This week in Welcome To The Fuck Zone is Amber! Amber and a booklet of some sort. If you're a Slipshine member, you can pop right on over. Threat
This week in Welcome To The Fuck Zone is Amber! Amber and a booklet of some sort. If you're a Slipshine member, you can pop right on over.
353 thoughts on “Threat”
Ana Chronistic
might be easier to escape Robin by just getting Leslie a whole new apartment and not telling anybody where it is
even Leslie
or, idk, have her investigate 45
Solenoid
My vote’s on investigation
AnvilPro
Leslie doesn’t appreciate the new slang
Yumi
HELLO, I am here to freak out about this Hayley Mills reference, thank you for this.
Maveric1984
Yeah… I have no idea who that is…
tim gueguen
She’s a British actress. She’s had a long career, and is best known in North America for her Disney films, especially the original version of The Parent Trap from 1961.
Proxiehunter
Which she stared in along side Hayley Mills.
Briny
Let’s be fair- Hayley Mills totally carried Hayley Mills in that movie.
Lan
She was totally overshadowed by Hayley Mills though.
Yumi
Like I don’t fully get why it was made? Also interesting to me that someone Robin’s age would be making it– I’m a few years younger than her, but my experience has been people my age not knowing who she is. (And then I’m like, “Well, in the original Parent Trap…” and some are like, “Wait, there’s an older Parent Trap?”)
tim gueguen
In a way I’d almost expect Joyce to know who she is, not Robin. I can imagine Joyce’s parents letting her watch 50 year old Disney movies, assuming they’re wholesome and not “anti-Christian” like modern secular culture.
Minotaur
Well, she definitely saw the old version of the Parent Trap: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/pizza-2/
So you’re right about Joyce knowing who she is.
Inara
I’m assuming the reference was more specifically to Haley Mills playing Pollyanna.
Yumi
That makes sense! Kinda roundabout, but now I’m imagining Robin looking up who played Pollyanna in preparation for this exact moment.
And no one even cares.
Meta
Sal called Joyce Pollyanna early on, maybe Willis didn’t want to repeat the joke word for word
Kamino Neko
She’s not really being a Pollyanna here, though. She’s being cynical and pessimistic, which is the opposite of the endless optimism of Pollyanna.
jeffepp
She was in the LL version. If I remember correctly, she played the mom.
Yumi
She was not/did not. You may be thinking of the TV movie Parent Trap sequels?
Dellaran
The mom in the LL version was the late Natasha Richardson.
sundriedrainbow
In the original Parent Trap, Joanna Barnes played Vicky Robinson, the woman that the twins’ father was going to marry.
In the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap, Joanna Barnes played Vicki Blake, the twins’ father’s mother.
Clare
Not the twins’ father’s mother–the mother of the woman that the twins’ father was going to marry.
vlademir1
I’m going to say blame the cartoonist. Speaking from my own experience, as only a scant few months younger than Willis, he likely doesn’t see a 30ish Robin as having all that different experiences growing up and the Hailey Mills version of the films Pollyanna and The Parent Trap saw a reasonable amount of replay between the then premium Disney channel and The Magical World of Disney during my own childhood in the ’80s. That said, those few years do make a significant difference that can be very difficult to remember at this age, because the era when that was done was only between the mid-80s and very early ’90s.
Individual Lies
I wanna say it lasted into the mid to late 90s, as well. Or at least sporadically, ’cause I’m 29 and I remember watching those movies a lot on Disney. Along with The Love Bug, The Absent-Minded Professor, The Shaggy Dog, and lots more.
Though as I type this I remember having to stay up really late to watch these movies.
vlademir1
I wouldn’t be surprised, but I lost touch with Disney outside theatrical releases around the time The New Mickey Mouse Club started and didn’t touch it again until around the time of Kim Possible (which was when they went from premium to basic locally).
Ed Rhodes
I am so old. I saw ALL of those movies in theaters!
sjmcc13
IIRC There are movies older then willis that are still in Theatres 😉
Or do you mean when they were new.
Kamino Neko
Yous parents have good taste.
Shiro
I…don’t get it… >_>
Yumi
You know, I don’t get it either, but I was named after her, and it is very rare for me to run into media where she is relevant, so I get excited.
zoelogical
yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah same
wheelpath
When Robin puts it like that, Leslie is a straight up supervillian
/obvious snark
/I’m being sarcastic fellow commenters, plz don’t yell at me
wheelpath
I just realized how apt my Dina gravatar is for this. Let the lizbians sleep together, damn it! It’s for SCIENCE
butting
There is no Dina, only Zuul!
(is anyone else thinking that the “modern human” in the graphic–supposedly their paleoartist–looks suspiciously like Annie Potts?)
fillerusername
Oh my god Robin I seriously fucking hate you.
Derek
I second that emotion
Ragnarok101
Third! Walkyverse Robin was entertaining, this Robin is straight-up evil.
Tan
Fourth
fillerusername
Leslie would probably fifth it at this point.
Chris
Robin may sixth this!
fillerusername
I think you’re giving her too much credit.
Terry
No, Robin would sixth it. She goes with the popular vote.
Usayasha
I think she prefers the Electoral College to the popular vote.
Kingmonster
Well I’m definitely seventh.
Leorale
You could probably just count the commenters and have a pretty accurate number of those who agree. (Possibly you could even count the readers of the comic, but they aren’t saying.)
C.T Phipps
Well, Becky’s life IS great. I mean, her dad is out of the picture for good! That’s a good thing! No mom either!
boop
and ‘saved by superhero’ is evidence that she’s got a great life. “an amazing fireman pulled her out of the fire that burnt down her house and all her posessions, so obviously everything is fine!”
Bibulb
DING DING DING WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER
Tacos
By all accounts, her mom was decent.
SgtWadeyWilson
I think he was going for the sarcasm: “Like, she’s basically an orphan now, and that’s how Bruce Banner became Batmite, so her life must be totes spectacular!”
Rukduk
Dear god but all the comic book sins in that statement make want to curb stomp you. But then the logos part of brain kicks in.
Travestyhat
She is the worst.
zoelogical
she’s terrible
Kamino Neko
So with you there.
Pylgrim
Tell me exactly how Robin is wrong here. I’m not saying that she’s not being an asshole (as always) but she was right when she pointed out that Leslie “weaponising” Becky’s situation was a shameless politician-like move, and she’s right again here when pointing out that she clearly didn’t even think it through.
Note that I am not trying to justify Robin in general but when a good person like Leslie stoops to use this kind of tactics she needs to be called out on it and Robin is perhaps the only person in the strip with both the cunning to notice it and the balls to just throw it on her face.
Kamino Neko
‘Oh, she’s not homeless, she has a home, that she will be kicked out of in a few days, and will probably get her girlfriend in trouble, too. And a superhero saved her from the man who wanted to torture her! That’s so much better than not having someone try to murder your girlfriend and kidnap you to torture you!’
Yeah, Robin’s being a wonderful fucking person. So much better than the asshole she’s stalking.
CoMa
I completely agree with you!
But with regards to the comics, I doubt Robin is even able to see it that way, especially if she is in denial about herself 24/7. I mean, she sees a cheerful Becky on the couch who told her only positive stuff, mainly because she doesn’t want to be dragged down by the negative things in her whole situation (which is, for her, good, unless she stays that way – because then she’s starting to avoid everything serious. But even Joyce didn’t want to talk about Scarface at first, so I’d cut them both some slack. Becky especially probably needs time to work everything through in her mind…)
Now where was I?
Oh yeah – Becky is cheerful, Robin just looks at it superficially; Becky being cheerful makes it of course even EASIER for Robin to say “Everything’s fine, why do you complain?” to Leslie…
So from Robin’s warped point of view, everything’s hunky-dory.
This of course isn’t meant as any justification at all. Just as a maybe possible explanation of that Robin probably didn’t even consider any of the points you mentioned for longer than the fraction of a second, shoving them out of her mind, because it’s so much easier to not feel any guilt or anything because of that. So what I’m trying to say is – Robin doesn’t even consider those things, I think. It’s hard to tell with how she’s acting.
So yeah, you phrased it perfectly: She’s being a wonderful fucking person.
Emily
Robin is a manipulative egomaniac. Becky could be a sobbing wreck and she’d still find a way to justify her actions because at the end of the day her convenience is the most important thing in the world Becky just made it easier for her to do by being pleasant. Robin doesn’t CARE about other people if it requires any sort of meaningful inconvenience on her part otherwise she wouldn’t be fucking squatting in Leslie’s home.
CoMa
Exactly – though she’d definitely have a more difficult time with that. Well, I still think that Robin at least knows enough of emotions to see that someone crying means that something is wrong – so her argumentation would be more difficult. But I think that’s what you said anyway.
Emily
Yeah, like she’s perfectly willing to recognize someone elses distress it just doesn’t really matter to her especially when relieving it would come at the expense of her indulging her whims.
Pylgrim
I tried to make very, very clear that I was not justifying Robin let alone saying that she’s “wonderful” but when pointing these things out to Leslie she’s /right/. It may have come as an act of selfishness to benefit herself but she’s capable of making correct observations. Let this be a lesson: when a good person uses bad tactics to fight a bad person, those tactics are not only likely not to work (as the bad person is wise to them) but also it will give the bad person a foothold to throw your hypocrisy back on the face of the good person, effectively weakening their argument.
Another reason why I felt the need to point out that in this matter Robin is right and Leslie wrong is because I’m a bit tired of all the comments completely demonising Robin. I see so much of that crap in real life that I though this would be a place to try to educate people. Yes, Robin is a selfish asshole incapable to see how her privilege and the self-indulgence with which she wields it hurts others. But she a human being. One that has shown herself somewhat open to dialogue and who has demonstrated not to be hateful, merely self-centered and ignorant. A person like that doesn’t need to be destroyed like a monster (such attempts will only serve to make her and other people like her actually hateful and more entrenched) but converted into an ally. I’ve seen many windows of opportunity to do so and I’m sad to say that Leslie has squandered most of them due to acting and reacting overly emotionally, and yet, the negative outcome of their interactions are time and again placed on Robin’s shoulders, even–as it’s the case here–when she’s the one in the right.
Pylgrim
(Apologies for the wrong use of pronoun next to “hypocrisy” I was initially redacting the sentence with “you” used as a general term and when I changed the phrasing to be less vague, that pronoun was accidentally left over. I was not meaning /you/ you.)
Tan
Robin is twisting the fuck out of Becky having a positive attitude and not wanting to be pitied into deciding that the couch-surfing basically-orphan who’s breaking dorm rules just to have a path to survive is less in need than the congresswoman with two homes (probably not including her parents’ home in which she’d likely be welcome) who’s squatting Leslie’s apartment uninvited just because she wants to.
It’s a bullshit catch-22 where if Becky WAS in a woe-is-me funk desperate for help, Robin would’ve accused her of not doing for herself and just looking for a handout, yet because Becky IS doing what she can for herself, she’s not in need ‘enough’
And most of all… It’s not Robin’s fucking decision whether Becky sufficiently ‘deserves’ that couch, because it’s not Robin’s fucking home. Robin has inserted herself into Leslie’s life and keeps making up her own rules to justify whatever the hell she wants, yet also calls out Leslie for playing Robin’s game?
Robin broke into Leslie’s apartment uninvited and has remained despite numerous attempts to get her to leave. Leslie would be offering Becky that couch regardless of the whole situation with Robin. Yet somehow Leslie is ‘stooping’ to some monstrous level by trying to make Robin feel some basic human empathy for the person she’s putting out with her continued squatting?
Emily
Samesies!
Vulcanodon
I concur. Does everyone else concur?
Orion Fury
No, but I blame it on not being a new(er) fan of Willis. Around, what, 15 years of being with these characters tends to have me give them some slack. Well, so long as they weren’t irredeemable monster from the start. And didn’t get a character growth arc. So, it’s pretty much Ryan and Ross I hate.
Also, in case anyone is wondering, I’m viewing Robin as having a breakdown, with the realization of what she’s done and how it’s been harmful, and is putting on a wacky facade to hide from the pain, and is clinging onto what she views as a safe space. As well as Becky being Becky, and putting a brave face on everything, Robin take-away from their conversation makes sense, since it would’ve boiled down to “Yeah, I lost my home, and my Dad’s abusive; but he’s going to prison, I have a job, and a girlfriend who says I can stay with her” (to which that last one appears to be a lie, but Robin doesn’t know that) “so things are definitely better now.” She’d probably recall the trauma of having to break into her own house as an adventure with Joyce ‘Punching’ Brown.
Vulcanodon
Sounds like you have experience with these characters in another universe. Your view is more god-like as a consequence where I prefer to take a mortal view in just the Dumbiverse. I like being surprised as the story unfolds on this plane of existence.
Orion Fury
It would be nice to be able to view this work wholly on it’s own, but I’d probably just be gnashing my teeth far more than it’s good for me to do so.
Rukduk
Also, on the plus side, I just realized that Robin is now openly stating that sex between two women is okay and should not be stopped so…slight progress?
Temperaryobsessor
In private, Robins a mercenary not a bigot.
SarahSaur
In public too. As in, in public she’s a bigot because it brings her personal gain (votes), currently in private she is saying good things about two women sleeping together because she thinks that will bring her gains (staying with leslie).
She’s a mercenary who will do lots of awful things so long as the price is right.
Deviant
And soon Robin is shown to be a human being we can relate with. I remember when people disliked Ruth and Carla. But then the Fire nation attacked.
SgtWadeyWilson
It all changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Except, like, Mary… ****in’ Mary, so terrible.
Rukduk