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Despite the image on the side calling Robin NSFW. I actually clicked to try and figure out how Robin might be doing something like that at this point in the story, just to discover it was a generic Slipshine link that has nothing to do with this comic.
WARNING: The following comic may contain scenes involving graphic hand-holding, hand-holdingly suggestive language, brief frontal hand-holding, strong hand-holding themes, reckless misuse of cereal, and other content which may be deemed unsuitable for children under 6 months.
She lays the foreshadowing and foundation with a couple of Fusion episodes, lays emotional groundwork with “Rose’s Scabbard,” and then…BOOM…Leslie will have officially converted Robin into a Steven Universe fan.
…That’s…that’s what you mean, right? That’s what she’s going for? Am I missing something?
I gave a five-pound bag of cereal marshmallows to my 8-year-old nephew for Christmas. Screw the Minecraft Lego set, the marshmallows were his favorite gift. #JustUncleThings
Leslie’s upper part is awkward, because she knows all this will get her in trouble, eventually.
Leslie’s lower part is smug, because she’s SOOO HAPPY RIGHT NOW
Which one has the least amount of my favorite characters dying horribly? I’ve seen a few pages while browsing TV Tropes, but I haven’t actually gone in-depth with any Willis comics other than this one.
Shortpacked probably has the least deaths. Roomies only had one that I recall, but it was pretty traumatic. IW has a bit of a body count.
Read them anyway. I second the recommendation to read the reposted version. The early years are pretty crude and it’s fun to read present-Willis going “What was I thinking?”
Huh, Congressional Aide is a direct port from the Walkyverse. Must add this to my “DoA Robin is actually SP!Robin mid-Cadbury-bender” theory… *Pulls out Castle-esque whiteboard full of pictures and multi colored string*
… okay, y’know what? Just go for it, you crazy kids. You’re learning to communicate properly, and absorb and manage each other’s snark, and that’s going to be a useful foundation for when you get down to things that really matter.
I love that the “Frequently bought together” is this pile of marshmallows, a nondescript bag of marshmallows, and a slightly fancy bag of marshmallows.
It’s like, “Yeah, so I want some stiff, super sweet marshmallows to put in my milk… but all these brands look similar… so lets try all three, then next time I’ll know what marshmallows I want for breakfast! Muahahaahahahaaaa!!!”
And then you wake up weeks later, trying to figure out what you did wrong.
I mean, technically a royal title like that would supersede a military rank, at least by Earth conventions. (And there does seem to be a light implication in Episode VII that the Alderaanians have similar conventions.)
Though I’d wager Leia would rather not be called by her royal title on account of the whole “world getting destroyed literally before her eyes” thing.
Well, I have Legos. Legos is one of the best dates. Or, if you live in the St. Louis area, the backstage tours at the World Aquarium will let you feed green beans to a sloth and argue with an anteater about where to put its bowl.
Robin: “This ain’t no meltdown! I’m just… hey, yeah– meltdown! Great idea! I’ll melt these ‘mallows down into gooey, multi-colored perfection! Where’s you’re microwave, again?”
Wait you call that tiny? That looked positively spacious compared to the one I grew up with. 2 people can stand back to back AND the stove probably opens all the way.
I haven’t watched Steven Universe, because I struggle watching half-hour TV shows (…it’s a weird thing, demand a reason and I’ll exposit for a few pages), but I do get that it deals heavily with LGBT issues.
When looking at Leslie’s actions here, something to keep in mind is that perfect should not be the enemy of good. While she’s a Gender Studies teacher, this specific situation is clearly not in the handbook.
So, what is she doing? She’s using popular entertainment that doesn’t shy away from LGBT issues to educate someone that clearly has a bit of an inclination towards homosexuality, and holding her hand (aka letting her engage in a low-key bit of, shall we say, ‘lezzing out’, but in a way she’s more comfortable with).
There might be better ways. And I’d honestly love to hear what sort of better ways there are to expose a non-straight homophobe to the subject… but Leslie at least doesn’t seem to be making things worse.
Maybe I’m just spoiled by the Netflix long-form series, but <40 minute long episodes of fiction just feel too compromised by their runtime to really tackle subjects in much depth. There's been a few exceptions, but even the good stuff feels like it would've been twice as good if it had been twice as long…
I agree. Steven Universe treats a lot of subjects with depth and sensitivity, especially the subject of loss and grief. I’m excited to see how far the show will delve into the question of what people are willing to do to protect their freedom. Honestly, I’ve seen hour long episodes of shows that are nothing but shallow BS or are otherwise badly written.
If you do give it a shot, I hope you enjoy it. The first couple of episodes can be a bit rough because everyone is still learning, but the characters grow immensely.
I used to feel the same way. But after watching Steven Universe I started to notice that longer episodes of others shows often are just artificially long, including B plots that aren’t that interesting and exist mostly to feel time. SU’s episodes tend to be interesting from beginning to end and rarely actually feel short.
Of course, it is not always that clear cut. Some episodes feel like they would benefit from a few extra minutes, the same way other shows have episodes that fully use its long runtime. But overall, I believe you will be surprised with how much SU can pack into 10 minutes. Not to mention the show is not above breaking a longer plot into many episodes, if they need to (the last 5 episodes were part of a single arc, for example)
What I like about it is that it just focuses on the relationships, it never makes a big deal out of the genders involved. Which is how it really should be, at the end of the road.
The only time I an recall when the show made anything like a big deal about it was when Steven’s uncle shows up at the barn, and starts ranting about hippies and conspiracies.
It was… different. It was an odd dose of what felt like real world 2016 poking its misshapen nose into the alternate world that SU inhabits and sniffing about.
We’ve seen a world map with what looks like a giant crater in the middle of Russia (a bit west of Tunguska impact, but hey), and we’ve seen floating rocks and giant strawberries. And Beach City seems pretty cool with whatever. But maybe even in the world of SU, Beach City really is weird, and the sorta liaise-faire way that they react to much of what the gems and Steven get up to isn’t typical of the wider world.
I’m still trying to figure out what Sugar, et al, were trying to tell us about the broader world of SU with that episode.
I kinda loathe everyone involved in this storyline.
Leslie’s standing as “the one good adult” kinda got shot when she let her thirst bring Robin to her classroom to hit on her, Robin feels like a spaz divorced from any concept in reality, and I kind of feel obligated to hate Roz for all eternity for parading her sister’s outing down the hall and expecting all the queers to fall in line.
Leslie and Robin are being idiots, they’re just not being interesting idiots. I don’t care about their relationship here the way I did in Shortpacked!. Leslie’s making an ass of herself for someone she barely knows and Robin invades her home like a kooky wacky spaz only it isn’t the Walkyverse so she comes off like a dangerously unhinged lunatic.
I used to like Roz a lot but I’m basically over her until she grows the fuck up and stops being a terrible self aggrandizing ally.
Since I presume you are socially conscious and want to avoid slurs, I will warn you not to use the word “spaz.” In the UK, it is a slur for people with movement disorders, like cerebral palsy.
Sure, it’s treated as more acceptable in the U.S., but, then again, bunt with a c or baggot with an f are not as big a deal in the UK, and there are plenty of places where the n-word isn’t as offensive.
Now, I don’t push every “ableist slur.” Crazy and lame are fine with me (except if the person actually has a mental disorder), but I think this is an important one, like how petard with an r is treated.
And sorry for the circumlocutions. Trying to avoid the filter.
If you’re not doing a complete series run (Steven Universe really starts weak and gets better with time) it’s however also a very good first episode for someone to watch, as it’s the one that introduces the single most important element of the series. It’s probably the first ‘must not miss’ ep (well there’s also the ep that introduces Connie, I guess, but it’s not crucial to watch that one first, just before other Connie eps).
I’d honestly say to start with Alone Together because that’s the best “high concept” episode and will tell you if you are really into the ideas of Steven Universe, but I can also see the sense in watching Giant Woman and Bubble Buddies first.
Why does everyone say it starts weak? There are so many hints about where it’s going and that there’s a lot more under the surface, from the very beginning – those are what caught my interest right away! It starts small, yes, because we’re following Steven as he learns too, so things unfold slowly, but watching it unfold is part of the point! Every little seemingly odd thing a character says (like jokingly saying “We kept Amethyst”), everything shown but not directly addressed in the background (The murals, the fact that there are ruins everywhere, the symbols on structures), and it terms of the social issues, just the fact that we’re talking about a team of all-female-indentifying beings that show a range of diversity…that doesn’t happen by accident, the creators obviously were being very deliberate in everything they did…that’s not weak either.
Random thought ;
Just because, right now, they are dressed and watching TV, doesn’t necessary mean there weren’t going at it like rabbit in the kitchen 2 hours ago.
So I came out as polysexual today on Facebook. Between all the bigotry and politics on my feed, I had run out of fucks and forgot to restock. So I spill my heart out about how all of this effected me even saying how scared I was but I felt like I had to say it. I clicked submit fully expecting all hell to break lose because my area is super religious.
Here’s the kicker. Nobody seen it save one person who I gave a heads up that it was there (just in case people got really bad). No likes/reactions. No comments. No private messages, phone calls, or texts. Nothing. The best I can figure is that either my posts are filtered by them or they don’t read any of my longer posts because I know them well enough that my family being cool with this is less likely than me winning a car.
I have never gotten to see it. No tv save a few from antenna and my internet isn’t good enough for a streaming service (I’m just on limited mobile). I’ve always wanted to though.
First: Congratulations. I’m proud of your bravery.
Second: An optimistic explanation could be that your announcement was met with such a degree of acceptance that no one who read it felt it needed comment.
Congratulations! That took a lot of courage, especially with what’s been going on lately! I wish you the best! Also, if you need people to talk/write too, remember that we’re here and will listen to and support you. *friendly gesture of support and comfort as I don’t know if you’re comfortable with hugs*
*brings in for giant hug* Honey, I’m southern! Last week I gave someone I’d never met some of my homemade cookies. I never meet a stranger
It wasn’t easy, but I’m glad I did. And I’m starting to figure out that yall don’t mind when I post things that stray from the comic at hand, so I’m gonna keep that in mind from now on
Oh… oh my gosh. This is… I don’t know what to say guys! I’m a puddle right now from my heart melting. You’re all so happy and supportive! I’ve always been so afraid to do it because of the backlash I would get or dismissive reactions (like the people who argue that I’m straight but appreciate women or something). Every time I complain about it, I feel guilty for my fear and feelings because I know people who have it far worse because unlike me they can’t live their lives hiding only half of who they are.
I was so scared to press submit. I stopped and reread it so many times before I finally clicked. I deleted the text and pasted it back too. I not only admitted that I was a polysexual, but that I was also a liberal. The only thing I didn’t add was that I’m an atheist because that could be dangerous here. I never thought of it as brave; I thought of it as me just reaching my breaking point when I could no longer take their bigotry.
I love this community so much. It’s filled with wonderful caring people that I’m grateful to be a part of.
Your orientation is real and valid. And you’re not “half straight”, you’re all the way “polysexual” and that has impact on you no matter who you are dating, so the people dismissing that or making you feel you don’t have a right to complain about oppression that happens to a community you belong to can jog right on.
And I’m glad we could support you, because you are awesome and your identity is awesome and what you did is awesome.
*hugs accepted*
Thank you. It means a lot coming from you. I know you have been on the receiving end of a lot of bigotry in your life and even now you are catching a lot along with your kids. To know that you see my feelings as valid and accept me as part of the community makes me feel less selfish and self conscious about it all. I want to help us all by not only trying to reeducate people when possible and use my vote to support LGBTQ+, but by being a positive example as well.
I had one person who knew about my sexuality tell me after Trump was elected I needed to delete any post on my Facebook about LGBTQ+ and hide that part of myself for the next four years for my safety, but I couldn’t do it. I think you hit on why. I wish others could see it that way.
No, YOU are awesome. You and your kids. Speaking of which, how are they?
Ok things just got serious. They are watching Steven Universe together!! Unless her team somehow gets Robin out within the next hour, she will not leave that couch without the need of a bomb squad until they finish marathoning the series. Side note; I’m willing to bet that Amethyst is currently Robin’s favorite character.
Hmmmm….Maybe not. Amethyst is probably a pretty good mirror of Robin’s own insecurities and issues, to be honest. I’m betting she’s gonna turn out a Garnet fan.
Pearl’s grown the most out of the Gems. She’s constantly running into walls and breaks through them and is practically a completely different person than she was at the start.
I actually love Pearl because there are so few characters that are genuinely portrayed as struggling with low self esteem/self worth issues, especially female* characters, who still are seen as deserving and worthy of love. I think a lot of people don’t like Pearl because maybe she reminds them of hard times or their insecurities. She’s a whole character, but I think a lot of people don’t see past her issues, which is kind of realistic.
I like Garnet because she is kind of the person I want to be, or rather who I feel I’m “supposed” to be like (strong, rarely makes mistakes, in a great relationship, caring, you know, “perfect”) but I realize I’m more like Pearl/Amethyst at this moment in my life in terms of my feelings of self worth.
* Although gems were said to not technically have a gender.
Gonna be honest, my favorite character is actually Lapis. And that one episode where Jasper attacks the boat Steven’s dad bought is what really cemented that for me.
Amethyst is my favourite, but Pearl’s definitely the character with the most growth and depth out of the cast. Granted she’s nearly killed Steven like three times now.
I don’t even like Garnet that much when she’s not being Square Mom. She feels really static.
Again, we’ll have to agree to disagree about Garnet. I think she feels a lot more open and less stilted than before. She’s still monotone and sarcastic, because that’s Garnet, but she’s definitely letting her feelings through more.
I think Pearl and Steven have developed the most as characters. Lately Amethyst has felt sort of peripheral to me. Garnet is basically the rock of their group, I doubt she’ll develop very much, but she does provide the foundation that keeps the rest of them from flying off into orbit. Although I think Steven is beginning to step up to that role now, too. Kinda like, “I’ve taught you all I can, you don’t need me as much anymore” with the teacher being Garnet.
I kinda lost my love for Peridot when we got to the episode where we learn that she actually is as worthless and broken as she thinks she is, and is only saved by discovering new super powers that make her actually special and useful.
Ugh, that whole episode was a mess. Either Peridot doesn’t get to discover genuine self worth or Amethyst gets to be in the right for being an ableist, boundary violating asshole.
Yep, it’s one of the few episodes of the series I view as flat out bad.
To compare it to DoA, it’d be like Amber being completely correct that she’s shitty and broken, that she needs to process her anger through Amazi-Girl, and only once she’s sufficiently atoned for her inherent vileness can she be a good person.
Peridot has low self esteem because she’s made of lower quality material and thus needs technology to assist her. Then we find out the reason she doesn’t need to think poorly of herself isn’t that she actually is smart and capable and has grown tremendously and now genuinely loves the people around her, it’s that she has cool new magic powers, and we find this out when Amethyst (who has to constantly deal with the stigma of being a “runt”) decides that Peridot isn’t allowed to express herself through her not-an-iPad and tries to destroy it.
I’ll admit, when I first saw the episode, I snorted because Amethyst sounded like some 40 something mom nagging her kids about their phones, but then I took a step back and remembered she’s using her tablet to replace her limb enhancers – which are basically assistive technology for Peridots. Then it becomes a lot less funny.
The exchange ‘You don’t need it!” “You don’t know that!” particularly hit. That reminds me of people who joke about ‘miracles’ when they see someone in a wheelchair stand up or walk a little and assume they no longer need a chair. That is not the way it works. There are plenty of people in wheelchairs who have limited use of their legs due to pain or weakness or swelling. There are people who have full use one day and no use the next. There are people in physiotherapy who are learning to re-use their legs and forcing them to walk or god forbid dance when they can’t even walk to the end of a work out mat unassisted can massively screw over their legs.
Amethyst, in that scene, struck me as the kind of ‘friend’ who sees their friend finally master standing out of their chair, assumes said chair isn’t needed, and so she tries to kick it down the stairs.
But ooh, Steven Universe, I see! Neat! And an episode before the series, ahem, nukes the closet from orbit, I see. We'll see if Robin's so receptive when they get to Jailbreak or The Answer. And oh dear, contacting from the outside. Considering her day, I can see why Robin looks so hounded. And ha, Leslie hasn't even bothered get dressed yet. 'I don't have a class today and it's my house THAT YOU BROKE INTO so fuck it.' My policy as well, Leslie.
Panel Two: I WONDER WHY. Robin taking absolutely none of this campaign seriously certainly won't help her curry favour with the bigots she's relying on for her campaign, who are freaking out she's LGBT+. And the mushy middle will be (hopefully) turned off by her hypocrisy. This might in fact be campaign poison – which is probably what the opposition is banking on (not to mention why Roz is cheering her freedom so early).
Panel Three: That's because, lbr, Robin doesn't give a rat's ass about what Congress is actually for. She sees as a game with cool perks. She doesn't see it as a position with the authority to make laws that determine whether people live or die. Robin is not good people.
And Leslie? Blasphemy. The marshmallows are the good part. And they come as part of the cereal so :P. I like how Leslie looks more concerned about her position than Robin is. Which, yeah, Leslie has something to lose here. Robin does too, but she's independently wealthy and can probably find another job – if only as a cable news commentator.
Panel Four: Yeah, marshmallow only cereal is pretty standard operating procedure from Robin. Her not being a goofball is when you know things are fucked.
Panel Five: And yeah, not talking, just….grumping. She does not like being pointed out how little she takes seriously. Because serious sucks and is boring and it means bad things are happening and people might leave.
Panel Six: And Leslie can't turn off the educator, even when it's with someone who hurts her. So she goes and tries to reach out and try to nudge her to seeing her campaign crew's point of view. To be more responsible.
Also – quick note. Campaign manager. So, new person. Not Frieda (student outreach officer who just met her the day before yesterday) or Kyle (an administrative aide).
Panel Seven: And yeah, those are valid reasons for a campaign crew to be worried with a regular candidate. When that candidate is Robin? Hell no. She needs to be watched at all times to make sure she doesn't play herself. And Leslie's trying to get her to understand other people. Sadly, I think this storyline will end with her learning sometimes reaching out will ALWAYS get you burned with certain people and you need to cut your losses.
And yeah, Robin's so deep in denial she may as well book a flight to Egypt. It'll take more than Giant Woman to break her out of that. Might wanna skip to Jailbreak or the one where Rose and Pearl nearly kiss.
I dont feel too great about this, because I don’t think Leslie is aware of the blowback that’s going to happen. They can’t stay in the house forever.
It would be like if I dated that guy in college who lived near me and we once had a conversation where he argued that poor people didn’t deserve social welfare programs because they didn’t choose to be more like him and be born into wealth they didnt work for at all. Talking to a room full of students on financial aid.
Or the guy who had regular conversations that clearly indicated he only saw women as sex objects and could never let a woman win a debate with him. Or any of the many people who said to students faces that they didnt deserve to be there because they think affirmative action is a farce.
Leslie, its not your job to teach your oppressor and you’re worth so much more. Also, the Power of Love rarely works on people like Robin who have everything to gain from doing what they do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get outside and Robin does something completely different from what she’s saying here to protect herself.
I’m feeling very cynical because I know I’m gonna wake up to some Republican fuckery tomorrow.
True. Everybody’s fixated on the Congresswoman because (with some truth) she’s the bigger fish in this story and has farther to fall. But my own experiences have shown me that even people in the minority can be just as vicious and cruel towards people they view as “traitors to the cause” by associating with people viewed as “the enemy”. So yeah, Leslie may very well experience some fallout of her own from her friends, students and any public causes she may be associated with.
I don’t doubt your experiences. I have seen that happen myself as well, especially at college. But to me those people aren’t necessarily equivalent in their meanness, because they dont have the power to take away your rights. Robin literally has the power to take away Leslie’s rights.
I think that’s part of why people get so upset in those cases, because its like one person, even if they are marginalized, supporting implicitly or explicitly the oppressor. Frankly, even though the oppressor holds most of the power, they help fuck it up for the rest of us.
I definitely understand that people on both sides are more complex than that, and there are power structures at play, and no one is perfect, but sometimes it’s critical to ask the question: do you value me or not? Do you love yourself or not? It’s like racial minorities who swear racism isn’t real because they have white friends or whatever and refuse to help with equality or worse actively work against it and insist that others are misunderstanding the issue.
( actually went to school with several of these types of people. Someone on my Facebook continuously calls protesters “animals” which is racially charged enough, but very lo and behold even though she dislikes Black Lives Matter, guess who the new Pres and his folks also dislike? Immigrants and their children, especially people of her ethnicity. So who the fuck is she helping here? Certainly not even herself.)
If Robin voted on a bill that revokes some civil rights for queer folks, that means Leslie AND Robin AND all the other queer people. Could Leslie really be with someone like that? Is the main question here. Again, I understand that the issues and people are very complex, but especially now it’s critical that we acknowledge our differences and become stronger because of them and fight for them, rather than continuing this game of creating conditions where it’s okay to be prejudiced because x or y personal situation. Leslie here has decide not only personally would she date someone who doesn’t value something so essential to her identity and life, *and* because Robin is a public figure that forces her, Leslie, to make that decision political and public.
I think you are right in that Leslie is set to get a lot of shit from people she knows for this. And well, given the specific situation here, someone needs to let her know she is worth more and shouldn’t waste her time with the Robins of the world.
I have enough faith in Leslie to think that she won’t stay with Robin (even if they get together beyond watching Steven Universe) if Robin doesn’t change, personally and politically.
If it doesn’t work, she’ll take some crap from her peers for consorting with the enemy, but she’ll also win some points for outing her, however unintentionally. It balances out.
She’s more likely to have problems with the college for dragging them into controversy.
This really isn’t Leslie dating the homophobe Republican congresswoman. This is still Leslie trying to teach and change her.
I mean in this case Robin is less “the enemy” and more actually a bonafide enemy of the LGBT+ community because she’s a legitimate aggressor against queer people and actively works to endanger them and if that doesn’t make someone an enemy of a group of people I’m not really sure what does.
To be an aggressor, she’d need to have a desire to harm. She has none and, arguably, is too abnormal to have that sort of agenda. She’s basically doing what she believes will benefit herself and seems broadly incapable of understanding what affect that would have on others other than assuring herself that ‘probably nobody would be hurt’.
The thing about it is you can still do harm even if you don’t “intend” to. Actions have consequences, and that will never change. And the thing about Robin is that she purposefully distances herself from the effects of her actions – didn’t Joyce just a few strips ago ask about some bill or some such she voted for that would have hurt people like Becky? She knows what she’s doing, it just doesn’t seem like it because she has an otherwise goofy personality. That’s what’s so great about her as a written character, not everyone who is out to get you is a cartoon villain.
I mean, her screwing thousands of people over for her own personal gain, even if she’s not homophobic (and we’ve already seen she’s internalized homophobia), is really not that much better. At least the homophobes will let you know. People like Robin will smile at you while pouring poison in your drink. Could she be a good person eventually? Maybe. But she actually has to *do* better, not just say she will or that she had the intention of doing better.
Not caring about how your actions hurt others is like the basis of most real evil. Most people who commit evil don’t do it out of hate they do it out of selfish indifference to the well being of others so long as they get what they want.
Exactly. The only component required is indifference. Indifference is what leads to atrocities all over the globe, the revocation of rights for marginalized people everywhere. I’m sitting here watching all these politicians do all but revoke women’s right to vote, I’m so sick of people who are putting their heads in the sand. There’s too much at stake here for that nonsense.
My definition of evil is “Selfishness without regard to hurting others.” Even if you hurt others for your own amusement–the worst kind of evil–you are doing so for selfish reasons, without caring about the hurt that it causes.
When dealing with the D&D alignment grid (which people often apply to fiction outside of D&D), I often point out that the D&D Neutral (between Good and Evil) is actually often evil in real life.
Yeah, this is Leslie giving in to something she knows will be toxic and it’s largely because she’s been put in a position where she’s already fucked in a lot of ways thanks to Robin’s constant pushing on her boundaries (a lot of her friends are not going to be happy about her “secretly dating” the person who actively campaigns and votes on making their lives worse).
And yeah, there is often an expectation placed on marginalized folks that it is their job to “fix” the bigoted and teach them how not to hate and a lot of the time, it’s a very dehumanizing practice and it’s easy for it to be a humiliating ritual that still ends in the bigot constantly mistreating you and taking advantage of your kindness to abuse or gaslight others about their bigotries (I can’t be X-ist, I have a X friend).
And it’s also as you note just kind of dangerous for a marginalized person to be dating someone like this, who openly dismisses a lot of key aspects of humanity for marginalized folks (Robin has already been shown openly dismissing and even mocking real important information about what Leslie’s life has been like and students talking about their queer friends).
Right now there’s a little oasis of denialism, but the reality is going to hit Leslie, likely when the queer students in her class express feelings of betrayal about this whole thing.
Agreed. And converse to the “I can’t be X-ist, I have X friend” argument is what I see a lot in my community of people fetishizing their oppressors. They want to be the ones to “change” them and thus end all -isms purely through the power of their Love. It seems like not only is Leslie thinking with her sex drive, she also seems to be romanticizing the “*I* get to be the one to get through to her!” thing, which almost never works and only ends in the dehumanization of the marginalized person, while the oppressor gains a lot while doing nothing. This is very different from dating someone who actually respects you and will fight with you for your rights.
I see this all the time in communities and circles I run in. The person they are dating/married to is clearly a (racist or sexist usually) asshole, and they timidly follow behind them making excuses and cleaning up their messes and insisting they’re happy together, or at worst acting high and mighty towards everyone else (especially other people who share in their marginalization). It’s very sad and very unnecessary, but they stick with them because they believe that their relationship transcends all earthly prejudices or some such bullshit. Not to mention the dash of self hatred/lack of self worth required to make a relationship like that work. It is very damaging to a person’s self worth, their soul, their heart to be with someone like that, and it usually doesn’t end well from what I’ve seen.
The rest of this comment is just in general, not saying Leslie is that person, but if she decides to actually date Robin, she is most definitely gonna put herself in some really tough positions like we said above. Also I can’t imagine how pissed off/conflicted Roz would turn out to be – she wanted this to happen, but I don’t think she knows what she’s asking for at all.
I think this is somewhat different, if only because Robin is going to have to come out of the closet, at least to herself for anything to happen here. And it looks like she’s going to come be out of the closet publicly as well.
Leslie’s got at least some more self-respect here than in early SP. I don’t think she’s willing to be Robin’s piece on the side while Robin keeps up her old ways – nor do I think Robin’s disciplined enough to keep that pretense from going public.
Are you talking about friends in the Facebook way (I.e. everybody I slightly know is counted as friend) or about real friends?
I wouldn’t count people as friends who drop me like a hot brick because my foto with someone they have reason to dislike and distrust hits the social networks. I wouldn’t even count those you ask what the hell happened and hearing the story and still dropping me like a hot brick.
If you are talking about co-campaigner and such, yes, I imagine there’d be a lot who drop you in such a situation (I distinctly remember the fallout when a paid staff member of a lesbian project got pregnant and people found it reason to hate her that she didn’t stand up before the whole meeting and tell us she was living with a man and got pregnant by mistake – consorting with the enemy is sanctioned in political groups).
You’re right, friends is the wrong time. More, I’d say random fellow queer people are going to look askance at her and trust her less and I’d imagine some folks who she mostly knows from the streets but aren’t close friends.
Like real friends go what the fuck and try to find out more, but there’s going to be a lot of casual relationships that are gonna ghost or give a glare over the punch bowl.
Though I think the one that’s going to be the biggest hit is gonna come from the students. Cause students tend to be very invested in political activism and its easy for them to fall into purity standards and so the reaction from them is likely to be deeply negative and even to express feelings of betrayal.
Especially among those who’ve had reason to fear becoming homeless or who were growing to trust her as an adult resource and mentor.
Of course, Leslie can repair that, but it’s going to be a lot of work and there’s going to be a fair few that will just write her off.
we have a new example for that, now: the 14 Democratic senators who voted, for whatever reason, to approve (not abstain, not oppose) the (awful, but that almost goes without saying) nominee for head of the CIA. Including a few in very safe states, like Feinstein, and Tim Kaine(!), who was going to be our VP.
the feelings of betrayal are strong on the left, especially since the GOP could have pushed it through purely on their majority with no ‘help’, and are very unlikely to reward or reciprocate.
It’s everyone’s job to try and reach the oppressor. It’s literally the only way things will change. Leslie is currently in the best position to change things right now.
It would be understandable if she couldn’t handle it and gave up, mind you. But it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
Literally what makes good good is that it prioritizes helping others over helping yourself. Sure, there are reasons you have to take care of yourself, but that’s only so you can continue being good.
I honestly think this is a good reason why evil prevails so often. Good people come up with these ethics that allow them not to fight, even when they are in the best position to do so.
And, anyways, the blowback is already there. Leslie gets hurt no matter what. The question is, will she use this to also help out her fellow LGBT people?
You’re trying to tell me that marginalized groups need to passively stand there and educate dudes who try their damnedest to ruin their lives, and that not attempting to is ‘good people coming up with ethics to not do something’ so why do you think.
Really? We’re gonna have that discussion again, trlkly?
Where do I begin?
A) No, it is not the job of someone being abused to convince a bigot that – shocker – the person they’re abusing is also a human being. It is on the bigot not to abuse them. Prioritizing self defence over a bigot’s hurt feelings or education is not immoral.
B) People are not robot maids put on earth to serve everyone else’s needs, with occasional breaks to maintain emotional health so they can continue being a robot maid. It’s good to take care of yourself because you have value and don’t deserve having awful shit done to you for no reason.
C) ….Are you seriously arguing procedural ethics are a bad thing, right now? Is that your position? Because I’m going to have to call bullshit loudly on that. Not letting people do whatever they want to fight is a good thing. It curbs abuse of power. And when people do abuse their power, it allows for consequences. No, it doesn’t always work, but everything has some ethical constraints because people have ethical constraints.
D) There are people who learn better by cold, hard fact or by being screamed at that they are a bad person. Or by watching other people be screamed at.
E) Shutting bigots down and shutting them up is also a way to get results – for example, the nazi guy who got punched? Is making less public appearances because he’s afraid he’ll become a meme or get punched again. Sure, he’s still a nazi, but for now he’s a silent nazi. Again, priorities. Getting them to stop hurting people comes first and foremost. One can worry about changing their minds and educating them later.
No, we’re not having a discussion. You are lecturing me based on stuff I
didn’t say. Your goal is to win against me, not to discuss what I have
to say and try to understand my point of view.
A. I covered self defense in saying sometimes you have to save yourself so you can help others later. So that’s not a disagreement.
However, I do disagree that the oppressed don’t have to fight their oppressors That is literally how every, single, civil rights issue was ever won. It was women who fought for the right to vote–men joined later. It was a black woman who wouldn’t take the back seat on a bus. It was a gay man who sued so that now all gay people can marry. The oppressed very, very well have to fight their oppressors.
B. For goodness sake, that’s literally what I said! Good people have to do things for themselves sometimes. But, still, the ultimate goal is to be good to others.
Where we disagree is this idea that Leslie can do anything at this point to save herself. She cannot. Anything bad that happens to her from here on out is the same whether she gets with Robin or not. Everyone already thinks they did.
I never said anything about her having to actually be in a relationship with her. The point was when someone said that she has no responsibility to try and change her mind. She does, because she has a chance to do so right now.
That doesn’t mean she has to be in relationship with her. That’s stuff you added.
C. No, I’m not. I would have said so if I was. I am arguing that good people make up these extra rules that do not follow from basic principles–rules that let them off the hook for actually doing what’s right.
Another one of those are rules about “mind your own business.” While not a horrible rule of thumb, it’s clearly wrong when you know that something horrible is happening. If you can, without hurting yourself, you need to intervene.
This is another one, where you argue that the oppressed never has any duty to fight an oppressor. That’s just false. If they can do so without further harm to themselves, they should very well do so. Leslie can actually attempt to help Robin here. She can do so without further harming herself, so she should do so.
D. I never disagreed. I’ve actually said that very thing before. I’ve met people who try to say we should just talk to even the most vile Trump supporters. They are wrong.
That’s not the situation here, though.
E. I again never disagreed. I have no problem with anything you said there.
It’s just that this situation is not that one. If Leslie punches Robin, Leslie becomes the evil trickster again who tried to trick her. Leslie goes to jail, loses her ability to teach, and so on. It’s all bad if she does so.
Conclusion:
I argued with literally one thing the person said. I argued that people do have a duty to fight their oppressors. The statement otherwise, while well meaning, was not correct.
It is just not a hard and fast rule. It’s not something like “rape is wrong.” The oppressed are often the ones in the best position to fight.
Honestly, the only counter example I can even think of is slavery, since slaves weren’t really in position to free themselves.
Ah yes, please do tell me more about my motivations. It’s not like we’ve had disagreements about things of this nature before.
These are things you’ve said as I’ve understood the implications. If I’ve misread them, that bites.
A) That IS a disagreement because you’re still qualifying it with ‘so you can help others later’. That is NOT why you should be defending yourself – you should be defending yourself because you do not deserve to die. Other people do not have to figure into that, because, again, you are not somebody’s servant.
That is not what you said – you said she needed to ‘try and reach her’. I read that as the same ‘you have to hand hold people through their bigotry nicely and not snap at them’ shit that’s been going around this site recently. Especially since you also said it would be understandable, but wrong, for Leslie to give up on her.
B) You said the only reason people need to take care of themselves is so they can continue being good, which in your definition, means prioritizing the needs of others over your own. That is why I’m saying people are not maids – they do not need to take care of themselves for the sake of being good by taking care of others – they need to take care of themselves because they are worth taking care of.
I never said Leslie needed to be in a relationship with her either. I’m saying it would not be wrong for Leslie to tell Robin to get the fuck out of her house and never come back. It might not teach Robin a very valuable lesson, but at this point she’s gone above and beyond any reasonable expectation of courtesy and patience by breaking in to Leslie’s home.
C) Okay, good, this is the one I was REALLY hoping I was misreading and I’m definitely glad I did. The kind of procedural rules that conveniently let people avoid taking action are bullshit. I do agree with you on that.
I never said that Leslie didn’t need to fight Robin – I said she didn’t need to carefully sit and hand hold her and explain everything 25 million times, which people do NOT have the obligation to do, even if said bigot ‘means well’. Sometimes you need to say ‘no, I’m done. Go on google and look’. Sometimes it is okay to just scream at Robin all the reasons she’s a hateful bigot.
D) This one is about the general idea that people need to always always always be super patient and explain their humanity to people, as I thought that was what you were arguing.
E) For one, Nazi guy was an example – I’m not advocating for Robin to get punched. Two, again, this is about the general point regarding how people push back. Leslie doesn’t need to hit her to shut her down or shut her up. That can be as simple as saying ‘shut the fuck up, you hateful assclown’ overtime she says something even remotely bigoted. Or even ‘If you don’t drop out, I’ll go to the papers and give them the story they clearly want’. Those would be equally valid ways to fight because they can make her stop. They won’t educate her, but that can come later.
I did read a lot of your post incorrectly and for that I apologize. I’ve been seeing a lot of arguments phrased similarly to yours that were saying resistance is only valid if it’s the ‘right’ way. I’m sorry I misinterpreted a lot of your post. I still have issues with some of it, but not nearly as many as I did before.
Nah, we’ve tried that and it didn’t work. That’s a roundabout way for oppressor groups to get out of doing any of this work whatsoever and then blaming their laziness, apathy, and/or active resistance on everyone else.
The way I see it, many of these people have Facebook. Which means they have access to Google. Which means they could look up anything they want. Read a book. Read several books on the same subject and compare the perspectives. Get a $20 bus ride out of your small town or wherever and SEE things. Talk to people. Experience life. Many of these people fight so they don’t change. Take the issue of jobs, many want factory jobs and blame the lack in Obama but the thing about that is the Industrial Revolution started over 100 years ago. It is the nature of all life since the beginning of evolution: if you dont adapt, at *best* you will be left behind.
In my opinion, many of these people *choose* their ignorance. It’s the reason why people are making excuses and accepting the Orange Administrations bullshit, while they shit on Obama the entire time he was in office. Its the reason why Obama had to be near perfect, but all T had to do was be rich and white.
It’s certainly true that these people do have access and could learn better. In that sense, it’s their fault.
But, while that does a nice job of placing the blame, it doesn’t actually change anything. They’re not doing it. They’re not learning. This affects the rest of us. Whoever’s to blame, if we want them to change, it’s up to us to help them, because it’s not happening on its own.
Again, we’ve tried that. The types of people I’m talking about don’t trust fact. Facts. They don’t trust facts. They don’t live in reality, and they want to hurt people, and now we have an administration that is literally full of unapologetic white supremacists and billionaires. That is why this situation is so grave.
Because you can drag a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink. I refuse to be responsible for people’s growth because I am not their nanny nor their mammy nor their therapist. I refuse to be responsible for the people who would kill me and people like me if they could get away with it (and they’ve been getting away with it!) This is why I support systemic change at the legal level, and people working in communities and organizations. The thing is all these social programs are there. That is why they exist. People just associate it with ungrateful, poor, lecherous minorities, mostly because of racism and sexism and partly because they can’t handle their shame so they place the shame on other people. So I will always engage in public service, and I will always help the groups that need it the most, but if they don’t want to use what’s there, that’s on them. That’s the choice a lot these constituent groups have been making for decades.
Do I think the education system here is fucked? Yes I do. However, no rights in this country of the USA have ever been obtained without struggle, and I really feel that this is where we’re heading if people don’t wake the fuck up very soon.
And yeah, I’m gonna blame them, because it’s their fault we have a fascist leaning government right now. And I don’t care about their feelings right at this moment because people are dying, will be deported, will lose their healthcare and die, women are going to start buying wire hangers again and it IS their fault. We must never stop holding them accountable. That’s how they get away with a lot of things.
I and people like me get blamed all the time, for crime, for abortions, for bringing up race, everything, especially things that are out of our control. For all of our lives. The same is true for many other marginalized groups. T is enacting all these batshit policies, and people are STILL bringing up Obama/blaming minorities for voting for Hilary when we know damn well T was elected because of white supremacy. Yet when we try to get be people to be responsible for themselves for things they are actually responsible for, they can’t shoulder their own actions for 5 minutes? Nah.
You call this blame and I call it collective responsibility. We both know the truth: if people like this didn’t act the way they do, *nobody* would be in this mess, and that’s not my responsibility, so yes I am doing the job of forcing people to take responsibility for themselves, rather than blaming myself for not doing more as you imply, because I can try, but people are autonomous.
Sometimes part of the process is not being afraid to call them out on their bullshit or refuse to placate them when they fuck up. It’s simply telling them to do better and leaving them to do the work of growth. You are right in that we are all going to be screwed if we don’t change together. I know that, but the problem is that they’re too willfully ignorant and pigheaded to know that. They’d rather be right than not die because they have healthcare. It’s hard to convert people like that.
No it is not. It is especially not her job to try and reach her own oppressor. If she does it, that’s great. But it’s not her job.
Morality isn’t a bunch of binary decisions. It’s not a moral failing if you don’t choose the greatest possible good every single time. It’s not a failing if you don’t choose to martyr yourself for every cause. Even from a purely utilitarian standpoint, its extremely rare to encounter a situation where sticking around and doing smaller goods over a longer period of time ends up being the better choice in the long run.
Privileged fucks like myself, on the other hand? Absolutely. If anyone has an actual moral duty to try and reach out to bigots and change their minds, it’s those of us who don’t already have to deal with their shit every day. Conveniently, there’s a shit ton more of us.
We haven’t been standing up enough. We haven’t been speaking out enough. Our unearned, unasked-for privilege makes our voices louder than they deserve to be, there’s more of us, and still this shit keeps happening.
So those “good people coming up with ethics that allow them not to fight”? They sure as fuck aren’t people like Leslie.
I don’t know what to say to this. You’re just reaffirming your rules, and not in any way giving any reason why the oppressed do not have a duty to fight their oppressors when they can.
And how in the world are the oppressors supposed to help if the oppressed don’t first fight to let us know that they are oppressed? It’s nonsensical.
And, well, I’m a straight white Christian male. I absolutely know that I have a duty to fight for the oppressed. Why do you think I’m even saying anything? It’s not exactly pleasant to have these types of conversations where everyone attacks you.
I brought it up because I was worried that otherwise good people were letting evil get by, so I tried to stop it.
I never once said that the oppressed had to fight alone. But they do have to fight when they are able.
It’s just what it means to be good. Good tries to stop evil.
FC didn’t say ‘don’t fight’. They said ‘they do not have an obligation to reach out to Robin’. I think this is the same problem I had where FC read this as the same ‘you have to reach out and hand hold and educate and answer the same question fifty billion times a day until hopefully they see you’re human!’ thing that people like to spew.
I’ve never had to talk a bigot into considering me human, but it sounds like a bad time.
The part I object to is the “have to”. I think they should consider doing it. I think that’s as much anyone else has the right to say they must do. They have every justification to pick their battles and conserve their energy and mental health as they see fit. *I* sure as hell have no right to judge their decisions on that front.
But mostly, I think your concern that the people being oppressed won’t do enough is misplaced, and a bit absurd.
I think Robin will eventually step out of Leslie’s apartment, the reporters and photographers will be waiting at the stairs of the house, and she will be bombarded with questions regarding her sexuality, her values, and if there’ll be a sexy video on the internet.
Robin will then proceed to gush about Steven Universe and how awesome a show it is and make it the new foundation of her camapign. And everyone will be confused as fuck.
That would be the best response. Utterly ignore all the questions and the circus, and just start gushing about SU. Leave Bill O’Reilly and Rachel Maddow speechless.
There are no “alternate facts”. A statement is either factual, or unfactual. An unfactual statement can either be a mistake, or a lie, but it is not “alternate”.
“Postmodernism is typically defined by an attitude of skepticism or distrust toward grand narratives, ideologies, and various tenets of Enlightenment rationality, including the existence of objective reality and absolute truth, as well as notions of rationality, human nature, and progress. Instead, it asserts that knowledge and truth are the product of unique systems of social, historical, or political discourse and interpretation, and are therefore contextual and constructed to varying degrees. Accordingly, postmodern thought is broadly characterized by tendencies to epistemological and moral relativism, pluralism, self-referentiality, and irony.”
While right now we’re dealing with the alt-facts of the alt-right, this “there are no facts, just perceptions and constructs” thing is a failing of the academic left that goes back decades. What we’ve seen with this election is simply the chickens coming home to roost.
Ugh, postmodernist pop philosophy really ruined what was unique and special about postmodernism in the arts, which was all about deconstructing why some works are labeled classics and others trash and thus expanding what we can analyze on a critical level, what we should look to as examples of classic literature (taking in more works from non-Americans, people of color, women, queer folk), and building more universal sets of tools for deconstructing what we assume is a given about society and more open to analyzing it critically.
Hell, anyone that likes things like deconstructions of comic strips or video games has benefited from postmodernism in the arts.
Instead it all gets bastardized into this garbage in the popular consciousness. And I suspect a large part of the reason is a deliberate backlash to the success this humanities movement had in really opening up its focus and usefulness in a modern pluralistic society and especially in uncovering things like lost queer histories, great poets of color, and deconstructing the artificial lines often put between pop culture and art.
Eh, it’s probably why a lot of the good postmodernists have jumped ship to intersectionalist theory instead.
A friend of mine is a dance and lighting/stage design professor at a nearby university. After many discussions with her, it’s become quite clear that what postmodernism in the arts, and postmodernism in academics and social sciences, are two very widely separated branches.
Postmodernist elements in dance, architecture, art, etc, don’t suffer from crippling obscurantism, adoration of world-salad, and wholesale rejection of even the idea that something could be objectively true or false, in the way that other fields have.
Oh, also — recall the Sokal Affair and other instances in which highly regarded academic postmodernists were completely fooled by parodies of their own form over function style and mindset.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
The problem doesn’t stem from “pop” postmodernism, or “old guard backlash”. The problem that at its very heart, it’s a school of thought that rejects objectivity, facts, and empirical rigor.
“There is no truth, there are no facts, just data to be manipulated… I can get you any result you like.”
As a liberal intellectual with an actual degree in philosophy, I have to say I absolutely loathe that kind of bastardized pop philosophy.
Sure, perfect Knowledge is unobtainable, because we can’t prove anything we perceive or remember is accurate. You can’t just jump straight from that to any argument relevant to day-to-day decisions without lodging your head firmly up your ass.
If someone claims to be that completely skeptical, punch them in the face. When they complain, point out that neither of you have any way of knowing who was or was not punched in their stupid face.
The fact that we are analyzing results computed by thinkmeat using that very thinkmeat is unfortunate, but we have no other source of information to act upon, nor any tools to examine it with. All we can do is be ready and willing to question our memories and our senses tell us, and not get too precious about what we thought was true when confronted with new information.
And the fact that perfect Knowledge is unobtainable doesn’t mean there is no objective truth to be known. It doesn’t even mean you can’t be sufficiently sure of anything to act on it, or judge right from wrong. You don’t need to understand how to do a mathematical proof for “1+1=2” in order to do basic arithmetic.
I could go on a much longer rant about this and how I hate how THAT is the kind of shit people tend to think about when they think of philosophy, but it would quickly devolve into frothy cursing from there.
Seems to me that along the way the distinction between ” taking a new look a things without taking anything for granted” and “we live in a world that is real to us and needs us to act in it” got somehow buried.
The physical world might not be exactly as we perceive it (i.e. our eyes are build in a way that has a very small sharp area with high resolution and on the periphery no resolution to speak of but great sensitivity to fast movements and this is not how we experience seeing or looking). But even though we always work with interpreted data, thinking that our interpretation influences the physical world (directly by the interpretation) is a line of though that falls under belief-system and not science.
The idea that our necessary data interpretation systems are influencing how we see and act in the world is very valid and might lead to new ideas about the physical world.
It is strange how “just one truth” (without a distinction between religion, science and society) as a strategy to keep power and stability has been got rid of due to Aufklärung to be replaced by a “relativity” of truth (at first without a distinction between religion, science and society) and the ending up as a support system for one-truth religious concepts (which needs a certain kind of mind to cover all the discrepancies, but then, fundamental religion only works if you ignore the logical leaps and bounds).
Bullshit. This is lying. This is bullshit on a grand scale. This is propaganda. The Big Lie. This is fascism. We see this described in 1984. We see this described in Arendt’s Origin of Totalitarianism. We’ve seen it in a decades long campaign against science and intellectualism.
This isn’t new. This isn’t the fault of leftist academics or of postmodernism.
The “post-factual” propaganda of 1984 is more Orwell’s reaction to the USSR’s use of same, particularly the Stalinist era.
I am not the first and will not be the last to draw the connection between Karl “We Create Our Own Truth” Rove, or the more recent rise of the Orange Donald, etc, and postmodernism’s smug disregard for empirical facts.
(I had a post that gave some examples, but evidently I linked too much and it got dumped into the moderation abyss.)
True about 1984, but authoritarianism is authoritarianism whatever the flavor. You may not be alone, but I think the connection is pretty damn tenuous, when there are deeper and nastier roots.
Memes are the best way to call people out on things, since they spread very far and wide. So, while I hate that it happened, I love the meme. Let’s let the Trump administration be so farcical that they can’t really do much of anything.
I have been considering the idea of figuring out how to create automated Twitter accounts that just respond LIAR every time The Orange Donald tweets anything.
Panel 1: Oh no, Leslie… But seriously, Leslie tried so hard to resist her desire to end up here, to pin so much on hope of redemption, to let her libido take the lead. And so to see her surrender and give in… well, even though there’s a part of me that will always ship these two, this feels like a tragedy, because Robin got this by just barreling over Leslie’s boundaries until she was beaten down and is accepting this as a means of trying to assert some form of agency over an already fucked situation.
And it’s such a toxic origin for a potential relationship as well (not that that’s unprecedented in this strip, cough cough Billie/Ruth). And that feels even more exemplified by Leslie still not having pants, still disheveled from waking up, and leaned back just hand-holding as if that was one last barrier or boundary.
But it’s also cute as hell, even though it’s so dangerously toxic. Cause ah, Steven Universe, a show largely beloved by queer folks of all ages with lots of queer representation, especially of queer relationships. And this episode is a great one because it introduces fusion and its metaphor for relationships and has a great trans moment where Steven says if it was up to him all he’d want to be is a giant woman.
Panel 2: But I will take some joy in the campaign manager for a bigoted campaign freaking the fuck out about their candidate enjoying some queer domesticity. It’s the little things.
True. Though it’s definitely a win for the side of her brain that is hanging on hope that this can just be a nice relationship with a sexy smart latina with an amazing list of accomplishments by ignoring all the political evil she has done and fought for.
And I think her self-respect is not going to respond well to this when the glow of this nice quiet moment fades.
Panels 3-5: Yes, Robin with the faraway look in Panel 5, I totally believe you that this isn’t a meltdown. I believe it as much as you not being queer while hand-holding on a couch with a half-dressed woman.
Though, she is also right it isn’t fully a meltdown. It more just feels like more of the same denialism. I’m not queer, because I have attractions to men. I’m not in a meltdown because I’m firmly in denial about how thoroughly I’ve fucked over my own campaign and am trying to distract myself from that.
Though that grim face in Panel 5 might be a sign that she’s accepting that her campaign is done and she’s not winning re-election.
And the sad truth is that if she wanted, there’s a lot of political advantage that could be harvested out of this. She could stop pandering to bigots and come out as a bi politician and as openly queer-supportive, which would be a harder road to hoe but would be less evil. And sadly she could also firmly deny everything, “pray on it” and be “redeemed” likely while also marrying a random dude for the optics. It would still hurt one’s chances with the moderates, but the base is a sucker for a good “Jesus has freed me from the predations of sinful women, oh how the porn led me astray” narrative.
Panels 6-7: Oh Leslie, you’re too good a person to be falling into a relationship that is going to be this brutal to your self-esteem. I mean, let’s be frank, even if Robin has a massive change of heart, she’s still a scared closeted woman drowning in conservative messages about queer folks and a complete lack of respect for boundaries. That’s going to mean Leslie absorbing a lot of blows to her self-esteem along the way even if this goes perfectly and Robin has a full redemption arc (which I feel is very likely at this point).
And she’s going to be doing it with less of a support system she would otherwise have because a lot of friends are going to feel hurt by Leslie doing this and kind of ghost away a bit or be less sympathetic to her relationship problems.
And I dunno, she’s in teacher mode and I know from experience that that instant ease of slipping into that mode, of trying to reasonably bring understanding to someone diametrically opposed to one’s self, can be very demeaning and draining. And it means Leslie is always going to be at a disadvantage because she’s going to try and continue to be her best self while this woman continues to invalidate and snow her.
And we see that in Robin’s response. Like Leslie tries to point out, hey, this thing you were so insistive should happen is happening. You’re shacked up in my house holding my hands while ignoring your job to be with me. This is super queer and big.
And Robin is still minimizing it out of fear of admitting the truth. She’s “barely holding hands with” Leslie. And I worry that this is going to be a large part of this arc. Leslie giving in to something very toxic, something that is going to cost her friends and support network because they are going to feel betrayed, something that is going to cost her credibility and trustworthiness with a lot of her students, and may even impact her job and housing. And Robin continuously minimizing and denying the reality of that so she can be “straight” while constantly pushing for more against Leslie’s attempts to stop things or pull away.
And that’s a shitty place to be. To be someone’s secret shame, someone they won’t even admit to dating, not out of fear of being outed, but out of fear of admitting to themselves what they are and what they want. It’s going to involve a lot of Leslie putting herself out there only to get hurt repeatedly by someone too scared to treat her right.
And that’s only going to get worse when Robin returns back to her campaign and they start up damage control, step one of which will definitely be attempting to smear Leslie to the greatest degree possible.
I find myself agreeing with you on Robin’s boundary issues, and yet at the same time struggling with trying to separate the realistic from the “situation comedy” elements of the strip when it comes to this.
Also, language peeve… I feel like the English language dies a little more every time someone uses “optics” to refer to “how this looks to the public”, rather than referring to binoculars, telescopes, or weapon-aiming-devices…
Yes, Leslie probably knows all bad stuff that can happen; but as you said, the situation is already fucked up, and nothing she can do will change the fact that the press is waiting outside, and that there will be a lot of problems she’ll be facing from the moment Robin is seen leaving her flat.
So to me it feels like she is enjoying this bubble of peaceful (and intimate) time as long as it can last. Because she knows it probably won’t come back so soon (if ever).
And I can understand that very well.
That makes sense. If she’s fucked anyways, might as well carve a little pleasant oasis of time before that inevitability crashes down. And thejeff’s point makes sense too. The less toxic Robin is leaving the apartment, the more that will change the tenor of the response..
Have you read Shortpacked? That type of disfunctional relationship where Robin takes Leslie for granted and hurting her repeatedly is kind of a hallmark of their relationship. Not sure why their core personalities would change in this alti-verse.
Robin in Shortpacked! got to be wacky and quirky because that series had less actual consequence by virtue of being set in a silly sci-fi verse. She got into Congress by getting stone on Cadbury Cream Egg cereal.
Shortpacked!Robin passed a bill to outlaw cancer and have Ethan make out with Thad. This Robin tried to kick homeless queer kids out onto the street.
I have. Honestly, one of the more interesting things to me about DoA is how the character archetypes in that take on more meaning in a more realistic universe.
So Amber’s Amazi-girl escapism becomes this DID symptom from a traumatic abusive past. Ethan’s ambivalence about being out is a tragedy born out of an emotionally abusive mother who refuses to accept her son’s sexuality and a bigoted homophobic world that makes him feel out of sorts.
Carla’s misanthropy feels more justified and earned coming from someone who grew up trans in Indiana and dealt with the violence that comes with that. But on the flipside, Mike’s assholic evil and Robin’s lack of respect for boundaries become much darker because they don’t get to be larger-than-life beings embodying fucking people over or pure wackiness and instead are just flawed people with at least one very negative trait that has real negative consequences on the people around them.
And honestly, I like that a lot. Because I feel that’s a necessary plot device in a world where too frequently we try and divorce large segments of life from “really counting”. Where politics or online interaction are treated as some sort of odd consequence-free game where you can cosplay up as some larger-than-life supervillain and not something that frequently matters and has a body count.
I have actually seen large see-though bags of just the mallow bits resembling those in Lucky Charms. Called something like “The Good Part.”
I like Lucky Charms, but only buy maybe 2 boxes a year these days, and the thought of chowing on a bowl of just the mallow bits kind of turns my stomach.
Actually the correct trope here is the Rotating Arcs trope.
While Mood Whiplash could result from the application of Rotating Arcs in this particular case, where each strip uses romance, and bittersweet events as its core message, mood whiplash cannot be applied.
News Flash: Local politician starts a platonic friendship with local college professor, but they’re both attractive women so this is now the top news story of the month.
Eh, to be fair, this story broke with a photo of them appearing to kiss or almost kiss. Given Robin’s political stances this isn’t really irrelevant to the national discussion.
it just now hit me that Leslie promised Robin episodes of Steven Universe, and now she’s got one of the songs on her phone. omg!! did she already have that ringtone, and they share the interest already? or did she love the show so much she changed it this morning?
I don’t think they did.
– They are still in the same clothes
– At least Leslie would want to talk about it
– They are exactly doing what Leslie described as messing up (take your hand, watch episodes of Stephen Universe)
Of course, if they did it, the information could for the moment be withheld from the readers, because…tension, dramatic surprise and art.
“They are exactly doing what Leslie described as messing up (take your hand, watch episodes of Stephen Universe)”
While I think this ship is showing all sorts of signs of Bad Idea, there is one positive note to be had in what you said.
They’re not doing exactly that.
Yes, they’re doing everything Leslie wanted, BUT Robin’s want for marshmallow-only “cereal” is ALSO included. That’s the kind of both-people-win adaptation that makes a relationship work.
Why yes, you’re right, of course! Their whole interaction has been a perfect example for clear and open communication from both sides, fulfilling the other’s needs, and consent!
…how far is the buffer? Because it feels weird to read this in a time where the primary political debate is whether to kill tens of millions or just rough them up a bit.
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 21h
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
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 ⋅ 1d
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
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 21h
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
The New York Times @nytimes.com ⋅ 5d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 3d
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OMG IS THIS SFW
so much (barely) handholding
…
It’d be funny if Daisy broke in, took one look at them sitting there, and complained that nothing happened
Daisy (singing):
All I wanna do
Is see this turn into
A giant Slipshine.
(A giant Slipshine.)
*no upvote button
*upvotes anyway
“Dammit, I demand personal fantasy material…wait, is that a Pearl episode?”
“I need a minute to myself in the bathroom… BUT THIS IS MY FAVORITE EPISODE!!”
Bursting in on hand-holding: the only time “Well, either join in or get out!” might actually work!
After a few more entries the couch won’t fit everyone
Three-way hand-holding? Kinky!
I feel like there should have been a warning for all the obscenity going on here. Children might read this!
Despite the image on the side calling Robin NSFW. I actually clicked to try and figure out how Robin might be doing something like that at this point in the story, just to discover it was a generic Slipshine link that has nothing to do with this comic.
That’s also not Robin, it’s Roz
WARNING: The following comic may contain scenes involving graphic hand-holding, hand-holdingly suggestive language, brief frontal hand-holding, strong hand-holding themes, reckless misuse of cereal, and other content which may be deemed unsuitable for children under 6 months.
Daisy might want to initiate some “action”
Daisy: “It’s been SOoooooo long!”
Ah, a Fusion episode. Leslie is truly a master of seduction.
Wait’ll they get to the “Stronger Than You” song. If that doesn’t work, nothing will.
She lays the foreshadowing and foundation with a couple of Fusion episodes, lays emotional groundwork with “Rose’s Scabbard,” and then…BOOM…Leslie will have officially converted Robin into a Steven Universe fan.
…That’s…that’s what you mean, right? That’s what she’s going for? Am I missing something?
and then she gets her toaster, right?
Of course. What else could her goal possibly be?
/licky-style
Combination of comment and avi is A+
But it’s just a cheap tactic to make weak lesbians stronger.
Robin eats her cereal like a winner
This is where Riley learned it from
Picking out everything but the marshmallows? Or eating the cereal first and saving the marshmallows until the end?
Sounds like the grains never touched the bowl.
Robin’s going to be diabetic by the time she’s 40.
With her metabolism? Not likely.
Oh wait, wrong Walkyverse.
Sexualities are consistent between universes, right? So one thing is now obvious…
Robin’s a sucro-sexual.
Does Robin know you can buy boxes of just the marshmallows?
I gave a five-pound bag of cereal marshmallows to my 8-year-old nephew for Christmas. Screw the Minecraft Lego set, the marshmallows were his favorite gift. #JustUncleThings
Maybe, but you usually can’t buy them at your totally-not-lover’s house.
Well honestly, in most of the marshmallow cereals the actual cereal part is pretty gross. Soggy cardboard with marshmallows.
Like I am barely enjoying Leslie’s smug grin.
It looks more worried than smug. Was smug-face the goal?
She looks more like the cat that swallowed the canary than the cat that got caught swallingvthe canary to me.
IMO it’s more “awkward smile” than “smug smile”.
Let’s just call it ‘smug-kward’, okay?
Leslie’s upper part is awkward, because she knows all this will get her in trouble, eventually.
Leslie’s lower part is smug, because she’s SOOO HAPPY RIGHT NOW
Sweet buttery pancakes, these two are so adorable together! ^_^
Was this drawn before or after Carrie Fisher?
Well, she was born in 1956. Willis’ buffer only goes back about 37 years.
37 years in this universe’s timeline, DoA’s sliding timeline, or your personal non-linear timeline?
‘Cause before and after are relative concepts, especially when you add time travel.
Before. Willis has a buffer of several months of strips.
probably drawn before her death as I am sure his bufffer has not went down from a month worth of strips.
Well, it’s CEREAL, but it’s not CADBURY
She did that once, and now her campaign manager makes sure she doesn’t get within 200 feet of anything labelled Cadbury.
Also Leslie is out of Cadbury and needs to go grocery shopping.
yeah, because that worked out for her SO well last time
Is a sugar rush blackout how she got into Congress in the first place?
In the Walkyverse, yes, but I don’t think her initial election has been covered in the Dumbiverse.
Why, yes. Yes, it was.
OMFG
…I always forget that there are people who read DoA who haven’t read Shortpacked! or IW!
(also roomies, but who gives a shit?)
Which one has the least amount of my favorite characters dying horribly? I’ve seen a few pages while browsing TV Tropes, but I haven’t actually gone in-depth with any Willis comics other than this one.
It helps if you read the reposted roomies with the commentary by more recent David Willis. Then it’s like some sort of meta autobiography.
Which is obviously fun, because meta.
Shortpacked probably has the least deaths. Roomies only had one that I recall, but it was pretty traumatic. IW has a bit of a body count.
Read them anyway. I second the recommendation to read the reposted version. The early years are pretty crude and it’s fun to read present-Willis going “What was I thinking?”
DoA, actually, has the least amount of character death in it, word of Willis – namely, none.
Shortpacked! has negative favorite characters dying horribly, in that some of the IW! casualties are resurrected.
… I mean, assuming that Blaine and the giant mutant frosted honey bun aren’t among your favorite characters, anyway.
Huh, Congressional Aide is a direct port from the Walkyverse. Must add this to my “DoA Robin is actually SP!Robin mid-Cadbury-bender” theory… *Pulls out Castle-esque whiteboard full of pictures and multi colored string*
I love the implication that you can be “out of” Cadbury like it’s something that people keep their kitchen stocked with.
You mean some people don’t?
Are they holding hands? I can barely even tell. That’s how little they’re holding hands.
Yesss…Steven Universe! Love it!
And these dorks…goodness, these dorks are just great.
what a good combination
awhwheghewjhjgsjf robin i hope you never have to be a political parody again
ignoring texts like a actual adult
NO
NO
NO
… okay, y’know what? Just go for it, you crazy kids. You’re learning to communicate properly, and absorb and manage each other’s snark, and that’s going to be a useful foundation for when you get down to things that really matter.
Like Mr Greg.
Killmaster’s showing up this storyline!?
Perfect.
Mr Greg… where we’re reminded again how much pain there is underlying the sweet surface of this “children’s show”.
Great episode.
Mr. Greg is the best episode of the entire series.
For a second there in panel 5 I thought that like, Lucky Charms marshmallows were the new Cadbury Creme Eggs in the Dumbiverse.
I’d actually like to see how this situation would play out.
pretty sure Just Marshmallows would actually have a higher sugar content than cadbury eggs, which is fucked up since it’s an actual cereal you can buy in real life (https://www.amazon.com/Discount-Herbals-DH-8-Cereal-Marshmallows/dp/B001PM0KRU)
I love that the “Frequently bought together” is this pile of marshmallows, a nondescript bag of marshmallows, and a slightly fancy bag of marshmallows.
It’s like, “Yeah, so I want some stiff, super sweet marshmallows to put in my milk… but all these brands look similar… so lets try all three, then next time I’ll know what marshmallows I want for breakfast! Muahahaahahahaaaa!!!”
And then you wake up weeks later, trying to figure out what you did wrong.
And why everyone is calling you ‘Congressperson’…
I’ve been trying so hard to not ship these two, but Willis is making it difficult.
It’s not a ship when it’s actually happening in the story. Ships are fanfiction. This is fan fact.
Its General Organa, thank you very much.
(In the interest of discretion over valor, a reminder that this is a joke.)
I feel compelled to correct Princess Leia every time. GENERAL ORGANA. (unless it’s specifically in reference to the original trilogy)
How about Leia: Warrior Princess?
With respect, she wasn’t a general YET.
I mean, technically a royal title like that would supersede a military rank, at least by Earth conventions. (And there does seem to be a light implication in Episode VII that the Alderaanians have similar conventions.)
Though I’d wager Leia would rather not be called by her royal title on account of the whole “world getting destroyed literally before her eyes” thing.
Just some days ago, I found exactly that poster of General Organa on Amazon – I think I’m gonna buy it.
And suddenly, I like Leslie twice as much as before, just for having posters of Rey and Leia in her living room!
Does this mean that she will lose the election now??
Robin loses the election and becomes a poli sci teacher at IU
*Me in the distance* Fuck already!
They’re still at Giant Woman, but if they keep moving they could reach Jailbreak before You “rescues” Robin, there is still hope
“But for now, rest well and dream of large women.”
Can’t believe that movie is 30 years old this year.
And then she’ll actively fight against getting rescued, because that’s when the series gets good
With the notable exception of any episode featuring Renaldo. Except Restaurant Wars, that was pretty entertaining.
Ronaldo pain is my lifeblood
Is…is this a date? That is definitely Steven Universe on the TV, that makes it a date, right?
I HAVE SO MANY CONFLICTED FEELINGS ABOUT THIS augh please Robin be the best version of you you can be and don’t fuck this up ;-;
This is basically my ideal date because apparently I am 8.
same. everywhere else is too noisy.
actually, free day at an amusement park date (emphasis on free) sounds even better
Well, I have Legos. Legos is one of the best dates. Or, if you live in the St. Louis area, the backstage tours at the World Aquarium will let you feed green beans to a sloth and argue with an anteater about where to put its bowl.
Not enough dead people. It’s not a date yet.
Relevant icon
I hope we get to see them watch The Answer.
Where did we go? What did we do?
I think we made something entirely new.
And it wasn’t quite me and it wasn’t quite you
I think we made someone enterely new.
Oh, um, I just can’t stop thinking
So, um, did you say I was different?
And you hadn’t before?
And you hadn’t before?
Answer was pretty great but they need to watch Mr. Greg and Last One Out of Beach City to reach maximum gay.
Mr Greg was amazing episode! It was so heartfelt.
I imagine we’re all watching cartoons to deal with our own meltdowns.
Where did we go? What did we do?
/Post fail. *rake in face*
I spent a not-negligible amount of time today making soothing rainbow patterns out of my gaming dice, it helped
Aww. At first read of your comment, initial mental imagery suggested those little Japanese paper stars.
I also love making those, but I never got the hang of the last fold so one leg is always a bit crumpled.
The joy is in the process, not the finished product.
weirdly, my meltdown is involving me watching much less cartoons and more crappy youtube videos
Robin: “This ain’t no meltdown! I’m just… hey, yeah– meltdown! Great idea! I’ll melt these ‘mallows down into gooey, multi-colored perfection! Where’s you’re microwave, again?”
Leslie’s kitchen is notably tiny; I’m sure Robin can find the microwave on her own.
Wait you call that tiny? That looked positively spacious compared to the one I grew up with. 2 people can stand back to back AND the stove probably opens all the way.
Robin called it tiny, which was the intended reference. It’s bigger than the one in my first apartment, though.
My kitchen is a mini-fridge next to my bed, with plates and a box of cookies stacked on top.
tbh Leslie should kick Robin out into the paparazzi wolves, Robin is poison :/
I wouldn’t blame her, considering Robin BROKE INTO HER HOUSE to do this.
Because if dumbing of age is known for anything, it’s people making sober, mature decisions about relationships.
No, you’re thinking of Steven Uni—
*LARS AND SADIE*
—I’ll be out back.
‘We’re only holding hands a little bit – I could stop whenever I wanted (although if you were to let go I might start to cry…)’
*does a google search about those lyrics*
…….okay, so.
I haven’t watched Steven Universe, because I struggle watching half-hour TV shows (…it’s a weird thing, demand a reason and I’ll exposit for a few pages), but I do get that it deals heavily with LGBT issues.
When looking at Leslie’s actions here, something to keep in mind is that perfect should not be the enemy of good. While she’s a Gender Studies teacher, this specific situation is clearly not in the handbook.
So, what is she doing? She’s using popular entertainment that doesn’t shy away from LGBT issues to educate someone that clearly has a bit of an inclination towards homosexuality, and holding her hand (aka letting her engage in a low-key bit of, shall we say, ‘lezzing out’, but in a way she’s more comfortable with).
There might be better ways. And I’d honestly love to hear what sort of better ways there are to expose a non-straight homophobe to the subject… but Leslie at least doesn’t seem to be making things worse.
Which is very very very important right now.
*grabs the popcorn*
Steven Universe episodes are only 10 minutes long.
That actually makes it worse for me.
Maybe I’m just spoiled by the Netflix long-form series, but <40 minute long episodes of fiction just feel too compromised by their runtime to really tackle subjects in much depth. There's been a few exceptions, but even the good stuff feels like it would've been twice as good if it had been twice as long…
Steven Universe crams a lot into those 10 minutes.
I think it’s worth it, at least.
I agree. Steven Universe treats a lot of subjects with depth and sensitivity, especially the subject of loss and grief. I’m excited to see how far the show will delve into the question of what people are willing to do to protect their freedom. Honestly, I’ve seen hour long episodes of shows that are nothing but shallow BS or are otherwise badly written.
I wasn’t looking for a show (already I consume enough. TV) but my interest is piqued. And I’ll try any animation once.
If you don’t like it at first, try going until at least episode 25.
That’s when stuff starts getting heavy.
Heh, I’ll put it on the list (……..the Expanse is still on there, and I’m a giant SciFi nerd!).
It’s certainly a prejudice on my part, but… at least I know it? >_>
If you do give it a shot, I hope you enjoy it. The first couple of episodes can be a bit rough because everyone is still learning, but the characters grow immensely.
I used to feel the same way. But after watching Steven Universe I started to notice that longer episodes of others shows often are just artificially long, including B plots that aren’t that interesting and exist mostly to feel time. SU’s episodes tend to be interesting from beginning to end and rarely actually feel short.
Of course, it is not always that clear cut. Some episodes feel like they would benefit from a few extra minutes, the same way other shows have episodes that fully use its long runtime. But overall, I believe you will be surprised with how much SU can pack into 10 minutes. Not to mention the show is not above breaking a longer plot into many episodes, if they need to (the last 5 episodes were part of a single arc, for example)
What I like about it is that it just focuses on the relationships, it never makes a big deal out of the genders involved. Which is how it really should be, at the end of the road.
The only time I an recall when the show made anything like a big deal about it was when Steven’s uncle shows up at the barn, and starts ranting about hippies and conspiracies.
*sarcasm mode* and wasn’t that episode just so fun?
It was… different. It was an odd dose of what felt like real world 2016 poking its misshapen nose into the alternate world that SU inhabits and sniffing about.
We’ve seen a world map with what looks like a giant crater in the middle of Russia (a bit west of Tunguska impact, but hey), and we’ve seen floating rocks and giant strawberries. And Beach City seems pretty cool with whatever. But maybe even in the world of SU, Beach City really is weird, and the sorta liaise-faire way that they react to much of what the gems and Steven get up to isn’t typical of the wider world.
I’m still trying to figure out what Sugar, et al, were trying to tell us about the broader world of SU with that episode.
It would probably would have been better to film them watching the marathon as this point as the truth turned out more mundane than reality XD
Not by too far anyway
THEY ARE HOLDING HANDS !!!
stop the presses !
I kinda loathe everyone involved in this storyline.
Leslie’s standing as “the one good adult” kinda got shot when she let her thirst bring Robin to her classroom to hit on her, Robin feels like a spaz divorced from any concept in reality, and I kind of feel obligated to hate Roz for all eternity for parading her sister’s outing down the hall and expecting all the queers to fall in line.
Individuals in a comic titled Dumbing of Age all have their imperfections. The horror! The horror!
Leslie and Robin are being idiots, they’re just not being interesting idiots. I don’t care about their relationship here the way I did in Shortpacked!. Leslie’s making an ass of herself for someone she barely knows and Robin invades her home like a kooky wacky spaz only it isn’t the Walkyverse so she comes off like a dangerously unhinged lunatic.
I used to like Roz a lot but I’m basically over her until she grows the fuck up and stops being a terrible self aggrandizing ally.
Since I presume you are socially conscious and want to avoid slurs, I will warn you not to use the word “spaz.” In the UK, it is a slur for people with movement disorders, like cerebral palsy.
Sure, it’s treated as more acceptable in the U.S., but, then again, bunt with a c or baggot with an f are not as big a deal in the UK, and there are plenty of places where the n-word isn’t as offensive.
Now, I don’t push every “ableist slur.” Crazy and lame are fine with me (except if the person actually has a mental disorder), but I think this is an important one, like how petard with an r is treated.
And sorry for the circumlocutions. Trying to avoid the filter.
The poster on the wall behind Robin …..
Willis, I am continually being amazed by your attention to detail.
You know what’s interesting?
Giant Woman is episode 12. Episodes are 10 minutes long.
It’s been 2 hours!
If you’re not doing a complete series run (Steven Universe really starts weak and gets better with time) it’s however also a very good first episode for someone to watch, as it’s the one that introduces the single most important element of the series. It’s probably the first ‘must not miss’ ep (well there’s also the ep that introduces Connie, I guess, but it’s not crucial to watch that one first, just before other Connie eps).
I’d honestly say to start with Alone Together because that’s the best “high concept” episode and will tell you if you are really into the ideas of Steven Universe, but I can also see the sense in watching Giant Woman and Bubble Buddies first.
Why does everyone say it starts weak? There are so many hints about where it’s going and that there’s a lot more under the surface, from the very beginning – those are what caught my interest right away! It starts small, yes, because we’re following Steven as he learns too, so things unfold slowly, but watching it unfold is part of the point! Every little seemingly odd thing a character says (like jokingly saying “We kept Amethyst”), everything shown but not directly addressed in the background (The murals, the fact that there are ruins everywhere, the symbols on structures), and it terms of the social issues, just the fact that we’re talking about a team of all-female-indentifying beings that show a range of diversity…that doesn’t happen by accident, the creators obviously were being very deliberate in everything they did…that’s not weak either.
It’s more that everything that follows is better and answers those questions raised in the beginning.
Random thought ;
Just because, right now, they are dressed and watching TV, doesn’t necessary mean there weren’t going at it like rabbit in the kitchen 2 hours ago.
Oh right. I forgot that they were gonna watch Steven Universe.
Is Robin balancing that bowl of cereal on her knee? That’s… really impressive.
Years of congress pratice !
*fans self* my oh my
Perfect timing!
So I came out as polysexual today on Facebook. Between all the bigotry and politics on my feed, I had run out of fucks and forgot to restock. So I spill my heart out about how all of this effected me even saying how scared I was but I felt like I had to say it. I clicked submit fully expecting all hell to break lose because my area is super religious.
Here’s the kicker. Nobody seen it save one person who I gave a heads up that it was there (just in case people got really bad). No likes/reactions. No comments. No private messages, phone calls, or texts. Nothing. The best I can figure is that either my posts are filtered by them or they don’t read any of my longer posts because I know them well enough that my family being cool with this is less likely than me winning a car.
Are your posts set on private?
It would be pretty funny if it was, but nope. I just checked to be sure.
Well, then let US react before Facebook.
Woo, go you!
Now, let’s watch Steven Universe and eat marshmallow cereal (or Smarty Cereal like Moss on IT Crowd), and we can talk about whatever you want.
Thank you ^_^
I have never gotten to see it. No tv save a few from antenna and my internet isn’t good enough for a streaming service (I’m just on limited mobile). I’ve always wanted to though.
I’m proud of you. <3
Thanks hun
First: Congratulations. I’m proud of your bravery.
Second: An optimistic explanation could be that your announcement was met with such a degree of acceptance that no one who read it felt it needed comment.
I’m not use to people being proud of me or calling me brave O_O
Knowing my family, I highly doubt it. Odds are they seen a long post and skipped it.
Highfive!!!
*goes to give high five*
*accidentally does face palm out if habit*
*Picard out*
Well, the rest of us are happy for you. Congratulations, and don’t bother restocking the fucks. Not worth it to give them away.
We never seems to put enough in stock, anyway, they always run out.
Very true. It’s like they expect me to have an unlimited supply to just give away and they get mad when I’m not giving them.
Congratulations! That took a lot of courage, especially with what’s been going on lately! I wish you the best! Also, if you need people to talk/write too, remember that we’re here and will listen to and support you. *friendly gesture of support and comfort as I don’t know if you’re comfortable with hugs*
*brings in for giant hug* Honey, I’m southern! Last week I gave someone I’d never met some of my homemade cookies. I never meet a stranger
It wasn’t easy, but I’m glad I did. And I’m starting to figure out that yall don’t mind when I post things that stray from the comic at hand, so I’m gonna keep that in mind from now on
Congratulations! It can be terrifying stating your truth to a hostile audience and I’m proud of you for doing it anyways.
*appropriate gesture of thanks*
Thank you Cerb. That means a lot to me
Congratulations! I’m so proud of you <3
Thanks!
Oh… oh my gosh. This is… I don’t know what to say guys! I’m a puddle right now from my heart melting. You’re all so happy and supportive! I’ve always been so afraid to do it because of the backlash I would get or dismissive reactions (like the people who argue that I’m straight but appreciate women or something). Every time I complain about it, I feel guilty for my fear and feelings because I know people who have it far worse because unlike me they can’t live their lives hiding only half of who they are.
I was so scared to press submit. I stopped and reread it so many times before I finally clicked. I deleted the text and pasted it back too. I not only admitted that I was a polysexual, but that I was also a liberal. The only thing I didn’t add was that I’m an atheist because that could be dangerous here. I never thought of it as brave; I thought of it as me just reaching my breaking point when I could no longer take their bigotry.
I love this community so much. It’s filled with wonderful caring people that I’m grateful to be a part of.
Your orientation is real and valid. And you’re not “half straight”, you’re all the way “polysexual” and that has impact on you no matter who you are dating, so the people dismissing that or making you feel you don’t have a right to complain about oppression that happens to a community you belong to can jog right on.
And I’m glad we could support you, because you are awesome and your identity is awesome and what you did is awesome.
*hugs offered*
*hugs accepted*
Thank you. It means a lot coming from you. I know you have been on the receiving end of a lot of bigotry in your life and even now you are catching a lot along with your kids. To know that you see my feelings as valid and accept me as part of the community makes me feel less selfish and self conscious about it all. I want to help us all by not only trying to reeducate people when possible and use my vote to support LGBTQ+, but by being a positive example as well.
I had one person who knew about my sexuality tell me after Trump was elected I needed to delete any post on my Facebook about LGBTQ+ and hide that part of myself for the next four years for my safety, but I couldn’t do it. I think you hit on why. I wish others could see it that way.
No, YOU are awesome.
You and your kids. Speaking of which, how are they?
*more high fives*
Thanks! I’ll put these on the shelf that I use to keep my fucks. It looks so empty now.
Ok things just got serious. They are watching Steven Universe together!! Unless her team somehow gets Robin out within the next hour, she will not leave that couch without the need of a bomb squad until they finish marathoning the series. Side note; I’m willing to bet that Amethyst is currently Robin’s favorite character.
Hmmmm….Maybe not. Amethyst is probably a pretty good mirror of Robin’s own insecurities and issues, to be honest. I’m betting she’s gonna turn out a Garnet fan.
(Implying “a Garnet fan” isn’t the default for all viewers.)
Pearl is the best Gem and I will fight anyone who dares say otherwise.
By my calculations, you’re a clod if you think anybody but Peridot is the superior gem
Pearl’s grown the most out of the Gems. She’s constantly running into walls and breaks through them and is practically a completely different person than she was at the start.
Plus she got the Mystery Girl’s phone number.
“All I wanna do, is see you make out with, Mystery Woman. Mystery Woman!”
I want Pearl to bring Mystery Girl home and then she falls for Greg.
Because being Pearl is suffering.
I actually love Pearl because there are so few characters that are genuinely portrayed as struggling with low self esteem/self worth issues, especially female* characters, who still are seen as deserving and worthy of love. I think a lot of people don’t like Pearl because maybe she reminds them of hard times or their insecurities. She’s a whole character, but I think a lot of people don’t see past her issues, which is kind of realistic.
I like Garnet because she is kind of the person I want to be, or rather who I feel I’m “supposed” to be like (strong, rarely makes mistakes, in a great relationship, caring, you know, “perfect”) but I realize I’m more like Pearl/Amethyst at this moment in my life in terms of my feelings of self worth.
* Although gems were said to not technically have a gender.
Gonna be honest, my favorite character is actually Lapis. And that one episode where Jasper attacks the boat Steven’s dad bought is what really cemented that for me.
Favorite gem? Lapis.
Favorite character? Connie.
THERE ARE SO MANY AWESOME CHARACTERS IN THIS SHOW I DO NOT KNOW WHO IS MY FAVORITE!
Lapis IS amazing, and if she had more screen time she’d probably shoot up to my number one slot.
You are entitled to think so, but as long as Amethyst is a gem, I will have to respectfully disagree.
Amethyst is my favourite, but Pearl’s definitely the character with the most growth and depth out of the cast. Granted she’s nearly killed Steven like three times now.
I don’t even like Garnet that much when she’s not being Square Mom. She feels really static.
I think they’re all growing.
Again, we’ll have to agree to disagree about Garnet. I think she feels a lot more open and less stilted than before. She’s still monotone and sarcastic, because that’s Garnet, but she’s definitely letting her feelings through more.
Garnet settled on who she is 5750 years ago and hasn’t seen any need to change since then.
I think Pearl and Steven have developed the most as characters. Lately Amethyst has felt sort of peripheral to me. Garnet is basically the rock of their group, I doubt she’ll develop very much, but she does provide the foundation that keeps the rest of them from flying off into orbit. Although I think Steven is beginning to step up to that role now, too. Kinda like, “I’ve taught you all I can, you don’t need me as much anymore” with the teacher being Garnet.
I started out with Amethyst as my favorite, then swapped to Garnet around Jailbreak.
Then Connie came in and blew Amethyst away.
But now PEARL yoinked the lead away from everybody else with her recent character development from Mr. Greg onwards.
AND NOW PERIDOT IS MAKING A BREAK FOR THE LEAD!
Dammit, why can’t I watch a show where my favorite character stays the same???
>.>
I kinda lost my love for Peridot when we got to the episode where we learn that she actually is as worthless and broken as she thinks she is, and is only saved by discovering new super powers that make her actually special and useful.
Ugh, that whole episode was a mess. Either Peridot doesn’t get to discover genuine self worth or Amethyst gets to be in the right for being an ableist, boundary violating asshole.
Yeah it wasn’t great at all.
Yep, it’s one of the few episodes of the series I view as flat out bad.
To compare it to DoA, it’d be like Amber being completely correct that she’s shitty and broken, that she needs to process her anger through Amazi-Girl, and only once she’s sufficiently atoned for her inherent vileness can she be a good person.
Peridot has low self esteem because she’s made of lower quality material and thus needs technology to assist her. Then we find out the reason she doesn’t need to think poorly of herself isn’t that she actually is smart and capable and has grown tremendously and now genuinely loves the people around her, it’s that she has cool new magic powers, and we find this out when Amethyst (who has to constantly deal with the stigma of being a “runt”) decides that Peridot isn’t allowed to express herself through her not-an-iPad and tries to destroy it.
Basically just a trash episode all around.
Oh good, I’m not the only one who saw that scene like Amethyst trying to yank someone out of their wheelchair. Seriously, the fuck Amethyst?
IKR. Steven Universe used to my go-to for fiction being able to avoid those kinds of cringy moments, and then that happened.
It’s still SU and it’s awesome, it just reminded me that it’s written by people and not, like, actual deities from the dimension of writing talent.
I’ll admit, when I first saw the episode, I snorted because Amethyst sounded like some 40 something mom nagging her kids about their phones, but then I took a step back and remembered she’s using her tablet to replace her limb enhancers – which are basically assistive technology for Peridots. Then it becomes a lot less funny.
Yeah you calling it “Amethyst trying to yank someone out of their wheelchair” is so perfect a description it’s not even funny.
The exchange ‘You don’t need it!” “You don’t know that!” particularly hit. That reminds me of people who joke about ‘miracles’ when they see someone in a wheelchair stand up or walk a little and assume they no longer need a chair. That is not the way it works. There are plenty of people in wheelchairs who have limited use of their legs due to pain or weakness or swelling. There are people who have full use one day and no use the next. There are people in physiotherapy who are learning to re-use their legs and forcing them to walk or god forbid dance when they can’t even walk to the end of a work out mat unassisted can massively screw over their legs.
Amethyst, in that scene, struck me as the kind of ‘friend’ who sees their friend finally master standing out of their chair, assumes said chair isn’t needed, and so she tries to kick it down the stairs.
Okay, I hadn’t even considered that angle.
Definitely puts a new spin on things.
Thanks for making me think (no sarcasm)!
One of the few episodes I really haven’t cared for.
Panel One: The Leia poster </3
But ooh, Steven Universe, I see! Neat! And an episode before the series, ahem, nukes the closet from orbit, I see. We'll see if Robin's so receptive when they get to Jailbreak or The Answer. And oh dear, contacting from the outside. Considering her day, I can see why Robin looks so hounded. And ha, Leslie hasn't even bothered get dressed yet. 'I don't have a class today and it's my house THAT YOU BROKE INTO so fuck it.' My policy as well, Leslie.
Panel Two: I WONDER WHY. Robin taking absolutely none of this campaign seriously certainly won't help her curry favour with the bigots she's relying on for her campaign, who are freaking out she's LGBT+. And the mushy middle will be (hopefully) turned off by her hypocrisy. This might in fact be campaign poison – which is probably what the opposition is banking on (not to mention why Roz is cheering her freedom so early).
Panel Three: That's because, lbr, Robin doesn't give a rat's ass about what Congress is actually for. She sees as a game with cool perks. She doesn't see it as a position with the authority to make laws that determine whether people live or die. Robin is not good people.
And Leslie? Blasphemy. The marshmallows are the good part. And they come as part of the cereal so :P. I like how Leslie looks more concerned about her position than Robin is. Which, yeah, Leslie has something to lose here. Robin does too, but she's independently wealthy and can probably find another job – if only as a cable news commentator.
Panel Four: Yeah, marshmallow only cereal is pretty standard operating procedure from Robin. Her not being a goofball is when you know things are fucked.
Panel Five: And yeah, not talking, just….grumping. She does not like being pointed out how little she takes seriously. Because serious sucks and is boring and it means bad things are happening and people might leave.
Panel Six: And Leslie can't turn off the educator, even when it's with someone who hurts her. So she goes and tries to reach out and try to nudge her to seeing her campaign crew's point of view. To be more responsible.
Also – quick note. Campaign manager. So, new person. Not Frieda (student outreach officer who just met her the day before yesterday) or Kyle (an administrative aide).
Panel Seven: And yeah, those are valid reasons for a campaign crew to be worried with a regular candidate. When that candidate is Robin? Hell no. She needs to be watched at all times to make sure she doesn't play herself. And Leslie's trying to get her to understand other people. Sadly, I think this storyline will end with her learning sometimes reaching out will ALWAYS get you burned with certain people and you need to cut your losses.
And yeah, Robin's so deep in denial she may as well book a flight to Egypt. It'll take more than Giant Woman to break her out of that. Might wanna skip to Jailbreak or the one where Rose and Pearl nearly kiss.
Heh, you are right. Leslie i teacher mode is adorable.
I’m probably going to be disappointed that Robin isn’t going to do something horrifically evil to save her career.
Don’t count it out yet.
Yeah, this ain’t over yet.
Maybe Frieda will “save” her campaign by trying to throw Becky under the bus.
Frieda is honestly only a tiny part of the campaign. She can save student outreach, not the whole thing. That’s on the campaign manager.
No, Frieda’s not the campaign manager.
Mandatory Aivi & Surasshu plug. They do most of the Steven Universe music, and are just fantastic <3
https://aivi-surasshu.bandcamp.com/
@waltzforluna
@surasshu
Awwwww. They did get their Steven Universe-date after all.
Heh, and the first fusion episode no less. GET ANY IDEAS, CONGRESS WOMAN?
Calling it now: Robin will keep eating marshmallows until she has a sugar rush blackout and wakes up six months later married to Leslie.
I dont feel too great about this, because I don’t think Leslie is aware of the blowback that’s going to happen. They can’t stay in the house forever.
It would be like if I dated that guy in college who lived near me and we once had a conversation where he argued that poor people didn’t deserve social welfare programs because they didn’t choose to be more like him and be born into wealth they didnt work for at all. Talking to a room full of students on financial aid.
Or the guy who had regular conversations that clearly indicated he only saw women as sex objects and could never let a woman win a debate with him. Or any of the many people who said to students faces that they didnt deserve to be there because they think affirmative action is a farce.
Leslie, its not your job to teach your oppressor and you’re worth so much more. Also, the Power of Love rarely works on people like Robin who have everything to gain from doing what they do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get outside and Robin does something completely different from what she’s saying here to protect herself.
I’m feeling very cynical because I know I’m gonna wake up to some Republican fuckery tomorrow.
True. Everybody’s fixated on the Congresswoman because (with some truth) she’s the bigger fish in this story and has farther to fall. But my own experiences have shown me that even people in the minority can be just as vicious and cruel towards people they view as “traitors to the cause” by associating with people viewed as “the enemy”. So yeah, Leslie may very well experience some fallout of her own from her friends, students and any public causes she may be associated with.
I don’t doubt your experiences. I have seen that happen myself as well, especially at college. But to me those people aren’t necessarily equivalent in their meanness, because they dont have the power to take away your rights. Robin literally has the power to take away Leslie’s rights.
I think that’s part of why people get so upset in those cases, because its like one person, even if they are marginalized, supporting implicitly or explicitly the oppressor. Frankly, even though the oppressor holds most of the power, they help fuck it up for the rest of us.
I definitely understand that people on both sides are more complex than that, and there are power structures at play, and no one is perfect, but sometimes it’s critical to ask the question: do you value me or not? Do you love yourself or not? It’s like racial minorities who swear racism isn’t real because they have white friends or whatever and refuse to help with equality or worse actively work against it and insist that others are misunderstanding the issue.
( actually went to school with several of these types of people. Someone on my Facebook continuously calls protesters “animals” which is racially charged enough, but very lo and behold even though she dislikes Black Lives Matter, guess who the new Pres and his folks also dislike? Immigrants and their children, especially people of her ethnicity. So who the fuck is she helping here? Certainly not even herself.)
If Robin voted on a bill that revokes some civil rights for queer folks, that means Leslie AND Robin AND all the other queer people. Could Leslie really be with someone like that? Is the main question here. Again, I understand that the issues and people are very complex, but especially now it’s critical that we acknowledge our differences and become stronger because of them and fight for them, rather than continuing this game of creating conditions where it’s okay to be prejudiced because x or y personal situation. Leslie here has decide not only personally would she date someone who doesn’t value something so essential to her identity and life, *and* because Robin is a public figure that forces her, Leslie, to make that decision political and public.
I think you are right in that Leslie is set to get a lot of shit from people she knows for this. And well, given the specific situation here, someone needs to let her know she is worth more and shouldn’t waste her time with the Robins of the world.
I have enough faith in Leslie to think that she won’t stay with Robin (even if they get together beyond watching Steven Universe) if Robin doesn’t change, personally and politically.
If it doesn’t work, she’ll take some crap from her peers for consorting with the enemy, but she’ll also win some points for outing her, however unintentionally. It balances out.
She’s more likely to have problems with the college for dragging them into controversy.
This really isn’t Leslie dating the homophobe Republican congresswoman. This is still Leslie trying to teach and change her.
I mean in this case Robin is less “the enemy” and more actually a bonafide enemy of the LGBT+ community because she’s a legitimate aggressor against queer people and actively works to endanger them and if that doesn’t make someone an enemy of a group of people I’m not really sure what does.
To be an aggressor, she’d need to have a desire to harm. She has none and, arguably, is too abnormal to have that sort of agenda. She’s basically doing what she believes will benefit herself and seems broadly incapable of understanding what affect that would have on others other than assuring herself that ‘probably nobody would be hurt’.
She’s stupid, she isn’t evil.
The thing about it is you can still do harm even if you don’t “intend” to. Actions have consequences, and that will never change. And the thing about Robin is that she purposefully distances herself from the effects of her actions – didn’t Joyce just a few strips ago ask about some bill or some such she voted for that would have hurt people like Becky? She knows what she’s doing, it just doesn’t seem like it because she has an otherwise goofy personality. That’s what’s so great about her as a written character, not everyone who is out to get you is a cartoon villain.
I mean, her screwing thousands of people over for her own personal gain, even if she’s not homophobic (and we’ve already seen she’s internalized homophobia), is really not that much better. At least the homophobes will let you know. People like Robin will smile at you while pouring poison in your drink. Could she be a good person eventually? Maybe. But she actually has to *do* better, not just say she will or that she had the intention of doing better.
Not caring about how your actions hurt others is like the basis of most real evil. Most people who commit evil don’t do it out of hate they do it out of selfish indifference to the well being of others so long as they get what they want.
Exactly. The only component required is indifference. Indifference is what leads to atrocities all over the globe, the revocation of rights for marginalized people everywhere. I’m sitting here watching all these politicians do all but revoke women’s right to vote, I’m so sick of people who are putting their heads in the sand. There’s too much at stake here for that nonsense.
My definition of evil is “Selfishness without regard to hurting others.” Even if you hurt others for your own amusement–the worst kind of evil–you are doing so for selfish reasons, without caring about the hurt that it causes.
When dealing with the D&D alignment grid (which people often apply to fiction outside of D&D), I often point out that the D&D Neutral (between Good and Evil) is actually often evil in real life.
Robin is LGBT+ herself tho. So she is also her own “enemy” and the sooner she realizes it the better it will be for her and everyone else.
Yeah, this is Leslie giving in to something she knows will be toxic and it’s largely because she’s been put in a position where she’s already fucked in a lot of ways thanks to Robin’s constant pushing on her boundaries (a lot of her friends are not going to be happy about her “secretly dating” the person who actively campaigns and votes on making their lives worse).
And yeah, there is often an expectation placed on marginalized folks that it is their job to “fix” the bigoted and teach them how not to hate and a lot of the time, it’s a very dehumanizing practice and it’s easy for it to be a humiliating ritual that still ends in the bigot constantly mistreating you and taking advantage of your kindness to abuse or gaslight others about their bigotries (I can’t be X-ist, I have a X friend).
And it’s also as you note just kind of dangerous for a marginalized person to be dating someone like this, who openly dismisses a lot of key aspects of humanity for marginalized folks (Robin has already been shown openly dismissing and even mocking real important information about what Leslie’s life has been like and students talking about their queer friends).
Right now there’s a little oasis of denialism, but the reality is going to hit Leslie, likely when the queer students in her class express feelings of betrayal about this whole thing.
Agreed. And converse to the “I can’t be X-ist, I have X friend” argument is what I see a lot in my community of people fetishizing their oppressors. They want to be the ones to “change” them and thus end all -isms purely through the power of their Love. It seems like not only is Leslie thinking with her sex drive, she also seems to be romanticizing the “*I* get to be the one to get through to her!” thing, which almost never works and only ends in the dehumanization of the marginalized person, while the oppressor gains a lot while doing nothing. This is very different from dating someone who actually respects you and will fight with you for your rights.
I see this all the time in communities and circles I run in. The person they are dating/married to is clearly a (racist or sexist usually) asshole, and they timidly follow behind them making excuses and cleaning up their messes and insisting they’re happy together, or at worst acting high and mighty towards everyone else (especially other people who share in their marginalization). It’s very sad and very unnecessary, but they stick with them because they believe that their relationship transcends all earthly prejudices or some such bullshit. Not to mention the dash of self hatred/lack of self worth required to make a relationship like that work. It is very damaging to a person’s self worth, their soul, their heart to be with someone like that, and it usually doesn’t end well from what I’ve seen.
The rest of this comment is just in general, not saying Leslie is that person, but if she decides to actually date Robin, she is most definitely gonna put herself in some really tough positions like we said above. Also I can’t imagine how pissed off/conflicted Roz would turn out to be – she wanted this to happen, but I don’t think she knows what she’s asking for at all.
I think this is somewhat different, if only because Robin is going to have to come out of the closet, at least to herself for anything to happen here. And it looks like she’s going to come be out of the closet publicly as well.
Leslie’s got at least some more self-respect here than in early SP. I don’t think she’s willing to be Robin’s piece on the side while Robin keeps up her old ways – nor do I think Robin’s disciplined enough to keep that pretense from going public.
Are you talking about friends in the Facebook way (I.e. everybody I slightly know is counted as friend) or about real friends?
I wouldn’t count people as friends who drop me like a hot brick because my foto with someone they have reason to dislike and distrust hits the social networks. I wouldn’t even count those you ask what the hell happened and hearing the story and still dropping me like a hot brick.
If you are talking about co-campaigner and such, yes, I imagine there’d be a lot who drop you in such a situation (I distinctly remember the fallout when a paid staff member of a lesbian project got pregnant and people found it reason to hate her that she didn’t stand up before the whole meeting and tell us she was living with a man and got pregnant by mistake – consorting with the enemy is sanctioned in political groups).
You’re right, friends is the wrong time. More, I’d say random fellow queer people are going to look askance at her and trust her less and I’d imagine some folks who she mostly knows from the streets but aren’t close friends.
Like real friends go what the fuck and try to find out more, but there’s going to be a lot of casual relationships that are gonna ghost or give a glare over the punch bowl.
Though I think the one that’s going to be the biggest hit is gonna come from the students. Cause students tend to be very invested in political activism and its easy for them to fall into purity standards and so the reaction from them is likely to be deeply negative and even to express feelings of betrayal.
Especially among those who’ve had reason to fear becoming homeless or who were growing to trust her as an adult resource and mentor.
Of course, Leslie can repair that, but it’s going to be a lot of work and there’s going to be a fair few that will just write her off.
we have a new example for that, now: the 14 Democratic senators who voted, for whatever reason, to approve (not abstain, not oppose) the (awful, but that almost goes without saying) nominee for head of the CIA. Including a few in very safe states, like Feinstein, and Tim Kaine(!), who was going to be our VP.
the feelings of betrayal are strong on the left, especially since the GOP could have pushed it through purely on their majority with no ‘help’, and are very unlikely to reward or reciprocate.
I’m super pissed at Senator Klobuchar about this, and will be making some angry phone calls to her office.
I am absolutely boggled that she would do this.
It’s everyone’s job to try and reach the oppressor. It’s literally the only way things will change. Leslie is currently in the best position to change things right now.
It would be understandable if she couldn’t handle it and gave up, mind you. But it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
Literally what makes good good is that it prioritizes helping others over helping yourself. Sure, there are reasons you have to take care of yourself, but that’s only so you can continue being good.
I honestly think this is a good reason why evil prevails so often. Good people come up with these ethics that allow them not to fight, even when they are in the best position to do so.
And, anyways, the blowback is already there. Leslie gets hurt no matter what. The question is, will she use this to also help out her fellow LGBT people?
It’s everyone’s job to try and reach the oppressor. It’s literally the only way things will change.
why do you say things
Because I care about other people, and saw what I consider a dangerous philosophy.
Why do you mock me? If you have something to counter what I say, say it.
I’ve been bullied like this before, and I will not accept it here. If you think I’m wrong, you can say why, or not say anything.
Otherwise you’re just being a jerk.
You’re trying to tell me that marginalized groups need to passively stand there and educate dudes who try their damnedest to ruin their lives, and that not attempting to is ‘good people coming up with ethics to not do something’ so why do you think.
Really? We’re gonna have that discussion again, trlkly?
Where do I begin?
A) No, it is not the job of someone being abused to convince a bigot that – shocker – the person they’re abusing is also a human being. It is on the bigot not to abuse them. Prioritizing self defence over a bigot’s hurt feelings or education is not immoral.
B) People are not robot maids put on earth to serve everyone else’s needs, with occasional breaks to maintain emotional health so they can continue being a robot maid. It’s good to take care of yourself because you have value and don’t deserve having awful shit done to you for no reason.
C) ….Are you seriously arguing procedural ethics are a bad thing, right now? Is that your position? Because I’m going to have to call bullshit loudly on that. Not letting people do whatever they want to fight is a good thing. It curbs abuse of power. And when people do abuse their power, it allows for consequences. No, it doesn’t always work, but everything has some ethical constraints because people have ethical constraints.
D) There are people who learn better by cold, hard fact or by being screamed at that they are a bad person. Or by watching other people be screamed at.
E) Shutting bigots down and shutting them up is also a way to get results – for example, the nazi guy who got punched? Is making less public appearances because he’s afraid he’ll become a meme or get punched again. Sure, he’s still a nazi, but for now he’s a silent nazi. Again, priorities. Getting them to stop hurting people comes first and foremost. One can worry about changing their minds and educating them later.
No, we’re not having a discussion. You are lecturing me based on stuff I
didn’t say. Your goal is to win against me, not to discuss what I have
to say and try to understand my point of view.
A. I covered self defense in saying sometimes you have to save yourself so you can help others later. So that’s not a disagreement.
However, I do disagree that the oppressed don’t have to fight their oppressors That is literally how every, single, civil rights issue was ever won. It was women who fought for the right to vote–men joined later. It was a black woman who wouldn’t take the back seat on a bus. It was a gay man who sued so that now all gay people can marry. The oppressed very, very well have to fight their oppressors.
B. For goodness sake, that’s literally what I said! Good people have to do things for themselves sometimes. But, still, the ultimate goal is to be good to others.
Where we disagree is this idea that Leslie can do anything at this point to save herself. She cannot. Anything bad that happens to her from here on out is the same whether she gets with Robin or not. Everyone already thinks they did.
I never said anything about her having to actually be in a relationship with her. The point was when someone said that she has no responsibility to try and change her mind. She does, because she has a chance to do so right now.
That doesn’t mean she has to be in relationship with her. That’s stuff you added.
C. No, I’m not. I would have said so if I was. I am arguing that good people make up these extra rules that do not follow from basic principles–rules that let them off the hook for actually doing what’s right.
Another one of those are rules about “mind your own business.” While not a horrible rule of thumb, it’s clearly wrong when you know that something horrible is happening. If you can, without hurting yourself, you need to intervene.
This is another one, where you argue that the oppressed never has any duty to fight an oppressor. That’s just false. If they can do so without further harm to themselves, they should very well do so. Leslie can actually attempt to help Robin here. She can do so without further harming herself, so she should do so.
D. I never disagreed. I’ve actually said that very thing before. I’ve met people who try to say we should just talk to even the most vile Trump supporters. They are wrong.
That’s not the situation here, though.
E. I again never disagreed. I have no problem with anything you said there.
It’s just that this situation is not that one. If Leslie punches Robin, Leslie becomes the evil trickster again who tried to trick her. Leslie goes to jail, loses her ability to teach, and so on. It’s all bad if she does so.
Conclusion:
I argued with literally one thing the person said. I argued that people do have a duty to fight their oppressors. The statement otherwise, while well meaning, was not correct.
It is just not a hard and fast rule. It’s not something like “rape is wrong.” The oppressed are often the ones in the best position to fight.
Honestly, the only counter example I can even think of is slavery, since slaves weren’t really in position to free themselves.
By “help Robin,” in C, I meant “help change Robin’s mind.”
One thing that sucks is making a mistake. Everything focuses on the mistake, and nothing happens.
Ah yes, please do tell me more about my motivations. It’s not like we’ve had disagreements about things of this nature before.
These are things you’ve said as I’ve understood the implications. If I’ve misread them, that bites.
A) That IS a disagreement because you’re still qualifying it with ‘so you can help others later’. That is NOT why you should be defending yourself – you should be defending yourself because you do not deserve to die. Other people do not have to figure into that, because, again, you are not somebody’s servant.
That is not what you said – you said she needed to ‘try and reach her’. I read that as the same ‘you have to hand hold people through their bigotry nicely and not snap at them’ shit that’s been going around this site recently. Especially since you also said it would be understandable, but wrong, for Leslie to give up on her.
B) You said the only reason people need to take care of themselves is so they can continue being good, which in your definition, means prioritizing the needs of others over your own. That is why I’m saying people are not maids – they do not need to take care of themselves for the sake of being good by taking care of others – they need to take care of themselves because they are worth taking care of.
I never said Leslie needed to be in a relationship with her either. I’m saying it would not be wrong for Leslie to tell Robin to get the fuck out of her house and never come back. It might not teach Robin a very valuable lesson, but at this point she’s gone above and beyond any reasonable expectation of courtesy and patience by breaking in to Leslie’s home.
C) Okay, good, this is the one I was REALLY hoping I was misreading and I’m definitely glad I did. The kind of procedural rules that conveniently let people avoid taking action are bullshit. I do agree with you on that.
I never said that Leslie didn’t need to fight Robin – I said she didn’t need to carefully sit and hand hold her and explain everything 25 million times, which people do NOT have the obligation to do, even if said bigot ‘means well’. Sometimes you need to say ‘no, I’m done. Go on google and look’. Sometimes it is okay to just scream at Robin all the reasons she’s a hateful bigot.
D) This one is about the general idea that people need to always always always be super patient and explain their humanity to people, as I thought that was what you were arguing.
E) For one, Nazi guy was an example – I’m not advocating for Robin to get punched. Two, again, this is about the general point regarding how people push back. Leslie doesn’t need to hit her to shut her down or shut her up. That can be as simple as saying ‘shut the fuck up, you hateful assclown’ overtime she says something even remotely bigoted. Or even ‘If you don’t drop out, I’ll go to the papers and give them the story they clearly want’. Those would be equally valid ways to fight because they can make her stop. They won’t educate her, but that can come later.
I did read a lot of your post incorrectly and for that I apologize. I’ve been seeing a lot of arguments phrased similarly to yours that were saying resistance is only valid if it’s the ‘right’ way. I’m sorry I misinterpreted a lot of your post. I still have issues with some of it, but not nearly as many as I did before.
Nah, we’ve tried that and it didn’t work. That’s a roundabout way for oppressor groups to get out of doing any of this work whatsoever and then blaming their laziness, apathy, and/or active resistance on everyone else.
The way I see it, many of these people have Facebook. Which means they have access to Google. Which means they could look up anything they want. Read a book. Read several books on the same subject and compare the perspectives. Get a $20 bus ride out of your small town or wherever and SEE things. Talk to people. Experience life. Many of these people fight so they don’t change. Take the issue of jobs, many want factory jobs and blame the lack in Obama but the thing about that is the Industrial Revolution started over 100 years ago. It is the nature of all life since the beginning of evolution: if you dont adapt, at *best* you will be left behind.
In my opinion, many of these people *choose* their ignorance. It’s the reason why people are making excuses and accepting the Orange Administrations bullshit, while they shit on Obama the entire time he was in office. Its the reason why Obama had to be near perfect, but all T had to do was be rich and white.
It’s certainly true that these people do have access and could learn better. In that sense, it’s their fault.
But, while that does a nice job of placing the blame, it doesn’t actually change anything. They’re not doing it. They’re not learning. This affects the rest of us. Whoever’s to blame, if we want them to change, it’s up to us to help them, because it’s not happening on its own.
Again, we’ve tried that. The types of people I’m talking about don’t trust fact. Facts. They don’t trust facts. They don’t live in reality, and they want to hurt people, and now we have an administration that is literally full of unapologetic white supremacists and billionaires. That is why this situation is so grave.
Because you can drag a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink. I refuse to be responsible for people’s growth because I am not their nanny nor their mammy nor their therapist. I refuse to be responsible for the people who would kill me and people like me if they could get away with it (and they’ve been getting away with it!) This is why I support systemic change at the legal level, and people working in communities and organizations. The thing is all these social programs are there. That is why they exist. People just associate it with ungrateful, poor, lecherous minorities, mostly because of racism and sexism and partly because they can’t handle their shame so they place the shame on other people. So I will always engage in public service, and I will always help the groups that need it the most, but if they don’t want to use what’s there, that’s on them. That’s the choice a lot these constituent groups have been making for decades.
Do I think the education system here is fucked? Yes I do. However, no rights in this country of the USA have ever been obtained without struggle, and I really feel that this is where we’re heading if people don’t wake the fuck up very soon.
And yeah, I’m gonna blame them, because it’s their fault we have a fascist leaning government right now. And I don’t care about their feelings right at this moment because people are dying, will be deported, will lose their healthcare and die, women are going to start buying wire hangers again and it IS their fault. We must never stop holding them accountable. That’s how they get away with a lot of things.
I and people like me get blamed all the time, for crime, for abortions, for bringing up race, everything, especially things that are out of our control. For all of our lives. The same is true for many other marginalized groups. T is enacting all these batshit policies, and people are STILL bringing up Obama/blaming minorities for voting for Hilary when we know damn well T was elected because of white supremacy. Yet when we try to get be people to be responsible for themselves for things they are actually responsible for, they can’t shoulder their own actions for 5 minutes? Nah.
You call this blame and I call it collective responsibility. We both know the truth: if people like this didn’t act the way they do, *nobody* would be in this mess, and that’s not my responsibility, so yes I am doing the job of forcing people to take responsibility for themselves, rather than blaming myself for not doing more as you imply, because I can try, but people are autonomous.
Sometimes part of the process is not being afraid to call them out on their bullshit or refuse to placate them when they fuck up. It’s simply telling them to do better and leaving them to do the work of growth. You are right in that we are all going to be screwed if we don’t change together. I know that, but the problem is that they’re too willfully ignorant and pigheaded to know that. They’d rather be right than not die because they have healthcare. It’s hard to convert people like that.
No it is not. It is especially not her job to try and reach her own oppressor. If she does it, that’s great. But it’s not her job.
Morality isn’t a bunch of binary decisions. It’s not a moral failing if you don’t choose the greatest possible good every single time. It’s not a failing if you don’t choose to martyr yourself for every cause. Even from a purely utilitarian standpoint, its extremely rare to encounter a situation where sticking around and doing smaller goods over a longer period of time ends up being the better choice in the long run.
Privileged fucks like myself, on the other hand? Absolutely. If anyone has an actual moral duty to try and reach out to bigots and change their minds, it’s those of us who don’t already have to deal with their shit every day. Conveniently, there’s a shit ton more of us.
We haven’t been standing up enough. We haven’t been speaking out enough. Our unearned, unasked-for privilege makes our voices louder than they deserve to be, there’s more of us, and still this shit keeps happening.
So those “good people coming up with ethics that allow them not to fight”? They sure as fuck aren’t people like Leslie.
I don’t know what to say to this. You’re just reaffirming your rules, and not in any way giving any reason why the oppressed do not have a duty to fight their oppressors when they can.
And how in the world are the oppressors supposed to help if the oppressed don’t first fight to let us know that they are oppressed? It’s nonsensical.
And, well, I’m a straight white Christian male. I absolutely know that I have a duty to fight for the oppressed. Why do you think I’m even saying anything? It’s not exactly pleasant to have these types of conversations where everyone attacks you.
I brought it up because I was worried that otherwise good people were letting evil get by, so I tried to stop it.
I never once said that the oppressed had to fight alone. But they do have to fight when they are able.
It’s just what it means to be good. Good tries to stop evil.
FC didn’t say ‘don’t fight’. They said ‘they do not have an obligation to reach out to Robin’. I think this is the same problem I had where FC read this as the same ‘you have to reach out and hand hold and educate and answer the same question fifty billion times a day until hopefully they see you’re human!’ thing that people like to spew.
I’ve never had to talk a bigot into considering me human, but it sounds like a bad time.
The part I object to is the “have to”. I think they should consider doing it. I think that’s as much anyone else has the right to say they must do. They have every justification to pick their battles and conserve their energy and mental health as they see fit. *I* sure as hell have no right to judge their decisions on that front.
But mostly, I think your concern that the people being oppressed won’t do enough is misplaced, and a bit absurd.
Embrace the Universe, Robin.
I refuse to be seduced by how cute and domestic this is!
I think Robin will eventually step out of Leslie’s apartment, the reporters and photographers will be waiting at the stairs of the house, and she will be bombarded with questions regarding her sexuality, her values, and if there’ll be a sexy video on the internet.
Robin will then proceed to gush about Steven Universe and how awesome a show it is and make it the new foundation of her camapign. And everyone will be confused as fuck.
I’ve suddenly had a nightmare image of Robin insisting all her interns dress up as the various crystal ladies from SU.
Robin and staff (and Leslie?) in cosplay? Ohhhhh, Daisy’s gonna need photos of that.
That would be the best response. Utterly ignore all the questions and the circus, and just start gushing about SU. Leave Bill O’Reilly and Rachel Maddow speechless.
You might even like being together
and if you don’t it won’t be forever.
But if it were me
I’d really like to see
A giant woman, a giant woman
But what would Sean Spicer say about Robin’s alternate facts?
REALLY not liking that meme.
Same here.
There are no “alternate facts”. A statement is either factual, or unfactual. An unfactual statement can either be a mistake, or a lie, but it is not “alternate”.
You’re going to love post modernism.
I’ve long been well familiar with and utterly loathed postmodernism.
As with some other concepts long-beloved “the American Academic Left”, we’ve reached the horrible natural outcome of postmodernism at this point.
Alt-facts. As used by the alt-right.
Postmodernism.
“Postmodernism is typically defined by an attitude of skepticism or distrust toward grand narratives, ideologies, and various tenets of Enlightenment rationality, including the existence of objective reality and absolute truth, as well as notions of rationality, human nature, and progress. Instead, it asserts that knowledge and truth are the product of unique systems of social, historical, or political discourse and interpretation, and are therefore contextual and constructed to varying degrees. Accordingly, postmodern thought is broadly characterized by tendencies to epistemological and moral relativism, pluralism, self-referentiality, and irony.”
While right now we’re dealing with the alt-facts of the alt-right, this “there are no facts, just perceptions and constructs” thing is a failing of the academic left that goes back decades. What we’ve seen with this election is simply the chickens coming home to roost.
nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue22/epstei22.htm
Ugh, postmodernist pop philosophy really ruined what was unique and special about postmodernism in the arts, which was all about deconstructing why some works are labeled classics and others trash and thus expanding what we can analyze on a critical level, what we should look to as examples of classic literature (taking in more works from non-Americans, people of color, women, queer folk), and building more universal sets of tools for deconstructing what we assume is a given about society and more open to analyzing it critically.
Hell, anyone that likes things like deconstructions of comic strips or video games has benefited from postmodernism in the arts.
Instead it all gets bastardized into this garbage in the popular consciousness. And I suspect a large part of the reason is a deliberate backlash to the success this humanities movement had in really opening up its focus and usefulness in a modern pluralistic society and especially in uncovering things like lost queer histories, great poets of color, and deconstructing the artificial lines often put between pop culture and art.
Eh, it’s probably why a lot of the good postmodernists have jumped ship to intersectionalist theory instead.
A friend of mine is a dance and lighting/stage design professor at a nearby university. After many discussions with her, it’s become quite clear that what postmodernism in the arts, and postmodernism in academics and social sciences, are two very widely separated branches.
Postmodernist elements in dance, architecture, art, etc, don’t suffer from crippling obscurantism, adoration of world-salad, and wholesale rejection of even the idea that something could be objectively true or false, in the way that other fields have.
I’ll take your word for it then. Most of my experience with postmodernism has been in the arts and literature departments.
Oh, also — recall the Sokal Affair and other instances in which highly regarded academic postmodernists were completely fooled by parodies of their own form over function style and mindset.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
The problem doesn’t stem from “pop” postmodernism, or “old guard backlash”. The problem that at its very heart, it’s a school of thought that rejects objectivity, facts, and empirical rigor.
“There is no truth, there are no facts, just data to be manipulated… I can get you any result you like.”
As a liberal intellectual with an actual degree in philosophy, I have to say I absolutely loathe that kind of bastardized pop philosophy.
Sure, perfect Knowledge is unobtainable, because we can’t prove anything we perceive or remember is accurate. You can’t just jump straight from that to any argument relevant to day-to-day decisions without lodging your head firmly up your ass.
If someone claims to be that completely skeptical, punch them in the face. When they complain, point out that neither of you have any way of knowing who was or was not punched in their stupid face.
The fact that we are analyzing results computed by thinkmeat using that very thinkmeat is unfortunate, but we have no other source of information to act upon, nor any tools to examine it with. All we can do is be ready and willing to question our memories and our senses tell us, and not get too precious about what we thought was true when confronted with new information.
And the fact that perfect Knowledge is unobtainable doesn’t mean there is no objective truth to be known. It doesn’t even mean you can’t be sufficiently sure of anything to act on it, or judge right from wrong. You don’t need to understand how to do a mathematical proof for “1+1=2” in order to do basic arithmetic.
I could go on a much longer rant about this and how I hate how THAT is the kind of shit people tend to think about when they think of philosophy, but it would quickly devolve into frothy cursing from there.
Seems to me that along the way the distinction between ” taking a new look a things without taking anything for granted” and “we live in a world that is real to us and needs us to act in it” got somehow buried.
The physical world might not be exactly as we perceive it (i.e. our eyes are build in a way that has a very small sharp area with high resolution and on the periphery no resolution to speak of but great sensitivity to fast movements and this is not how we experience seeing or looking). But even though we always work with interpreted data, thinking that our interpretation influences the physical world (directly by the interpretation) is a line of though that falls under belief-system and not science.
The idea that our necessary data interpretation systems are influencing how we see and act in the world is very valid and might lead to new ideas about the physical world.
It is strange how “just one truth” (without a distinction between religion, science and society) as a strategy to keep power and stability has been got rid of due to Aufklärung to be replaced by a “relativity” of truth (at first without a distinction between religion, science and society) and the ending up as a support system for one-truth religious concepts (which needs a certain kind of mind to cover all the discrepancies, but then, fundamental religion only works if you ignore the logical leaps and bounds).
Bullshit. This is lying. This is bullshit on a grand scale. This is propaganda. The Big Lie. This is fascism. We see this described in 1984. We see this described in Arendt’s Origin of Totalitarianism. We’ve seen it in a decades long campaign against science and intellectualism.
This isn’t new. This isn’t the fault of leftist academics or of postmodernism.
The “post-factual” propaganda of 1984 is more Orwell’s reaction to the USSR’s use of same, particularly the Stalinist era.
I am not the first and will not be the last to draw the connection between Karl “We Create Our Own Truth” Rove, or the more recent rise of the Orange Donald, etc, and postmodernism’s smug disregard for empirical facts.
(I had a post that gave some examples, but evidently I linked too much and it got dumped into the moderation abyss.)
True about 1984, but authoritarianism is authoritarianism whatever the flavor. You may not be alone, but I think the connection is pretty damn tenuous, when there are deeper and nastier roots.
In a related note, sales of 1984 have skyrocketed since the “alternative facts” comment.
Memes are the best way to call people out on things, since they spread very far and wide. So, while I hate that it happened, I love the meme. Let’s let the Trump administration be so farcical that they can’t really do much of anything.
I have been considering the idea of figuring out how to create automated Twitter accounts that just respond LIAR every time The Orange Donald tweets anything.
Washington Post has you covered.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Oh no, Leslie…
But seriously, Leslie tried so hard to resist her desire to end up here, to pin so much on hope of redemption, to let her libido take the lead. And so to see her surrender and give in… well, even though there’s a part of me that will always ship these two, this feels like a tragedy, because Robin got this by just barreling over Leslie’s boundaries until she was beaten down and is accepting this as a means of trying to assert some form of agency over an already fucked situation.
And it’s such a toxic origin for a potential relationship as well (not that that’s unprecedented in this strip, cough cough Billie/Ruth). And that feels even more exemplified by Leslie still not having pants, still disheveled from waking up, and leaned back just hand-holding as if that was one last barrier or boundary.
But it’s also cute as hell, even though it’s so dangerously toxic. Cause ah, Steven Universe, a show largely beloved by queer folks of all ages with lots of queer representation, especially of queer relationships. And this episode is a great one because it introduces fusion and its metaphor for relationships and has a great trans moment where Steven says if it was up to him all he’d want to be is a giant woman.
Panel 2: But I will take some joy in the campaign manager for a bigoted campaign freaking the fuck out about their candidate enjoying some queer domesticity. It’s the little things.
I’m not sure Leslie’s completely given into her libido (yet). I thought so at first, but I think they’ve just been holding hands this whole time.
It would seem very odd if Robin were still shy about the hand-holding if they’d already had sex
True. Though it’s definitely a win for the side of her brain that is hanging on hope that this can just be a nice relationship with a sexy smart latina with an amazing list of accomplishments by ignoring all the political evil she has done and fought for.
And I think her self-respect is not going to respond well to this when the glow of this nice quiet moment fades.
Panels 3-5: Yes, Robin with the faraway look in Panel 5, I totally believe you that this isn’t a meltdown. I believe it as much as you not being queer while hand-holding on a couch with a half-dressed woman.
Though, she is also right it isn’t fully a meltdown. It more just feels like more of the same denialism. I’m not queer, because I have attractions to men. I’m not in a meltdown because I’m firmly in denial about how thoroughly I’ve fucked over my own campaign and am trying to distract myself from that.
Though that grim face in Panel 5 might be a sign that she’s accepting that her campaign is done and she’s not winning re-election.
And the sad truth is that if she wanted, there’s a lot of political advantage that could be harvested out of this. She could stop pandering to bigots and come out as a bi politician and as openly queer-supportive, which would be a harder road to hoe but would be less evil. And sadly she could also firmly deny everything, “pray on it” and be “redeemed” likely while also marrying a random dude for the optics. It would still hurt one’s chances with the moderates, but the base is a sucker for a good “Jesus has freed me from the predations of sinful women, oh how the porn led me astray” narrative.
Panels 6-7: Oh Leslie, you’re too good a person to be falling into a relationship that is going to be this brutal to your self-esteem. I mean, let’s be frank, even if Robin has a massive change of heart, she’s still a scared closeted woman drowning in conservative messages about queer folks and a complete lack of respect for boundaries. That’s going to mean Leslie absorbing a lot of blows to her self-esteem along the way even if this goes perfectly and Robin has a full redemption arc (which I feel is very likely at this point).
And she’s going to be doing it with less of a support system she would otherwise have because a lot of friends are going to feel hurt by Leslie doing this and kind of ghost away a bit or be less sympathetic to her relationship problems.
And I dunno, she’s in teacher mode and I know from experience that that instant ease of slipping into that mode, of trying to reasonably bring understanding to someone diametrically opposed to one’s self, can be very demeaning and draining. And it means Leslie is always going to be at a disadvantage because she’s going to try and continue to be her best self while this woman continues to invalidate and snow her.
And we see that in Robin’s response. Like Leslie tries to point out, hey, this thing you were so insistive should happen is happening. You’re shacked up in my house holding my hands while ignoring your job to be with me. This is super queer and big.
And Robin is still minimizing it out of fear of admitting the truth. She’s “barely holding hands with” Leslie. And I worry that this is going to be a large part of this arc. Leslie giving in to something very toxic, something that is going to cost her friends and support network because they are going to feel betrayed, something that is going to cost her credibility and trustworthiness with a lot of her students, and may even impact her job and housing. And Robin continuously minimizing and denying the reality of that so she can be “straight” while constantly pushing for more against Leslie’s attempts to stop things or pull away.
And that’s a shitty place to be. To be someone’s secret shame, someone they won’t even admit to dating, not out of fear of being outed, but out of fear of admitting to themselves what they are and what they want. It’s going to involve a lot of Leslie putting herself out there only to get hurt repeatedly by someone too scared to treat her right.
And that’s only going to get worse when Robin returns back to her campaign and they start up damage control, step one of which will definitely be attempting to smear Leslie to the greatest degree possible.
I find myself agreeing with you on Robin’s boundary issues, and yet at the same time struggling with trying to separate the realistic from the “situation comedy” elements of the strip when it comes to this.
Also, language peeve… I feel like the English language dies a little more every time someone uses “optics” to refer to “how this looks to the public”, rather than referring to binoculars, telescopes, or weapon-aiming-devices…
Yes, Leslie probably knows all bad stuff that can happen; but as you said, the situation is already fucked up, and nothing she can do will change the fact that the press is waiting outside, and that there will be a lot of problems she’ll be facing from the moment Robin is seen leaving her flat.
So to me it feels like she is enjoying this bubble of peaceful (and intimate) time as long as it can last. Because she knows it probably won’t come back so soon (if ever).
And I can understand that very well.
It’s also possible that the more Leslie is able to reach Robin before sending her back out to face the world, the less toxic the consequences will be.
That makes sense. If she’s fucked anyways, might as well carve a little pleasant oasis of time before that inevitability crashes down. And thejeff’s point makes sense too. The less toxic Robin is leaving the apartment, the more that will change the tenor of the response..
Have you read Shortpacked? That type of disfunctional relationship where Robin takes Leslie for granted and hurting her repeatedly is kind of a hallmark of their relationship. Not sure why their core personalities would change in this alti-verse.
Robin in Shortpacked! got to be wacky and quirky because that series had less actual consequence by virtue of being set in a silly sci-fi verse. She got into Congress by getting stone on Cadbury Cream Egg cereal.
Shortpacked!Robin passed a bill to outlaw cancer and have Ethan make out with Thad. This Robin tried to kick homeless queer kids out onto the street.
I have. Honestly, one of the more interesting things to me about DoA is how the character archetypes in that take on more meaning in a more realistic universe.
So Amber’s Amazi-girl escapism becomes this DID symptom from a traumatic abusive past. Ethan’s ambivalence about being out is a tragedy born out of an emotionally abusive mother who refuses to accept her son’s sexuality and a bigoted homophobic world that makes him feel out of sorts.
Carla’s misanthropy feels more justified and earned coming from someone who grew up trans in Indiana and dealt with the violence that comes with that. But on the flipside, Mike’s assholic evil and Robin’s lack of respect for boundaries become much darker because they don’t get to be larger-than-life beings embodying fucking people over or pure wackiness and instead are just flawed people with at least one very negative trait that has real negative consequences on the people around them.
And honestly, I like that a lot. Because I feel that’s a necessary plot device in a world where too frequently we try and divorce large segments of life from “really counting”. Where politics or online interaction are treated as some sort of odd consequence-free game where you can cosplay up as some larger-than-life supervillain and not something that frequently matters and has a body count.
Well-said.
Future Robin voter Bart Simpson:
“Aw, damn FDA! Why can’t it all be marshmallows?”
I have actually seen large see-though bags of just the mallow bits resembling those in Lucky Charms. Called something like “The Good Part.”
I like Lucky Charms, but only buy maybe 2 boxes a year these days, and the thought of chowing on a bowl of just the mallow bits kind of turns my stomach.
You can buy bags of nothing but the marshmallow bits. These are known as “marbits” in the food industry. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=cereal+marshmallows
The last four strips have all been covering different plot-lines. When they bounce back and forth this quickly it’s called “mood whiplash”
Actually the correct trope here is the Rotating Arcs trope.
While Mood Whiplash could result from the application of Rotating Arcs in this particular case, where each strip uses romance, and bittersweet events as its core message, mood whiplash cannot be applied.
News Flash: Local politician starts a platonic friendship with local college professor, but they’re both attractive women so this is now the top news story of the month.
Eh, to be fair, this story broke with a photo of them appearing to kiss or almost kiss. Given Robin’s political stances this isn’t really irrelevant to the national discussion.
Especially since she’s running on family values AKA ‘we’ll be as heterosexist, cissexist and misogynistic as we need to be to get your vote’.
Well, it might attract tornadoes and earthquakes, after all.
it just now hit me that Leslie promised Robin episodes of Steven Universe, and now she’s got one of the songs on her phone. omg!! did she already have that ringtone, and they share the interest already? or did she love the show so much she changed it this morning?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m pretty sure the music is coming from the TV, not Robin’s phone
Yeah, the ‘bzzt bzzt bzzt’ is Robin’s phone, the song is coming from off panel.
Regarding the title text–ya know, you could’ve just left the echo out, or put it below the previous bubble.
I hope you post the panel (sans bubbles) on your Tumblr and/or Twitter.
The echo isn’t an echo – he sings the line twice, once softer.
So did they fuck or not? I’m a little confused by this point, what with the hand-holding…
I don’t think they did.
– They are still in the same clothes
– At least Leslie would want to talk about it
– They are exactly doing what Leslie described as messing up (take your hand, watch episodes of Stephen Universe)
Of course, if they did it, the information could for the moment be withheld from the readers, because…tension, dramatic surprise and art.
“They are exactly doing what Leslie described as messing up (take your hand, watch episodes of Stephen Universe)”
While I think this ship is showing all sorts of signs of Bad Idea, there is one positive note to be had in what you said.
They’re not doing exactly that.
Yes, they’re doing everything Leslie wanted, BUT Robin’s want for marshmallow-only “cereal” is ALSO included. That’s the kind of both-people-win adaptation that makes a relationship work.
Why yes, you’re right, of course! Their whole interaction has been a perfect example for clear and open communication from both sides, fulfilling the other’s needs, and consent!
“I mean they’re interlaced but we’re *barely* touching”
Now that episode is going through me head…
Those Force Awakens posters tho.
Since this has a Star Wars tag, this is appropriate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9rTddkgep8
…how far is the buffer? Because it feels weird to read this in a time where the primary political debate is whether to kill tens of millions or just rough them up a bit.