current state, is a bit of an emotional black hole for emotional labor. Her desire to retain a delusional form of status quo reigns hard and she’s very quick to dismiss emotional labor trying to redeem her and to deny that any positive step actually means anything and frequently backslides.

        As such, she’s a very potent trap for someone like Leslie who wants to believe in a redeemed Robin because she’s got heavy attraction for her and would love to pursue that without feeling like she’s betraying her self and her entire community. And because Leslie has a teacher’s personality and so is very inclined to view everyone as reachable and teachable and very prone to give tons of her emotional labor freely. And also because Leslie has those life experiences of rejection by bigoted parents, so she’s going to be even more inclined to believe in redemption of bigotry, because that gives her hope that there may one day be something salvageable there and those deep wounds can begin to heal.

        But I know from personal experience that dumping that emotional labor into a black hole is brutal and I think even though Robin is redeemable, I don’t think Leslie should be the one to redeem her and definitely should not redeem her through giving in to Robin’s repeated pressings against her boundaries. Largely because Leslie does not need to constantly go through the life experiences of dredging exceedingly painful moments of her past and going through the heavy conflict between her head and her heart and watching that go to waste with only the barest of signs that she’s even being heard, much less actually listened to.

        That? That’s brutal to go through repeatedly and definitely should not be the theme of a romantic relationship and is frequently a major red flag (speaking as someone who has been in the role of being made to feel I needed to apologize for my identities and explain them to romantic partners in my past).

        And I’d rather Leslie be spared that unique form of dehumanization and pain. Especially because people like Robin can keep people in that state of begging for their humanity a lot, because she’s got a lot of reasons to keep clinging to her old beliefs (convenience, fear of change, fear of backlash from former supporters, current career, etc…). And I don’t think she’s going to change until she learns to genuinely respect Leslie and actually take her and her words as seriously as they deserve. And that’s going to take a changing of the current power dynamic where Robin doesn’t feel much pressure to do anything other than her current strategy of pretending to listen and then pressing against the established boundary Leslie tries to make.

        1. Cerberus

          And just want to add more directly, that just because someone is open to dialogue potentially and redeemable potentially that it is worth it for someone to destroy themselves to try and make that happen. Some people are time-sinks as far as emotional labor goes and the effort to redeem them goes largely wasted because they’re not willing to put in the effort themselves to change and grow.

          And that’s the difference between a Robin (in her current state) and a Joyce.

          Joyce holds bigoted views, but she’s highly responsive to others’ pain and is willing to do her own independent research and soul-searching and takes when she’s called out to heart even if she has a lot of negative automatic responses and a lot of baggage she’s unwilling to let go of fully.

          Whereas Robin openly dismisses people’s pains and stories and refuses to do the internal work and introspection to get to a position of growth, instead expecting the likes of Leslie or Roz to do the entirety of the heavy lifting while she regularly backslides.

          And someone in that type of headspace frequently is a black hole for emotional labor because they don’t respect the speakers to them enough to actually try and grow and because there’s no internal desire to change, only to be viewed positively by the people speaking to her.

          And that means lots of backsliding and things like this where she reveals she’s barely paying attention to anything Leslie has said and the incredible vulnerability and patience and willingness to teach Leslie has offered.

          And Leslie, in her current state, deserves better than that.

          That doesn’t mean that Robin can’t be redeemed in the fulness of time or that part of me isn’t always going to ship these two, just that I recognize the unique pain of feeling like you have to beg for your humanity to a person who shows no intention of actually putting in the work independently. And that that desire to change is going to be a key part of whether or not Robin is ultimately redeemable or not.

        2. trlkly

          We have not seen Joyce hold bigoted views for quite a while, though. I mean, I can guess that she probably will wind up bigoted towards Muslims (and then work through it), but we haven’t actually seen it. Disagreeing with their religion isn’t the same thing.

          It basically seems like Joyce was bigoted, but this was at odds with her core personality, so, when given enough information and emotional reasons to give it up, she did.

          I don’t disagree with what people are saying about Robin and Leslie here. This is way too fast for me to believe Robin changed, making it seem like Leslie is just using wishful thinking so she can justify snogging with her.

          Robin is reachable. But Leslie is treating her huge problems as minor ones they can get over. That’s just not going to work.

          Sometimes I forget that Leslie kinda loses her mind around Robin. I keep thinking she’ll think like me, and will consider any and all sorts of bigotry as a deal breaker, and not something you can go away.

          If it were me with Robin, I would require strong proof. Like Robin publicly repudiating her problems. I mean, I’m the type of person who has to fight the urge to physically harm bigots.

        3. trlkly

          (When I say thinking like me, I mean how I think I would be, based on how I am with friends and such. I’ve never been in this actual situation. I get so angry in finding out someone is a bigot that I don’t think I ever give them a chance.

          Sure, I can now get that Robin’s hot. But there are plenty of hot people out there.)

        4. Cerberus

          She still has a bunch left especially with regards to the proper role of a woman, views towards other religions, and so on. She doesn’t mean any harm, it’s just she doesn’t recognize those views as hateful yet and she’s primarily doing violence based on these views against herself rather than that many other people.

          It’s a process not just one big event where you shake off all the bad and are good now.

          Cause there are a crapton of toxic messages out there and a major bigoted society that props them up and normalizes them. Thus, doing right by removing as much of the gunk as possible tends to be an all-life thing which goes against a lot of hero narratives.

          Slow progressive growth is what we see with Joyce and frankly, it’s beautiful and makes me frequently sure that even if she says something bigoted now, she’ll shed that belief in time with her hard work and compassion.

  37. EvilMidnightLurker

    What happens when they run out of Steven Universe episodes?

    1. Arianod

      Then it’s Adventure Time!

      1. Streeter

        And spend the whole time shipping Bubbline in their heads?

    2. Emperor Daniel

      Time for a second bingewatch to catch what you missed on the first round.

    3. Cerberus

      Sense8

  38. Arianod

    Please, let the next strip be a single panel with Leslie’s foot unceremoniously kicking Robin’s ass out of her front door and into the mob of papparazzi lying in wait outside.

    1. Reltzik

      ….. has DoA EVER had a single-panel strip?

      Also, I doubt that Leslie can overpower Robin. Robin’s just too annoyingly slippery. LIKE MOST POLITICIANS!

      1. Architex

        This comic definitely has. First one that comes to mind is “Morning Woods”, which kicked off the last storyline in book four. So yeah, they’re there, but mainly as establishing shots.

    2. DinaWho

      Maybe not single panel, but I could see a comic that’s minor characters in the crowd outside and has Robin being unceremoniously dumped outside the the door in the last panel.

  39. Travestyhat

    Aaaaand Robin continues her unstoppable reign as ‘least likeable character in this comic.’ Like, she’s gone from a lame Sarah Palin/Donald Trump mash-up to a lazy freeloader. Woo-hoo?

    1. Blackbird

      *coughBlainecoughToedadcoughcoughhackwheeze*

      1. SgtWadeyWilson

        Wow, that cough sounds terrible! I mean, you didn’t even list Mary!

        1. Emperor Norton II

          That’s who “hackwheeze” represented.

        2. SgtWadeyWilson

          Well, invoking her name does make one feel like they are choking, so I guess I could believe that.

    2. Sam

      She’s one of the more dangerous ones due to her position allowing her to potentially harm more people in the long term, and she is definitely pretty far down the likeability scale, but certainly not at the very bottom because Mary and abusive parents are things that crawl along the floor of the likeability scale like cockroaches.

      But yeah, on one hand Robin is not doing well to improve her standing, on the other, she hasn’t had a LOT of time for character development yet in DoA time. In DoA time it’s only been part of a day since Leslie talked to her properly, and people don’t usually change as a person overnight without growing a brain tumour, particularly when they are Robin who needs you whack her in the face with the truth like it is a mallet until she can’t pretend it isn’t there.

    3. NoOneLikesRobin

      This. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: every time Robin shows up in the strip, it reads exactly like an actor hired for a role WILDLY wrong for them ad-libbing all their lines in the exact opposite tone needed for the story. She’s “wacky”, which Walky barely gets away with because of strips like yesterday’s: he can actually be a relatable human once in a while. The only time Robin’s ever been relatable is when she was morphed into a redhead and renamed Becky.

      A new character that actually acted like a terrifying female Republican desperately needed to be created for this storyline. It would have been so much more powerful. As it is, the storyline is like trying to discuss feminism while someone honks a clown horn after every sentence.

      Robin’s next storyline needs to be that she gets selected to be an astronaut, gets launched into space, encounters a problem with her capsule, and dies in an explosion because instead of communicating the problem to ground control like a normal person, she makes a torturous analogy to a Darkwing Duck episode or some shit, and halfway through it her ship explodes. It would be no less goofy or jarring than every single other time she’s appeared in this strip, and it would free up screen time for, well, anyone else permanently.

      1. butting

        “As it is, the storyline is like trying to discuss feminism while someone honks a clown horn after every sentence.”

        How does that differ from trying to discuss feminism in the current climate of MRAs, GamerGaters, Red Pillers, PUAs, Fox News, the NeoNazi resurgence, and Trump?

      2. Spencer

        I may be looking too deep into things, but I think you don’t like Robin.

      3. trlkly

        You’re not wrong in your first sentence, but that’s her entire character. She’s someone who is playing a part, so she always seems like she’s the wrong person for the part.

        And of course she’s being humorous. This is a comic, and it is humorous. While, at the same time, her humor is her way of dealing with everything.

        This comic won’t give you the moralizing version of feminism where everyone is clearly good or evil.

        1. NoOneLikesRobin

          I didn’t say she was humorous. I said she was “wacky”. Those two are wildly different. “Wacky” works in very tiny doses in a strip grounded in the real world like this. Robin is a nuclear payload of wacky every time and it’s jarring and detrimental.

          Willis needs to realize that some of his characters just aren’t that good.

        2. Spencer

          I agree with you in that I think Robin is kind of terrible in this series, this verse doesn’t have the wacky fun going on in the Walkyverse so here Robin’s obnoxious and creepy rather than being a zany spaz who gets elected to Congress while high on Cadbury Cream Egg cereal, like how I think this Mike is a garbage fire who should die.

          That said, I think it is completely hilarious that you hate Robin so much you decided to start posting here just for that, and named yourself for it.

          Hey maybe I should give that a whirl.

        3. SayidIsMyHusbando

          Ha!

        4. Travestyhat

          Ditto on the Mike, by the way: he’s reprehensible garbage and his whole ‘I’m going to seduce one of you to make the other one miserable’ thing mostly just reminds me of how done I am with the ‘hilarious sociopath’ schtick in media.

        5. BBCC

          I think you and I have very different real world experiences if you think Robin’s unrealistic.

        6. thejeff

          I think Robin’s very unrealistic. Not her being bigoted. Or even closeted and bigoted.
          The level to which she dismisses everyone around her. The speech patterns. The openly switching personas while talking to the class. The total lack of competence and dismissal of even those trying to help her career – Aide, in particular.
          And the way she’s so completely open about all of it. Politicians can definitely be fake and incompetent, but they work at presenting an image.

        7. BBCC

          I know a lot of people like that, tbh. They just go with what they think people want and paste veneer of wacky on top because they can’t stand to have anything remotely serious going on – either because it harshes their buzz or because ‘serious’ equals bad things in their mind. They’ll freely admit to it and then keep right on going anyways.

        8. Spencer

          I feel the best way to put is that Robin is evocative of real people, but also presented in an over the top, cartoonish fashion.

        9. BBCC

          ….What does it say about the people I hang out with that Robin isn’t all that over the top to me?

    4. trlkly

      Yeah, no. She’s nowhere near as unlikable as the actual villains in the comic. The reason why she’s even interesting is that we can buy that she could actually change–just clearly not yet.

      And there’s been no sign of her being a freeloader. Just of wanting to get away from all her political problems.

  40. Cholma

    I think this is exactly how David & Maggie first hooked up, except they discussed the finer points of Animaniacs Vs Tiny Toons, each showing different episodes to support their premise. 😀

    Sadly, the press was not waiting outside to record the outcome of this epic debate.

  41. Tan

    Dammit Robin. That is SUPER not useful.

    1. Arianod

      Well, she’s a politician. What did you expect.

      1. inqntrol

        They are known for not listening to what the people want.

        1. DonDueed

          Yeah, especially right now — the Republicans are ducking their constituents so hard they may end up with scoliosis.

  42. ValdVin

    Any Willis purposefulness on this bit (Robin’s finally saying she’s not wanting to go back to Congress) falling two.weeks into a new presidential administration, or just luck and happenstance of the buffer?

  43. BenRG

    Having a conversation with Robin is difficult and you need to sit down to parse carefully what she’s saying and what that means. In this case, despite her usual thick-witted inability to grasp difficult concepts immediately, what she’s saying is that, in Leslie’s apartment, she’s somewhere where she feels comfortable and happy. The implication is that this is something that happens for her only rarely.

  44. Reltzik

    First, let me acknowledge, that Robin’s being super-duper disrespectful (to an actually criminal degree) and has been for… well, since the bar last night at the very least.

    That said, I think there are two different conversations going on here.

    Robin is HAPPY here. Or at least she’s content. She could probably spend days happily cuddled up on Leslie’s couch watching TV with her. Robin doesn’t do depth, but she does do what she wants, and what she wants is to spend time with Leslie. In a way, that’s a compliment. Getting her to dissect her motives or see the big picture is a lost cause, but she’s got living in the now down pat.

    But of course that’s not what Leslie wants.

    And of course it’s never about what Leslie wants. Because Robin.

    1. Cerberus

      Yeah, it’s definitely very interesting that way. Robin is content here and honestly, if Leslie was the type of person willing to put up with casual dismissal of humanity for a good hearty snog on occasion, then Robin would be giddy as a kid in a candy store and would love nothing more than linger in the denial of this liminal space.

      But that’s not what Leslie wants and Robin is ignoring that because it’s inconvenient for what she wants and because she enters in with that base disrespect for Leslie’s boundaries and desires. And it’s why she’s also not going to get what she wants, because Leslie has self-respect enough that she’s not going to agree to be a side piece of ass to someone who does not respect her history and identity and who is unwilling to make progress towards growth and change.

  45. Bibulb

    “Or we could watch Back to the Future?”
    “What?”
    “…nothing.”

  46. Zaxares

    So for the benefit of those of us who don’t subscribe to Slipshine, can anyone confirm whether or not Robin and Leslie DID sex it up during the night? Because whether they did (and the circumstances in which it happened) could actually cast this exchange in some VERY different lights.

    1. Sam

      Um. I’m pretty sure they didn’t, Robin pretty much said she had the landlord let her in and she fell asleep on Leslie’s bed. And when Leslie woke up, she was startled to find her there. And then they mentioned in the kitchen that they hadn’t done anything but the press was already spinning things like they had.

      So it was already confirmed in comic that they didn’t do anything like that.

    2. BenRG

      The answer is ‘no’. What there has been is a lot of mutually nervous verbal and sub-verbal interaction with a flood season of Deriver Denial from Robin.

    3. Cerberus

      No slipshine with Leslie and Robin in this universe has been advertised in the sidebar.

      1. Reltzik

        But I predict that we’ll see ads for one in 54 days.

  47. Keulan

    I really hope Robin actually has learned from what Leslie said at the bar, but right now I’m not convinced she has yet.

    Also, that might be the best scene from the Lion King that Robin just referenced there.

    1. BenRG

      I’m really wondering if Robin is educationally challenged. She seems to have a genuine difficulty picking up anything that does not immediately refer to her and her desires.

      1. thejeff

        That’s not “educationally challenged”. That’s a skill that took years to develop and led her to a successful political career.

        1. BenRG

          “Successful political career”? I don’t call “Successful” someone whose position is so tenuous that her chances of re-election are genuinely threatened by a guy whose only argument is that her boobies are too small! “Not talkative enough to notice” would be closer to the mark, I think.

        2. Cerberus

          Well, that’s the problem when you’re all style and no substance and your entire platform is just stonewalling reality and running out the clock. You leave yourself open to attack from someone equally vacuous, because the people who would be attracted to your sort of substanceless campaign are very likely to be fickle and jump to literally anyone else who offers similar.

        3. thejeff

          Getting elected to Congress is pretty damn successful. Most politicians who aspire to it never make it that far.

  48. Trolldrool

    So is there any reason whatsoever BESIDES them being a couple in Shortpacked for why we should support them getting together here? Because so far this just seems like a cautionary tale to never leave our libido in charge of decision-making.

    1. Schpoonman

      I think general consensus is that with time and a shitton of character development, they would be a workable pair, but right now Robin is fucking toxic and needs to get the fuck out of Leslie’s life for a while.

    2. Killjoy

      Even an entire volley of canon cannot sink some ships.

    3. Lulu

      Not really.
      You can joke about that opposites attract, but it works more on short lenght of time than for long life relationship.
      If Leslie would want to have fun I bet Robin would be up for experimenting in this exact moment but then of what I saw Leslie here I would prefer to see her moving on on some more reasonable girlfriend material than Robin.
      If Leslie and Robin need to happen cause they have many fans as a couple from Shortpacked universe then we can’t really do anything about it…

    4. C.T. Phipps

      I’m actually hoping Robin is a deconstruction of wackiness and will eventually just be thrown away from the script or made bad. Sort of like how Mary went from the Idealized Fundamentalist GirlTM to Satan.

      1. trlkly

        Mary was just an ideal Fundie in the other universe, then? What little I saw of her, she still seemed quite awful.

        She’s definitely been awful since the beginning in this universe.

        1. BBCC

          Willis originally designed her to be his perfect girl – pretty, Christian, an artist, etc. before he realized ‘oh lord, she’s an asshole, okay, time for a new direction’.

        2. JBento

          And vest-wearing. Don’t forget the vest.

      2. Commodore Jeep-Eep

        Same here, mainly because I really don’t want to see another abusive F/F relationship fetishized.

    5. Travestyhat

      Basically this, yeah: Robin and Leslie somehow turned into something vaguely romantic-ish (emphasis on -ish) in Shortpacked but the interplay between them in this series feels like nothing so much as the two of them being thrown at one another just based on nostalgia bait. And honestly I like this comic the best when it’s charting a new course and not wallowing in nostalgia.

  49. Potatamoto

    Okay, I grant that Robin is a total mess, that’s pretty obvious. So, when is Leslie going to stop acting like the female lead in a bad romantic comedy and treating Robin like she’s going to turn into fucking Vince Vaughn any moment now?

    WHAT DO *YOU* WANT LESLIE? You are an actual person, so you need to stop trying to guide Robin to her third act epiphany and get a grip on this situation.

    1. laladoria

      Leslie wants Robin to learn, so I feel like she’s pleasing both parties here.

    2. Kamino Neko

      What Leslie wants is Robin…her fantasy Robin, who’s learned not to be a jackhole.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        Gay or straight, if your love depends on changing your partner, it’s doomed.

  50. JessWitt

    The way that last statement was phrased it sounds like Robin wants to continue watching TV and couch sitting. Or maybe it’s a subtle double negative? Grammar’s a trip.

    1. Killjoy

      That’s how I read it.

      Thing is, Robin really needs to go for a while.

  51. Killjoy

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3582MaUEAED7A7.jpg

  52. BenRG

    This is probably me but I suddenly had a chilling realisation that Robin may actually believe that the quote from The Lion King was part of her conversation with Leslie in the bar. Either that or she was paying so little attention that her brain is defaulting to her pop culture memories to fill in the blanks.

    Neither of these things bode well for this conversation.

    1. Cerberus

      I’m of a similar mind, though I strongly believe it is the latter scenario. And yeah, it’s not good at all and a sign that when Leslie was pouring out her fucking heart and dredging up physically painful memories, Robin couldn’t have given less of a shit and didn’t retain even the memory of what she vaguely said.

    2. JBento

      It’s the latter. It’s always been the latter. Because Robin doesn’t care. As far as Robin is concerned, Leslie matters only insofar as she fulfills Robin’s desires. Robin is actually Trump, only wacky instead of angry and without Bannon/Putin/whoever else the fuck pulling the strings. They’re evil. Not in the way that they actively want to see people suffer, but in the sense that they’ll willingly throw anyone under the proverbial bus to improve their own station.

      Well, and Robin doesn’t want to fuck any of her daughters, I guess.

  53. JBento

    Good luck for tomorrow, you US lot. Hopefully, you can find a third Republican… congressperson? senator? I keep confusing the two positions – that isn’t a TOTAL shitstain and at least the deVos creature doesn’t go through.

    1. Killjoy

      DeVos is from my state. For anyone who doesn’t know, she’s a pathetic sockpuppet for the sorts of people who…

      A) want to Balkanize education for the sake of maintaining the ideological purity of their children (think, people who home school right now because their local Christian private school is “too lenient”)

      B) want to eliminate public education as a subset of eliminating as much “government” as they can, for ideological reasons

      C) want to make a profit off milking the public treasury for as much as possible while providing the cheapest diploma-mill “education” they can get away with providing — think the Comcast of education.

      D) some combination of above

      She’s a vapid ignoramus who only got to where she is by being married into the intensely creepy DeVos family (Millenialist, Dominionist, and Amway).

      1. JBento

        I’m (for obvious reasons) not entirely familiarised with the character, but isn’t she connected to some paramilitary organisation which is guilty of war crimes as well? Or am I thinking of a different totally unqualified Trump nominee?

        1. Killjoy

          Just what I know about her here in MI is enough to oppose her to the bitter end.

          Her husband Dick DeVos ran for governor here a while back… he’s an absolute nutter.

          And here she is: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/betsy-devos-education-trump-religion-232150

          Amway may have had some dealings with paramilitaries in countries it operates in, but looking it up mainly gets shadowy ties to inventors and some joke sites about Dick DeVos being kidnapped by “liberal paramilitaries” in MI.

        2. thejeff

          Her brother Erik Prince is the founder of what used to be Blackwater, Inc, a private military security company – mercenaries, essentially. They did a lot of work in Iraq, got in a bunch of legal trouble and has changed its name a couple times since.

        3. JBento

          Blackwater, that’d be it! Thanks.

        4. Killjoy

          Hmmm…

          http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/18/1622036/-Blackwater-boss-Erik-Prince-helped-hack-the-election-for-Trump

          This is the broader stuff that scares me, that I keep sending out to people who I know voted for Trump, trying to open their eyes.

        5. Bad Cinema

          Killjoy, it’s the DAILY KOS. That’s like a Conservative quoting Breitbart, and to a Conservative (or many aware moderates) Daily Kos is the very essence of phoney journalism and fake news.
          Means you’re not going to get traction with the story. Seriously, you won’t-because they’ll look at the source and remember the late 90s through 2008. You might as well be sending them dispatches from your local office of the Communist Party as far as they’re concerned. It would be like one of them sending YOU a link to…oh…Rush Limbaugh and expecting you to take the source seriously.

        6. Killjoy

          If I’d put all the links from other sources making the same connections, my post would have dropped into the “awaiting moderation” abyss.

          CNN, Washington Post, Huffington, The Atlantic, etc.

    2. BBCC

      5calls.org will give you guys in the states a call list and scripts for people to oppose this and a few other things. All it needs is a ZIP code, which you can get by typing your full address into google maps.

  54. Bad Cinema

    Robin’s expression doesn’t look ‘contented’ or ‘happy’. she looks in that last panel like she’s absolutely miserable. No telling if that’s Willis’ direction or not, but sometimes self-discovery and self-awareness can put your lights out.

  55. Killjoy

    Meanwhile, two increasingly radical parties = who the hell does someone not motivated by anger and ideological purity cast their vote?

    http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-democrats-analysis-20170205-story.html

    1. C.T. Phipps

      The Neo-Con Democrats are in an unfortunate position in that the aging voter base has basically nothing in common with any of their positions. Specifically, the YOUNG voters who have aged enough to vote who have as much in common with the compromise right-leaning Donkeys as they do with Martians. Effectively, as they were going right to appeal to the Right, their base’s children grew up and went Left.

    2. Commodore Jeep-Eep

      >Democrats

      >Radical in anything except serving their corp donors.

      >AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

      >LOLGREENTEXT

      1. Killjoy

        The recent DNC, has headed by Hillary “Wall Street” Clinton? No.

        The possible future course of the Democratic party, as laid out in the article I linked to? Yes.

        1. Mav

          Is that first sentence a joke? I mean, given the situation we’re in now…really?

        2. Heavensrun

          The fact that Trump is worse does not mean that Hillary was good, and acknowledging Hillary’s ties to Wall Street is not the same thing as saying that the current situation is acceptable.

        3. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          Indeed, the fact that the dems vanished up their own assholes on this and many other things is a major part of how one idiot careerist was allowed to make her vanity run and possibly bring about the beginning of the end for our species.

    3. Bad Cinema

      I voted for Gary Johnson. the problem of “Ideological Purity” and hatred is a tough one to solve. Especially with a climate where anyone to the right of Bill Ayers is going to be called “Nazi” and anyone to the left of Georgie Patton is going to be called a “Commie”. The problem isn’t easy to solve, in part because everyone sits in an echo chamber discounting all but their partisan narratives, even when those narratives fail the common-sense test…because it’s “Their Team” and the other guy is satan incarnate.

      1. Mav

        At least for me it wasn’t about purity so much as preventing the total disaster that we’re in now. In my experience, many of the third-party voters and the knee-jerk toupee voters did so because of ideological purity issues, i.e., yes there could be a third party candidate for sure, but it really doesn’t help to only care whenever there’s a presidential election, then complain when there are few choices. It’s a perpetual loop. That my not be you, but that’s the reasoning most of the people I know who voted third party did it. Voting for Hillary was not an ideological purity thing.

      2. Pat

        Goodness, that sounds embarrassing. Well, at least you can admit what you did wrong, but I’m hardly ready to forgive you quite yet.

  56. C.T. Phipps

    Panel reactions from me:

    1. Leslie is trying to figure out how to go back to her normal life after her fantasy weekend sort of happened but Robin has no interest in this. There’s a story about how Anne Heche once went to a woman’s house and plopped herself in for the day much to their bewilderment. Robin, here, I suspect, knows there’s nothing for her outside but problems and her best idea is to ignore them until the news cycle changes.

    2. Leslie’s reaction kind of underscores a major problem of hers rather than Robins. Leslie has fallen into the trap of straight, bi, and gay couples forever: trying to change a partner is a fool’s game. Leslie isn’t trying to make Robin a better person or awaken her to gay rights, well she is but that’s not her actual motivation (deeply suppressed as it is) but to make her an appealing partner.

    3. Why in the world, Leslie, would you believe she’s paid attention to ANYTHING you’ve said?

    4. The scary thing is that I believe she probably heard the Lion King for real in her memories (ninjaed!)

    5. No, Leslie, no. Don’t convince yourself she’s had an epiphany. Robin would hardly be the first homophobic bigoted politician who has homosexual affairs. You’re not someone she’s come to respect, just someone she wants to have sex with. You’re the Family Values Candidate Mistress.

    6. Robin shows where her priorities lie: using Leslie as stress relief. Which shows what this ACTUALLY has all been about. It’s not been about Robin awakening to the humanity of homosexuals or her own bisexual tendencies, it’s been about her getting away from a stressful campaign.

    “Now, be a good pet and help me relax before I ban you from health care.”

    1. chris73

      Leslie was a doormat in SP so it makes sense shes a doormat here as well

      1. C.T. Phipps

        It’s why I always felt her happy ending was less happy than it should have been. Then again, “realistic consequences” were never the point of shortpacked the way they are in DoA.

        1. JBento

          Are you implying that soggies may not, in fact, rule?

    2. Cerberus

      I largely agree and that’s what I think is so interesting about this dynamic. Because it’s playing a lesbian semi-dating a closeted conservative-minded politician straight and it doesn’t shy away from how fucked up that dynamic actually is.

      And we see that in Leslie’s turmoil between her head and her heart. Her heart craves Robin. She’s funny, driven, accomplished, and very sexy to her. And like all folks in love, it’s easy to get blinders on with regards to that love.

      Hell, how fucked up most dynamics between a person belonging to a marginalized group and a person whose actions actively harm that group. We see it in things like that neo-nazi podcast host who recently got outed as having a Jewish wife. Or any women who falls in love with a raging misogynist. Or the “piece on the side” for a closeted “family values” conservative.

      And some of that is due to abuse dynamics, but on the less directly damaging side of the spectrum, it can simply arise because well, love makes us idiots. Part of us always wants to see the best in those we love and we can easily find blinders as to their worst actions or find excuses to the harm they do, especially when we feel invested in our love and a desire to not feel like a chump.

      And so, we get those moments where Leslie is taken in by Robin’s shenanigans surrounding her boundaries. Where she is tempted to give in, have a good honest snog, and cling to these tiny little scraps as if they were genuine signs that her love is changing Robin for the better. Where she wants to ignore or overlook the damage her worldview does or how little she actually respects her experiences and life.

      But on the flip side, we get that rage and frustration at being seen as just a thing to be used by someone who has no intention of becoming any less of a bigot. The other half of Leslie has too much self-respect to go down that road, which is why she keeps on trying to set firm boundaries and separate herself and keeps getting down on herself for forgetting what Robin has done in her role as congressperson and what her views are.

      And while I can exactly picture how torturous that is for Leslie because I’ve been locked in that struggle of self-worth versus hope for redemption with people I love, it does make for an interesting arc because it’s really realistic to the internal struggles of wanting or having hope for someone who is really toxic and bad for you.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        Yeah, that’s the part which doesn’t require Leslie being a lesbian or Robin being bi or conservative. In the simplest terms, any relationship is doomed because Robin DOESN’T CARE about the issues. She pays the barest minimum amount of attention to get Leslie to back off but has no self-examination and actively resists it. Leslie wants someone deep and has got someone ENORMOUSLY shallow and self-absorbed. It just so happens that also allows her to hurt disadvantaged people for their own gain.

        1. Cerberus

          Very true. Though I think the fact that Robin is also working against the identities that Leslie belongs to adds an extra layer of fuckupedness to the whole affair.

          Cause it puts Leslie in the position of not just begging to be heard about issues that are important to her, but begging on behalf of her very humanity and real life experiences.

  57. trlkly

    Robin in the first and last panels: I finally see how she’s sexy enough for Leslie to be all discombobulated.

  58. Karishi

    It took Senator DeSanto a long time to come to this ridiculous, idiotic conclusion. Truly, this journey has been a
    Dumbing of Age
    *roll intro credits*

  59. Bagge

    And that’s how Robin became the queen of Sweden

    1. Emperor Norton II

      You become monarchy in Sweden by just sitting down in the royal couch and not leaving?

      Ehh, still better than becoming monarchy by inbreeding.

      1. Bagge

        You see, there was this police that was so smart that he should have all the nobel prices in the world, but he really didn’t care for it that much so the king of Sweden kept stalking him to get him to accept the darned things, but eventually the king grew bored so he crashed on the sofa of two mad scientists who kinda knew the police (mostly because he kept having to arrest them by contradicting their latest stupid plans by hitting them with sticks), and then the king refused to leave whatever the mad scientists did.

        Thus, the king of Sweden is someone who refuses to leave a sofa.

        And Bob was there too!
        http://www.galactanet.com/comic/view.php?strip=432

  60. kkiten

    man I wish I would find pant like Leslie’s! All I can ever find are booty shorts and 3/4 pants, it’s nigh impossible to find pants that are regular shorts length. They are like skirts with pockets, unflattering but comfy, and also impossible to find anywhere.

  61. BBCC

    Panel One: Yuuuuuuup. Seems about right. Leslie wants to talk about how she’s been affected by this, with the press outside waiting to harass her and ask a zillion invasive questions. And Robin treats her like a maid, asking for pop tarts. Asshole.

    Panel Two: Awwwwwww. Leslie breaks my heart here. Because you know the answer to that is no. It hasn’t. Not substantially. Robin still has no intentions of respecting you or treating your wants, needs, boundaries, or experiences with any kind of respect. She’s still going to treat you like a maid or someone who should like her.

    Panel Three: And yeah, here she is trying to beg for any sign it wasn’t a waste of time. To know she has in fact impacted Robin in some measurable way. To know she’s not pouring her heart out to someone who fundamentally could not care less.

    Unfortunately, Robin is allergic to being serious, so yeah, the answer is probably no – at least as far as she’d admit.

    Panel Four: Yeah, nah. Everything from the bar has been deemed ‘serious’ and therefore she has no intentions of addressing it, assuming she didn’t filter it right out. ‘Blah blah, pop culture reference with dismissive boiled down version of point, blah blah’.

    Panel Five: Awwwww, Leslie’s so cute here. And yeah, always in teacher mode, trying to point Robin towards her actual point in a way she’s hoping Robin will internalize and understand. She wants to help and she thinks Robin is adorable, and it’s cute.

    Panel Six: Except Robin has no intentions of listening or treating Leslie with respect. Again, she’s allergic to any kind of seriousness so she’s more than willing to toss it out on its ear. And while she may mean she wants to stay with Leslie and that same seriousness allergy won’t let her put it that way, phrasing it this way, as though she expects Leslie to be okay with it, is dickish and she needs to get called out. She cannot keep treating Leslie like a doormat and a maid while shitting on everything important she tries to tell her. ASSHOLE.

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