Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
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The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
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Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Not Drunk Enough
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Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
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Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Nerf Now!!
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A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Novae
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A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
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A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
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Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
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A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Augustine
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August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Empowered
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A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
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Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
The Messenger
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In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
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A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
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Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
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After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
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Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
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Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
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It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
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To be fair, I think the only time it was stated she (Roz) was straight was when Robin came in following the sex-tape thing. And even then it was Robin stating that Roz was straight in response to one of Roz’s statements. I’ll have to go back through the archives and look…but I just realized I don’t know how to link to other pages in a comment.
There’s an HTML cheatsheet under the comment box. To link a page, use the ‘a href’ one, and put your desired URL in between the quotation marks.
I’ll use brackets to demonstrate: [a href=”website.com”]text you want to show up[/a]
Hopefully it won’t try to render that. Maybe I should ha e tried parentheses.
For the sake of additional clarity, you are supposed to use angle brackets (less-than and greater-than symbols) like so: <a href=”website.com”>text you want to show up</a>
and for Disloyal Subject if you want to type it in so that it shows up exactly the way they are supposed to type it in you can use “<” for < and “&gt;” for >
It’d be just like her to erase her sister’s sexuality for the sake of politics; the trick that’s being planned by her younger sibling is going be very pleasing to watch.
TBF, Roz DID say immediately after Robin asked if she was gay, she responded ‘Nope, just real good at gettin’ out of shit I don’t want to do.” If she DID like girls as well, I suspect she’d be snarky and say “Nope, bi/pan/omni/poly/etc.”
Also she said she was straight over in Shortpacked. Then again, our sexuality (or our understanding thereof) is constantly changing, so she could get an ‘update’ the way Danny did.
She identified herself as Straight when the gays were watching Monsters, Inc and wanted to arrange baby-making sex, while she, as ‘the only straight person in the room’, was immune.
I’ve always been of the mind that in the end it’s more about the who than the what. Maybe you like guys but there’s that one chick that just does it for you. Or several. Like, sexual orientation is just a state of mind.
Leslie’s more like King Ezequiel! [played by Khary Payton, AKA Cyborg (Ten Titans), Grimlock(Transformers:RiD), Kaldur’ahm (Young Justice), & Smuggler(DeusEx1) among others]
Like Amber saying (to Danny) AG has great hair, but Amber has to keep her “Prom Hair” to keep them apart. Leslie just fluffed it up, and it looks great.
It’s not bad, it was drawn that way. [Repeatedly bangs head on screen out of frustration of once again coming in late and finding all the really great comments already taken.] Well done.
I WILL NOT MAKE GEOMETRY PUNS.
I WILL NOT MAKE GEOMETRY PUNS.
I WILL . . .
. . . It sure looks like she made a 180° turn in how she presents herself. . .
WHY DID I DO THAT?
WHY DID I DO THAT?
(must have been the fallen angle on my shoulder)
(or an inherent weakness for straight lines)
Like, you saw the text and you’re a native english speaker (I’m pretty sure)! How would you not then go down the page? I’m gay as a bag of cats and didn’t notice til after her face and hair.
I first noticed the blush, then the coordination of the purples in her outfit, then her hair, and this is pretty consistent with what happens when women catch my eye in real life. The first thing that pops into my head, usually, is how well coordinated their outfit is, or how well their hair suits them. I then make a note of this, and proceed with my day without further comment or consideration.
Actually, while catcalling has never been a thing which it’s occurred to me to do, I do actively have to stop myself from commenting aloud on, for example, how much I like the color of a strange woman’s dress. I assume that would be weird for them, since I, to them, am a strange man.
(I remain strange, incidentally, even to the people who know me, but that is not the point here.)
Hair is a pretty good shorthand for identifying familiar individuals, so I tend to glance there first. These characters being in a comic, I don’t automatically look at their torsos to assess posture for threat assessment, so I often miss out on cleavage until it’s pointed out.
I sat here for like four minutes, constantly refreshing this and Twitter, hoping to finally be the first comment on a Dumbing of Age strip.
It was going to be the icing on my I-finished-rereading-after-reading-through-the-Walkyverse cake.
Didn’t even get a way to GO to this strip until four minutes after the first comment was posted.
;-;
Also it took me a minute to even realize that was Leslie
for some reason, this site’s rss feed doesnt update until after comments have trickled in. My best luck with getting first comment has been just that, luck. luck in timing when the update happens and luck in coming up with a moderately clever comment quickly
It took me having Joe say something to realize it was her. Thought it was some guest lecturer. Also, it feels like there’s a sexism debate waiting to spawn in the comments, for some reason…
The trick is to show up at update time, wait the 5 minutes for the site to catch up to reality and post the comic, and then open the comic’s URL to access the comments. It’s actually not very hard to beat the rush most days, but digesting the strip and coming up with a response can take up precious time if you for whatever reason sre deliberately attempting a first.
Wally and Joe’s rapport is hilarious, and, yes, Leslie looks very…ravish-able. Also ridiculous, but so is the person she’s trying to seduce, so that’ll probably work in her favor.
… also, why’s it called a walk of shame rather than, dunno, walk of pride? I get it, toxicity of culture, but WHY is it that way? There’s gotta be some reason…
……
Hmmm…. are there any other red capes I can twitch where Cerberus can see them?
“Walk of shame” is when you come home in the morning, wearing the same clothes as the night before. Usually because of a booty call, but not always. (you could also have been face down in the gutter all night; the point is that you’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes so everyone knows you didn’t sleep at home that night)
Pretty much. The specifics basically relate to fairly old ideas that a woman’s role is to protect her virtue as defined by her virginity against the predations of men who use any trick they can to acquire said prize against the woman’s efforts to avoid “giving it away”.
And so “walk of shame” was used and sadly still is used to try and shame women who have casual sex outside of marriage as that is seen as the woman failing to “protect their virtue” and thus revealing herself as a wanton slattern who is clearly now to be regarded as without social value.
Which is why I wish I could find a comedy video I love where a woman leaves a house after casual sex and everyone congratulates her on having had a good night instead of making derogatory slurs about her presumed sexual history.
I have lived that video and it was glorious. I hooked up at a pagan festival, and in the morning when I emerged from the guy’s tent, the family across the way congratulated me and offered me breakfast.
The closest thing I’ve witnessed to a walk of shame is one lady roommate coming home after a mysterious night’s absence and saying to another lady roommate “I got laid. Pay up.” Apparently they had a bet as to who would get some next.
… I wish I could find a comedy video I love where a woman leaves a house after casual sex and everyone congratulates her on having had a good night instead of making derogatory slurs about her presumed sexual history.
I would’ve guessed Broad City would have that covered (or something similar).
I love that one. Especially when the Major dude shows up with the key. You can just see him farting around in his office and then panic to put on his tie and find the key under a stack of papers when he see the protagonist through the window.
On the other hand, screwing/dating a fucking closet-case repub who’d throw you and your queer students under the bus in a second for a political advantage is something worthy of shame.
*Delayed until tomorrow* for reasons of not wanting to deal with certain arguments after a really really shitty day*.
*The short story is one of my trans students was raped on campus, I warned admin a month ago that they were at risk and now he’s** under suicide watch. And I had to tell off some students for calling him a liar because the rapist student has been texting his buddies about how unfair it is that he was suspended over “nothing”.
**He prefers either he or they pronouns fairly interchangably.
They’re trying to bury it and make it go away and the teachers are not having it. I’m documenting everything and if they let the rapist come back on campus, I’m siccing HR on them and letting them get ripped to shreds.
Oh gosh :c I’m very glad your kids have an advocate like you, and that the other teachers are on board. Give ’em hell! And I’m here if you need to vent or anything. ♥
Thanks. *hugs back* The shitty part of my brain is trying to argue that I saw this coming exactly and if I had risked more a month ago to really force admin to take shit seriously we could have avoided this, but that’s bullshit cause I fought as hard as I could then and if I had pushed harder and gotten fired, I wouldn’t be able to advocate for my students now.
I dunno, still sucks a lot and I’ve kinda been stuck in my best Ruth pre-Mary-blackmail impression when I’ve gotten home.
I find what works best for me is giving that shitty part of my brain a typical white-dude-internet-troll name and when it starts up, being like “yeah yeah shut the fuck up, Timothy.” You are absolutely right, if you’d gotten fired you wouldn’t be able to help now, and now is when he needs you more than ever.
You’re an absolute angel, but you can only do so much, you know? Hang in there and take care of yourself ♥
“You and your student are in my thoughts”, “thank you for existing”, and “that’s so awful” have all been said a bunch already, and I’m sure nobody here wants to read every profanity I can think of typed out over and over until it loses all meaning, so I really don’t know what to say in this situation.
I already didn’t say things because other people said them, but I will reiterate what Heather said- if there is any way we can help, please let us know.
I can’t imagine dealing with the bulls*** you apparently have to deal with on a daily basis. I have concluded that you are an incredibly strong and truly wonderful person and you have my utmost respect. If someone I knew was treated like this, I would blow a gasket and probably commit violence upon the authorities involved if they tried to shirk their duty to the victim. Never give up, never surrender, as my favourite fake spaceship captain would say.
I’m very, very glad that the world has its Cerberuses (Cerberi?) to look out for people who need it.
Hopefully the rapist gets a more fitting punishment soon, but more importantly, best wishes to your student and you.
I wish I could say I was shocked and appalled – but no that’s completely 100% in line with what I expect school admins to do in such a situation so I’m just appalled.
Fuck them.
Please let your student know that he’s in my thoughts – I’d offer hugs but for me I didn’t want to be touched after so yeah just let him know my thoughts are with him and that sexual assault does not invalidate his gender in any way.
(reason why I say ^^^ that: sexual assault and harassment are one of my biggest dysphoria triggers so every time I’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, it’s set off a weeks-long dysphoria funk, with a side of what’s the fucking point if I’m still read as a woman and a heaping pile of what if I’m wrong and I’m just a freak and worse thoughts I’m not really comfy sharing here b/c ya too personal. If he’s like me, he might be feeling very dysphoric right now and I thought I’d point it out – I don’t know if your experience with sexual assault was similar Cerb but yeah for me as a transmasculing person it’s really fucking dysphoria-triggering).
Because they’re a trans founded sexual assault survivors organization and have helped me in the past when dealing with the dysphoria rush stemming from my rape.
And I’ve made sure to tell the student that I’m always available to talk if he needs it and that I’ve got a wealth of experience mentoring survivors. Luckily they have a robust friend network that’s keeping him alive right now and all his teachers are working with me to make sure that he’s got resources and support.
We’ve got a huge number of teachers who are survivors including some of the white men on campus and there’s a palpable anger at admin for the various failures that lead to this happening and the attempted responses afterwards as well as for admin’s failure to secure him a rape advocate for when he reported the incident to the police thus letting them get a bunch of victim-blaming from one set of the cops*.
*Luckily we have a rare non-shitty cop who patrols around in the mornings and has been super supportive to our trans student and has taken it seriously where those guys didn’t and seems to actually understand things like rape culture and transphobic bullying, so that’s been a lucky bright spot, but yeah, the whole thing’s been an epic clusterfuck that’s brought out my mama bear tendencies like nothing else.
Flames. Flames on the side of my FACE. What the FUCK, school administrators? That is DISGUSTING and that piece of shit kid can go kick rocks. I’m so sorry that happened to your student. I hope he has a peaceful recovery kid and that someone nails those admins asses to the wall.
I can only hope for the best for your student. Also, he and other students are lucky to have an advocate like you Cerberus. But holy shit only a suspension? That piece of shit should have been expelled on basic moral and ethical grounds! The hell is wrong with the administration?!? Also, I hope you and the other teachers can keep the administration from burying this.
Holy shit. I hope that little shit who did this gets the book thrown at him with great force.
Kind of a daft question maybe but is there any way we folks online can help? Hit it up in the comments section that day if there is something like financially speaking. Idk I know sometimes kids don’t get support at home and need to build a nest to get out. Or therapy fees as a more immediate thing.
I hope the kid and yourself stay safe from now on.
“Vimes shrugged. ‘That’s it, then,’ he said, and turned away. ‘Throw the book at him, Carrot.’
‘Right, sir.’
Too late Vimes remembered.
Dwarfs have trouble with metaphors.
They also have very good aim.”
I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the hurt my words caused you yesterday, I’m sorry that, for me, a lot of the most serious issues raised on this comic are theoretical but for others they’re happening at this very moment.
I know that my words don’t mean much to you at the moment (and rightfully so) but I apologize unreservedly as it was completely inappropriate for me to make the comparisons that I did and I won’t be bringing up those issues, or anything remotely similar, ever again.
Once again I’m so very sorry that you’re going through this because I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like in your position.
Your students are extremely fortunate to have you as their teacher because, if nothing else, they know you have their backs.
Hey, it’s cool and you totally have the right to feel negatively as well from my comments and have your own worldviews and opinions regardless of what I am going through.
And yeah, me not wanting to have certain arguments yesterday was more not trusting myself to be civil in them yesterday owing to the stuff going on in my life, especially as I’m in a mood to be even less charitable to Joe’s brand of creeper sleaze than usual for obvious reasons and I really didn’t want to blow up at you or someone else who was just trying to clarify or argue a point on the internet.
I hope you can understand and I appreciate the offer of apology nonetheless though I would not ask you to never speak about those issues, especially as they affected you and your emotions matter as well.
I just made a noise that I have no idea how to write. And then I realised that the administration’s response didn’t surprise me in the least and I made another one.
*insert desired expression of support here, for you and your student*
Also, say, do you mind holding on to this flamethrower for me? I, uh, need to go and run some errands.
I may have hummed “Burning Down the House” by Talking Heads a few times yesterday while I was rushing around. That and “1000 points of hate” by Anthrax.
I wish I had more to offer than my condolences to both him and you, and I hope you know that you’re a pillar of strength for your student.
I’m happy that there are people like you who care so much for the welfare of their students and are willing to fight to the end for them. The world needs more people like you, Cerb.
I… really don’t have much to offer other than my apologies, but i truly do hope that they are well taken care of from this point forward, and that the rapist gets a very large, very heavy book thrown at him.
She keeps Moet de Chandon…
In a pretty cabinet
“Let them eat cake.” she says
Just like Marie Antoinette!
A built in remedy…
For Kruschev and Kennedy!
At any time an invitation you can’t decliiiine!
Caviar and cigarettes…
Well versed in etiquette…
Extraordinarilly nice!
She’s a killaaah queeeen!
Gunpowder gelatine!
Dynamite with a laser beeeam!
Guaranteed to blow your mind…
Anytiiiiiime!
Recommended at the price…
Insatiable an appetite…
Wanna tryyyyyyy?!
shit man there is so little bisexual representation you have NO CHANCE of me letting someone who self-admittedly liked dudes and ladies get treated as 100% gay all of the time, he definitely liked dudes, but GUESS WHAT MY DUDE bi folk are SGA too! I will die sooner than let someone pry my grimy little bi mitts off Freddie, man said it himself, he’s BI
<a href="shit man there is so little bisexual representation you have NO CHANCE of me letting someone who self-admittedly liked dudes and ladies get treated as 100% gay all of the time, he definitely liked dudes, but GUESS WHAT MY DUDE bi folk are SGA too!
I will die sooner than let someone pry my grimy little bi mitts off Freddie, man said it himself, he’s BI
titties are hypnotic, even gay dudes cant not look half the time
being Really Gay in girls highschool gym is quite the trial, but if you change in the bathroom and head right to the track you can usually avoid creeping at anyone besides yourself
I never understood that… granted, as a mostly-straight dude I haven’t been through that particular trial, but I usually find it pretty easy to ignore all but the most physically improbable boobs if it’s not what I feel to be an appropriate time & place.
Well, it’s been over two hours, and one of two things has happened. Either no one has commented “Wait, people were talking?” or they’ve just all been deleted/banned.
“Hello, I’m Jessica and I am your substitute teacher…”
“It IS a trap, I have seen this opening in porn like a hundred times”
“For today’s ‘special’ class you might want to keep in mind that I am a lesbian.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!”
Looking good Leslie, but I think it’s worth mentioning that my vote for you on the hottest lady poll was mostly for your kickass attitude. Don’t forget that asset.
I love* how Joe sees education as some sort of trick his teachers play on him.
And yeah, my first thought wouldn’t be “hm. My teacher is sure dressed up today. I am sure she intends to seduce the older sister of one of my class mates” either. I’m with Joe, a “trap” is a reasonable expectation.
In Joe’s defence, given his previous interactions with Leslie, this sort of confrontational behaviour is something that (from his perspective) he is right to fear.
On the other hand, Joe is smart enough (but not willing) to be able to understand that the confrontational behaviour he is so preoccupied about so far has always derived from his attempt at “figuring out this class”.
Seriously, I kinda like Joe as a character, because he starts kinda shitty but not completely awful (I mean, he is sort of a womanizing jerk, but he has some moral standards and is pretty forward about it. All the girls he’s been with (at least, the one’s we’ve been shown) demonstrated that they knew he just wanted a one-night stand with no strings attached*), BUT he has all the tool to better himself, and he is in a situation that allows it, if he is willing.
He also seems a lot like a “hidden depths” character, since it’s pretty clear he hides his emotions as a way to protect himself.
*Joyce is an exception to the rule and, yes, his “I’ll fix her with my penis” was horrid and disgusting, but I am willing to rule it as a misunderstanding of what they each wanted from the other (Joe=just a night’s fun; Joyce=a serious and committed relationship), and they’re kinda made peace about it? This shows that Joe is somewhat willing to recognise his mistakes and try to correct them.
Men looking beautiful women is a thing. Knowing when you’ve seen enough and you’re starting to be a creep is a skill many seem to lack and quite honesty you more often than not are going to end up overthinking things, just like these two. Talking about this is a pain though, because you’re almost always going to be blamed for something. I say this as a straight guy, been there done that, nowadays there’s apparently no right move.
Not sure it does, because in yesterday’s scene, Joe’s head is twisting to the left in that last panel to look out the window, versus today’s strip where it’s now twisting to the rightl. Plus, his mouth yesterday is in a position that indicates he’s not really in a good mood. Today’s mouth as Leslie enters is “I am only just managing to stop my jaw from dropping to the ground.”
But yesterday still makes perfect sense to me. I am assuming that between Joyce’s texting with Joe during this weekend and now, something happened that upset Joe. Maybe an internal realisation about himself, or maybe something external about his family. Either way, the reveal has yet to come. I’m fairly confident it will at some point.
Probably through more texting. Joe seems to be capable of being more honest when that’s how he communicates.
Well, up until today (and the poll’s been up for at least a month now), she has not made an effort to be deliberately hot. And while she certainly looks good in general, and while I like most of her personality, what she is generally doing is not something that makes me “hot” per se. Of course, it’s not meant to do that, so I think that’s a good thing. Her sass is meant to make people take a look at themselves, after all.
Comic Reactions but for real this time as the murder rage has subsided:
Panel 2: When Leslie promises cleavage, she delivers. Unlike her students, she’s not a slacker about her homework and that’s why she’s the one with a PhD.
Panels 3-5: Aspect 1: The weird public objectification that boys not only feel empowered to do with women who dare look “sexy”, but which typically gets dismissed as libido and hormones is a thing that stirs up a lot of emotions for me. One is well, the subtle policing of what outfits are “acceptable” by men being creepy. Like, women know that if you decide to dress a little sexily, say cause you’re going on a date, you’re likely to get an increase in street harassment and people calling you an escort (especially if you’re a trans woman or a person of color).
And that’s not okay as a societal norm and it’s also a thing that ends up happening even if you didn’t intend to dress “sexy”. My girlfriend is unfortunately well-endowed and I say this because she dresses like a nun in like five layers every time she goes out and still gets creepy guys trying to stalk her to her work and viewing the fact that she has large breasts as being entirely a come on to them personally.
And my students get it a lot too, because we fetishize “barely legal” youth in our society leading to a lot of creepy old men to feel socially safe leering at underaged girls on the mass transit systems or on the streets around school which often messes with their heads a bit, especially if the student in question is trans and not a girl at all.
Aspect 2: I also have ill feelings about not only the public leering but the expectation that public disrespectful objectifying leering is something that boys do and that not doing that means there’s something “wrong” with you.
Cause I’m trans and thus spent adolescence as a very confused “boy” by society’s regard. And I’m ace, so puberty was extra confusing as all these people around me seemed to start being part of a system that I didn’t have the pieces to understand, especially not in Hyper Fundie Land where sex education was essentially the scene from Mean Girls with the teacher saying ‘you’ll get chlamydia and die”.
And it meant that not only was public leering at “cute girls” socially expected of the men of my grade, not leering was seen as a sign of teh filthy gayness. So because I wasn’t leering around, talking sexually objectifying about women, because well, I don’t really experience sexual attraction and I felt more of a kinship to the women being objectified than the men objectifying them, I got beat. A lot.
Because that meant I was a (slur for a gay man). That meant I must have been secretly objectifying them in the locker rooms I tried to spend as little time as possible in. That meant I must have been trying to seduce my friends when I tried to hang out with them and play Starcraft or Magic. That meant I needed to be stomped flat. Because I didn’t leer.
And that’s what I’m talking about when I note how toxic masculinity is toxic not just for those who are not men, but the men asked to participate in it. Because one “wrong move” like mine could mean a world of awfulness and abuse and so doing what is “natural” to guys seems safer, seems better, seems the only way not to receive the ire of those invested in it.
Panels 3-5: Aspect 3: I’m kinda done with Joe’s continued treatment of a class he volunteered to attend and learn in as a “trap” trying to get him personally in trouble. One, because that’s not the point of awareness about gender. Or even about awareness of sexism. People don’t bring up sexist tropes to make specific boys feel bad, but because those tropes are pervasive and harmful.
And that’s a thing that Joe can’t handle. That it’s not about him. That he and his libido might not be the things the world revolves around and he’s resisting that because it might mean having to think about the cavalier attitude he’s taken to consent and objectification and how he treats women as either obstacles to his dick getting wet or living fleshlights to get him off.
Everything’s about conquest rather than exploration and the women that have been shown in comic to be appreciative of his advances have also been ones who are fine with just a utility to scratch an itch with Roz telling him to stay quiet cause his smooth talk gets in the way of her enjoying a cock with a lot of stamina and Penny basically using him to fulfill a sexual fetish and viewing him in similar utilitarian ways.
And that’s a frustrating aspect of his character and why I’m excited about the character growth he’s shown in text messages with Joyce and where that continues to lead.
Aspect 4: Viewing women’s bodies existing as a “trap” makes me hyper-nervous as a trans woman because that’s actually nearly led to me getting killed*.
*No really, drunken guy was fetishizing the “hot lesbians” on the street corner and shouting at us and when informed that one of us was actually a (slur for trans women), he asked the driver whether he wanted to circle back to solve the problem of me “tricking” him into objectifying me and my girlfriend and thus making him “less straight” in his mind.
Aspect 5: Let’s address the elephant in the room that is Joe’s public fetishization of lesbianism and lesbians, treating the entire existence of queer women’s sexuality and relationships as live-action porn specifically intended for him to consume and that’s lead to him on multiple accounts openly fetishizing women-loving-women in gender studies despite knowing a) his teacher’s a lesbian, b) that he did one of his “jokes” during a lesson on queer homelessness and disownment that was so triggering for a student she ended up running out of the room in tears, and c) that there’s a fair chance a number of his fellow students are queer-identified because it was one of the first jokes that Leslie made.
Leslie dressing up has nothing to do with him, is not about him, is as unrelated to him as you could possibly get and yet he makes it about him. He makes it about his libido. He makes it about teachers trying to “trap” him and he openly leers and goggles at his teacher.
His teacher. Like, it is so openly disrespectful it’s not funny and while Walky doesn’t have the same history, I’m also disappointed in him for similar reasons. Like, I shouldn’t have to be the one saying publicly leering your school teacher is not acceptable and beyond the frickin’ pale, no matter how “sexy” she is dressed. She is a professional doing a damn job for you, have some damn respect (this also applies double to fuckers who try and objectify waitresses and airline attendants and other service workers, because objectifying someone who can’t call you out on your shit because their job depends on being nice is the creepiest shit).
Panel 6: Well now, that’s an interesting eyeline you’ve got going on Roz. Mayhaps you are not as 100% straight as you initially believed. Now stop staring at your teacher’s breasts, even if you’ve got her ensnared in your political grudge match against your sister.
he asked the driver whether he wanted to circle back to solve the problem of me “tricking” him into objectifying me and my girlfriend and thus making him “less straight” in his mind.
I know lots of people like this exist, but Christ. I’m constantly amazed by what an insightful, thoughtful, and helpful person you are, when you’ve had so many experiences that on their own would have made many others write off humanity.
Leslie is dressed for combat, and it is not a sniper attack but a roundhouse. Walky and Joe are collateral damage.
Yes, Joe, you are in for an object lesson. And I am not at all persuaded that Leslie’s endeavor is any more compatible with university regulations than was Roz’s video take of her tangle with Joe.
Of course, Leslie is about as insecure as the majority of her class. (Currently including Joe.)
I think it’s one of those “We’ll charge her with something as soon as we figure out what heck it is she was doing.”
Now, my personal take on this is that I think she’s been overstepping the bounds of a teacher-student relationship with Roz, and also maybe the class as a whole right now. She is allowing her infatuation with Robin to (first metaphorically, and today literally) expose herself more to Roz than she should have.
Now, just to make sure, I don’t blame Leslie for trying to appear attractive to Robin in itself. It’s just that I do not think a classroom is necessarily the right setting for students to see their teacher effectively trying to seduce another person, under the excuse of “guest speaker”. I especially do not think it’s right that at least one of the persons is fully aware of how that is exactly what they are doing.
Now, I can see that this whole situation is a bit strange, because it does not quite align with the usual power difference that exists between teachers and students, and which is why a teacher-student relationship is a big no-no. In fact, I would say that she is allowing the students (especially Roz) too much power over her. Despite her fairly easy-going style, she is still supposed to have a certain amount of authority in the classroom.
But how this is breaking university regulations? Now that can be a tough one to find, I admit.
I mostly agree. Colluding with a student to invite a guest speaker to class in order to seduce them is very much not cool and if it’s not against regulations it probably should be. Assuming they could find a way to put it that’s sufficiently narrowly tailored.
Imagine if instead of our lovable Leslie, it was a grown-up Joe taking advantage of a teaching job to try to set up trysts with unsuspecting targets.
Ah, that’s a much more reasonable concern than what I was thinking.
For me, the biggest concern from a purely ethical standpoint would be whether or not Leslie thinks Robin’s visit will actually benefit her students. If she doesn’t, she obviously should not be doing this, but since Roz’s family connection presents a unique opportunity to have a House Representative who was the first woman elected to her seat, it would be reasonable for Leslie to think it’d be worthwhile for her students. Obviously, Leslie’s judgement may not be as objective about this as she’s hoping, but I feel that makes the decision potentially unwise rather than potentially unethical.
The deal with Roz seems to be in more of a gray area, though. The tit-for-tat between them doesn’t seem to obligate Leslie to do anything she didn’t already want to do (seduce Robin), and Leslie definitely hasn’t shown Roz any preferential treatment so far. If Roz started demanding anything specific in exchange, I can only imagine that Leslie would shut it down immediately.
As for actually seducing Robin, I don’t see any ethical concern there, so much as one of professionalism. Hitting on Robin in class would obviously be completely unprofessional, but also highly unlikely to happen. If Leslie waits until after class is over, and keeps the in-class flirting to a minimum (some amount of blushing, stammering, and meaningful glances are probably unavoidable), I’d say she’s in the clear.
It still might not be the wisest, most professional decision she’s made, but I don’t see it as a problem.
I agree that there are certainly reasonable, ehh, reasons for Leslie to invite Robin.
I still question the methods of how this was achieved. But keep in mind, I’m not much of a “end justifies the means”; instead I am more of a “the means must justify the end” kind of person.
I’ll withhold judgement on how this is affecting the rest of the class until the lesson is over. We’ll see how that’s playing out soon enough.
The Dean never mentioned an actual rule she was breaking. His threat was she wouldn’t have housing – and while there wasn’t an immediate rule to throw her out, I suspect there didn’t need to be one for denying it next term. Roz does have some ability to care about her own personal future.
The addition for Roz is probably beyond unnecessary. Shock explains her reaction equally well, and we already had her older, considerably more experienced alt-universe self make it abundantly clear she’s straight. Her straightness is about as in question as Ethan’s gayness (if far less toxic to call into question in general).
…She’s not being a hypocrite. What is with people? She’s surprised her professor actually /did/ it. Saying “you should do this” is not the same as expecting someone to do this.
Damn, that’s a harsh analysis. Given your history, I don’t blame you.
I’m a guy, and I find myself reflexively sneaking a peek at the cleavage of women I fancy. And everytime I do, I can’t help but feel like a pig. And then I consciously avert my eyes anywhere but, and I feel like a total prude/chump/idiot by doing so.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we supposed to NOT feel shame for being sexual beings? Like, this undercurrent of thought that male sexuality is inherently tainted and predatory is frustrating as hell to me. Even more so, because it seems to be one of the few things that conservative bible thumpers and humourless radical feminists seem to be in agreement on.
Cerberus, you seem to know this gender studies stuff better than I do, so tell me: How do I recognize – and act in response to – my female peers’ sexuality without objectifying them? Am I just supposed to accept that the second I think sexy thoughts about a girl I fancy, I’ve mentally reduced her to just a thing I want to fuck the brains out of?
Picture the scenario: I’m talking to one particular friend of mine about books, or MtG, or – my favorite – another horror story of one of the kids in her biology lab almost killing themselves via shoddy OHS behaviour.
Now, I really fancy her, mostly because she’s smart, witty, and resourceful (I don’t think she fancies me, but I’ve accepted that).
She also has a lovely bosom that I can’t help but notice from time to time. And when she smiles at me, it makes me think dirty, naughty thoughts involving me and her. But none of that makes me think less of her.
Having sexual thoughts is fine. Everyone who is not asexual has sexual thoughts. Having sexual thoughts about someone in particular is also fine.
Where it becomes an issue, for me, is where you reduce the other person to an object in your head. A few examples:
Indulging in sexual daydreams when you should be having a conversation with and paying attention to your friend is a jerk move and objectifying because you’re reducing her to a prop in your fantasy when she’s right there in front of you (I am thinking in particular of what Sarah did to Jacob a few strips back, where she was basically completely ignoring what he was saying to focus on her sexual fantasy). Being nice to your friend as if you were putting kindness coins into a sex machine – with the idea that if you do enough for her eventually she’ll “owe” you a date or a roll in the sack (not saying you do this but I and pretty much every woman and person-who-is-read-as-a-woman out there have experienced this at least once and it is the source behind the widespread derision of self-described “Nice Guys”) – is suuper creepy and objectifying because you’re ignoring the fact that she has agency and will of her own and she might just not be into you. Doing what Joe and Walky are doing – ignoring everything about Leslie to focus exclusively on ogling her boobs – is objectifying, too, because they’re reducing Leslie to her boobs and ignoring everything else about her.
On the other hand: Dorothy and Walky, together, exhibit very good sexual behavior to each other. Neither of them keeps being sexual if the other doesn’t want to – at every step, they make sure the other party is ok with what they’re doing, and when they’re together, they focus on each other and not on what they’d like to do with each other’s bodies. I’m sure they do look and check out each other – but never have we seen either of them allow their sexual attraction to dominate their interaction – nor have they ignored a non-sexual interaction to turn the other into a fantasy prop.
As a friendly heads-up as well – there’s a lot of trolls in the bowels of the internet who are all “Consent is too hard! What, am I never supposed to say hi to a woman now?!” and your comment hit on some of the red flags of the more sophisticated sophists in that group. I don’t think you’re trolling (hence why I responded as if you were asking honestly) because I think your question comes of genuine self-reflection… but on the other hand, be aware that trolls have muddied the water on this type of topic enough that in a lot of SJ-oriented spaces people hear someone asking your sort of question and instinctively think, “Oh great, here we go again,” because a solid majority of the time, the other person is a troll looking to trick people into saying something out of context or just trying to aggravate the hell out of people by arguing disingenuously that there’s times when it’s understandable to rape or that advocating for more strict response on sexual harassment is tantamount to enforcing gender segregation or etc. Don’t be surprised if you get some people responding in a wary or even hostile way to these sorts of questions – I’ve seen you around the comments section enough to know that if you’re a troll, you’re playing a long con the likes of which I’ve only seen once or twice in over twenty years on the internet, but others may not have.
I don’t outright ignore her when I think those thoughts. My brain might context switch a bit, but it’s tens of milliseconds delay, tops.
And as for the Nice Guy concept, ugh, fuck no. If I need to spell it out: No, I don’t think anybody owes me anything in return for kindness/friendship. Full disclosure: We met on OKCupid, dated/hung out for a while, she didn’t feel the chemistry. I was sad about it in private for a while, but got over it. We’re still friends, we still hang out from time to time. I don’t think I should feel bad about being sad about a romantic relationship not happening, though. Different story if I actually held a grudge about it, obviously.
And yeah, I knew I was running the risk of sounding like you said I was. The thing is, if someone is going to jump to conclusions like that after I show nothing but candor and spill my guts in a frantic attempt to figure this conflicting mess of gender expectations out, then quite frankly they can eat whichever set of genitals they find least appealing, for all I care. If I get hostility, I’ll obviously respond in kind.
And you’ve actually noticed my comments? Ooohhh my gorsh I’m blushing right now. Nah, I’m no troll. Just a dude with a whole mess of conflicted thoughts on these subjects that I’m trying to reconcile by talking to strangers on the net.
What? No, Roz got Robin to come in to class today (or at least was supposed to, there could always be a ha-ha Roz failed to do so moment) because Leslie likes her, so Leslie dressed up for the occasion.
So I just saw a clip of Obama talking about how tomorrow everyone in America gets a free taco and there was this guy in the audience who was totally stoked and–it was you, Willis, wasn’t it?
Strictly speaking, I think it was the spokesman (and probably only member) of Latinos for Trump who promised us that.
I remember him “warning” us that this would happen because “Mexico is a very dominant culture”. Yep, those were his words.
And I remember thinking… Has the man ever been in any major city in… Well, the entire world? Because man, if “dominant culture” is defined by how well you can spread your food businesses, then maybe he should take a look at, say a world map of McDonalds locations. Or Coca-Cola sales. Or Hollywood movies and TV shows. Or… Well, I’m mostly preaching to the choir here, so might as well stop now.
Very well. Next time it is mentioned that the people must vote for Taco Trucks on every corner, We will gladly let everyone think it was The Toupéed One that promised us that this would happen if Hillary wins.
Truly, We can see this being a case where both the end justifies the means, -and- the means justify the end.
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 18h
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
It's #webcomicday? We have a special day???
Well, my name is Pat McHoarney and I draw 69 Mouse-Ear Blvd, a multigenerational story about women who all have sexy legs and probably other features. There was a grandmother, but she wasn't hot and so she died off-panel.
Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. Her partner, Billy Evans, is now trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics.” nyti.ms/3FbtZm9
www.ebay.com/itm/23609767...
selling my netflix war for cybertron megatron -- the walmart exclusive one that came with pinpointer and lionizer (but being sold here without pinpointer and lionizer)
Gran... IS ALIVE?
okay, juliette still has brown hair, so this is probably definitely a flashback
i'm just surprised that the comic has remembered her, at all
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 18h
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
The New York Times @nytimes.com ⋅ 5d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 3d
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even Roz can’t look away
hahahahaha
DEER IN HEADLIGHTS
“Headlights” is a better euphemism than “flesh flags”.
Haha, “headlights.”
HA HA! Subconscious Colbert voice.
“Cupid’s kettledrums” … an actual term common in the Victorian era.
Cupid’s kettledrums?! Oh, I like that!
I’m having suspicions about how straight she actually is…
she’s straight, with an exception.
Heh… following in her sister’s footsteps.
To be fair, I think the only time it was stated she (Roz) was straight was when Robin came in following the sex-tape thing. And even then it was Robin stating that Roz was straight in response to one of Roz’s statements. I’ll have to go back through the archives and look…but I just realized I don’t know how to link to other pages in a comment.
There’s an HTML cheatsheet under the comment box. To link a page, use the ‘a href’ one, and put your desired URL in between the quotation marks.
I’ll use brackets to demonstrate: [a href=”website.com”]text you want to show up[/a]
Hopefully it won’t try to render that. Maybe I should ha e tried parentheses.
For the sake of additional clarity, you are supposed to use angle brackets (less-than and greater-than symbols) like so: <a href=”website.com”>text you want to show up</a>
and for Disloyal Subject if you want to type it in so that it shows up exactly the way they are supposed to type it in you can use “<” for < and “&gt;” for >
“>” for >
…accidently deleted a semi-colon there in the layering
It’d be just like her to erase her sister’s sexuality for the sake of politics; the trick that’s being planned by her younger sibling is going be very pleasing to watch.
TBF, Roz DID say immediately after Robin asked if she was gay, she responded ‘Nope, just real good at gettin’ out of shit I don’t want to do.” If she DID like girls as well, I suspect she’d be snarky and say “Nope, bi/pan/omni/poly/etc.”
Also she said she was straight over in Shortpacked. Then again, our sexuality (or our understanding thereof) is constantly changing, so she could get an ‘update’ the way Danny did.
Roz 2.0?
More like Roz 1.5…
Are those her Kinsey Number?
She identified herself as Straight when the gays were watching Monsters, Inc and wanted to arrange baby-making sex, while she, as ‘the only straight person in the room’, was immune.
That was also an older and more sexually experienced Roz, so probably had even more cause to be correct about her sexuality.
I’m straight as an arrow and stare at women’s asses all day.
I’d stare at emn’s too, but they hide them too much.
Maybe roxxie’s right, maybe we’re all just a little bi-curious. Just don’t get bi-furious, you’ll cause a scene and nobody wants that.
I’ve always been of the mind that in the end it’s more about the who than the what. Maybe you like guys but there’s that one chick that just does it for you. Or several. Like, sexual orientation is just a state of mind.
That’s how I am! Except reverse the gender. I like to describe my sexuality as “lesbian except for a few men – one of whom is my husband.”
“You… look… mahvelous!” ~Fernando Lamas
Abraham said “suck…my…nuts”
I said “No!”
then glenn said “M-M-Maggie, i’ll find you”
Then me, darth vader, Frodo, and peter parker said “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
Leslie’s more like King Ezequiel! [played by Khary Payton, AKA Cyborg (Ten Titans), Grimlock(Transformers:RiD), Kaldur’ahm (Young Justice), & Smuggler(DeusEx1) among others]
REJOICE IN THE KINGDOM!!!!!!
“They’re literally hypnotic”
I think ARC might have a few things to say about letting Dabbler teach any classes at a public university, let alone Gender Studies.
She is all “damn girl, my sister won’t know what hit her.”
I’m more confused about how her hair is like that
She used some product? Or drove to work on the freeway with the window down, I do that sometimes with similar results.
I end up with basically exactly Jim Halpert’s hairdo, which is shockingly similar to what Leslie has and now I can’t unsee.
Like Amber saying (to Danny) AG has great hair, but Amber has to keep her “Prom Hair” to keep them apart. Leslie just fluffed it up, and it looks great.
It was drawn that way.
It’s not bad.
It’s not bad, it was drawn that way. [Repeatedly bangs head on screen out of frustration of once again coming in late and finding all the really great comments already taken.]
Well done.
Yeah, but YOU put them together! You get brownie points for that!
She wanted to make sure she couldn’t be recognized from the rally for Robin’s election run.
Also, I’m firmly with Walky and Joe on this one. Hehe… “firmly”.
~Strange … she looks like that ‘Jessica’ I met last night….~
You know, I was thinking the same thing…
“Sorry Leslie, I’m only attracted to women who hold large campaign signs in front of their faces.”
“Really? Well, I have a friend called Jessica who is just the right person for you…”
Gravity is also distracted.
Maybe she asked Amazi-Girl for styling tips.
Maybe she’s drawn that way, maybe it’s Maybelline.
Only her hairdresser knows for sure.
She has hair? I, um, hadn’t noticed.
Nice haircut
leslie can be your angle or yuor devil
She’s very acute.
Some people will pretend to be obtuse, and act like they don’t get this joke. But that’s all right.
Those people are real squares.
Every reply I try to come up with for this comment chain feels tangential.
Other people, on the other hand, will have criticism that is quite pointed.
something something triangle smile
Now you’ve gone off on a different tangent.
It’s just a Function of trying harder. Think of it as scalene a mountain, it is harder to get down from a mountain. It’s easier off a duck.
I think all of you should go stand in the corner where it warmer, you know 90 degrees.
I can cosign on this talk of right angles.
My God, this place reminds me of Callahan’s sometimes. You guys could give the Doc a run for his money!
NOT ENOUGH QUARTERS!
Naw, none of us are that Fast, Eddy.
This is the sine of the times.
A Sine of the End Times, you mean. Just like the Cubes winning the World Infinite Series
I WILL NOT MAKE GEOMETRY PUNS.
I WILL NOT MAKE GEOMETRY PUNS.
I WILL . . .
. . . It sure looks like she made a 180° turn in how she presents herself. . .
WHY DID I DO THAT?
WHY DID I DO THAT?
(must have been the fallen angle on my shoulder)
(or an inherent weakness for straight lines)
elllipses running in circles?
Say, Leslie, what is that fragrance you’re wearing? It smells like delicious warm apple crisp.
Glad you like it. It’s called “Pie Radiance”.
Maybe there’s a tan gent in her future?
See? Can’t!
Leslie’s gone Full Sandy at the end of Grease!
Now, I’m just wondering what the lesbian equivalent of “Tell me about it, stud!” is, and whether Robin will fall for it…
“You said it, sugarlips!”?
A little Leslie Nielsen, but I think Robin would appreciate it! ^_^
Oh hi Jessica. Filling in for Leslie?
Just standing up for her.
WE ARE LESLIE’S BOOBS. DO AS WE COMMAND YOU.
There are worse collectives to be taken over by…
It is sad for me to admit as a man that I noticed her hair long before I noticed her cleavage.
That would make two of us.
not sure why you think it’s sad tho.
How would you not? There was text at the top of the page.
I guess I’m far more metrosexual than I ever realised.
I-
Like, you saw the text and you’re a native english speaker (I’m pretty sure)! How would you not then go down the page? I’m gay as a bag of cats and didn’t notice til after her face and hair.
I first noticed the blush, then the coordination of the purples in her outfit, then her hair, and this is pretty consistent with what happens when women catch my eye in real life. The first thing that pops into my head, usually, is how well coordinated their outfit is, or how well their hair suits them. I then make a note of this, and proceed with my day without further comment or consideration.
It’s perfectly normal, I assume.
Actually, while catcalling has never been a thing which it’s occurred to me to do, I do actively have to stop myself from commenting aloud on, for example, how much I like the color of a strange woman’s dress. I assume that would be weird for them, since I, to them, am a strange man.
(I remain strange, incidentally, even to the people who know me, but that is not the point here.)
Hair is a pretty good shorthand for identifying familiar individuals, so I tend to glance there first. These characters being in a comic, I don’t automatically look at their torsos to assess posture for threat assessment, so I often miss out on cleavage until it’s pointed out.
Pointed out?
Like in that famous panel four?
Well, usually by the commenters, in text form. Not every character whose face is obstructed is as obliging as Jessica.
leslie’s boobs for president?
One for president, one for vice-president. I’d vote foreally that ticket.
They make two things perfectly clear…
I’m more wondering what’s with the different hairstyle.
It’s just styled. She’s wearing makeup too.
Didn’t shower and comb this morning?
It’s just the messy hairstyle, it’s quite in vogue nowadays.
Boooooooooooobies
oooooobiiiiies
This… is avatar-fitting.
*can’t remember what the next cut of Jimi Hendrix is on this album. I guess I’ll just let it continue playing*
*oh hey, it’s “All Along The Watchtower”. Okay. that works*
*sigh*
Stephen, so very disappointed in you.
*takes Hendrix off the Muzak turntable*
*puts on Van Halen*
*plays “Hot For Teacher”*
You had one job. ONE. JOB.
I sat here for like four minutes, constantly refreshing this and Twitter, hoping to finally be the first comment on a Dumbing of Age strip.
It was going to be the icing on my I-finished-rereading-after-reading-through-the-Walkyverse cake.
Didn’t even get a way to GO to this strip until four minutes after the first comment was posted.
;-;
Also it took me a minute to even realize that was Leslie
Rss?
for some reason, this site’s rss feed doesnt update until after comments have trickled in. My best luck with getting first comment has been just that, luck. luck in timing when the update happens and luck in coming up with a moderately clever comment quickly
If you wait for the Twitter post, you’ll never be first.
It took me having Joe say something to realize it was her. Thought it was some guest lecturer. Also, it feels like there’s a sexism debate waiting to spawn in the comments, for some reason…
The trick is to show up at update time, wait the 5 minutes for the site to catch up to reality and post the comic, and then open the comic’s URL to access the comments. It’s actually not very hard to beat the rush most days, but digesting the strip and coming up with a response can take up precious time if you for whatever reason sre deliberately attempting a first.
Maybe it would have updated quicker if you didn’t have so many tabs open….
DAAAAAAAAAANG
Leslie does look great! I bet Jessica would agree.
She changed her hair because she’s worth it.
A little mousse in the hair and a push-up bra, Leslie is all set for … a date?
I think she could have waited until after class.
Isn’t the Senator visiting class today? So she’s hoping to impress.
Congresswoman.
LESLIE could have waited until after class. JESSICA on the other hand…
Not gonna lie, I really like that haircut on Leslie.
Honestly it looks like she has more hair, not less, but I s’ppose it just may be styled.
A guess: Maybe normally she gels it flat but decided to leave it wild today?
“Oh shit, I’m not? I thought I was!” is a fantastic, hilarious bit. It’s almost musical.
Wally and Joe’s rapport is hilarious, and, yes, Leslie looks very…ravish-able. Also ridiculous, but so is the person she’s trying to seduce, so that’ll probably work in her favor.
lol Wally. I am now imagining Walky as Wally West. Man, super speed powers would be SO bad for him. All those extra chicken nuggets he could eat xD
He’d have a super metabolism, though, so he could eat all the mcnuggets and keep the caramel abs.
I don’t think Robin does “subtle”.
She MIGHT do Leslie.
Is this what walk-of-shame-Leslie looks like?
… also, why’s it called a walk of shame rather than, dunno, walk of pride? I get it, toxicity of culture, but WHY is it that way? There’s gotta be some reason…
……
Hmmm…. are there any other red capes I can twitch where Cerberus can see them?
“Walk of shame” is when you come home in the morning, wearing the same clothes as the night before. Usually because of a booty call, but not always. (you could also have been face down in the gutter all night; the point is that you’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes so everyone knows you didn’t sleep at home that night)
I think they’re asking why booty calls are seen as shameful.
Pretty much. The specifics basically relate to fairly old ideas that a woman’s role is to protect her virtue as defined by her virginity against the predations of men who use any trick they can to acquire said prize against the woman’s efforts to avoid “giving it away”.
And so “walk of shame” was used and sadly still is used to try and shame women who have casual sex outside of marriage as that is seen as the woman failing to “protect their virtue” and thus revealing herself as a wanton slattern who is clearly now to be regarded as without social value.
Which is why I wish I could find a comedy video I love where a woman leaves a house after casual sex and everyone congratulates her on having had a good night instead of making derogatory slurs about her presumed sexual history.
I have lived that video and it was glorious. I hooked up at a pagan festival, and in the morning when I emerged from the guy’s tent, the family across the way congratulated me and offered me breakfast.
That is amazing and makes me feel a little better about the world!
That may be one of the nicest things I’ve ever heard of.
The closest thing I’ve witnessed to a walk of shame is one lady roommate coming home after a mysterious night’s absence and saying to another lady roommate “I got laid. Pay up.” Apparently they had a bet as to who would get some next.
… I wish I could find a comedy video I love where a woman leaves a house after casual sex and everyone congratulates her on having had a good night instead of making derogatory slurs about her presumed sexual history.
I would’ve guessed Broad City would have that covered (or something similar).
Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68kmBoUru-k
That’s it! Thanks!
ah, dammit, someone beat me to it :/
I wanted to be helpful.
I love that one. Especially when the Major dude shows up with the key. You can just see him farting around in his office and then panic to put on his tie and find the key under a stack of papers when he see the protagonist through the window.
Hah! I knew there would be something available to answer Cerberus’s request.
Huh, this is actually the first time I’ve ever heard that phrase used for a woman.
It’s not the first, but I do have it more associated with dudes banging someone ‘beneath them’ in some way.
I’d never encountered it except as for arrested celebrities being filmed as the cops take them out to the van.
On the other hand, screwing/dating a fucking closet-case repub who’d throw you and your queer students under the bus in a second for a political advantage is something worthy of shame.
Film it, blackmail time!
Stride of pride
Actual adult Leslie Bean being nervous like a teenager and wanting to impress a certain lady is my aesthetic.
It is a test Joe, just not for you; now let’s see if Leslie suceeds at it.
I think she looks great. Maybe not apropos of the classroom, but still lookin’ good Leslie.
(I didn’t recognize her either at first)
Oh my wow.
Leslie looks incredible. o.o.
Much….want.
She looks like a dolled up Joyce having a mid life crisis xD
(Looks great tho)
I want to see Joyce’s faaaaaaace and her reaction. Her reactions are the best.
Oh dear. Leslie. Leslie. I… I don’t know what to say. If I had some actual words about why this will be a mess, I lost it in that cleavage.
Uh….good, uh, good lesson plan.
Comic Reaction:
*Delayed until tomorrow* for reasons of not wanting to deal with certain arguments after a really really shitty day*.
*The short story is one of my trans students was raped on campus, I warned admin a month ago that they were at risk and now he’s** under suicide watch. And I had to tell off some students for calling him a liar because the rapist student has been texting his buddies about how unfair it is that he was suspended over “nothing”.
**He prefers either he or they pronouns fairly interchangably.
*wince*
I’m sorry, and sad to hear that.
Please take all the time that you, and they, need.
Oh, honey. D: *hugs* forever, for the both of you. How’s the administration taking it?
They’re trying to bury it and make it go away and the teachers are not having it. I’m documenting everything and if they let the rapist come back on campus, I’m siccing HR on them and letting them get ripped to shreds.
Oh gosh :c I’m very glad your kids have an advocate like you, and that the other teachers are on board. Give ’em hell! And I’m here if you need to vent or anything. ♥
Thanks. *hugs back* The shitty part of my brain is trying to argue that I saw this coming exactly and if I had risked more a month ago to really force admin to take shit seriously we could have avoided this, but that’s bullshit cause I fought as hard as I could then and if I had pushed harder and gotten fired, I wouldn’t be able to advocate for my students now.
I dunno, still sucks a lot and I’ve kinda been stuck in my best Ruth pre-Mary-blackmail impression when I’ve gotten home.
I find what works best for me is giving that shitty part of my brain a typical white-dude-internet-troll name and when it starts up, being like “yeah yeah shut the fuck up, Timothy.” You are absolutely right, if you’d gotten fired you wouldn’t be able to help now, and now is when he needs you more than ever.
You’re an absolute angel, but you can only do so much, you know? Hang in there and take care of yourself ♥
Seconded on all counts
OTOH, naming different parts of your brain is a step towards DID. But, it’s an effective coping mechanism, so, do what you do.
Luckily I don’t have to worry about that. I came factory-installed with that setting.
i am trying to formulate a response that is not just barely-coherent cries for violence
calibrating
calibrating
thank you for existing in this person’s world and you have my thoughts
my violent, violent thoughts
That’s our Willis.
“You and your student are in my thoughts”, “thank you for existing”, and “that’s so awful” have all been said a bunch already, and I’m sure nobody here wants to read every profanity I can think of typed out over and over until it loses all meaning, so I really don’t know what to say in this situation.
I already didn’t say things because other people said them, but I will reiterate what Heather said- if there is any way we can help, please let us know.
Femurs.
But also, oh god, stay strong. You’re my hero, thank you for BEING.
I can’t imagine dealing with the bulls*** you apparently have to deal with on a daily basis. I have concluded that you are an incredibly strong and truly wonderful person and you have my utmost respect. If someone I knew was treated like this, I would blow a gasket and probably commit violence upon the authorities involved if they tried to shirk their duty to the victim. Never give up, never surrender, as my favourite fake spaceship captain would say.
Don’t tear them to shreds; tear them three new ass holes so they gotta pick with one to shit out of.
I’m very, very glad that the world has its Cerberuses (Cerberi?) to look out for people who need it.
Hopefully the rapist gets a more fitting punishment soon, but more importantly, best wishes to your student and you.
I wish I could say I was shocked and appalled – but no that’s completely 100% in line with what I expect school admins to do in such a situation so I’m just appalled.
Fuck them.
Please let your student know that he’s in my thoughts – I’d offer hugs but for me I didn’t want to be touched after so yeah just let him know my thoughts are with him and that sexual assault does not invalidate his gender in any way.
(reason why I say ^^^ that: sexual assault and harassment are one of my biggest dysphoria triggers so every time I’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, it’s set off a weeks-long dysphoria funk, with a side of what’s the fucking point if I’m still read as a woman and a heaping pile of what if I’m wrong and I’m just a freak and worse thoughts I’m not really comfy sharing here b/c ya too personal. If he’s like me, he might be feeling very dysphoric right now and I thought I’d point it out – I don’t know if your experience with sexual assault was similar Cerb but yeah for me as a transmasculing person it’s really fucking dysphoria-triggering).
Yep, all of this. And yeah, I passed along a bunch of stuff from FORGE:
http://forge-forward.org/anti-violence/for-survivors/
Because they’re a trans founded sexual assault survivors organization and have helped me in the past when dealing with the dysphoria rush stemming from my rape.
And I’ve made sure to tell the student that I’m always available to talk if he needs it and that I’ve got a wealth of experience mentoring survivors. Luckily they have a robust friend network that’s keeping him alive right now and all his teachers are working with me to make sure that he’s got resources and support.
We’ve got a huge number of teachers who are survivors including some of the white men on campus and there’s a palpable anger at admin for the various failures that lead to this happening and the attempted responses afterwards as well as for admin’s failure to secure him a rape advocate for when he reported the incident to the police thus letting them get a bunch of victim-blaming from one set of the cops*.
*Luckily we have a rare non-shitty cop who patrols around in the mornings and has been super supportive to our trans student and has taken it seriously where those guys didn’t and seems to actually understand things like rape culture and transphobic bullying, so that’s been a lucky bright spot, but yeah, the whole thing’s been an epic clusterfuck that’s brought out my mama bear tendencies like nothing else.
That is fucking awful. I can only hope for the best for him.
I don’t even have words for how awful that is. I don’t even have words for how many kinds of awful that is.
I hope he’ll get through this, and I know he couldn’t ask for anyone better to have in his corner. Just, all possible hugs for you both.
I…..
Flames. Flames on the side of my FACE. What the FUCK, school administrators? That is DISGUSTING and that piece of shit kid can go kick rocks. I’m so sorry that happened to your student. I hope he has a peaceful recovery kid and that someone nails those admins asses to the wall.
Reading first paragraph: “Well that’s unfortunate, your critiques are always nice to read. Oh another paragraph, perhaps she’ll elaborate as to why.”
Second paragraph: /twitch
Just, just have all the blessings, please.
It is and thanks.
Welcome.
I can only hope for the best for your student. Also, he and other students are lucky to have an advocate like you Cerberus. But holy shit only a suspension? That piece of shit should have been expelled on basic moral and ethical grounds! The hell is wrong with the administration?!? Also, I hope you and the other teachers can keep the administration from burying this.
*hugs* yeah, that’s shitty. I hope for the best your student. At least they have a great teacher, that’s something going for them.
… What?!
There are no words, only rage. That’s deplorable.
That’s horrible. Hope your student pulls through this.
Holy shit. I hope that little shit who did this gets the book thrown at him with great force.
Kind of a daft question maybe but is there any way we folks online can help? Hit it up in the comments section that day if there is something like financially speaking. Idk I know sometimes kids don’t get support at home and need to build a nest to get out. Or therapy fees as a more immediate thing.
I hope the kid and yourself stay safe from now on.
“Vimes shrugged. ‘That’s it, then,’ he said, and turned away. ‘Throw the book at him, Carrot.’
‘Right, sir.’
Too late Vimes remembered.
Dwarfs have trouble with metaphors.
They also have very good aim.”
Stay strong.
I am sorry. *hugs* if welcome.
Seconding what Heather said.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the hurt my words caused you yesterday, I’m sorry that, for me, a lot of the most serious issues raised on this comic are theoretical but for others they’re happening at this very moment.
I know that my words don’t mean much to you at the moment (and rightfully so) but I apologize unreservedly as it was completely inappropriate for me to make the comparisons that I did and I won’t be bringing up those issues, or anything remotely similar, ever again.
Once again I’m so very sorry that you’re going through this because I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like in your position.
Your students are extremely fortunate to have you as their teacher because, if nothing else, they know you have their backs.
Hey, it’s cool and you totally have the right to feel negatively as well from my comments and have your own worldviews and opinions regardless of what I am going through.
And yeah, me not wanting to have certain arguments yesterday was more not trusting myself to be civil in them yesterday owing to the stuff going on in my life, especially as I’m in a mood to be even less charitable to Joe’s brand of creeper sleaze than usual for obvious reasons and I really didn’t want to blow up at you or someone else who was just trying to clarify or argue a point on the internet.
I hope you can understand and I appreciate the offer of apology nonetheless though I would not ask you to never speak about those issues, especially as they affected you and your emotions matter as well.
I just made a noise that I have no idea how to write. And then I realised that the administration’s response didn’t surprise me in the least and I made another one.
*insert desired expression of support here, for you and your student*
Also, say, do you mind holding on to this flamethrower for me? I, uh, need to go and run some errands.
*whispers* Don’t bother refuelling it after use.
I may have hummed “Burning Down the House” by Talking Heads a few times yesterday while I was rushing around. That and “1000 points of hate” by Anthrax.
I wish I had more to offer than my condolences to both him and you, and I hope you know that you’re a pillar of strength for your student.
I’m happy that there are people like you who care so much for the welfare of their students and are willing to fight to the end for them. The world needs more people like you, Cerb.
Any and all gestures and offers of support I can possibly muster
I… really don’t have much to offer other than my apologies, but i truly do hope that they are well taken care of from this point forward, and that the rapist gets a very large, very heavy book thrown at him.
Massive “in loco parentis” fail.
May lawyers descend upon them.
“May lawyers descend upon them.”
You’re evil….
…but in a good way.
This is going to be good!
I couldn’t tell whether Leslie’s look was because she was going to be meeting Robin later, or because she already met Robin.
Robin is coming to class today as a special guest speaker
I shiver with antici—
say ittttt
-PATION
Great Scott! I love you guys!
Right now Robins is waiting in … the Zen Room.
Wonder if Robin will think she is a sub for the teacher who was here last time…
(Pun unintentional, but left in when noticed.)
maggie’s not wrong
Funny how a good looking gal looks great in anything she happens to throw on…
Looks like Walky and Sal aren’t the only Wonder Twins in Indiana University. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
You’re not the one she’s testing, Joe.
Oh shit I forgot Robin was coming to this class I love Robin YIPPEE!
*clicks fingers*
She keeps Moet de Chandon…
In a pretty cabinet
“Let them eat cake.” she says
Just like Marie Antoinette!
A built in remedy…
For Kruschev and Kennedy!
At any time an invitation you can’t decliiiine!
Caviar and cigarettes…
Well versed in etiquette…
Extraordinarilly nice!
She’s a killaaah queeeen!
Gunpowder gelatine!
Dynamite with a laser beeeam!
Guaranteed to blow your mind…
Anytiiiiiime!
Recommended at the price…
Insatiable an appetite…
Wanna tryyyyyyy?!
i point very loudly at this song whenever someone tries to tell me Freddie Mercury wasn’t bi
Riiiight, and Sir Elton kept nice and safe in the closet for half his career.
shit man there is so little bisexual representation you have NO CHANCE of me letting someone who self-admittedly liked dudes and ladies get treated as 100% gay all of the time, he definitely liked dudes, but GUESS WHAT MY DUDE bi folk are SGA too! I will die sooner than let someone pry my grimy little bi mitts off Freddie, man said it himself, he’s BI
<a href="shit man there is so little bisexual representation you have NO CHANCE of me letting someone who self-admittedly liked dudes and ladies get treated as 100% gay all of the time, he definitely liked dudes, but GUESS WHAT MY DUDE bi folk are SGA too!
I will die sooner than let someone pry my grimy little bi mitts off Freddie, man said it himself, he’s BI
[link]
oh damn did i fuck up the html, sorry
i fucked up but point stands
well i have embarrassed myself enough for today, but yes, all points still stand
Aaaw, don’t feel that way.
Not related to the thread at all, but…
So your username is Valkyr and your avatar is Callie and are you secretly just me?
Probably not but worth checking! link related, send me an anon if you’d like
Haha, guess that settles that then, I don’t have a tumblr :p
Freddie was bi?
That’s super amazing to hear. My favourite singer was a bi dude. That’s incredible.
titties are hypnotic, even gay dudes cant not look half the time
being Really Gay in girls highschool gym is quite the trial, but if you change in the bathroom and head right to the track you can usually avoid creeping at anyone besides yourself
I never understood that… granted, as a mostly-straight dude I haven’t been through that particular trial, but I usually find it pretty easy to ignore all but the most physically improbable boobs if it’s not what I feel to be an appropriate time & place.
Well, it’s been over two hours, and one of two things has happened. Either no one has commented “Wait, people were talking?” or they’ve just all been deleted/banned.
Wait…
“Hello, I’m Jessica and I am your substitute teacher…”
“It IS a trap, I have seen this opening in porn like a hundred times”
“For today’s ‘special’ class you might want to keep in mind that I am a lesbian.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!”
Oh no, she’s too hot!
Rowr, I’m so Les-merized.
Don’t Lesnerize!
Looking good Leslie, but I think it’s worth mentioning that my vote for you on the hottest lady poll was mostly for your kickass attitude. Don’t forget that asset.
I love* how Joe sees education as some sort of trick his teachers play on him.
And yeah, my first thought wouldn’t be “hm. My teacher is sure dressed up today. I am sure she intends to seduce the older sister of one of my class mates” either. I’m with Joe, a “trap” is a reasonable expectation.
*)well, mostly I feel sorry for him
In Joe’s defence, given his previous interactions with Leslie, this sort of confrontational behaviour is something that (from his perspective) he is right to fear.
On the other hand, Joe is smart enough (but not willing) to be able to understand that the confrontational behaviour he is so preoccupied about so far has always derived from his attempt at “figuring out this class”.
Seriously, I kinda like Joe as a character, because he starts kinda shitty but not completely awful (I mean, he is sort of a womanizing jerk, but he has some moral standards and is pretty forward about it. All the girls he’s been with (at least, the one’s we’ve been shown) demonstrated that they knew he just wanted a one-night stand with no strings attached*), BUT he has all the tool to better himself, and he is in a situation that allows it, if he is willing.
He also seems a lot like a “hidden depths” character, since it’s pretty clear he hides his emotions as a way to protect himself.
*Joyce is an exception to the rule and, yes, his “I’ll fix her with my penis” was horrid and disgusting, but I am willing to rule it as a misunderstanding of what they each wanted from the other (Joe=just a night’s fun; Joyce=a serious and committed relationship), and they’re kinda made peace about it? This shows that Joe is somewhat willing to recognise his mistakes and try to correct them.
Bottom line is: I like that Joe is a flawed character that’s slowly improving himself.
Agreed. For me that is one of the main points of the entire comic. To see the journey these characters take towards becoming better people.
That reminds me, did you ever get the “Dad of the Year” trophy finished for Hank?
Walky is all “I won’t get in trouble for this… right? I will get in trouble for this… right?”
Sad to say boys…it’s not gonna happen…
Besides the age gap between you guys in this universe, she’s not into guys XP
“…and also because she’s their teacher and that would be wrong due to the power dynamics in play” is how you were going to end that sentence, right?
I love you so much, Leslie. ;;;
Joe’s partially right. It is bait for a trap. It’s just meant to catch a congresswoman. ;p
Something tells me that someone has a hot date with a certain reactionary Congresswoman tonight!
Not yet, but she’s gonna
‘Cleavaging Cats and Dogs’
Right. Ok then.
(And Joe, jeez, feminism isn’t all traps and tests)
Maaaan, I didn’t know I needed that word.
Watch on, boys, just try to not go blind. Also know that you’re not the target here, but there IS one for sure.
But their attempts to not look at least speaks a lot of their growth, comical as it is.
What if I just do it until I need glasses?
That’s some dedication alright.
I think that means you stop a second or two before you get to the point of no return….
Yeah, if you can constantly pull that off (no pun intended) successfully, that is indeed some dedication.
Men looking beautiful women is a thing. Knowing when you’ve seen enough and you’re starting to be a creep is a skill many seem to lack and quite honesty you more often than not are going to end up overthinking things, just like these two. Talking about this is a pain though, because you’re almost always going to be blamed for something. I say this as a straight guy, been there done that, nowadays there’s apparently no right move.
I think at some point, somebody (probably me) got confused over whether we were still talking about staring, or about satisfying oneself.
I can’t believe how goddamn slow I am but are Walky and Joe the only dudes in this class. I’ve completely blanked otherwise.
Any how: hot damn Ms Bean. Not very subtle but effective.
They’re certainly the only dudes who are main characters that we care about!
I have a vague recollection of at least one other in the background. Walky and Joe are the only ones with names and lines, though.
Aside of Sue (or more behind of Jen?).
But difficult to judge – and that is only the appearance.
Woohoo Leslie is on a war path and packing some really impressive weaponry.
In Shortpacked, this sort of thing was super-effective on Robin…
Well let’s hope she will prove Mary right in the accusations that she is a fake Conservative XD
It’s a trap!
A booby trap!!!
And it’s working on you and meeee!
It’s a trap! To make Robin fap!
And dive into a boobie seaaaaaa!
…
OK, I probably should not be in charge of trying to make a musical number out of of DoA plotlines.
No, no, Emperor! Keep going!!!
I tried, but I couldn’t make it work. Oh well.
But completely unrelated to this topic, here’s a song I wrote a while that I do think works.
*a while ago
Stupid words. Why do I have to write all of them?
Asexual life:
“Oh hey, Leslie’s done the Amazi-Girl thing with her hair, and it’s working on the guys!”
*gets to fourth panel*
“Oooohhhh okay.”
Agreed,
I saw the title and was like ‘when does she attack them with a cleaver?…. Ohhhh boobs’
Oh honey.
Now yesterday’s page makes so much more sense. Lovely set-up work!
Not sure it does, because in yesterday’s scene, Joe’s head is twisting to the left in that last panel to look out the window, versus today’s strip where it’s now twisting to the rightl. Plus, his mouth yesterday is in a position that indicates he’s not really in a good mood. Today’s mouth as Leslie enters is “I am only just managing to stop my jaw from dropping to the ground.”
But yesterday still makes perfect sense to me. I am assuming that between Joyce’s texting with Joe during this weekend and now, something happened that upset Joe. Maybe an internal realisation about himself, or maybe something external about his family. Either way, the reveal has yet to come. I’m fairly confident it will at some point.
Probably through more texting. Joe seems to be capable of being more honest when that’s how he communicates.
Sigh, I’m about to have to suffer through Robin strips , aren’t I? *headwall*
Annnnnd I just spent ten minutes racking my brain trying to figure out which character is Maggie. Derp.
Driving the car.
…why is she third from the bottom on the “DoA’s Hottest Lady” poll, again?
Well, up until today (and the poll’s been up for at least a month now), she has not made an effort to be deliberately hot. And while she certainly looks good in general, and while I like most of her personality, what she is generally doing is not something that makes me “hot” per se. Of course, it’s not meant to do that, so I think that’s a good thing. Her sass is meant to make people take a look at themselves, after all.
It’s rigged. RIGGED, I tell you. Voter fraud is all too common.
eh, that was lame…
I’m pretty sure the second panel could work as the intro to an erotic fanfic/porn movie/slipshine.
Then again, I know nothing about erotic pieces involving women.
Leslie’s all about ‘teachable moments’, so this must be one of them… cannot imagine what I’m supposed.. to be… learning…
*RING*
bwa-wa? Class is over? Noo boobies don’t leeeeeave…
“I am the terror that flaps in the night. I am the person with boobs of fright. I am Leslie Bean.”
Comic Reactions but for real this time as the murder rage has subsided:
Panel 2: When Leslie promises cleavage, she delivers. Unlike her students, she’s not a slacker about her homework and that’s why she’s the one with a PhD.
Panels 3-5: Aspect 1: The weird public objectification that boys not only feel empowered to do with women who dare look “sexy”, but which typically gets dismissed as libido and hormones is a thing that stirs up a lot of emotions for me. One is well, the subtle policing of what outfits are “acceptable” by men being creepy. Like, women know that if you decide to dress a little sexily, say cause you’re going on a date, you’re likely to get an increase in street harassment and people calling you an escort (especially if you’re a trans woman or a person of color).
And that’s not okay as a societal norm and it’s also a thing that ends up happening even if you didn’t intend to dress “sexy”. My girlfriend is unfortunately well-endowed and I say this because she dresses like a nun in like five layers every time she goes out and still gets creepy guys trying to stalk her to her work and viewing the fact that she has large breasts as being entirely a come on to them personally.
And my students get it a lot too, because we fetishize “barely legal” youth in our society leading to a lot of creepy old men to feel socially safe leering at underaged girls on the mass transit systems or on the streets around school which often messes with their heads a bit, especially if the student in question is trans and not a girl at all.
Aspect 2: I also have ill feelings about not only the public leering but the expectation that public disrespectful objectifying leering is something that boys do and that not doing that means there’s something “wrong” with you.
Cause I’m trans and thus spent adolescence as a very confused “boy” by society’s regard. And I’m ace, so puberty was extra confusing as all these people around me seemed to start being part of a system that I didn’t have the pieces to understand, especially not in Hyper Fundie Land where sex education was essentially the scene from Mean Girls with the teacher saying ‘you’ll get chlamydia and die”.
And it meant that not only was public leering at “cute girls” socially expected of the men of my grade, not leering was seen as a sign of teh filthy gayness. So because I wasn’t leering around, talking sexually objectifying about women, because well, I don’t really experience sexual attraction and I felt more of a kinship to the women being objectified than the men objectifying them, I got beat. A lot.
Because that meant I was a (slur for a gay man). That meant I must have been secretly objectifying them in the locker rooms I tried to spend as little time as possible in. That meant I must have been trying to seduce my friends when I tried to hang out with them and play Starcraft or Magic. That meant I needed to be stomped flat. Because I didn’t leer.
And that’s what I’m talking about when I note how toxic masculinity is toxic not just for those who are not men, but the men asked to participate in it. Because one “wrong move” like mine could mean a world of awfulness and abuse and so doing what is “natural” to guys seems safer, seems better, seems the only way not to receive the ire of those invested in it.
Panels 3-5: Aspect 3: I’m kinda done with Joe’s continued treatment of a class he volunteered to attend and learn in as a “trap” trying to get him personally in trouble. One, because that’s not the point of awareness about gender. Or even about awareness of sexism. People don’t bring up sexist tropes to make specific boys feel bad, but because those tropes are pervasive and harmful.
And that’s a thing that Joe can’t handle. That it’s not about him. That he and his libido might not be the things the world revolves around and he’s resisting that because it might mean having to think about the cavalier attitude he’s taken to consent and objectification and how he treats women as either obstacles to his dick getting wet or living fleshlights to get him off.
Everything’s about conquest rather than exploration and the women that have been shown in comic to be appreciative of his advances have also been ones who are fine with just a utility to scratch an itch with Roz telling him to stay quiet cause his smooth talk gets in the way of her enjoying a cock with a lot of stamina and Penny basically using him to fulfill a sexual fetish and viewing him in similar utilitarian ways.
And that’s a frustrating aspect of his character and why I’m excited about the character growth he’s shown in text messages with Joyce and where that continues to lead.
Aspect 4: Viewing women’s bodies existing as a “trap” makes me hyper-nervous as a trans woman because that’s actually nearly led to me getting killed*.
*No really, drunken guy was fetishizing the “hot lesbians” on the street corner and shouting at us and when informed that one of us was actually a (slur for trans women), he asked the driver whether he wanted to circle back to solve the problem of me “tricking” him into objectifying me and my girlfriend and thus making him “less straight” in his mind.
Aspect 5: Let’s address the elephant in the room that is Joe’s public fetishization of lesbianism and lesbians, treating the entire existence of queer women’s sexuality and relationships as live-action porn specifically intended for him to consume and that’s lead to him on multiple accounts openly fetishizing women-loving-women in gender studies despite knowing a) his teacher’s a lesbian, b) that he did one of his “jokes” during a lesson on queer homelessness and disownment that was so triggering for a student she ended up running out of the room in tears, and c) that there’s a fair chance a number of his fellow students are queer-identified because it was one of the first jokes that Leslie made.
Leslie dressing up has nothing to do with him, is not about him, is as unrelated to him as you could possibly get and yet he makes it about him. He makes it about his libido. He makes it about teachers trying to “trap” him and he openly leers and goggles at his teacher.
His teacher. Like, it is so openly disrespectful it’s not funny and while Walky doesn’t have the same history, I’m also disappointed in him for similar reasons. Like, I shouldn’t have to be the one saying publicly leering your school teacher is not acceptable and beyond the frickin’ pale, no matter how “sexy” she is dressed. She is a professional doing a damn job for you, have some damn respect (this also applies double to fuckers who try and objectify waitresses and airline attendants and other service workers, because objectifying someone who can’t call you out on your shit because their job depends on being nice is the creepiest shit).
Panel 6: Well now, that’s an interesting eyeline you’ve got going on Roz. Mayhaps you are not as 100% straight as you initially believed. Now stop staring at your teacher’s breasts, even if you’ve got her ensnared in your political grudge match against your sister.
I know lots of people like this exist, but Christ. I’m constantly amazed by what an insightful, thoughtful, and helpful person you are, when you’ve had so many experiences that on their own would have made many others write off humanity.
Leslie is dressed for combat, and it is not a sniper attack but a roundhouse. Walky and Joe are collateral damage.
Yes, Joe, you are in for an object lesson. And I am not at all persuaded that Leslie’s endeavor is any more compatible with university regulations than was Roz’s video take of her tangle with Joe.
Of course, Leslie is about as insecure as the majority of her class. (Currently including Joe.)
What, pray tell, is Leslie doing that you think breaks with university regs?
I think it’s one of those “We’ll charge her with something as soon as we figure out what heck it is she was doing.”
Now, my personal take on this is that I think she’s been overstepping the bounds of a teacher-student relationship with Roz, and also maybe the class as a whole right now. She is allowing her infatuation with Robin to (first metaphorically, and today literally) expose herself more to Roz than she should have.
Now, just to make sure, I don’t blame Leslie for trying to appear attractive to Robin in itself. It’s just that I do not think a classroom is necessarily the right setting for students to see their teacher effectively trying to seduce another person, under the excuse of “guest speaker”. I especially do not think it’s right that at least one of the persons is fully aware of how that is exactly what they are doing.
Now, I can see that this whole situation is a bit strange, because it does not quite align with the usual power difference that exists between teachers and students, and which is why a teacher-student relationship is a big no-no. In fact, I would say that she is allowing the students (especially Roz) too much power over her. Despite her fairly easy-going style, she is still supposed to have a certain amount of authority in the classroom.
But how this is breaking university regulations? Now that can be a tough one to find, I admit.
I mostly agree. Colluding with a student to invite a guest speaker to class in order to seduce them is very much not cool and if it’s not against regulations it probably should be. Assuming they could find a way to put it that’s sufficiently narrowly tailored.
Imagine if instead of our lovable Leslie, it was a grown-up Joe taking advantage of a teaching job to try to set up trysts with unsuspecting targets.
Ah, that’s a much more reasonable concern than what I was thinking.
For me, the biggest concern from a purely ethical standpoint would be whether or not Leslie thinks Robin’s visit will actually benefit her students. If she doesn’t, she obviously should not be doing this, but since Roz’s family connection presents a unique opportunity to have a House Representative who was the first woman elected to her seat, it would be reasonable for Leslie to think it’d be worthwhile for her students. Obviously, Leslie’s judgement may not be as objective about this as she’s hoping, but I feel that makes the decision potentially unwise rather than potentially unethical.
The deal with Roz seems to be in more of a gray area, though. The tit-for-tat between them doesn’t seem to obligate Leslie to do anything she didn’t already want to do (seduce Robin), and Leslie definitely hasn’t shown Roz any preferential treatment so far. If Roz started demanding anything specific in exchange, I can only imagine that Leslie would shut it down immediately.
As for actually seducing Robin, I don’t see any ethical concern there, so much as one of professionalism. Hitting on Robin in class would obviously be completely unprofessional, but also highly unlikely to happen. If Leslie waits until after class is over, and keeps the in-class flirting to a minimum (some amount of blushing, stammering, and meaningful glances are probably unavoidable), I’d say she’s in the clear.
It still might not be the wisest, most professional decision she’s made, but I don’t see it as a problem.
I agree that there are certainly reasonable, ehh, reasons for Leslie to invite Robin.
I still question the methods of how this was achieved. But keep in mind, I’m not much of a “end justifies the means”; instead I am more of a “the means must justify the end” kind of person.
I’ll withhold judgement on how this is affecting the rest of the class until the lesson is over. We’ll see how that’s playing out soon enough.
The Dean never mentioned an actual rule she was breaking. His threat was she wouldn’t have housing – and while there wasn’t an immediate rule to throw her out, I suspect there didn’t need to be one for denying it next term. Roz does have some ability to care about her own personal future.
Also, “don’t bang anyone who visits the campus when they’re just unrelated adults and not students” seems like it wouldn’t go down well.
The addition for Roz is probably beyond unnecessary. Shock explains her reaction equally well, and we already had her older, considerably more experienced alt-universe self make it abundantly clear she’s straight. Her straightness is about as in question as Ethan’s gayness (if far less toxic to call into question in general).
Roz is being a hypocrite here – she called for this:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/gag/
I note that this is the second time a Joyce-like attire is used to devastating effenct. The first one was Joyce’s gift of her shirt to Sal.
…She’s not being a hypocrite. What is with people? She’s surprised her professor actually /did/ it. Saying “you should do this” is not the same as expecting someone to do this.
Damn, that’s a harsh analysis. Given your history, I don’t blame you.
I’m a guy, and I find myself reflexively sneaking a peek at the cleavage of women I fancy. And everytime I do, I can’t help but feel like a pig. And then I consciously avert my eyes anywhere but, and I feel like a total prude/chump/idiot by doing so.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we supposed to NOT feel shame for being sexual beings? Like, this undercurrent of thought that male sexuality is inherently tainted and predatory is frustrating as hell to me. Even more so, because it seems to be one of the few things that conservative bible thumpers and humourless radical feminists seem to be in agreement on.
Cerberus, you seem to know this gender studies stuff better than I do, so tell me: How do I recognize – and act in response to – my female peers’ sexuality without objectifying them? Am I just supposed to accept that the second I think sexy thoughts about a girl I fancy, I’ve mentally reduced her to just a thing I want to fuck the brains out of?
Picture the scenario: I’m talking to one particular friend of mine about books, or MtG, or – my favorite – another horror story of one of the kids in her biology lab almost killing themselves via shoddy OHS behaviour.
Now, I really fancy her, mostly because she’s smart, witty, and resourceful (I don’t think she fancies me, but I’ve accepted that).
She also has a lovely bosom that I can’t help but notice from time to time. And when she smiles at me, it makes me think dirty, naughty thoughts involving me and her. But none of that makes me think less of her.
Hope you don’t mind me chiming in but:
Having sexual thoughts is fine. Everyone who is not asexual has sexual thoughts. Having sexual thoughts about someone in particular is also fine.
Where it becomes an issue, for me, is where you reduce the other person to an object in your head. A few examples:
Indulging in sexual daydreams when you should be having a conversation with and paying attention to your friend is a jerk move and objectifying because you’re reducing her to a prop in your fantasy when she’s right there in front of you (I am thinking in particular of what Sarah did to Jacob a few strips back, where she was basically completely ignoring what he was saying to focus on her sexual fantasy). Being nice to your friend as if you were putting kindness coins into a sex machine – with the idea that if you do enough for her eventually she’ll “owe” you a date or a roll in the sack (not saying you do this but I and pretty much every woman and person-who-is-read-as-a-woman out there have experienced this at least once and it is the source behind the widespread derision of self-described “Nice Guys”) – is suuper creepy and objectifying because you’re ignoring the fact that she has agency and will of her own and she might just not be into you. Doing what Joe and Walky are doing – ignoring everything about Leslie to focus exclusively on ogling her boobs – is objectifying, too, because they’re reducing Leslie to her boobs and ignoring everything else about her.
On the other hand: Dorothy and Walky, together, exhibit very good sexual behavior to each other. Neither of them keeps being sexual if the other doesn’t want to – at every step, they make sure the other party is ok with what they’re doing, and when they’re together, they focus on each other and not on what they’d like to do with each other’s bodies. I’m sure they do look and check out each other – but never have we seen either of them allow their sexual attraction to dominate their interaction – nor have they ignored a non-sexual interaction to turn the other into a fantasy prop.
As a friendly heads-up as well – there’s a lot of trolls in the bowels of the internet who are all “Consent is too hard! What, am I never supposed to say hi to a woman now?!” and your comment hit on some of the red flags of the more sophisticated sophists in that group. I don’t think you’re trolling (hence why I responded as if you were asking honestly) because I think your question comes of genuine self-reflection… but on the other hand, be aware that trolls have muddied the water on this type of topic enough that in a lot of SJ-oriented spaces people hear someone asking your sort of question and instinctively think, “Oh great, here we go again,” because a solid majority of the time, the other person is a troll looking to trick people into saying something out of context or just trying to aggravate the hell out of people by arguing disingenuously that there’s times when it’s understandable to rape or that advocating for more strict response on sexual harassment is tantamount to enforcing gender segregation or etc. Don’t be surprised if you get some people responding in a wary or even hostile way to these sorts of questions – I’ve seen you around the comments section enough to know that if you’re a troll, you’re playing a long con the likes of which I’ve only seen once or twice in over twenty years on the internet, but others may not have.
I don’t outright ignore her when I think those thoughts. My brain might context switch a bit, but it’s tens of milliseconds delay, tops.
And as for the Nice Guy concept, ugh, fuck no. If I need to spell it out: No, I don’t think anybody owes me anything in return for kindness/friendship. Full disclosure: We met on OKCupid, dated/hung out for a while, she didn’t feel the chemistry. I was sad about it in private for a while, but got over it. We’re still friends, we still hang out from time to time. I don’t think I should feel bad about being sad about a romantic relationship not happening, though. Different story if I actually held a grudge about it, obviously.
And yeah, I knew I was running the risk of sounding like you said I was. The thing is, if someone is going to jump to conclusions like that after I show nothing but candor and spill my guts in a frantic attempt to figure this conflicting mess of gender expectations out, then quite frankly they can eat whichever set of genitals they find least appealing, for all I care. If I get hostility, I’ll obviously respond in kind.
And you’ve actually noticed my comments? Ooohhh my gorsh I’m blushing right now. Nah, I’m no troll. Just a dude with a whole mess of conflicted thoughts on these subjects that I’m trying to reconcile by talking to strangers on the net.
The real question is if the congresswoman will comment on this or not.
What if she will not make it and Leslie did this all for nothing than just fanservice for the readers?
David really wears his sweater vest fetish on his sleeve, huh.
But sweater vests don’t have…
Wait.
Did Leslie change her appearance because of the rally? Is she trying to make sure people (who don’t know her) don’t realize she was there?
No, that was accomplished by holding a sign in front of her face.
She’s dressed up nice because Robin’s coming to class as a guest speaker, and Leslie wants to make an impression.
What? No, Roz got Robin to come in to class today (or at least was supposed to, there could always be a ha-ha Roz failed to do so moment) because Leslie likes her, so Leslie dressed up for the occasion.
So I just saw a clip of Obama talking about how tomorrow everyone in America gets a free taco and there was this guy in the audience who was totally stoked and–it was you, Willis, wasn’t it?
Remember that Trump promised us a Taco Truck on every corner if Clinton wins! Just another reason to vote for her.
Strictly speaking, I think it was the spokesman (and probably only member) of Latinos for Trump who promised us that.
I remember him “warning” us that this would happen because “Mexico is a very dominant culture”. Yep, those were his words.
And I remember thinking… Has the man ever been in any major city in… Well, the entire world? Because man, if “dominant culture” is defined by how well you can spread your food businesses, then maybe he should take a look at, say a world map of McDonalds locations. Or Coca-Cola sales. Or Hollywood movies and TV shows. Or… Well, I’m mostly preaching to the choir here, so might as well stop now.
Sire,
“Taco Trucks on every corner.”
Don’t argue, don’t confuse the issue with facts or we might not get them.
Be the Taco Trucks On Every Corner you want to see in the world.
Very well. Next time it is mentioned that the people must vote for Taco Trucks on every corner, We will gladly let everyone think it was The Toupéed One that promised us that this would happen if Hillary wins.
Truly, We can see this being a case where both the end justifies the means, -and- the means justify the end.
Hmm, I somehow expected that the two desktops would launch themselves into the roof in panel 2.
Explosive nosebleeds would be better.
Boob morning, everyone!
Wow, Leslie just looks… really weird like that…