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I think it’s more likely an intervention. While Mindy probably did think Leslie likes the assertive type and rationalizes using it to get Leslie in her mind, it’s more likely another indicator that she’s still not over Anna. Becky’s statement triggered her into wanting to make sure Anna isn’t taken off the market yet.
Really? I read it as Mindy seeing that Leslie (a) seems nice and (b) seems to like Anna already, and (c) is already seeing Anna’s crap behaviour that she (probably) found so hard to get away from and recover from, despite no doubt recognizing that her behaviour was Not Okay.
I see it as Mindy seeing Leslie having the exact same reaction to Anna that she herself did at first, and, knowing precisely where that road leads, stepping in to head her off at the pass before she has to travel it as well.
Can’t speak for any other girls who might’ve picked her over Mindy, but between Robin, Anna, and (AUly) Malaya for Leslie it’d be because her type is brash WOC.
I think whats happening is that Leslie is attracted to people who are assertive, which tends to mean people who treat her poorly (read: Robin) and Mimdy is keeping her from making that mistake once again.
I think Mindy is being ok. I mean, it’s aggressive, because she’s picked up that Leslie likes confident assertive people, but it doesn’t strike me as scary, and she gets bonus points for trying to derail a neg.
She’s never met Leslie before now. She knows absolutely nothing about her as a person other than “is gay”. Probably ain’t the best idea imo.(also “you’ll pick me up”? Why aren’t you picking ME up? You’re asking me out.)
It’s an unorthodox way of asking someone out, but it’s not like Leslie’s can’t say “Wait, what? No.”
Assuming, of course, Mindy’s goal is “get a date with Leslie” and not “stop her ex-girlfriend who she still has a crush on from going out with another woman,” where the rules of SITCOM SHENANIGANS kick in
I reread the arc so far — the other day Mindy looks downwards for “for the past ten years, nothing more than roommates” …looks like she’s unhappy with just being roommates, she has some longterm unrequited feelings, and she’s being possessive of Anna.
I’m with Max on this one. Someone has to keep Leslie away from a very unhealthy crush. Or maybe it’s more “hell no, my terrible ex who hurt me a lot won’t also hurt this lovely lady who I could maybe make very happy!”
like, a mix of jealousy and resentment and protectiveness
It’s a date, not a marriage. Half the point of them is getting to know the other person. If the date goes badly, it’s not the end of the world. If it goes well, there may be smooches in it for her.
It’s also important to remember that we’re socialized to treat different people differently. A more masculine presenting person would be more likely to raise ingrained warning flags for aggressively assertive behavior than a femininely presenting person due to how dfab people are socialized.
Leslie just tee-hee’d at a transparently negging comment. That speaks volumes for her. Whether Mindy is trying to match that level of assertiveness without being an asshole, or actually trying to save Leslie from Anna (or more accurately, from herself), I must applaud her.
I think if you see your friend is meeting someone they’re attracted to and vice versa then you steal that person’s date by jumping in then you’re not being assertive, you’re just being an awful friend.
but if your friend being treating that person super badly, you can interpret that as them not being interested in a person, or as them being super bad to go out with, both possibilities that would be at the very least attenuating circunstamces, right?
Meh? Mindy is being kinda … brash? As in lacking restraint? But she is not necessarily in the wrong here. We do not know enough about her relationship with anna to judge.
I mean, she has known Anna for a long time, enough to judge if she is interested or not in someone, so assuming that she has determined that Anna has no interest in Leslie, making a strong impression may be the right thing to do.
Imagine that instead of Anna and Mindy, we have Joe and Danny, and just before Leslie appeared, Joe had told Danny that he needed to be more assertive in approaching girls. Would Danny be in the wrong if he did exactly the same as Mindy did?
I like how this wacky competition isn’t really based on a misunderstanding – like, both Mindy and Anna think that Leslie is a cutie and Mindy isn’t letting Leslie’s initial confusion be a reason not to try!
From Wikipedia: “Negging is a rhetorical strategy whereby a person makes a deliberate backhanded compliment or otherwise insulting remark to another person in order to undermine their confidence in a way that gains approval. The term was coined and prescribed by the pickup artist community.”
Wait, there is a (working) pickup strategy that is based on insulting someone in a way that makes them thank you for being interested with you?
Hm, … Somethings like this http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1750 ?
Well… for certain values of “working”, I suppose. It apparently functions best when one’s subject has no self-esteem whatsoever, and will interpret even negging remarks as attention paid.
I think it largely works on people who have been trained (by abusive parents, or a previous abusive relationship) to interpret that kind of thing as genuine affection or the closest thing that they can expect to genuine affection. So, low self-esteem, yes, but a specific subset. Also, you probably didn’t mean it this way, but when people say someone has “low-self esteem” with no qualifiers, some people mean it as an insult to that person. A kind of “only suckers would fall for negging” kind of thing. I assume you didn’t mean that, but I just wanted to preempt it in case anyone does think that, and say, nope.
I mean it WORKS for some people, in that it might get people with low self-esteem to go out with you. But it’s called emotional abuse then. So it doesn’t work in any kind of healthy relationship.
I don’t think so. The look on her face is kind of too clueless, imho. Like, it doesn’t look like a plotting face? I think Anna may just… not be good at compliments, or people. But if it is meant to be negging, I’m sure we’ll see shortly.
Well, it can’t be negging without the intent. Minus the intent to psychologically damage someone so that they’ll be more attracted to you, it’s just being rude, or a jerk, or terrible at giving compliments to the nth degree. (Although I think this sort of compliment would be pretty typical from a tsundere character, and also Walky threw a hard plastic toy and hit Dorothy in the head so I’ve seen worse compliments in this strip and cartoons in general.)
I didn’t say it wasn’t rude, or hurtful. I just said I think it wasn’t negging.
Socially acceptable means “what is accepted by society” not “what is accepted by the individual” Society at large considers being a giant jerkass to everyone to be unacceptable.
I didn’t say tsundere characters weren’t jerks, although to say the trope only exists in anime is… I mean, no. Plenty of tsundere characters exist in western media. They’re just generally not called that. “Jerk with a heart of gold” is a very similar trope. The idea is just that of a person who is uncomfortable with expressing affection directly and coats it in layers of jerkitude, either intentionally or through pure social clumsiness.
I mean, Joe… is arguably an example in this comic. (NOT ALL TSUNDERE ARE LIKABLE, OR GOOD PEOPLE.) Sarah definitely is.
Hah. Mike definitely doesn’t count, without a lot more character development. (And a lot of readers won’t forgive him then, which will be fully within their rights, because by the time we actually see Mike admit that he cares about anyone else he will probably have hurt a LOT more people. )
Ok, fair enough, you clarified well enough that I wouldn’t argue terminology further here. Most of the time people use the term “tsundere” (in my experience anyway) they imply that it’s acceptable behaviour in some way because wuv or whatever, when really it isn’t.
Although seeing your later comment about stretching definitions I would still say that so far the best-fitting term accoriding to observed and not assumed behaviour is negging. Ok, will go away now.
In real life, “Tsundere” are called Hot and Cold people and they’re very much a thing as I admit to being one myself. Very often I’m fuming with anger at society then I’m extremely mellow the other times. People often comment its off-putting but my wife likes it.
OK, but that’s really stretching the definition, because it’s a PUA term and the manipulativeness is a big part of what it means. There’s nothing wrong with just saying Anna is being an ass.
mostly I think the term is more useful when it’s defined to not require intent. like then you can specify “intentional negging” vs “unintentional negging” vs “negging” and “this specific way of unintentionally being an ass”.
that’s getting kinda pedantic, I suppose, but it also feels important in a more general way I don’t have words for yet.
Oh man, it really bothers me when people use “negging” just to mean insulting people though? Whether or not they’re aware of it being a PUA move, actively trying to make the other person uncomfortable so they will try and prove themselves to you is the *definition* of negging. Doing it because you’ve observed it “works” without being 100% cognisant counts, yes.
But sometimes people are just either habitually rude, or have the entire end goal of making the other person feel bad (in similar situations I feel are mislabelled “negging”.)
Negging means that you’re insulting someone to lower their self-worth so you can control them. Being an asshole just means you’re a jerk. One is mind-games, the other is just an attitude. Certainly, I like Anna as someone who is mean and I like mean people in general. It’s an attractive quality. I would feel less so if they were trying to dominate me like the Joker does Harley.
i really one hundred percent think it depends totally on delivery
like. if you play it as Anna staring soulfully at Leslie’s face and just letting words stream out of her mouth, then it’s not really that bad in context of everything else that she’s said. like. Leslie’s nose isn’t even that big. and more to the point – Anna noticed Leslie’s nose. which is pretty cute!! much like Mindy’s caterpillar eyebrows.
on the other hand, if you read Anna as being an essentially abusive person, then this is obviously negging and a major red flag. so it is…very much two different strips being read.
There’s way more evidence saying Mindy’s single because she has caterpillar eyebrows, etc. Unless youre saying she was soulfully staring at Becky and letting “buy your butter and get out of my ass” stream out of her mouth, too.
On the other hand, maybe Leslie’s just some kind of sub and seeks out a certain level of jerkassery in her life.
i mean, i really don’t think you say things like this while thinking hard about the things you are saying. it sounds more like it comes out of the Dave Strider school of elocution. who says “buy your butter and get out of my ass”, like, really. Anna apparently!!!
ackldjfdslkfjdslfjds you just made my lose my biscuits
i feel like Leslie would make a slightly better dom, but like…maybe a switch? so she could get dominated and then dominate in return and satisfy both sides of her. and i mean…being a jerk is totally good grounds for punishment
why. why am i here. what has the internet made of me
Leslie’s background seems similar in DoA to Shortpacked (religious family, got married young to a dude, realized she was gay and got divorced and disowned).
In Shortpacked she’s happily married to Robin, and she was definitely attracted initially to Robin’s very forward, abrasive personality. It’s just what Leslie likes in women, to the point that it’s probably somewhat unhealthy. I view her as pretty submissive, TBH.
i mean there’s a level of which asking “who’s the dom and who’s the sub” in your relationship feels like asking who’s the man and who’s the wife, b/c of gender norm reasons
but i mean bdsm is a lot more complicated than just who’s more naturally passive vs. active, or who’s more assertive and who’s less assertive. it’s gotta be about what dynamics get you off, or so i hear
just because leslie likes robin’s forwardness and abrasiveness doesn’t mean she couldn’t get off on dominating her in bed, because it’s a role reversal and that sort of thing can be really refreshing. and Leslie gets very clear about what she does and doesn’t want out of her relationships towards the end of shortpacked, which is only a good thing.
tl;dr robin may have started out as leslie’s sugar daddy but she ended up in a slave leia costume for COMPELLING REASONS
Let’s look at it this way. I don’t think Anna’s being lecherous. I don’t even think she’s flirting. Does she even realize Leslie’s flirting with her? Her face is less scowly than it was, but it’s also far too matter-of-fact to seem like there’s any greater intent within her words. Think of sitcom tropes, and how this is turning out; is it more likely Anna and Mindy will compete for Leslie’s affections? Unnecessary; Anna already has them. Let’s look at a different angle then: is this turning out to be a chain of unreciprocal affections? I mean, most likely. Mindy’s trying to be more assertive to, for lack of a better word woo Leslie; But leslie’s got her eyes on Anna right now. Would it not finish the chain for Anna, who wasn’t even involved in the scheme and just happened into it, who hasn’t displayed any major change in behavior or speech, to not really notice Leslie’s own affections? This is my theory anyway.
But, even if we consider Anna in the best possible light here, what is Leslie’s response? She just took the compliment, turned it even more flattering that it was, and completely disregarded the harshness that immediately followed it. And Anna noticing Leslie’s nose isn’t the same as thinking it’s cute, let us be frank. She thinks it’s big. By her face here she probably doesn’t think of it any more than that. But Leslie didn’t think about the comment at all. And I still like Anna okay, I like plenty of fictional jerks, but they’ve gotta at least be addressed as a jerk to be likable.
So, if you will follow me on why this isn’t so much Really Awful as most people claim it is, but is still Kinda Yikes: Anna is most definitely not negging Leslie, but Leslie is allowing herself to be negged.
Side note, “allowing herself to be negged” is a gross fragment of a sentence and I abhor having to write it but I can’t think of any better way to condense “Leslie’s instant infatuation is keeping her from identifying inherent and prominent aspects of Anna’s personality and speech that, left unchallenged, will inevitably lead to personal strife and problems in whatever future they might have”
I know! That’s the point of story arcs. You need to make these mistakes in the beginning if you’re gonna grow by the end. I’m not admonishing Leslie for not picking up, I’m just looking at the situation as is presented, and how they are all expressing folly in this strip in some capacity that are gonna end up crashing in one another.
If she weren’t so smitten by Anna she certainly could have seen both sides of the sentence. But she didn’t because that’s not the situation. And now all of these personalities are gonna be colliding because these are all people living their own messes prone to making mistakes of themselves. And that’s okay! Because bad decisions need to happen in narrative, because if everything you do is good and more importantly good for you, then you got a pretty boring story happening
i get that feel from Anna, but if it’s intentional flirting it is a reactive instinctive flirting. i think she might just always be up for flirting, tbh
idk. I think, like, Leslie’s nose isn’t even that big – i say, as someone who compared it to Pearl’s from SU. it’s pretty adorable. Anna pointing it out might just be her way of covering up that she actually gave a compliment?? who knows. is this just anna’s way of saying i like your face. i don’t. i don’t know. does she make fun of the things and people she loves. is she this kind of person
i think Anna has a habit of pointing out people’s flaws that can be incredibly hurtful. Leslie not being hurt by that yet is maybe…her just not noticing it…or her, like, focusing on the fact that Anna liked her hair.
i don’t think you can allow yourself to be negged. negging is something that is done to you, not the other way around. it’s usually a little more manipulative than this – “you’re so lucky i like you for your brain and not your looks.” “you’re so stupid, what would you do without someone like me around?” “haha, i’ve never minded overweight women. Some people do, but I don’t!” there’s a level of entrapment there.
whereas Anna does not seem to be trying to get anything from Leslie that she doesn’t already have, while Leslie is falling for someone she just met who is attractive to her. and, i mean, a lot of people wear rose colored glasses when they’re crushing on someone they just met. soooo…i don’t think she’s negging herself, because she doesn’t seem to be saying anything negative to herself. she’s just taking what Anna said in a positive light.
which is kind of the opposite of negging, because negging is about digging the negative in with a fishhook and bait. looking at the positive can be wilful ignorance, and it can be dangerous, but it’s not manipulative that way. except in the sense of manipulating your own mental health and emotional happiness.
wow I read your comment and thought “oh, maybe Anna is just uninterested in relationships, maybe she’s aro/ace and that’s why Mindy can’t be with her”… but then I realized ‘asexual who’s kind of a jerk’ is already Carla’s schtick.
No, people aren’t saying it’s cool for Anna to be a jerk because she is a woman of colour, that’s a misunderstanding. I think it’s more that a lot of people have a tendency to be harsher on a black person’s anger than on a white person’s. Even people who are into social justice can do this, as a lot of racism is subconscious. The same goes for the anger of women and other marginalised populations.
That doesn’t mean you can’t ever call any black person a jerk, just to be aware that if a white person were to engage in the same behaviour you might be a bit more forgiving, so it’s usually best to suspend judgement a bit more in these situations.
I think there was also one commenter who was disappointed with Willis for contrasting the rude black person with the nice white person in the comments section of the strip where we met Mindy, which I think is a fair enough criticism to make given how often this trope appears in media.
You’d think someone teaching university students about healthy interpersonal relationships would be better at this, but then again I guess that’s exactly the ‘joke’
I once spent a couple of hours helping out on r/suicidewatch and it was incredibly exhausting. Worth it, but still. It’s hard to imagine doing that sort of thing on a regular basis.
I don’t think that’s supposed to be a joke at all.
Relationships are almost always easier to evaluate objectively from the outside. Your hormones actively work to disrupt rational thinking, because they’re trying to get you to make babies. Lots of them.
Having a degree and teaching a class that deals with the subject doesn’t you have perfect, robotic control over your feelings or impulses.
In almost all situations I am heartily in favor of poly lesbians; however, Anna needs not to be in any kind of relationship while she’s talking like that.
Nothing wrong with real life shipping as long you don’t actually interfere without consent. It’s perfectly acceptable to think people would make a good couple and even suggest it.
Becky and Joyce go way the hell over the line of course.
It’s okay to suggest it, but once someone says ‘not interested’ that’s when you back off. Joyce and Becky seriously need to learn to back off, especially since earlier today Leslie told Becky she didn’t want to date anyone for a while.
I think Mindy is an awful person who has basically stalked her ex for a decade and talks smack about her before stealing her dates. Mindy is the Nice Girl, which I’ve never actually seen in fiction before.
Where are you getting this narrative? Stalking? They’re roommates, who clearly came here together, and Anna is the one who turned around to interject herself into Becky and Mindy’s conversation. Also nowhere in the comic does Mindy “talk smack” about Anna unless you count her pointing out that her parents disapproved of Anna, presumably because of the insulting way she communicates, which she only brings up in the context of a conversation about support or lack there of from parents *after* Anna is a jerk to her and the person she’s talking to. Nor have I seen any real evidence that Anna is interested in Leslie. Unless we are assuming that her backhanded compliment is some kind of effusive declaration of “dibs”. Even if it were appropriate to lay claim to people in that way no one is “date stealing” here, no dates have been offered or sought outside of the one Mindy is demanding. In fact Leslie was brought over here specifically to be set up with Mindy, a fact which it can be reasonably assumed both Mindy and Anna are aware. Becky isn’t exactly attempting to be subtle.
I have little opinion on Mindy or Anna, but you seem to be reading into these characters a history and motivations that the comic doesn’t yet support. (Heck in a comment lower down you claim *Becky* treated Anna poorly…somehow…despite not having said much of anything outside of “sorry” to Anna.)
In fact now that I think about it, why is Anna still standing there? She was in a big impatient hurry before and now she has time to stand around forcing herself into Mindy’s conversations and to wait for Becky to go get Leslie? Deli meats don’t generally take that long, and even if they did Mindy can stay and get them seeing as she’s struck up a conversation. Anna could have gotten Mindy “outta [her] ass” simply by going off and getting the butter she tried to send Mindy for.
I hadn’t really formed an opinion of Anna outside of being kind of rude before, but the more I think about her part of this interaction the more of a jerk she seems like.
As someone that once purchased and delivered groceries professionally let me tell you that the deli section of a grocer is a black hole from which time itself is the greatest casualty. Gods have mercy if you desire more than one cut of meats.
Thats what I assumed, my question was rhetorical. My point is that the Anna as a victim who has been treated poorly and stalked narrative that the person I was replying to seems to be pushing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense given the context. Anna interjected herself in the rudest way possible into a conversation that originally had nothing to do with her, and was trying to end that conversation. She is not owed positive engagement by Mindy or Becky. (Heck if she wanted an interesting conversation with Becky she could have continued their initial interaction and maybe found out what Beck was so focused on. But thats not what Anna wanted.) Mindy’s behavior during the interaction with Leslie may be a different matter, but if anyone is being treated poorly in that conversation its Leslie. If Anna also wants to try and get a date out of this she may, but this isn’t CoD and there has been no kill stealing.
Mm. I think Willis knows what Anna is doing, but I’m not sure if Anna does. To me, it’s bad whether or not she intends it because it creates an unhealthy effect on the person being negged
I thought negging was purposefully insulting someone to lower their self-esteem and make them more susceptible to the idea of dating (or screwing). Insulting someone makes them feel bad, but I thought only doing so with that as a conscious aim was negging. Is that incorrect?
I guess it wouldn’t be negging if there’s no conscious intent to do so by the person insulting the other. Intent probably means everything even if the end results are exactly the same.
It’s not uncommon for abusers to use psychological tools with no intellectual understanding of what they are or what they do, though. If Anna is just giving backhanded compliments out of habit, it’s probably a habit she’s developed because she likes the results, i.e. the manipulating of people into craving her lowering of their self esteem. I see no great need to differentiate between self-aware intention and intuitive intention.
I agree with all mankind on this—abusers will neg without really registering they’re negging, and they call it “being bad at compliments”. The problem is that their “being bad at compliments” manifests as a fear of giving unconditional praise, and there are only a few reasons for that fear to exist.
mmmmm from the comments section i definitely think that it’s a thing. like. Anna gets cut so much less slack than, say, Mike. despite Mike being more coldbloodedly vicious with his comments, and Anna just kind of being…gleefully pointing out people’s flaws for whatever reason. instead of stockpiling them to use them.
I think there’s less of a bad racial dynamic in the strip itself the way things have been set up, because Anna is clearly presented as super desirable by at least Mindy and Leslie. and because she’s not being ignored by the narrative, whatsoever. her screentime has not been diminished for any of the white ladies around her, and that’s like the primary marker of inequitable racial treatment
…i kind of think that Anna is an attention-seeker, tbh. because she started out being upset at being ignored. and like pretty much every insult she’s made is a grab for attention, i feel like
I agree completely with that, I quite like how she’s presented in the comic. And I was actually just thinking that everyone was being too hard on her, probably because of her race. Thanks for helping me confirm.
i don’t think it’s explicit racism, more just…implicit. like. the buildup of ages of not having to empathize with brown women, or see them as complex people who can also be jerks while still being people. not so much a force as an influence. but i feel like it’s there
and i mean none of us can escape being racist because we live in a racist society and in some sense we all benefit from racism (and imperialism!!) whether or not we want to
but……..choosing not to try and understand where someone is coming from is still a choice
Definitely. We all have to deal with the way our society trains us to view people of color. The trick is to recognize that and to fight against it, at least that’s how I do it.
If it helps with moderation, I’m asking this as a Black person. I recognize that I benefit from imperialism (being American), but I’m unsure about the idea of Black people in America benefiting from racism, though there may be nuance to discuss.
mostly, like, we benefit from racism towards other people
like so many of our clothes are made in third-world countries by people making barely a pittance. and, i mean, these clothes are our cheap clothes, and they get sold to poor people because that is what they can afford, and so you literally have to buy clothes that are cheap because other people were discriminated against and probably lost so many years of life because of it. and you don’t get a choice in that because you’re poor, but still. nobody escapes unscathed. there is no ethical living in a society that has racism, even for people who get discriminated against, and you can’t avoid participating in it, even if it’s something as simple as self-hate
i think the major term is intersectionality or maybe kyriarchy? and it is like. a living breathing system with so many roots and tendrils and sprouters that it can’t be removed cleanly. only by concentrated and determined fighting wherever it is at whenever possible
i mean, i am speaking as a white person so there are probably a ton of overgeneralizations here and undercomplications but this is my understanding of how this works. maybe the best wording isn’t “benefits” but like everyone has to participate in it regardless of whether or not we benefit from it, and none of our hands are clean
“primary marker of inequitable racial treatment” ackdslfjdskfjsdlfjs like what about actual racist treatment, zoe. not that not having screentime isn’t a part of that, because how much screentime determines a lot of how much thought is put into your story, but it’s not a freaking guarantee
so many elements go into this it is not just one thing it is never just one thing
I think it’s notable since Anna has come on screen, she’s been dismissed and treated like shit by not just a lot of people in the comments section (despite there being many similar abrasive characters with fans) but also Becky and Mindy.
….i don’t think she’s been treated like shit by Becky and Mindy, really, since it’s…really hard to respond to comments like the ones that Anna makes. but mostly they just ignored her, except for a few passive-aggressive barbs that Mindy threw
and i don’t think Anna likes being ignored, which is why she acts the way she does, but it doesn’t mean she automatically merits their attention when she is being insulting
TBH, I *hate* Mike, I always *have* hated Mike, and the ship in Shortpacked creeped me the *fuck* out. I’m fine with Anna as a character, but I’m definitely not feeling her as a strong romantic option. I do feel like there’s a double standard on the other side—we all have trouble pegging negging as negging when a woman does it.
Of course, I also think Anna’s demand would come across as a bit uncomfortable if she was a dude. Maybe I just have no sense of humor.
This is also p much how I’m reading this right now.
I’m surprised that some of the other comments see Mindy’s sudden coming-onto-Leslie as interest in Leslie, or defense of her from Anna’s maybe-attempted-compliment, because all I see is Becky saying “oh well, as long as Leslie gets married to ONE of you, dibs on bridesmaid!” and Mindy going, “O– oh… oh, right, Anna might… wind up married to this woman, and disappear forever…” and trying to stop that from happening.
The most optimistic take for Mindy’s feelings for Anna being requited is that they broke up mutually or maybe somehow through a miscommunication and Anna has no idea Mindy still has feelings for her and Mindy has decided to act on them and maybe Anna will realize she still has feelings for Mindy…
(You could definitely read Anna’s derisiveness about Mindy’s eyebrows as a poorly-socialized way of trying to keep Mindy single, too? But right now I’m reading her as totally unaware of the fact that Mindy’s still carrying a bit of a torch.)
But there’s so many different directions this could still go!! I hope everyone winds up happy at the end of it but the chances of high drama in the meantime and love triangle-y hijinks are not low by any means.
for whatever reason Anna finds it impossible not to point out people’s flaws!!! which really seems to be her main trait, hahah ohmygod. and i think that’s a huge part of the reaction she’s gotten, because absolutely no one likes to have their personal/behaviorial flaws pointed out. n o b o d y. and she just does this 24/7
i think what will be really telling is figuring out how Anna talks to herself. is she this sharp with herself? i think it’s entirely probable, because a lot of the time when people are this sharp with others they are even worse to themselves.
I think – it probably is all happening too quickly for Mindy to act on anything other than instinct. but i do think this domineering attitude is a really, really bad one. like, way to ignore Leslie’s actual interest. or Anna’s.
i think Anna and Mindy have had to have broken up mutually to be amicable later. and even close enough to be roomies. but, i mean, who knows at this point. it could even be something like going to different colleges that broke them up
i read them both as having feelings for each other that are pretty strong if terribly expressed. maybe they just don’t want to lose the friendship??? idk. but, yeah, I read them as being equally unaware of the other person’s feelings, and trying to poke at whatever is there while being unable to see past the end of their own noses. le sigh. learning to express love is hard.
The way I see it, I think Anna’s more insulting comments towards Mindy earlier is a way of trying to get Mindy out of holding a torch. I’m just making probably bad assumptions here, but I think both Mindy and Anna still have feelings for each other, but Anna thinks they were bad for each other. Her more jerkish remarks while being a part of her core personality are also probably supposed to be implying “this is why we broke up Mindy, we’re not good for each other as a couple and if we try that again we might not be able to stay friends”. Also, I actually interpreted Anna’s comments towards Leslie here as an attempt to redirect Leslie towards Mindy. Like a “Shit, she’s supposed to be interacting with Mindy, quick be slightly more abrasive than normal” reaction. Maybe I’m giving Anna to much credit. But also, people can be jerks and still be likeable. Anna’s probably naturally abrasive. And as a queer woman of color she probably has to deal with more stress and frustration that furthers that abrasive nature. Additionally, living with an ex you may still have feelings for is probably fraying both Mindy and Anna. Also, as I ranted a bit about a couple days ago, going to the grocery store can be a very hellish experience for some people. I honestly think Anna is being more reasonable than she could be (and definitely more reasonable than I would be in a similar situation) if very snide. Of course I’m not coming at this from the “negging” perspective, so that probably has something to do with my interpretation.
maybe??? i don’t know if Anna is that invested in helping influence her friends’ emotions. i get the picture that it’s just…how she sees the world, through the lens of people’s flaws. which is something that can be kind of depressing and also anxiety-inducing.
i am sure that Anna has a ton of reasons for being the way that she is, though, and i’m super curious about them
“The way I see it, I think Anna’s more insulting comments towards Mindy earlier is a way of trying to get Mindy out of holding a torch.”
that’s plausible on the surface, but also doomed to fail.. well, has already failed, for like ten years apparently.
I doubt Anna is oblivious enough to keep trying the same ineffective tactic for ten years straight.
“going to the grocery store can be a very hellish experience for some people.”
In my case, people acting like Anna is one of the things that can make it hellish.
Yeah if your self esteem is basically good negging tends not to work. The fact that it apparently works very easily on Leslie is why I said her self esteem must not be great. Tat’s what’s so awful about this method of “seduction” it preys on those who have difficulty defending themselves and intrinsically understanding they deserve better.
Okay I’m almost positive Mindy is pushing for a date to keep Anna for herself but at the same time someone needs to save Leslie from her terrible fucking taste so I’m rooting for this.
I’m hoping it’s more Mindy realizing that Leslie is drawn to assertiveness and confidence (but apparently also being an asshole) and trying to display that as a result. It’s probably your thing though because that’s the most melodramatic possibility and this is Willis.
I am NOT fond of Anna. First of all, let Mindy’s eyebrows be as fluffy and gorgeous as she wants them to be. I also have occasionally overgrown brows so shove it. Second, you don’t give such backhanded compliments unless you’re a prickly person and not one to be nice to people. Anna, that’s not nice. Stop it.
I need to step in here and represent prickly people everywhere. We may be blunt, we may be grumpy but gosh darnit we don’t randomly insult people we’ve just met.
Especially as Anna doesn’t look annoyed during the insult. She looks chill like that was an okay thing to say.
Seriously people are doing us socially indelicate grumps a disservice by lumping Anna in with us. I’m tired of “blunt” being used as a euphemism for “cruelly indifferent to the feelings of others.”
I’m guessing Mindy is going to force herself to act assertive enough to be Leslie’s type just long enough for it to be nice and messy when the pretense exhausts her.
I think ya’ll are being a bit hard on Anna, she just casually insults people, it doesn’t seem personal or malevolent. She kinda reminds me of Billy a bit. Plus she’s funny.
Can’t we just call an asshole an asshole without trying to make it something cute? Not being able to go 5 minutes without insulting someone to their face isn’t fucking cut or funny or charming. She’s almost 30 and should have some idea by now how to talk to other people who with some basic level of respect. She’s a dick.
I mean, obviously “we” can, because around 80% of the comment section has been, and no one’s telling you folks not to, so … could we maybe have one comment section featuring Anna where no one yells at people who like her. Just. Please.
and let me be very clear: by “no one’s telling you not to”, I mean I have yet to see anybody reply to someone else’s negative-on-Anna comment to yell at them about how wrong their opinion is.
I was speaking generally, but… these phrases did leap out at me as pretty dang hostile.
“trying to make it something cute” “[Anna] isn’t fucking cute or funny or charming” “she’s a dick”
These comments are being made every time someone says they like Anna. “Correcting” people who say they like her. Making dang sure they remember that she’s a jerk and no one should like her.
It’s exhausting and kind of depressing and if my stubbornness hadn’t been activated I would have just withdrawn from the comment section for a while because I’m really not enjoying commenting here.
I don’t read every single comment posted here. Sorry if you find my dislike of a character exhausting but I honestly find peoples eagerness to twist behavior I see as borderline abusive into something fun or funny to be pretty exhausting actually. So I’m going to say what I want to say. I’ll change my mind about Anna when I feel like she’s evolving but until then feel free to skip my comments.
I never talked to either of you directly until you talked to me.All I did was respond to a comment and vented my frustration about a character like everyone does here all the time and I have now been told that I somehow had some kind of hostile intent with that comment that I never had and meant it as some kind of personal attack. You keep saying I mean things I don’t mean. You keep saying I’m doing things I’m not doing. I’m telling you that your responses have made me uncomfortable and they do in fact feel like attempts to control me and shut me down and honestly I’m done engaging.
Okay. Well. They weren’t. Coming into the comment section has lately made me fight back tears, so… we both feel crappy now. Which wasn’t my goal, but I very much need you to understand that the crappy feeling is mutual, and not only on your side of the keyboard.
@Li: I mean this doesn’t make me change my mind about what it felt like you were doing to me yesterday but it does give me some insight into why you were responding to me in such a way. I’m sorry the comment section has been so distressing for you lately. I think maybe you should read over what I actually said before because I get the vibe you weren’t really responding to my words but using my comment to vent your own frustration at a lot of previous comments made about Anna throughout week. That’s a very human reaction but it’s not really a fair one. Anyway I stand by everything I said before but I do genuinely hope you’re feeling better and suggest maybe if reading these things is such a taxing experience you should just avoid reading the comments when Anna shows up. But I fully understand I can no more make you do that then you and Zoe can make me stop responding to whatever I feel the need to respond to. So I guess we’ll all just do whatever we feel’s best and hopefully hurt feelings will be kept to a minimum.
that being said, your words were kinda harsh here. and i mean you may not have been trying to come off as yelling, but it’s really easy for me personally to read it as yelling.
i understand and respect that you do not like anna. and that is totally your right! but, like, other people also have the right to like her regardless of your opinion. so i do think you were a little out of line.
i would suggest that maybe in future that if you want to vent maybe make your own post? and then you can find other people, who also need to vent, without being unnecessarily harsh towards people who do not share your opinion.
Okay I get that you probably feel like you’re doing your best to be very polite here but I honestly feel like you’re crossing a line with me right now. You really think it’s fair or appropriate to tell me what comments I’m allowed to respond to because you personally have decided you don’t like how I worded myself? I’m seriously just kind of blown away right now.
They were just making a suggestion, no one is ordering you to respond or not to respond to whatever you want. I personally don’t care, I enjoy debate, even heated ones. Others may feel differently.
It’s totally fine to enjoy her as a character (enjoying jerk characters isn’t an uncommon thing), but handwaving her assholish behavior like the root comment up there did isn’t cool.
“I think ya’ll are being a bit hard on Anna, her comments don’t seem malevolent, and I find her funny” is not really… hand-waving her behavior (whatever that means?)
No one is being an Anna Stan up in here, trying to claim that she’s a perfect cinnamon roll who never did anything wrong.
I mean. She’s still a pretty new character, so there’s time for a 180 turn, but remarks like that one about the nose actually are abusive when placed in a larger pattern, so.
1.) These comments were being made almost as soon as Anna appeared, way in advance of her bizarre maybe-compliment-maybe-insult-wtf-Anna comment on Leslie’s nose. People were immediately suggesting that Mindy’s parents had better taste than her and that Mindy being single (and sad about it) was good because it meant she didn’t have a horrible girlfriend, on and on and on.
But it is fine to dislike her, I’m not saying no one should dislike her, I just would like us to all afford each other a little bit more respect, because Anna and Mindy are fictional characters with no feelings to hurt, but there are real people behind every one of the comments that says “I like Anna”, and they do have feelings to hurt.
2.) I went back and checked on other character introductions way back at the beginning and Willis introducing people as unlikable jerks is actually pretty common. Billie’s intro was 100% her ragging on Walky for being a nerd and telling him to get the fuck away from her; Sarah’s intro was her saying low-key rude things to Joyce, while Joyce’s Stepford Smiling Unironic Love of Jesus did not net her many fans among new readers either; Ruth’s intro was threatening Joyce physically (and yes, Ruth was an abusive character, but I challenge you to say that that’s all we were meant to ever take out of her seven years later); and the first appearances of Dorothy and Danny split the audience pretty evenly on Dorothy being a cold-hearted bongo or Danny being a clingy overbearing Nice Guy ™ or both…
You say there’s time for a 180 like you don’t really think that will happen, but it’s kind of Willis’s pattern at this point to introduce about half his characters in ways that make them immediately unlikable and then deepen our understanding of them over time.
Li: My issue isn’t with people liking her as a character, it’s with one person saying that behavior that is a major abuse red flag isn’t malevolent or something to be hard on.
You’re kind of putting words in my mouth with your second paragraph. I said there’s time for her to do a 180 turn, but with the information we currently have now, this is how I feel. I am not making any kind of assumption about the future, either way, or comparing her to any other character.
Addendum to my last comment: Also, as of yesterday, I was going into this with hope that this might go well, and might be a positive thing for Leslie! So yeah, this was kind of disappointing for me how it turned out.
I shouldn’t really be responding to these comments at 1am, or fresh off of my very hurt feelings from yesterday’s comment section fiasco, so there’s also that. :\ Sorry if I am taking any of that out on you, that wouldn’t be fair.
I actually feel for Mindy a LOT in these panels. I just… have been very distracted by how polarized the comment section has become, which in turn is reflective of polarizing in fandoms at large, and the larger trend is particularly just… really saddening.
I have been abused. But these are fictional characters. That I don’t see Anna’s behavior as a major red flag of abuse does not mean that I… well, I don’t want to put more words in your mouth.
What is it that you want to correct me on, by telling me that Anna’s behavior is a red flag for abuse? What is your goal in conveying this information? Asking very, very genuinely.
Li: The person I am addressing, the person I in fact quoted, was not you. It was the thread OP. I am trying to address the narrow topic of this thread in particular, not the entire comments section. Like. You keep dragging the entire comments section for multiple days into this, and that is not what I am talking about. I keep trying to clarify my position, and I can’t tell whether it’s me not communicating effectively or what.
OK, look. I brought that up as an explanation for my tone with you, as part of my apology, because I assume my tone with you has not been great. That is the only reason why I mentioned the context of the rest of the comment section.
When I ask you, “What is it you want to correct me on,” that is me, responding to you, telling me, that her behavior is a “major red flag of abuse”.
You just now said that to me. I am saying, “I don’t agree. What is it that you want to accomplish by arguing with me about it?”
That is, again, a very genuine question. Unless you’re saying that you wouldn’t argue at all, in which case I’ll just drop this entirely, because the last thing I want to do here is be a harassing presence.
*throws up hands* Idek what you want me to do here, because from the start you’ve been making this all about the past few days’ comments. Go back and read what you’ve written.
This entire thing has been me defending my first comment to you, “It’s totally fine to enjoy her as a character (enjoying jerk characters isn’t an uncommon thing), but handwaving her assholish behavior like the root comment up there did isn’t cool.” That is it. That is my position. You were the one who brought the word abuse and that whole rhetorical segue into it.
So to finally answer that question: If you disagree that insulting someone’s face in the guise of complimenting them while they’re flirting with you is a red flag for abuse, well, that’s your business and I’m frankly pretty done here because this has gotten SO far from the point I was making.
I think the reason people are reading it as hand-waving is that humanity has quite the habit of ignoring actual abusive behaviour from well-liked people. So people who see red flags in Anna are expecting that pattern to play out again, and while their responses are.. not great… I can’t really fault the feelings behind it.
Anna not being cis-white-male-etc complicates things more, since she’s got so much less privilege than the sort of person who tends to get away with abuse. I don’t think that gets factored in once the “it’s happening again” fear reaction gets going.
so on one side we’ve got “nooo don’t enable potential abuse” and on the other we’ve got “noo don’t assume the worst of the black woman”. which are both reasonable things, but they’re in conflict here, at least until we have more information.
see, and that’s what’s so deeply not okay with me:
I am not okay with being told that I am enabling potential abuse, especially not okay with being told that I would ever do this in real life, just because I decided to like this character we barely know anything about, who is a jerk.
There are larger societal trends at play in the reasons why, for example, Walter White on Breaking Bad was so much more popular than his wife. (I haven’t seen the show, I just know what I’ve heard, which is that the studio got enormous amounts of hate mail about her character, who they had tried to write as very sympathetic, to the point of the actress getting death threats.)
Walter White is a definitively horrible person. (The jury’s still kind of out for me on Anna, especially since I decided to go back and look at how most of the main cast was introduced back in the day — far from avoiding making characters unlikable on first blush, that almost seems to be Willis’s M.O.) But merely liking Walter White’s character is not sinister and does not tell anyone anything about a person.
I think it’s more like… you’re reminding people of a pattern of behaviour that scares them. even if you would never do those things yourself, the other commenters don’t know you well enough to know that. even if they do know that you wouldn’t do that, the reminder might be enough to freak them out anyways.
like, I have this friend who has a heart of gold, but an unfortunate habit of doing things that give off creepy vibes. I know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t do anything bad, but I can’t fault the women who choose to not take that chance, and stay away from him.
(I feel like I’m missing a piece of the puzzle here and it’s just barely out of reach… maybe someone else will find it for me)
You know, I know a guy almost exactly like that– well, I only felt like he was truly a good guy when I first met him, but I knew at least one person who would swear he was harmless and good. Many others were creeped out by him– me, I more just came to dislike him because I set really firm boundaries with him, the only time in my life that I managed to do that.
He ended up sexually assaulting someone, and so many of us weren’t surprised.
Anyway, this story had nothing to do with anything, it just came to my mind when I read your comment and apparently I’m in the mood to overshare.
the missing piece has something to do with the US fear-of-black-people… like, if people are honestly scared, but their fear is based in something fucked-up like racism, I have no idea how to address that.
plus I’m sure there are some commenters who are just being jerks themselves.
I think maybe… it has to be ok for people to go “this is scaring me please don’t”. but it’s not ok for people to attack you for scaring them. (y’know, so long as you’re not waving a phoneknife in their face or anything
Okay, I’m not interested in the whole Anna debacle but reading through, I’ve become very concerned about you and the things you’ve stated because it looks like you may be setting yourself up to be very, very hurt. “I am not okay with being told that I am enabling potential abuse” – that is not a healthy attitude to have and I deeply hope you talk to someone about it. Whatever you think about Anna’s behavior, potential abuse is something to be concerned about, not spend hours arguing away because you think the potential perpetrator is “not so bad”, instead of examining their actions. A lot of passionate young people don’t realize that abusers aren’t evil mustache-twirling A-shirt-wearing villains plotting to slap around and isolate hapless young women, they’re often vulnerable, hurt people who genuinely think their actions are normal and justified, and convince their victims of such – it’s just ribbing, can’t you take a joke, I’m just telling it like it is, you should listen to my constructive criticism and stop being so sensitive, we’re friends and friends insult each other, you know you love it. Being a past abuse victim does NOT excuse one’s actions and definitely does NOT make one less subceptible to subsequent abuse.
Also, one thread that’s very common through abuse narratives is the abuser blaming the victim for their emotional reactions, not just justifying their degradation and aggression, but further beating down the victim with such statements as “this hurt me more than it hurt you, “I only said that because you don’t know how bad you’ve made me feel”, “telling me my words are harmful made me cry for hours”, “you manipulated me into saying those things”, “I just couldn’t control myself when you said those horrible things baby, I won’t hit you anymore if you promise to be nice”. It’s a huge part of why victims feel responsible for their abusers, not good enough for anyone else, deserving of hatred and having low self-esteem.
You can bet your ass my mom still feels like a victim for “having to” attempt to strangle me because I’m such a terrible sarcastic child and she’s had such a hard life having been abused herself. Self-analysis is a gift that is not given to many.
I think another missing piece is that saying someone is acting in a way that scares you is itself a “scary” action, since it’s so often used as a way to dehumanize someone and excuse hurting them.
There’s no good answer when both people are being genuine. But there is an enormous difference between saying Anna is showing red flags and saying Li is, and I think it’s fair to ask people to consider the effects their words will have before crossing that line.
Contrary to what the internet has told you, it’s not a cool subversive character trait to casually insult people. It just makes one a jerk that’s unpleasant to be around.
…we have a sample size of one, Mindy, plus two women who have spent maybe five minutes tops around her and at least one of which hasn’t enjoyed that time (Becky)
Becky hasn’t had any insults directed at her (well, not completely unprovoked ones at least), and she’s rather preoccupied with getting someone to smooch Leslie and not paying a ton of attention.
While I agree we haven’t seen enough of Anna to say she’s a monster, she’s still clearly kind of an asshole.
Even if she’s just being playful with all the insults, which would be fine with people like Mindy who know her well enough to take that as intended, she only just met Leslie. That’s not okay.
Yes, but usually we’ve seen the non-jerky side of them, or else they’re lovable as characters rather than as people. And even people capable of liking jerks aren’t going to like every jerk.
People tend to find confidence attractive, unless it comes across (to them) as arrogance, etc. People who don’t give a shit about other people (or what those other people think of them) tend to present as very confident. (Those who do care are, likewise, sometimes perceived as insecure.)
Leslie and Mindy are both pushover characters who have established histories of being attracted to women who have dominating, borderline abusive personalities. Yes, I am including Anna in my summary of Mindy’s attraction patterns, because JESUS, ANNA.
Definitely. Based on my limited ability to analyze, I think she’s doing it in a relatively non offensive manner, as no one seems particularly offended so far.
This is also my current sticking point. No one has seemed hurt by what Anna’s saying (to me), which makes me much more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt that her tone is friendly or something. :|a
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve happily continued to talk with someone who was hurting me. It’s a defence mechanism. (and not a great one)
OTOH, this is a comic, so maybe Willis would be giving us clearer hints (like the eyes during Rachel’s rant) but, I think it could still easily go either way.
I’m not saying it never happens, just that if people seemed, to me, to be being hurt by what she was saying in the comic, it would definitely change my mental picture of the tone she’s using.
it is really hard to tell someone to stop. like. it breaks so many social rules. it’s not polite to tell someone to stop, however much they need to stop, and however much being clear resolves the situation. because being clear and precise hurts. and you have to be really careful about this even so, because what if you’re wrong, or what if you give them the wrong impression? even if you couldn’t prevent them getting whatever impression in the first place
and i mean, even when someone’s hurting you, it’s not like that’s always the only thing they do for you
it’s complicated and ambiguously grey and there are not always a ton of clear answers
I think the difference is the general mood of the stories. QC feels much more light-hearted and some well-worded burn was pretty much the punchline in every early comic, which was somehow dull but also normalized this kind of banter. Here, we already have several established character relationships built on abuse, so readers are much faster to judge a new character and assume the worst in the future. I’d personally say, it’s just a hint, I don’t like Anna’s behavior much but let’s wait a few strips with judgement to see how this develops.
Mindy is making me feel sad. ‘You don’t have to like me.’ She says, while smiling awkwardly. Someone has low self-esteem and likely self-loathing and this upsets me a great deal more than it probably should but it makes me sad anyway.
ok all y’all going on about leslie’s terrible taste need to back the heck up because
1) it is leslie’s terrible taste, to have and to hold. you don’t have to share it for it to be legitimately hers!! if she wants to date the potato chips of people that is her business. her salty, crunchy, tasty, filled with MSG business. not all of us can be the vegans of dating, unfortunately, although i’m sure we’d all be better off if we could be.
2) whatever it is that leslie sees in the people you don’t think are good partners is something she sees, something she gets out of those interactions that are for her alone. not for you. if these relationships are unhealthy for her, that is something she needs to learn to say no to on her own speed. not anybody else’s.
3) sometimes people need to make bad choices in order to learn to make better ones. to find out what they really want and need in life. and like…that doesn’t make the bad choices bad choices; that just makes it places they needed to go and people they needed to be with before learning to walk away or set boundaries. or both!! both is always an option here.
…idk i guess on a side note like i’m really curious about like….all this outrage. where does it come from. like?? there’s this tone of shaming Leslie for her choices that is. really bewildering to me, and kind of unsettling. i would like to invite people who feel like Leslie has bad taste to 1) come in this post and explain why they feel like she does, and 2) as an empathy exercise, explain what they think Leslie sees in them. because i’m not sure you can justly say one without the other.
i promise a MINIMUM OF SNARK and, possibly, no actual answer, because i did ask people to come in here and explain their opinions and you don’t deserve an argument in response to that. i guess if you’d like to argue say so?? and i will happily oblige? but otherwise i will assume that you don’t actually want an answer and will leave you in peace having gotten a response to my questions
I think there’s some level of treating Leslie as a prize here, and I don’t mean that as in dehumanizing her, or consciously objectifying her in any way, but — people wanted Mindy to “get the girl”, because they felt that she deserved it, especially because, in their view, Anna was a terrible friend and a worse ex-girlfriend, and Mindy deserved better.
Leslie’s interest in Anna is seen as a terrible blow to Mindy, as well as giving Anna a completely undeserved reward for her bad behavior, and commentators are kind of taking out their frustration on Leslie, probably not fully consciously.
Personally, I was cool with Leslie going after Anna. Not so much after her backhanded compliments now, but I’d live.
But Mindy’s clear insecurity in not thinking she’s good enough, plus the lip-biting make me think that either Mindy saw what Anna was doing, and is trying to prevent something crappy from happening to Leslie, or she’s realizing she needs to be more assertive (though this would be overcorrecting a smidge if so)
Either way, it makes her very relatable to me, and makes me wanna root for her.
I’m more worried that Mindy’s lip-biting is because she doesn’t want Anna to get married, having implicitly carried a bit of a torch for her over their ten years of living together as “just roommates. nothing more.”
I would also like to see Mindy happy, and that “you’re too pretty for me” line was heartbreaking, but I’m genuinely worried that she’s not actually pursuing Leslie here out of interest in Leslie, which might not end well for anyone.
i feel like there’s this expectation of better behavior from Leslie and i just…don’t really understand why?? like she’s entitled to make shitty choices just like everyone else. but i don’t think people deserve to be shamed for their shitty choices
Oh, there definitely is in fact an expectation that she behave better than this, be like… a good role model for Becky or something. I imagine it’s partly because she’s close to thirty, and adults are supposed to know better than this. (Weak, thirty-something laughter.)
I think the whole “is a gender studies professor” thing also makes it especially jarring that she keeps gravitating to people who just do not respect her as a person when one would think she’d be the first person to recognize how toxic that is for her.
First: you yourself seem to be acknowledging this as a bad relationship choice, but saying she’s entitled to make bad relationship choices.
Which is absolutely true! But most people here recognize that dating a jerk who does things like insult your facial features is a suboptimal relationship choice, and so we’re yelling at the screen the same way you’d yell at the protagonist of a horror movie as she begins to walk upstairs. If you wanna call that shaming, I mean, be my guest, but I can’t agree.
ehhhhh. like. i mean, i’m not sure there are bad relationship choices at all in general. like there are definitely toxic people, and toxic relationships, but i don’t think that getting involved in them is necessarily a sign of Bad Decision-Making or a thing you have to regret forever
i think that if someone insulting you is not something you feel like you can respond to by asking them to stop when it hurts you, then that’s a problem, and it’s a bad thing to get into a relationship with that person; but if you actually don’t mind it, then that’s something else
my point is that there is something Leslie wants that maybe she doesn’t even know she wants; and what do you think that is???
what do Robin, Malaya and Anna even have in common besides being jerks, lmao, because they’re all very different flavor of jerk
Robin’s more thoughtless jerk. and she can be more crushing because she gets caught up in this whirlwind of activity and she doesn’t stop herself or consider other people
Malaya was more of a April Ludgate type, tbh, where she wasn’t sure what she wanted and was just kind of mean to everybody
Anna, Leslie has known for like five seconds and we’ve barely known longer. and she’s just…really rude and outspoken about people’s flaws to literally everyone she meets
and Leslie herself is a very soft and sweet person, especially for someone who had to be homeless for a long time. so you’d think she’d want someone just as soft and sweet as she is but…she doesn’t, lmao
so what does she want out of relationships, and what does she see in the people she dates
and like it’s kind of a thing where gay people don’t really hit the romances a lot of straight people have as teenagers until their adult years, because that’s when they first get to explore it
so you don’t get a lot of the experiences that mark first romances until you’re an adult, and that shapes how you react to stuff, and…yeah
I am down for empathy exercises. I have been wondering about what Leslie looks for in women. I suspect she is attracted to confident, more extroverted ambitious women. I don’t currently like Anna (more of a mildly negative neutral perspective) but I have no idea whether or not she would be a good girlfriend for Leslie. Like, I am not thrilled at her remark on Leslie’s appearance.
There could exist a close friendship where Mindy and Anna are blunt with each other. Mindy seems to be very polite while Anna is more assertive. It can be frustrating dealing with people who are reluctant to stand up for themselves or hyperfocused on being kind.
i think there’s a possibility that Leslie is looking for excitement? thrills and hills, babe. with Malaya I think she was just trying to move on from Robin, but this is…something else, haha. i mean, all she got from Anna was her appearance, and then her mouth.
i could really go with that confident/extroverted ambitious woman interpretation, though. like. I think there’s a part of Leslie that would really enjoy being a traditional wife, if not exactly having a traditional husband.
i don’t know how blunt Mindy is with Anna. it really depends on a lot we don’t know, i guess.
(god as someone who has previously been reluctant to stand up for myself and hyperfocused on being kind……………………..i feel that, you can feel the irritation like a freaking cloud)
People…
– holding lesbians to higher standards of “goodness” than straight women?
– being harsher on WOC than white women?
– reacting negatively to butch women?
– seeing a non-white, butch lesbian be a bit rude and calling her an abusive monster while stanning… well basically half the cast who have been just as bad or worse?
i do think that Anna is over-the-top in her rudeness – like, nobody nowhere likes to be called out on their flaws 24/7. nobody. and that seems to be most of her social interaction technique. like. that is a thing that is generally annoying and/or hurtful no matter who it comes from, a white dude or a brown woman
Okay, no.
Bad relationships shouldn’t happen even IF people would have to learn about bad choices. Nobody SHOULD have to learn that way, and I honestly think people would and should rather not get into a bad relationship, because it won’t do any good.
Like, nobody can actually stop anyone from making a bad decision (like entering a bad relationship), but if I could, I would warn them if I know them and care about them.
tl; dr: Freedom of choice is a good thing, bad relationships are not.
And nobody is “shaming Leslie for her choices”. People are saying Anna is a jerk. Which she is. Maybe you’re reading this wrong, maybe I am. But the way I see it, people are concerned. (As much as you can be for a fictional character, but then again, same goes for shaming).
idk like sometimes you don’t learn to make good choices until you’ve made a bunch of bad ones, because learning isn’t always a straight path and there aren’t always good guidebooks out there. especially for lesbians! lesbianhood is pretty fraught with ambiguity and chaos.
primarily tho I mean: I would think that it’s important to tell a friend that you think the person they’re dating is scum if you think they’re scum, but ultimately you don’t have the right to control who they date. because then you’re just replacing a controlling boyfriend for a controlling friend. and, anyways, if you want them to learn to make better choices, it’s usually more effective to be supportive than it is to criticize.
I am kind of dealing with this with a friend right now!! our mutual friend says that her boyfriend seems emotionally abusive to her, and tbh our interactions lately have been marked by a lot of manipulativeness from original friend. Just…some not so good signs. but like I pretty much feel like I don’t have the right to make those calls for her, because at this point she is just going to dig her heels into her choices because she’s had them judged so much by mutual friend. And like she’s disabled, she has a lot of choices taken from her already; she deserves the freedom to make those choices without worrying about being judged for them. because the only way she’s ever going to learn to make better ones is if she makes them of her own free will.
and, like, the stuff I do have a right to put boundaries on are important enough on their own: telling her that she can’t manipulate me, enforcing that she can’t force me to be friends with her crappy boyfriend, enforcing that no means no and no isn’t a rejection of her. like. i feel like living that is important for me to do as a good friend because it exposes her to a clear idea of what boundaries even are. and if she decides that boundaries are something she wants, she knows who she can talk to about it. but otherwise, her life is hers to live.
(i mean, it’s also important for me personally, so that i don’t have to live trying to be friends with people i don’t like, but like. prioritizing her here, i guess.)
I felt like Leslie was being shamed!! so, that is probably a subjective impression, but it is mine, haha. it’s just. like. she’s an adult woman. she can date who she wants to date. i think with this post i was frustrated because it was just a lot of – concern, as you put it, but without empathy. and that kind of concern just feels kind of shaming/condescending to me.
because like – part of agency is making choices, and part of agency is owning your shitty choices. your shitty choices are part of who you are, just as much as your good ones. so, “why does leslie have such terrible taste in women” feels like shaming to me. “what does leslie look for in women?” doesn’t.
Well, I agree: freedom of choice is good. And also, telling a person someone is not good for them is hard and gets complicated and usually is not very fun.
So, yeah. Shitty choices happen, and while they aren’t neccessarily good, they are part of freedom of choice. Still sucks when they end up, well, being shitty choices. It’s not always obvious to the person who chooses. Just, here we are with Leslie who just got Robin out of her house, someone she recognized as “a bad choice”. Robin wasn’t rude to her like that, but she dismissed her feelings, she refused to go away and respect boundaries… and while she is still different from Anna, I can’t help but see a pattern, and I think many others do as well. And it’s this frustrated “why does she do this?”, because we want Leslie to be happy (and don’t think she would be with Anna).
Although it’s very understandable how that can sound unempathetic (just because we can recognize it doesn’t mean Leslie can), while I do think it didn’t mean to be.
(If that makes sense, my English is wonky right after waking up.)
Yeah, sorry. Mostly I reacted the way I did because there was a time when I fell for this crap from guys I liked and it makes me fret to see Leslie making the same mistake I did. I think what she’s attracted to is strength, and being challenged, which would explain her previous crushes. It might also relate to her marrying of Leo; he was sweet, gentle and giving, but she realized that she needed a more challenging partner to be happy.
Anyhoo, rambled a bit. Like everyone else was saying, Leslie is of course entitled to make her own decisions and her own mistakes, but knowing they are mistakes makes us fret because Robin was just so draining for her recently that she might need a break from that type.
Option 1: You’re already dating and get to occasionally make out in the background. Congratulations!
Option 2: You start out literally hating each other and committing acts of extortion and violence until it crosses over into mutual self pity and co-enabled alcoholism that kinda morphs into a somewhat functioning relationship and attempt at improvement….maybe?
Option 3: You are alone and THIRSTY!!!…Better run a school newspaper. (chicks dig journalism)
Option 4: You have a long unrequited crush on your best friend(we’re talking years here) Time to come out! Look out he’s gotta gun! Minus one father, plus one dino girlfriend? …But will that best friend sized whole in your heart ever be filled? Jack a local congresswoman’s twitter to distract yourself from those tough questions.
Option 5: Does your crush even know you have a crush on her? Who knows? Pose naked in her art class. She’s gotta get that hint right? RIGHT?!
Option 6: It’s been awhile. Maybe don’t go looking, you got tests to grade and minds to mold. Wait patiently for the congresswoman of your dreams…….Well she’s horrible. Taking a break was the right idea. Maybe look into adoption? Any young baby gays out there in need of a couch and a rolemodel? Stir well. Congratulations you have a date tonight!…Somehow (Note to self. Buy more fruit.)
Oh! Oho! Ohohoho! I mean this is not going to end well, no way no how no sirree, but once again I’m surprised! I didn’t expect this, particularly so soon!
Breaking these strips down is Cerberus’ job, but heck dog there’s a lot to unpack here, and I love me a good unfolding narrative to analyse. Like this whole strip seems so hectic; it’s not so much pandemonium as it’s just a LOT of information having to be sent out at once; the close ups on everyone, the cuts by strip, how everyone is basically ignoring what everyone else is saying. That factor seems almost thematic at this point, that these people keep ignoring what’s actually happening in favor of projecting what they want to be happening.
I’m a little disappointed Becky doesn’t look to be learning anything from this. But, kudos, she does at least know to accept and be happy anyway when Leslie doesn’t comply to her fantasy, which is I think the most directly damning aspect of shipping Real People (and uhhhh, something Joyce really needs to figure out soon enough). I do hope she does still, yknow, learn not to do it at all by the end of this arc, though now that she’s out I dunno how she’s gonna get back in. Maybe this drama’s gonna re-entice her to create a wacky sitcom scenario, like how Abed did in that one episode of Community and when it doesn’t work out she’ll end up realizing that that shit don’t fly.
I was pretty fine with a lot of Anna earlier, and yknow I get when people don’t have much of a filter. I’m autistic! I don’t get social cues! Sometimes I’ll say mean stuff without without realizing! And I’m still not gonna call Abuse on Anna right now cause, contrasting the earlier facial expressions, this hardly seems like a straight up malicious statement. Still, objectively speaking, this formula between Leslie and Anna suddenly looks…unstable. Being kinda grouchy and saying judgmental or vitriolic things isn’t the End All Be All, but it can’t go unchallenged. And between Mindy’s apparent meekness and Leslie’s blatant infatuation, it doesn’t seem Anna’s gotten very much healthy opposition in her life, which is, yknow. Not Good. If your friends can’t at least be a safety net, can’t openly point out when you go Too Far, then for a lot of your life you’re gonna end up hurting people deeply without even understanding you’re doing it, and they’re gonna end up with the brunt of it because if they can’t themselves up you’re just gonna end up putting them down over and over until you’re basically walking all over them, and then it really does become abusive. I know from experience, I’ve ended up on both ends a few times. The reason why Vitriolic Best Buds is a multiple person trope is cause it doesn’t work if it’s not mutual. And Leslie looks like she’s gonna end up setting herself up to fail, too.
Though this is most definitely not the Right Solution. Let’s talk about Mindy for a sec. Specifically let’s talk about This Moment and What Led To It. Because, we have to assume that with new characters, their First Appearance is their Natural Status. And if we conclude that This Relationship has been in a similar position as it is now, then what we’ve got is a mutually self-destructive friendship going on. Mindy can awkwardly joke about Anna’s behavior, but she can’t challenge it, partially from not being as naturally acerbic as Anna is, partially for being evidently too self-conscious and meek and passive and maybe even self-loathing (fuck dog, I don’t know much about crushes or relationships but I know pretty fuckin well how it is to go through life with the base understanding that You Aren’t Worth It), and partially maybe even still holding a torch for Anna all these years, but this moment, even though it’s our first, feels like it’s been happening so many times over the years. She seemed eager and nervous in her brief appearance yesterday; this may be the first time she’s actually gotten herself excited over the prospect of moving on in a long time. And then it gets crushed, like, what, immediately? And her reaction to it, casually trying to play it off, “you don’t have to like me”, that feels almost rehearsed. If things go wrong, if they just ignore her, if they go for Cool Confident Anna instead, she can deal.
Except, yknow. She Can’t. And she looks in panel 4 like she’s suddenly seeing the scene with that Profound and Frightening Clarity that only comes when you realize just how bad you’ve let your life become. And this is a pretty bad, horrible, anxiety filled embarrasing situation she’s in. She got talked into this by an excitable young dapper flapper in a grocery store, then immediately gets sidestepped by her roommate who wasn’t Nearly as invested in the situation, and in fact had already gotten it in her head that it wasn’t gonna work anyway. That’s already a Nightmare Scenario; but now literally NOONE’s paying attention to her. Leslie hasn’t even acknowledged her existance; Anna’s only barely invested in this situation and might not even have registered what’s going on with Leslie; even Becky just, blatantly gives up on her, because she was really just a pawn in her Scheme to Get Leslie a Date, so if it worked anyway then there’s no problems right? (I love Becky but wow-sers). I’m thinking a lot of the last decade’s just accumulated to this exact instance of her finally doing something Outlandish and Bold and Direct. That’s pretty big. I talked a bunch yesterday about Agency, specifically Leslie’s agency, but it didn’t occur to me that these other characters might have issues with agency in their lives as well (and look at that, ohoho, we’ve got ourselves another theme).
Of course, now we really are getting into some wacky fuckin sitcom shenanigans my dudes, which are gonna overshadow the fact that all these ladies are ABSOLUTE MESSES. Because finally Asserting For Yourself isn’t gonna mean anything to a person who doesn’t even know who you are. Leslie’s still attracted to Anna, I don’t even know what Anna’s doing but I get the impression the feeling’s not exactly mutual, and Becky’s just gonna end up rejoicing at all these tropes coming to life. This might feel like a George McFly moment here, but mark my words folks, it’s gonna become George Costanza real damn quick.
oh thank you! i’d blush if I weren’t words. i’m sure ol Capn David “Willid Davis” Willis make it obsolete by tomorrow, but that’s all right. I’m really diggin this arc.
This is all really good analysis, seconding that. I also like this interpretation of what Mindy’s doing mentally a lot better than my own interpretation, because it is more optimistic. (I’m worried that she’s biting her lip like that and then diving into Leslie-go-out-with-me out of not wanting Anna to marry someone else, as we sort of implied she’s carrying an unacknowledged torch in the last comic where she spoke.)
Also good analysis of Leslie and Anna. I don’t know what’s up with Anna and I’m not sure how to interpret Leslie’s reaction to it in that panel, but the picture you paint is not a happy one going forward. (Not that I necessarily expect Anna/Leslie to work. I did expect Leslie’s interest, for pure dramatic irony, but I’m not sure I think Anna is looking for anyone. I could picture a version of it where it worked in my head yesterday, but less so now.)
Thank you for articulating why this arc is becoming increasingly loud fingernails on a chalkboard for me: “wacky fuckin sitcom shenanigans.”
If DoA were a TV show, this is the episode that’s the pilot for a spinoff series featuring the comic relief friend and her laff-riot hijinks.
Which is really unfair to Becky, because she so not merely comic relief.
Dina and Becky out Bill Nye Bill Nye! Tonight at 8!
That I would watch.
But awkward not funny romcom featuring a peripheral character I don’t find interesting and walk-ons from central casting? Nope.Nope.Nope.
Maybe it’s because DoA is the only Willis comic I read, so this is the only version of these characters I know, but I just can’t work up an interest in Leslie.
So according to Willis’ twitter, Anna’s dialogue has been based on It’s Walky!Era Mike.
I’m having trouble reconciling this. I HATE It’s Walky era Mike, but I really like Anna. Maybe because she reminds me of Early!Malaya and I adore Malaya.
I know part of why I like Malaya so much is because of how her constant over-the-top hatred of pretty much everything make it hard for me to imagine anyone taking it too personally. It defuses a lot of what would otherwise be much more hurtful behavior
Like, I don’t just enjoy her as a character, I could’ve probably have tolerated being friends with someone like her.
Then again Mike has a similar “done with everything” attitude a lot of the time and I loathe him here. I can enjoy him as a character, but I would punch him repeatedly in the face if I knew him in real life.
I don’t yet have a strong opinion about Anna so far, other than that she’s being a jerk
I think it’s because Mike is some sort of edgelord, Heath Ledger Joker wannabe. Like, Malaya can be mean and malicious, but there are things that she does actually care about. Mike, or at least DoA Mike, doesn’t. He just wants to cause as much harm as possible, regardless of consequences. People have said that he does it to make people improve, but I don’t really see him using his “just as planned” abilities for good. Correlation is not causation and all that. Basically, Malaya is lawful or neutral jerk, but Mike is chaotic jerk. Much like chaotic evil tends to be the worst evil, chaotic jerk tends to be the worst of jerkishness.
Becky is being so terridorable right now. I love it. On the one hand, she’s allowing Leslie the agency of not playing out Becky’s personal ship! Yay! Becky yes! But she’s treating Anna and Mindy (especially Mindy) like props! Boo! Becky no!
(I am also mentally treating Mindy and Anna as props—Mindy’s kind of a Leslie, Anna’s kind of a Mike, that’s all the characterization I need. What Becky and Leslie do is what I’m watching play out here. Becky ought to treat them like real people, though, because to her they are real people!)
Interesting how most commenters read last panel Mindy as being assertive. I kind of read it as foreshadowing yet another woman who will end up not respecting Leslie’s personal boundaries.
Given what we’ve seen of her so far, it feels more likely she’ll end up stumbling all over herself back into “I mean, if you’d maybe like to go on a date, if that’d be okay. But you don’t have to”, etc
It isn’t really being assertive in the normal way most think about it. I think it is Mindy admitting to herself that, if she doesn’t want to come second for the rest of her life, she’s going to have to occasionally knock Anna’s hand away from something that she wants. It’s a sort of epiphany about the need to act positively.
Yup. There’s been a few cautions pulled out of the pocket regarding her tendency to clinginess and yeah, this overcorrection especially in response to seemingly interpreting this as “she like assertive women” or “she likes jerks” is especially worrying.
And yeah, there’s no good end I’m seeing here, cause I can see Mindy going in the direction of bad at boundaries and I can see Anna going in the direction of abusive partner (especially if she’s based on Mike).
Oh, dear heaven, Leslie! Way to be a total doormat! Anna overtly insults you and you thank her? Mindy had to do what she did in panel 6: The only way to protect Leslie from a spiritually-damaging abusive relationship is to tell her that she is dating you: The doormat will respond to the demand in her usual submissive way!
I find it weird that people were giving Leslie so much shit for being attracted to Anna in the previous comic. How was Leslie supposed to know Anna was the jerky one? Anna literally hadn’t said anything to her yet!
Here people continue to complain that Leslie is interested in jerks but cheer Mindy for demanding a date with a woman who is completely uninterested in her.
I honestly can’t tell yet whether Mindy is doing this out of interest in Leslie yet. I think previous commentors who suggested this is about Mindy keeping Anna to herself may have a point. We wouldn’t have gotten that panel of Mindy looking sad while numbering the years they’ve only been roommates if it didn’t mean *something*.
Your interpretation works right up until panel 3 when Anna directly insults Leslie and Leslie responds by treating it like flirtation. I don’t know how bad (or even how NOT bad) Anna is but Leslie is demonstrating a worrying tendency, played for laughs but very real, to zero in on the jerky, abusive and/or unstable ones and then having a hard time to work her brain past her physical infatuation.
Negging works by preying on someone’s insecurities. You show interest, while at the same time subtly undermining their confidence. This is done to make it feel like they’re interested, but that interest is slipping away, to try to trick you into wanting to try harder to please them and hold their interest.
Leslie doesn’t “seek out” abusive assholes. She likes assertive, confident women. Unfortunately, “abusive assholes” are a subset of that category.
Unfortunately for Leslie, she’s rather insecure, easily flustered, and not very good at recognizing assholes until it’s a bit too late.
The trope that anyone is actively, directly attracted to and seeking out abusive relationships is just off-putting to me.
Plus, I’m ace, so I can’t speak 100% to this, but a thing I’ve noticed in allo friends is that attraction can override recognizing red flags. And Leslie is practically drooling just at the overall presentation of Anna (the confidence, the butch stance, the stare) so it’s easier for her to hear the parts she wants and overlook the parts that are warning signs (oh my Bob she complimented my hair, wait, what was that about my nose, probably unimportant, she likes my hair!).
Which yeah, is a thing PUAs and abusers exploit and try and deepen. Getting their target so invested in the good parts that drew them in, that they accept more and more abuse they have to shrug off to keep it.
I’m going to say this more directly since I’ve apparently confused at least one person:
It seems contradictory that Leslie should get criticized for being interested in a jerk, even before Anna said one word to her, but Mindy gets praised for trying to force a date with someone who’s uninterested in her.
Hopefully the last paragraph in the original comment is clear.
The impression I got was “neither” or maybe a bit of the former. To me, Mindy’s expression in panel 3 says “Oh god, it’s another me. I’ve got to do something to get her out of this quicker than I did.” That’s her motivation. It’s not about what she wants because, as far as I can tell, pretty much nothing is.
Mindy seem to have taken a leaf from Dina’s book. Sometimes the direct approach is the best.
I wonder if a large part of Anna’s and Mindy’s motivation is not just getting one over the other – it seems they have a LOT of “it’s complicated” going on.
Somebody has to be the dominant one in that relationship and it sure as hell isn’t going to be Leslie. Smart of Mindy to recognize she can assume that role.
That said … geez Leslie. You’re a disaster waiting for the chaos boat.
Even in heterosexual relationships, it’s nonsense.
In any healthy, well-adjusted relationship, neither person would be exclusively dominant. Each person should take charge as needed, based on their respective strengths.
I’m not sure @zombieundergrnd meant “any relationship”, so much as the proposed Mindy/Leslie one.
They might have a point, based on what we’ve seen of Leslie.
Not all relationships are or need to be perfectly balanced. As long as the less dominant person can make their needs known and respected when it’s important to them, it can work.
They do need to be balanced in terms of power and respect. Like, even in a literal dom/sub relationship.
One person taking charge and being more assertive most of the time is fine, but not if they start seeing themselves as the boss of the other person(s). It should be a partnership, not a hierarchy.
I already hate Mindy as she jumps in and steals a date from her supposed friend. I like people who are open and angry about their feelings. Mindy, however, is passive aggressive and her behavior here really rubs me the wrong way along with taking a jokey sideways tone of insulting Anna earlier.
Anna may have a habit of insulting people but I think Mindy is the worse person by far. Then again, I admit, I’m inclined to cut her some slack due to the racial dynamic thing. Becky and Mindy both ignored her feelings as well as trying to set up the latter with her fellow white lesbian.
Makes you wonder if this kind of stuff didn’t happen several times already…
As for Anna’s behaviour… I feel she’s been like this for a very long time if Mindy’s comment is anything to go bye (about parents not exactly approving of her). While it Might have been tied to her race I think it was her behaviour that put the parents off and their relationship obviously didn’t work out.
There’s also the way Becky met each of them to consider. Anna was grouchy and mean, while Mindy was very nice and friendly. Which would you choose to set your friend up with?
There’s also the fact that Mindy “stole” nothing. Neither of them has dibs on Leslie.
What strip were you reading exactly? And why do you think this is in any way about their race? Anna wasn’t very nice to Becky, and Mindy was. This was a choice of behaviour.
“Fellow white lesbian…” Okay, enough internet for me today.
Also what possible feelings on Anna’s side (Anna was not, at that point, aware of Leslie’s existence) could Becky possibly have noticed before trying to set up the date? Keeping in mind that the second Leslie walked past Mindy to talk to Anna, Becky abandoned the whole plan.
I’m having some pretty disturbing thoughts about Leslie’s behaviour. It’s like she considers being insulted adorable. Like she sees it as something that Should happen to her and something she should be grateful for…
I’m not really comfortable with that idea. She needs help with building up her self esteem, certainly, but her girlfriend shouldn’t have all of that placed on her shoulders. Her girlfriend should, of course, be part of her support network, but the heavy lifting should probably be done by a professional, or, at worst, distributed across her whole support network. I’ve been in the position of being the primary support for a partner, and it wears hard, and isn’t great for the relationship.
Well, whether it’s good for her or not, no one can argue that Leslie simply prefers the type of person that Anna is. It’s her preference and we can’t do a thing about that. It’s just Leslie. I personally prefer the Mindy type even though I’m married to more of an Anna type and don’t regret it one bit. At any rate, I see Mindy seeing this beautiful woman in front of her who’s available and Mindy not having had a gf or been out on a date for some time works herself up to act atypically and be assertive and ask Leslie out…ok, it was more telling Leslie she’s going out with her. Maybe it came out not quite how she meant it to come out, who knows? I know I’ve had that happen to me many times. Remains to be seen if Leslie goes with this or turns her down and continues flirting away with Anna.
Panel 1: Okay, yeah, definitely chemistry. Anna’s eyes aren’t leaving Leslie’s face and Leslie is so thirsty she might as well be in a Far Side cartoon about a man crawling in the desert.
Panel 2: Oh dear Mindy, that complete lack of self-esteem is a bit heart-breaking. She’s so convinced of her lack of value that she’s deprecating herself even in a “hey, how you doing?” situation.
Which, part of that might be from living with a person she still carries a massive torch for as that can be something that just shreds self-confidence like a blender, but it could be a lot of factors. Seeing the person she was about to be set up with going after her long-time crush and hitting it off is probably not helping either way.
Panel 3: Oh gross, negging. I am very much not a fan of this PUA shit and “negging” is one of the grosser pieces of it as it’s basically treating verbal abuse and insults as some secret piece of “game”. Especially as it’s usually about tearing down the person so they feel bad about creating and maintaining boundaries around you and that can be incredibly dangerous if there’s other chemistry that makes the other person more willing to go along with it.
Like, poor Leslie here, literally thanking Anna for insulting her to her face because the tiny piece of affirmation from someone she finds really hot is serving as a major selling point.
Like, it might not necessarily mean anything in the long-term but it’s a major red-flag to how she’d be in a big relationship, which when combined with how much of a mess her ex is and how she keeps putting her down, definitely raises major concerns about her potential toxicity as a partner.
Like, I might be wrong, but if I saw this go down with a friend in real life I’d definitely raise a concern or two before it went too far.
Panel 4: But I love Becky’s non-chalance here. To her, the goal is happy women-loving-women. The who or what matters less than that there’s a happy ending and in that manner, she’s in a lot healthier place than Joyce in recovering from her Church-based shipping and when this collapses in fire, will likely learn a valuable lesson about meddling in other people’s love lives.
Panel 5: Again, poor Mindy. Like this is likely a nightmare to the dream she’s been trying to keep buried, that her and her ex would get together again eventually just out of inertia (which yeah, that’s a dream that’s almost never going to happen and it’s way healthier to move on to a situation that doesn’t make you feel like shit). And to be completely ignored in all of this is likely the icepick to the brain that finishes this off.
She’s in genuine distress and there’s no way this all ends well.
Panel 6: Oh dear. This is going to completely blow up in the nastiest drama bomb possible, isn’t it?
And a side note to note one other thing. Anna is a red flag not because she’s abrasive but because of the negging as flirting. And Mindy being nice doesn’t mean anything as to whether or not there’s chemistry. Like, her decision to be faux-rude at the end because “Leslie clearly likes jerks” is actually a bad one that’s common to Nice Guys TM and is based on a similar misassumption which is that women are going for certain people instead of the “Nice ones”, because of some fundamental flaw to them.
The reality is, chemistry is chemistry. And sometimes that chemistry blinds you to some red flags, but that doesn’t mean any red flags will do. Not to mention there are concerns around dating Mindy as well. She’s carrying a major torch for her roommate, she’s low self-esteem to the point of demeaning herself as undatable in her introduction, and she’s demonstrated some tendencies for clinginess (which might be a major trigger for Leslie after Robin’s “we’re now cohabitating lovers” shtick).
Again, that might not mean anything. Becky carries a torch for Joyce and is still a fiercely loyal girlfriend to Dina, but it does mean that Mindy is not anymore “deserving” of Leslie than Anna simply for being sweet as pie.
Yeah. She’s been getting so much hate that Willis ended up posting on Twitter that he was writing her with the dialogue of It’s Walky era Mike and got very close to using butt pipe.
How have you been by the way? I’ve been MIA almost completely for a week or two so I haven’t been keeping up on your comments per usual. Long story short, I got sick, then got meds, then somehow got more sick, then ER super sick plus badly dehydrated, then more meds and crap, and now simi better! My kitten Danny was really pissed about less playtime than usual and kept trying to make me play, so I have scratches all over my arm and (couldn’t make this shit up) still trying to track down all my mail after he got on the kitchen table (where I sat it until I felt better) and scattered it everywhere. Then I’m guessing he moved some of it because I found one that had been mostly pushed under my bedroom closet door. Why!?! XD
Oh no, I’m sorry you got sick. I hope you’re starting to feel better and yeah, kitties always seem to freak out and know when you’re feeling under the weather.
I’m doing all right. Did some incredibly boring training for my new job that was super draining, but otherwise doing all right. I also got confirmation that my new employer knows I’m trans which was good, especially as the new boss wants to work with me on making the school more trans student supportive.
Oh my gosh that’s so freaking awesome! I was worried you might end up with another complacent idiot like last time. I know training us draining, but still. It’s worth it for your mental health and stability. Perhaps it will even help with the stress you were having about furthering your own education. I refuse to think negative about this because you deserve something good. ^_^
Also, happy pride month. Sorry it’s a day late. I’ve been watching a few movies that were recommended. Blue Is The Warmest Color was on Hulu which so many sites recommend, but I cringed at how many of the bi stereotypes the protagonist embodied short of being a unicorn. It had its moments, but still. When We Rise was divine. It’s a 4 part series that’s the true story of several American LGBTQ+ activists through the years fighting for rights, dealing with the AIDS outbreak, politics, doing the quilt, the evolution of what people thought of us, relationships and families, and so on all the way to marriage rights. I’ve seen it twice and would still like it even if it was all fictional.
Yes! I love talking to somebody who can actually enjoy a move like that. Around here I get more Ew reactions. Seeing two people make out that appear to be the same gender seems to erk people bad here, especially 2 men. I’ve also talked with more than I would like to admit that were unaware that trans was a thing and good luck with pronouns. And my dad… he’s also okay with me being polysexual as long as I don’t acknowledge it, date a woman, date a non white male, tell him about it, comment on LGBTQ+ even if it’s on the news while I’m there and even if he comments first, or bring anyone who isn’t a white male near him.
So seeing as we have similar tastes, is there any others movies or the like I should keep an eye out for? I have Hulu.
damnit google. I can add it to my wishlist from there, no mention of payment; I have to go into the app to be told it’s not available in my fucking country.
If you want a depressing time, I’d also recommend We Were Here or How to Survive a Plague which are really good but really depressing documentaries about the Plague Years.
I might be wrong, but I didn’t get the impression of chemistry in panel 1. To me it seemed that Anna was giving Leslie a glare at mistaking her for Mindy. And it felt less like “negging” (which I didn’t know was a thing until now) and more trying to purposely drive Leslie off. Of course I might be wrong. I’ve mentioned before but to repeat, I have Asperger’s. I have difficulty reading social situations and interpersonal communication. It impedes my own ability to date in the past, and is a significant challenge (that I can thankfully overcome most of the time) when it comes to efficiently communicating with my current girlfriend. So I could be reading the situation incorrectly.
…
Also, Sorry I’m late to the comments. Had a night class that left me exhausted.
one of the great things about thought-provoking comment sections like this one is it helps me calibrate that social stuff. I can see lots and lots of different ways people interpret the comics, and people explain their reasoning, and I can learn from the way people disagree on things, and I can risk saying stupid things myself…
I’m wondering what you think of the “it’s not ok for people to attack you for scaring them” thing I was muddling through earlier. Like Rukduk, I have very little confidence in my own interpretation of things, so I want to know if I was still making sense or if I was accidentally heading in a bad direction…
Specifically It’s Walky!Era Mike, which means I’m probably about to go from ‘Aw, she reminds me of Malaya, I like Malaya’ to ‘Get this asshole off my screen now’. Which sucks, because I was excited for Malaya 2.0 not ‘Mike before he got to be anyone remotely tolerable’.
I like Walkyverse Mike plenty but that’s because the Walkyverse was a wacky screwball universe where a tree branch was a source of ultimate power and the omnipotent godly force was called The Cheese.
In this kind of comic, where even the superhero is a traumatized child, this behaviour isn’t endearing or charming or even that funny.
I didn’t even like Mike in It’s Walky. I pretty much only liked him in Shortpacked. So if this is IW!Era Mike, I’m going to want to throw things, oh dear.
Surprisingly, Mike has done one good thing in DoA, which is provide Ethan an outlet for being a raging turbo nerd.
But, yeah, as much as I love SP!Mike, because the world he inhabited worked for him genuinely falling in love with Amber and becoming a good father, DoA!Mike is a trash fire who poisons the comic for me.
It’s funny, the way Mindy’s situation here reminds me of one I was in once. I ran into two people at a party in a park – we have some very chill parks here – and while we introduced ourselves I was growing a panic as I started thinking about the unfolding future. Just an idle dream, of course, but I saw the possibility of having a future with either one of these women, and the fact that I had to make a decision about which one I liked better instantly and based on no information at all, before the fragile moment of introduction was over and we were going to have to decide what to talk about, what to say, how to say it and who to say it to was overwhelming.
That is, I can see in panel 5 how Mindy pictures Leslie’s possible futures unfolding and sees her own chance of being one of the options slip away microsecond by microsecond as first impressions take form. And I love her desperate gambit in panel 6 because at least she tried something. If “Defending Your Life” is right and when we die we get judged only by what courage we have shown, Mindy has probably proved herself ready to move on to the next plane of existence in this one act.
And to be honest I think both she and Leslie would be the much better choice for each other so I hope it pays off.
Wow, at a first meeting? What would be wrong with just getting to know them a little first before deciding to be with either one (also taking into consideration how they felt about the matter).
That would have been a reasonable course of action. I thought about it later, after I had talked to them both for a while, failed to make an impression, and walked home.
Why do some people like abuse, verbal or otherwise? My sister is always in relationships where there’s constant verbal abuse from her against her boyfriend, and vice versa. I just don’t get it.
Some people feel like they deserve it, and sometimes there’s the idea that under the abuse and harm is couched a good person, where the abuser starts treating them better for a while.
there are lots of detailed explanation out there for how people end up in those situations, but that was the only link I found right now. it’s too hot to think.
“You’re too pretty for me, anyway.” Mindy, noooo. I can’t tell if Mindy has had her self-esteem crushed after years of living with Anna, or if low self-esteem was what allowed her to date Anna, presuming Anna is always like this with people she dates. Regardless of how things turn out with Leslie, I hope Mindy finds someone who appreciates her, and that she learns to better appreciate herself.
All that aside, I love Becky in panel four, all, “Yes, mission accomplished! I am awesome. :D” and I’m really enjoying this introduction of Anna and Mindy. Mindy is like a fluffy, friendly golden retriever and Anna a silky cat with the softest-looking tummy, but super sharp claws. I like having antagonistic characters who aren’t outright villains (see: Malaya, Mike, Carla), but I also like the ratio not skewing too far, so it’s great having friendly, adorable characters added, too–and Mindy is super adorable!
I’ve met a lot of people who act sweet and kind but are really vicious underneath. Mindy reminds me of them. It’s led me not to trust people who throw their friends under the bus like Mindy just did. A real friend would be happy for them.
Guys, being an abrasive bully is not “having a fun, prickly disposition”. Speaking as someone who is seriously squicked out by any efforts to ship Mike with ANYONE human (sorry, SP fans), Anna is a negging jerk, and her manner is absolutely toxic when paired with someone like Leslie, who clearly doesn’t know how to stand up to it.
I don’t really like that Willis decided to make HER the butch woman of color, and her previous partner* the femme blonde girl, but I really, really don’t like the people who are taking a reasonable idea—”Commenters are applying a double standard and being harsher on Anna because of her race and non-traditionally feminine style”—and taking it to the extreme of, “Clearly, Anna is actually a decent, slightly prickly person with no blatant abusive tendencies.”
*I don’t want to go so far as to call Mindy an “abuse victim”, but, y’know, imagine a slightly more conservative estimate for now.
I’d really hoped DOA would be self-aware about this, but from Dave’s tweets, I’m starting to think he learned the wrong lesson from the double-standard readers are applying.
Readers liking Mike but hating Anna isn’t a sign they should like Anna MORE. Frankly, they should like Mike LESS. Mike only works as a jokey-jokey abuser—a gag character. Anything more than that, any lens more serious than “lol Mike is such an asshole”, and he starts to fall apart. Because, y’know, he is an abuser. He’s a funny character, but that’s all he really works as.
Don’t try to make a Likeable Mike. That’s going to send some really disturbing messages about abusiveness. At least Robin’s main crime was just being irresponsible and clueless.
Oh, also (sorry, I’m probably putting way too much thought into this), what about Malaya? Plenty of people, myself included, like Malaya. Maybe that’s because Malaya isn’t abusive. She’s rude to anyone she doesn’t like, but she never negs or manipulates, and she’s only rarely mean to people who are genuinely nice to her (which is part of why she’s so nice to Leslie in Shortpacked).
Anna, on the other hand, is shown to be verbally abusive towards someone she’s been “friends” with for a decade. Someone who we *know* has fairly obvious issues with self-image. Then she starts picking on Leslie, who she only just met, through really creepy negging practices.
But Anna does have nice hair. Also Mindy, that big-ass eyebrows comment Anna threw at ya earlier? You OWN those brows, my thick-browed sister. (fistbunp of solidarity)
Well done, Mindy! Save both Leslie and yourself from an abusive, self-confidence-eroding relationship!
I think Mindy saw herself reflected on Leslie here… Anna is starting to attack Leslie self-image and self-confidence before the relationship even starts, and Leslie is too desperate to care…
Look, it’s very funny how we have similar names, how you look like someone tried to draw a browner and younger caricature of my mother, and how you appear in the strip right when there’s some BS happening in my life.
Anna. Your attitude isn’t cool. Work on your own issues and please, please stop punching down. You act like an unstoppable force and live off unusable doormats, but it won’t last. When the last of your friend will ask for some distance because you suck motivation out of them like some sort of motivation ghoul, will you understand ? Will you ?
Heh, don´t worry. I´ve seen in hetero, homo and whaddaya sexual identity that fits for people, a lot of the social “bluntness” that Anna overuses. My word: it´s never enough to call out people for that “attitude”. Even if it´s a fictional character. Nobody wants to be viewed as one like that, or, as Don Draper said to Campbell after he saw how he “harassed” Ann:At the end of the party, nobody likes to stay with the douchebag. You don´t want to end like that.
P.D. Case in point, I hope Mindy hasn´t got a dependent personality, that´s counterintuitive to what Leslie needs.
Ah yes, “negging” would imply she’s trying to lower Leslie’s self-esteem in order to control her. Anna isn’t. Anna is just being an ass. There’s a difference between gaslighting and being a jerk.
Mind you, I’m certainly of the mind Mindy is a shitty friend and passive aggressive but I understand that’s not probably the correct view to have about her.
I also think I’d rather root for the interracial lesbian couple.
“Becky MacIntyre: Lesbian Love Sleuth” better be the spin-off/sequel webcomic of Dumbing of Age. Just saying… you can’t let such a good title go to waste.
Hey, we’re all entitled to our opinions.
1. Go Mindy! Scrape up some assertiveness. Ordering Leslie around will help her see you as hot. And you are. Your eyebrows are fine–much better than that freaky narrow over-plucked look. (I’ve known women who did that. “Shudder”.)
2. I think Anna’s a Mean Girl and an Unhealthy Friend. That’s what the direct evidence is showing me. My mind can change if given different direct evidence later.
3. I don’t much care what other forum members think about it. I get to have my own opinion; they get to have theirs. Doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the comic one way or another. If comments get too unfriendly, I can stop reading them.
Given a choice, I bet going on a date with either Leslie or Mindy would be lots of fun. Or both at once? Yowza! Anna’s at least as hot as either, but I’ve dated/relationshipped Annas. It was Not Fun.
I like how panel 5 Mindy’s face clearly says “NOOOOOOO!” without any word balloon required. Exactly what she’s NOing is still uncertain.
BUT, my guess is that Mindy has been lonely for a very long time. Anna–Nah. In my experience, Annas somehow manage to get laid as much as they want. Mindys–not so much.
Plus, Mindy has already shown that she really finds Leslie very hot. Anna? Not really. Unless insulting people less than usual is how she conveys that?
Leslie needs to learn that living with a constant barrage of insults is self-esteem destroying. Maybe that’s what she grew up with and still seeks out, because the familiar–no matter how awful–is still comfortable. Discuss this with your therapist, sweetie; and work on it.
How to read all 28 issues of my Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run on Marvel Unlimited:
1: The first four issues were published as the miniseries "Mary Jane."
www.marvel.com/comics/serie...
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
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 ⋅ 2d
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
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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is that a demand, or a prediction
Yesssssssss… It’s a fucking demand. I think she picked up on that Leslie digs the assertive (I’d argue aggressive but w/e) types.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
I like Mindy so far, you see a opening or opportunity and you tackle it. She’s modest, slow tempered, and not a complete push-over
Demand for Leslie has doubled, expect cost of Leslie to rise.
Nah, this level of demand is unsustainable. I predict a crash. Sell your Leslie stock now!
YOU CAN’T CUT BACK ON LESLIE! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!
There is a distinct shortage of Leslie.
This is an enforced Leslie shortage. The price would never be this high otherwise.
Leslie’s gonna go poly. Her price should rise steadily, but no bubble just yet.
False. Supply of Leslie still does not equal demand. Price will remain high.
I think it’s more likely an intervention. While Mindy probably did think Leslie likes the assertive type and rationalizes using it to get Leslie in her mind, it’s more likely another indicator that she’s still not over Anna. Becky’s statement triggered her into wanting to make sure Anna isn’t taken off the market yet.
Really? I read it as Mindy seeing that Leslie (a) seems nice and (b) seems to like Anna already, and (c) is already seeing Anna’s crap behaviour that she (probably) found so hard to get away from and recover from, despite no doubt recognizing that her behaviour was Not Okay.
I see it as Mindy seeing Leslie having the exact same reaction to Anna that she herself did at first, and, knowing precisely where that road leads, stepping in to head her off at the pass before she has to travel it as well.
We’ll see. You know. Eventually.
Ooooooh this is interesting!
That is the perfect icon for this comic and this comment.
Lesbian love triangles are the bEST love triangles
Personally I prefer bisexual love triangles. They’re less predictable.
Your gravatar is likewise perfect for this comment.
I’ve been staring at this comment for two minutes now like “waaaat how are lesbian love triangles more predictable than bisexual ones?”
tbh lesbian love triangles are pretty rare in media, I would like more.
No the best love triangles are percussion instruments played by the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince.
Okay, you got me there
*plays Bizarre Love Triangle on the hacked muzak*
Look at all these lesbians being terrible.
Adorable.
What.
It seems as though perhaps the Mindy/Anna dynamic is actually that everyone just ends up attracted to Anna…
Why? Some weird negging’s-cool-when-it’s-her exemption or something?
Can’t speak for any other girls who might’ve picked her over Mindy, but between Robin, Anna, and (AUly) Malaya for Leslie it’d be because her type is brash WOC.
That’s not brash. Anna’s just an asshole.
Annas not the one who stole the interested date of her supposed friend. That’s awful behavior from Mindy.
Anna LITERALLY just negged Leslie.
I think Anna is being sincere. It’s not part of a strategy.
It’s still rude. What does it matter if it’s a strategy.
It is considerably worse if you are the kind of person that has undermining someone’s confidence as the first step in your dating strategy.
It is indeed still rude, tho, and anna still comes off as an asshole. Just a different, smaller kind of asshole.
Dude, Becky brought her there to talk to Mindy. She even said “you must be Mindy”. CLEARLY ANNA STOLE MINDY’S DATE FIRST
Just because Mindy did something shitty, doesn’t mean Anna isnt also being an asshole. They aren’t mutually exclusive
I think whats happening is that Leslie is attracted to people who are assertive, which tends to mean people who treat her poorly (read: Robin) and Mimdy is keeping her from making that mistake once again.
Yeah, Leslie unfortunately has an issue distinguishing between assertive and aggressive.
ho shit
what is this lesbian drama cooking up in the freezer aisle
Oh thank god, hopefully that means bullet dodged. Seriously, Leslie has REALLY crappy taste in women.
Yeah, I really don’t want to read comics about Leslie dating someone who keeps giving her backhanded compliments
Absolutely no one here is in the right.
I’m in the right! I can totally say that because of how in the right I am.
I think Mindy is being ok. I mean, it’s aggressive, because she’s picked up that Leslie likes confident assertive people, but it doesn’t strike me as scary, and she gets bonus points for trying to derail a neg.
She’s never met Leslie before now. She knows absolutely nothing about her as a person other than “is gay”. Probably ain’t the best idea imo.(also “you’ll pick me up”? Why aren’t you picking ME up? You’re asking me out.)
It’s an unorthodox way of asking someone out, but it’s not like Leslie’s can’t say “Wait, what? No.”
Assuming, of course, Mindy’s goal is “get a date with Leslie” and not “stop her ex-girlfriend who she still has a crush on from going out with another woman,” where the rules of SITCOM SHENANIGANS kick in
I think at this point her motives are more “keep this poor girl from getting involved with a shitty partner like i did”.
I’d suspect if that was actually her opinion, she wouldn’t still be rooming with Anna 10 years later.
People can be terrible partners but perfectly fine roommates.
I reread the arc so far — the other day Mindy looks downwards for “for the past ten years, nothing more than roommates” …looks like she’s unhappy with just being roommates, she has some longterm unrequited feelings, and she’s being possessive of Anna.
I’m with Max on this one. Someone has to keep Leslie away from a very unhealthy crush. Or maybe it’s more “hell no, my terrible ex who hurt me a lot won’t also hurt this lovely lady who I could maybe make very happy!”
like, a mix of jealousy and resentment and protectiveness
Being assertive ? Plus if Leslie is into douchebags.
It’s a date, not a marriage. Half the point of them is getting to know the other person. If the date goes badly, it’s not the end of the world. If it goes well, there may be smooches in it for her.
Nothing crazy about taking a chance like that
True, but if I went up to a girl I just met and said “you’re picking me up, friday at 7” they’d probably be like “hey, fuck you, man”
Yeah, it’s definitely not the best way to do it. I feel like she’s over-correcting for her earlier insecurity and meekness there.
It’s also important to remember that we’re socialized to treat different people differently. A more masculine presenting person would be more likely to raise ingrained warning flags for aggressively assertive behavior than a femininely presenting person due to how dfab people are socialized.
Leslie just tee-hee’d at a transparently negging comment. That speaks volumes for her. Whether Mindy is trying to match that level of assertiveness without being an asshole, or actually trying to save Leslie from Anna (or more accurately, from herself), I must applaud her.
I think if you see your friend is meeting someone they’re attracted to and vice versa then you steal that person’s date by jumping in then you’re not being assertive, you’re just being an awful friend.
but if your friend being treating that person super badly, you can interpret that as them not being interested in a person, or as them being super bad to go out with, both possibilities that would be at the very least attenuating circunstamces, right?
I agree. (Sadly.)
The broccoli lady is pretty OK
Surely it’s not as bad as that. First panel, Leslie fronts her availability.
> True, but if I went up to a girl I just met and said “you’re picking me up, friday at 7” they’d probably be like “hey, fuck you, man”
But if said girl had already stated she wants a date?
Seriously, this is all just a disaster of bad decisions and bad behaviour.
Meh? Mindy is being kinda … brash? As in lacking restraint? But she is not necessarily in the wrong here. We do not know enough about her relationship with anna to judge.
I mean, she has known Anna for a long time, enough to judge if she is interested or not in someone, so assuming that she has determined that Anna has no interest in Leslie, making a strong impression may be the right thing to do.
Imagine that instead of Anna and Mindy, we have Joe and Danny, and just before Leslie appeared, Joe had told Danny that he needed to be more assertive in approaching girls. Would Danny be in the wrong if he did exactly the same as Mindy did?
I tried that once. It did not go well.
I like how this wacky competition isn’t really based on a misunderstanding – like, both Mindy and Anna think that Leslie is a cutie and Mindy isn’t letting Leslie’s initial confusion be a reason not to try!
Nor her friendship with Anna!
With friends like that, who needs enemies…
Is Anna negging Leslie?
Definitely. Aaaargh.
I HATE IT gguuuuhhhhhh
Me TOO! Grrr
is anna’s negging how she and mindy dated initially?
Looks like. Maybe on purpose, but more likely this seems to be how she interacts with people
Usually I’m good with words, but what does “negging” mean?
There’s a link to the definition somewhere in the comments.
I’s a Neopets term.
It’s a term from Neopets.
Beautiful
From Wikipedia: “Negging is a rhetorical strategy whereby a person makes a deliberate backhanded compliment or otherwise insulting remark to another person in order to undermine their confidence in a way that gains approval. The term was coined and prescribed by the pickup artist community.”
Wait, there is a (working) pickup strategy that is based on insulting someone in a way that makes them thank you for being interested with you?
Hm, … Somethings like this http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1750 ?
Well… for certain values of “working”, I suppose. It apparently functions best when one’s subject has no self-esteem whatsoever, and will interpret even negging remarks as attention paid.
I think it largely works on people who have been trained (by abusive parents, or a previous abusive relationship) to interpret that kind of thing as genuine affection or the closest thing that they can expect to genuine affection. So, low self-esteem, yes, but a specific subset. Also, you probably didn’t mean it this way, but when people say someone has “low-self esteem” with no qualifiers, some people mean it as an insult to that person. A kind of “only suckers would fall for negging” kind of thing. I assume you didn’t mean that, but I just wanted to preempt it in case anyone does think that, and say, nope.
I mean it WORKS for some people, in that it might get people with low self-esteem to go out with you. But it’s called emotional abuse then. So it doesn’t work in any kind of healthy relationship.
I don’t think so. The look on her face is kind of too clueless, imho. Like, it doesn’t look like a plotting face? I think Anna may just… not be good at compliments, or people. But if it is meant to be negging, I’m sure we’ll see shortly.
Intent would be the icing on the shit cake. The effect is the same.
Well, it can’t be negging without the intent. Minus the intent to psychologically damage someone so that they’ll be more attracted to you, it’s just being rude, or a jerk, or terrible at giving compliments to the nth degree. (Although I think this sort of compliment would be pretty typical from a tsundere character, and also Walky threw a hard plastic toy and hit Dorothy in the head so I’ve seen worse compliments in this strip and cartoons in general.)
I didn’t say it wasn’t rude, or hurtful. I just said I think it wasn’t negging.
“Tsundere” only exists in anime though, everywhere else they’re called socially unacceptable jerks…
What’s “acceptable” tends to be a case by case basis, tbh. Some people are mean and rude. I accept that (socially).
Socially acceptable means “what is accepted by society” not “what is accepted by the individual” Society at large considers being a giant jerkass to everyone to be unacceptable.
I didn’t say tsundere characters weren’t jerks, although to say the trope only exists in anime is… I mean, no. Plenty of tsundere characters exist in western media. They’re just generally not called that. “Jerk with a heart of gold” is a very similar trope. The idea is just that of a person who is uncomfortable with expressing affection directly and coats it in layers of jerkitude, either intentionally or through pure social clumsiness.
I mean, Joe… is arguably an example in this comic. (NOT ALL TSUNDERE ARE LIKABLE, OR GOOD PEOPLE.) Sarah definitely is.
God, how did I miss Walky. Walky was textbook tsundere in his early appearances.
Mike is a jerk with a heart of Unobtainium.
Hah. Mike definitely doesn’t count, without a lot more character development. (And a lot of readers won’t forgive him then, which will be fully within their rights, because by the time we actually see Mike admit that he cares about anyone else he will probably have hurt a LOT more people.
)
Ok, fair enough, you clarified well enough that I wouldn’t argue terminology further here. Most of the time people use the term “tsundere” (in my experience anyway) they imply that it’s acceptable behaviour in some way because wuv or whatever, when really it isn’t.
Although seeing your later comment about stretching definitions I would still say that so far the best-fitting term accoriding to observed and not assumed behaviour is negging. Ok, will go away now.
In real life, “Tsundere” are called Hot and Cold people and they’re very much a thing as I admit to being one myself. Very often I’m fuming with anger at society then I’m extremely mellow the other times. People often comment its off-putting but my wife likes it.
I.. think I’m going with “negging does not require intent”. kinda like how robin’s boundary-stomping didn’t require intent.
They don’t know they’re terrible, that’s what makes them terrible.
Oh, oh OH, that’s what makes them ter-ri-ble!
OK, but that’s really stretching the definition, because it’s a PUA term and the manipulativeness is a big part of what it means. There’s nothing wrong with just saying Anna is being an ass.
I wish I could edit or delete comments. I’d take out like. Half of what I’ve said so far this morning, probably. I’m just being snippy at this point.
ehh, fuck PUAs (or rather, don’t)
mostly I think the term is more useful when it’s defined to not require intent. like then you can specify “intentional negging” vs “unintentional negging” vs “negging” and “this specific way of unintentionally being an ass”.
that’s getting kinda pedantic, I suppose, but it also feels important in a more general way I don’t have words for yet.
and now I wish I could edit coments too, my words are getting all tangled up. but it’s not an important comment anyways
Oh man, it really bothers me when people use “negging” just to mean insulting people though? Whether or not they’re aware of it being a PUA move, actively trying to make the other person uncomfortable so they will try and prove themselves to you is the *definition* of negging. Doing it because you’ve observed it “works” without being 100% cognisant counts, yes.
But sometimes people are just either habitually rude, or have the entire end goal of making the other person feel bad (in similar situations I feel are mislabelled “negging”.)
Negging means that you’re insulting someone to lower their self-worth so you can control them. Being an asshole just means you’re a jerk. One is mind-games, the other is just an attitude. Certainly, I like Anna as someone who is mean and I like mean people in general. It’s an attractive quality. I would feel less so if they were trying to dominate me like the Joker does Harley.
Was that Monkey Master toy hard plastic, though? I thought it looked a bit floppy here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/02-uphill-from-here/retrieve-2/
i really one hundred percent think it depends totally on delivery
like. if you play it as Anna staring soulfully at Leslie’s face and just letting words stream out of her mouth, then it’s not really that bad in context of everything else that she’s said. like. Leslie’s nose isn’t even that big. and more to the point – Anna noticed Leslie’s nose. which is pretty cute!! much like Mindy’s caterpillar eyebrows.
on the other hand, if you read Anna as being an essentially abusive person, then this is obviously negging and a major red flag. so it is…very much two different strips being read.
There’s way more evidence saying Mindy’s single because she has caterpillar eyebrows, etc. Unless youre saying she was soulfully staring at Becky and letting “buy your butter and get out of my ass” stream out of her mouth, too.
On the other hand, maybe Leslie’s just some kind of sub and seeks out a certain level of jerkassery in her life.
i mean, i really don’t think you say things like this while thinking hard about the things you are saying. it sounds more like it comes out of the Dave Strider school of elocution. who says “buy your butter and get out of my ass”, like, really. Anna apparently!!!
ackldjfdslkfjdslfjds you just made my lose my biscuits
i feel like Leslie would make a slightly better dom, but like…maybe a switch? so she could get dominated and then dominate in return and satisfy both sides of her. and i mean…being a jerk is totally good grounds for punishment
why. why am i here. what has the internet made of me
Leslie’s background seems similar in DoA to Shortpacked (religious family, got married young to a dude, realized she was gay and got divorced and disowned).
In Shortpacked she’s happily married to Robin, and she was definitely attracted initially to Robin’s very forward, abrasive personality. It’s just what Leslie likes in women, to the point that it’s probably somewhat unhealthy. I view her as pretty submissive, TBH.
i mean there’s a level of which asking “who’s the dom and who’s the sub” in your relationship feels like asking who’s the man and who’s the wife, b/c of gender norm reasons
but i mean bdsm is a lot more complicated than just who’s more naturally passive vs. active, or who’s more assertive and who’s less assertive. it’s gotta be about what dynamics get you off, or so i hear
just because leslie likes robin’s forwardness and abrasiveness doesn’t mean she couldn’t get off on dominating her in bed, because it’s a role reversal and that sort of thing can be really refreshing. and Leslie gets very clear about what she does and doesn’t want out of her relationships towards the end of shortpacked, which is only a good thing.
tl;dr robin may have started out as leslie’s sugar daddy but she ended up in a slave leia costume for COMPELLING REASONS
Let’s look at it this way. I don’t think Anna’s being lecherous. I don’t even think she’s flirting. Does she even realize Leslie’s flirting with her? Her face is less scowly than it was, but it’s also far too matter-of-fact to seem like there’s any greater intent within her words. Think of sitcom tropes, and how this is turning out; is it more likely Anna and Mindy will compete for Leslie’s affections? Unnecessary; Anna already has them. Let’s look at a different angle then: is this turning out to be a chain of unreciprocal affections? I mean, most likely. Mindy’s trying to be more assertive to, for lack of a better word woo Leslie; But leslie’s got her eyes on Anna right now. Would it not finish the chain for Anna, who wasn’t even involved in the scheme and just happened into it, who hasn’t displayed any major change in behavior or speech, to not really notice Leslie’s own affections? This is my theory anyway.
But, even if we consider Anna in the best possible light here, what is Leslie’s response? She just took the compliment, turned it even more flattering that it was, and completely disregarded the harshness that immediately followed it. And Anna noticing Leslie’s nose isn’t the same as thinking it’s cute, let us be frank. She thinks it’s big. By her face here she probably doesn’t think of it any more than that. But Leslie didn’t think about the comment at all. And I still like Anna okay, I like plenty of fictional jerks, but they’ve gotta at least be addressed as a jerk to be likable.
So, if you will follow me on why this isn’t so much Really Awful as most people claim it is, but is still Kinda Yikes: Anna is most definitely not negging Leslie, but Leslie is allowing herself to be negged.
Side note, “allowing herself to be negged” is a gross fragment of a sentence and I abhor having to write it but I can’t think of any better way to condense “Leslie’s instant infatuation is keeping her from identifying inherent and prominent aspects of Anna’s personality and speech that, left unchallenged, will inevitably lead to personal strife and problems in whatever future they might have”
hahah that’s a fair interpretation but like
leslie is not psychic, and she doesn’t have access to the disputable wisdom of the comment section
how is she supposed to know in the first five seconds in which she’s met anna
I know! That’s the point of story arcs. You need to make these mistakes in the beginning if you’re gonna grow by the end. I’m not admonishing Leslie for not picking up, I’m just looking at the situation as is presented, and how they are all expressing folly in this strip in some capacity that are gonna end up crashing in one another.
If she weren’t so smitten by Anna she certainly could have seen both sides of the sentence. But she didn’t because that’s not the situation. And now all of these personalities are gonna be colliding because these are all people living their own messes prone to making mistakes of themselves. And that’s okay! Because bad decisions need to happen in narrative, because if everything you do is good and more importantly good for you, then you got a pretty boring story happening
yeeeeeeeeeeeee
oh!!! this was to me!! it is confusing
i get that feel from Anna, but if it’s intentional flirting it is a reactive instinctive flirting. i think she might just always be up for flirting, tbh
idk. I think, like, Leslie’s nose isn’t even that big – i say, as someone who compared it to Pearl’s from SU. it’s pretty adorable. Anna pointing it out might just be her way of covering up that she actually gave a compliment?? who knows. is this just anna’s way of saying i like your face. i don’t. i don’t know. does she make fun of the things and people she loves. is she this kind of person
i think Anna has a habit of pointing out people’s flaws that can be incredibly hurtful. Leslie not being hurt by that yet is maybe…her just not noticing it…or her, like, focusing on the fact that Anna liked her hair.
i don’t think you can allow yourself to be negged. negging is something that is done to you, not the other way around. it’s usually a little more manipulative than this – “you’re so lucky i like you for your brain and not your looks.” “you’re so stupid, what would you do without someone like me around?” “haha, i’ve never minded overweight women. Some people do, but I don’t!” there’s a level of entrapment there.
whereas Anna does not seem to be trying to get anything from Leslie that she doesn’t already have, while Leslie is falling for someone she just met who is attractive to her. and, i mean, a lot of people wear rose colored glasses when they’re crushing on someone they just met. soooo…i don’t think she’s negging herself, because she doesn’t seem to be saying anything negative to herself. she’s just taking what Anna said in a positive light.
which is kind of the opposite of negging, because negging is about digging the negative in with a fishhook and bait. looking at the positive can be wilful ignorance, and it can be dangerous, but it’s not manipulative that way. except in the sense of manipulating your own mental health and emotional happiness.
wow I read your comment and thought “oh, maybe Anna is just uninterested in relationships, maybe she’s aro/ace and that’s why Mindy can’t be with her”… but then I realized ‘asexual who’s kind of a jerk’ is already Carla’s schtick.
I’m pretty sure that’s just the way she talks.
No. I think she’s just an ass.
Absolutely, yes.
Yeah but apparently it’s cool because she’s a woman and not white or something?
No, people aren’t saying it’s cool for Anna to be a jerk because she is a woman of colour, that’s a misunderstanding. I think it’s more that a lot of people have a tendency to be harsher on a black person’s anger than on a white person’s. Even people who are into social justice can do this, as a lot of racism is subconscious. The same goes for the anger of women and other marginalised populations.
That doesn’t mean you can’t ever call any black person a jerk, just to be aware that if a white person were to engage in the same behaviour you might be a bit more forgiving, so it’s usually best to suspend judgement a bit more in these situations.
I think there was also one commenter who was disappointed with Willis for contrasting the rude black person with the nice white person in the comments section of the strip where we met Mindy, which I think is a fair enough criticism to make given how often this trope appears in media.
POLYAMOROUS LESBIANS!! *bangs on table* POLY LESBIANS!!
No Anna is fucking terrible.
Completely agree. Leslie quit being a silly and stop rewarding horrid people with your attention.
You’d think someone teaching university students about healthy interpersonal relationships would be better at this, but then again I guess that’s exactly the ‘joke’
Do you have any idea how many psychiatrists need therapy?
all of them
like i’m pretty sure all psychiatrists go to therapy just as a matter of course
I should hope so!
I once spent a couple of hours helping out on r/suicidewatch and it was incredibly exhausting. Worth it, but still. It’s hard to imagine doing that sort of thing on a regular basis.
god
yeah i tried helping at 7cupsoftea and it was just. draining
If I recall correctly, having a sit on the couch yourself is actually a required part of becoming a psychiatrist.
I don’t think that’s supposed to be a joke at all.
Relationships are almost always easier to evaluate objectively from the outside. Your hormones actively work to disrupt rational thinking, because they’re trying to get you to make babies. Lots of them.
Having a degree and teaching a class that deals with the subject doesn’t you have perfect, robotic control over your feelings or impulses.
In almost all situations I am heartily in favor of poly lesbians; however, Anna needs not to be in any kind of relationship while she’s talking like that.
As a poly lesbian (sort of), I have to agree. Anna is not suited for poly lesbian status.
Yeah, like, with poly relationships specifically in mind, abrasive and rude types like Anna don’t typically facilitate open and caring communication.
Damn. One day Joyce and Becky will learn real life shipping is only okay when the people involved say it is okay.
It doesn’t appear that that day will be today.
double damn it
It’s not real life, they’re all cartoon characters.
yeah but it’s real to them
Exactly.
Nothing wrong with real life shipping as long you don’t actually interfere without consent. It’s perfectly acceptable to think people would make a good couple and even suggest it.
Becky and Joyce go way the hell over the line of course.
It’s okay to suggest it, but once someone says ‘not interested’ that’s when you back off. Joyce and Becky seriously need to learn to back off, especially since earlier today Leslie told Becky she didn’t want to date anyone for a while.
The first thing outta Anna’s mouth is.pretty telling.
I like Mindy in the last panel. No way she’s gonna let Anna treat Leslie like that and he cool with it.
Anna’s an asshole, it seems like.
I think Mindy is an awful person who has basically stalked her ex for a decade and talks smack about her before stealing her dates. Mindy is the Nice Girl, which I’ve never actually seen in fiction before.
Wow.
>.<
Where are you getting this narrative? Stalking? They’re roommates, who clearly came here together, and Anna is the one who turned around to interject herself into Becky and Mindy’s conversation. Also nowhere in the comic does Mindy “talk smack” about Anna unless you count her pointing out that her parents disapproved of Anna, presumably because of the insulting way she communicates, which she only brings up in the context of a conversation about support or lack there of from parents *after* Anna is a jerk to her and the person she’s talking to. Nor have I seen any real evidence that Anna is interested in Leslie. Unless we are assuming that her backhanded compliment is some kind of effusive declaration of “dibs”. Even if it were appropriate to lay claim to people in that way no one is “date stealing” here, no dates have been offered or sought outside of the one Mindy is demanding. In fact Leslie was brought over here specifically to be set up with Mindy, a fact which it can be reasonably assumed both Mindy and Anna are aware. Becky isn’t exactly attempting to be subtle.
I have little opinion on Mindy or Anna, but you seem to be reading into these characters a history and motivations that the comic doesn’t yet support. (Heck in a comment lower down you claim *Becky* treated Anna poorly…somehow…despite not having said much of anything outside of “sorry” to Anna.)
In fact now that I think about it, why is Anna still standing there? She was in a big impatient hurry before and now she has time to stand around forcing herself into Mindy’s conversations and to wait for Becky to go get Leslie? Deli meats don’t generally take that long, and even if they did Mindy can stay and get them seeing as she’s struck up a conversation. Anna could have gotten Mindy “outta [her] ass” simply by going off and getting the butter she tried to send Mindy for.
I hadn’t really formed an opinion of Anna outside of being kind of rude before, but the more I think about her part of this interaction the more of a jerk she seems like.
As someone that once purchased and delivered groceries professionally let me tell you that the deli section of a grocer is a black hole from which time itself is the greatest casualty. Gods have mercy if you desire more than one cut of meats.
…
*shudders in remembrance*
Anna was bored before, and wanted to leave. Now, she’s entertained, and wants to stick around. No big mystery.
Thats what I assumed, my question was rhetorical. My point is that the Anna as a victim who has been treated poorly and stalked narrative that the person I was replying to seems to be pushing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense given the context. Anna interjected herself in the rudest way possible into a conversation that originally had nothing to do with her, and was trying to end that conversation. She is not owed positive engagement by Mindy or Becky. (Heck if she wanted an interesting conversation with Becky she could have continued their initial interaction and maybe found out what Beck was so focused on. But thats not what Anna wanted.) Mindy’s behavior during the interaction with Leslie may be a different matter, but if anyone is being treated poorly in that conversation its Leslie. If Anna also wants to try and get a date out of this she may, but this isn’t CoD and there has been no kill stealing.
GET IT MINDY
the face that hijacked the ship that was launched by the face that didn’t intend to launch that particular ship
Go eyebrows! I believe in you.
Also wow, Anna is shitty even when being nice. And… Leslie likes it? Girl.
Well, she either likes it or was too flustered / insecure to recognize it
Actúa that’s Leslie’s entire romantic life nicely summarized.
Too flustered to pay attention to the signs.
Too right. I would not, given the circumstances, listen to Leslie regarding relationships.
Geji mayu is fierce
Look who’s talking with the nose. Or do you think those glasses draw attention?……Cause they don’t.
Was that negging from Anna, or did it just accidentally resemble negging? Either way, disapprove. Leslie, love yourself, honey.
It’s that, or she’s incredibly bad at compliments
I don’t think it matters if if was intentional or not, it still activated the same insecurity
I’m half talking about character intent, half about authorial intent. Imo both change the tone of this strip, depending on which it is.
Mm. I think Willis knows what Anna is doing, but I’m not sure if Anna does. To me, it’s bad whether or not she intends it because it creates an unhealthy effect on the person being negged
I thought negging was purposefully insulting someone to lower their self-esteem and make them more susceptible to the idea of dating (or screwing). Insulting someone makes them feel bad, but I thought only doing so with that as a conscious aim was negging. Is that incorrect?
I guess it wouldn’t be negging if there’s no conscious intent to do so by the person insulting the other. Intent probably means everything even if the end results are exactly the same.
No, it’s not incorrect. It’s a PUA term, and it has a definition. If it’s not manipulative, it’s just being an ass.
It’s not uncommon for abusers to use psychological tools with no intellectual understanding of what they are or what they do, though. If Anna is just giving backhanded compliments out of habit, it’s probably a habit she’s developed because she likes the results, i.e. the manipulating of people into craving her lowering of their self esteem. I see no great need to differentiate between self-aware intention and intuitive intention.
I agree with all mankind on this—abusers will neg without really registering they’re negging, and they call it “being bad at compliments”. The problem is that their “being bad at compliments” manifests as a fear of giving unconditional praise, and there are only a few reasons for that fear to exist.
“i like what you do with your hair. distracts from your big-ass nose” anna i’m crying is this your idea of a compliment
oh my god are mindy and anna gonna compete over leslie to solve their unrequited sexual tension i am SCREAMING
unrequited. unresolved??? what are words
So I’m curious, what do you think about that whole racial dynamic we were talking about, now that we’re a few strips in?
mmmmm from the comments section i definitely think that it’s a thing. like. Anna gets cut so much less slack than, say, Mike. despite Mike being more coldbloodedly vicious with his comments, and Anna just kind of being…gleefully pointing out people’s flaws for whatever reason. instead of stockpiling them to use them.
I think there’s less of a bad racial dynamic in the strip itself the way things have been set up, because Anna is clearly presented as super desirable by at least Mindy and Leslie. and because she’s not being ignored by the narrative, whatsoever. her screentime has not been diminished for any of the white ladies around her, and that’s like the primary marker of inequitable racial treatment
…i kind of think that Anna is an attention-seeker, tbh. because she started out being upset at being ignored. and like pretty much every insult she’s made is a grab for attention, i feel like
I agree completely with that, I quite like how she’s presented in the comic. And I was actually just thinking that everyone was being too hard on her, probably because of her race. Thanks for helping me confirm.
i don’t think it’s explicit racism, more just…implicit. like. the buildup of ages of not having to empathize with brown women, or see them as complex people who can also be jerks while still being people. not so much a force as an influence. but i feel like it’s there
and i mean none of us can escape being racist because we live in a racist society and in some sense we all benefit from racism (and imperialism!!) whether or not we want to
but……..choosing not to try and understand where someone is coming from is still a choice
Definitely. We all have to deal with the way our society trains us to view people of color. The trick is to recognize that and to fight against it, at least that’s how I do it.
yuuuuuuup
it is always a work in progress but that doesn’t mean that the work isn’t worth doing
When you say “we all benefit from racism,” do you really mean “all”? Just trying to understand your comment and perspective.
If it helps with moderation, I’m asking this as a Black person. I recognize that I benefit from imperialism (being American), but I’m unsure about the idea of Black people in America benefiting from racism, though there may be nuance to discuss.
mostly, like, we benefit from racism towards other people
like so many of our clothes are made in third-world countries by people making barely a pittance. and, i mean, these clothes are our cheap clothes, and they get sold to poor people because that is what they can afford, and so you literally have to buy clothes that are cheap because other people were discriminated against and probably lost so many years of life because of it. and you don’t get a choice in that because you’re poor, but still. nobody escapes unscathed. there is no ethical living in a society that has racism, even for people who get discriminated against, and you can’t avoid participating in it, even if it’s something as simple as self-hate
i think the major term is intersectionality or maybe kyriarchy? and it is like. a living breathing system with so many roots and tendrils and sprouters that it can’t be removed cleanly. only by concentrated and determined fighting wherever it is at whenever possible
i mean, i am speaking as a white person so there are probably a ton of overgeneralizations here and undercomplications but this is my understanding of how this works. maybe the best wording isn’t “benefits” but like everyone has to participate in it regardless of whether or not we benefit from it, and none of our hands are clean
Malaya
This is an interesting read of Anna. Now I am sad for both her AND Mindy.
“primary marker of inequitable racial treatment” ackdslfjdskfjsdlfjs like what about actual racist treatment, zoe. not that not having screentime isn’t a part of that, because how much screentime determines a lot of how much thought is put into your story, but it’s not a freaking guarantee
so many elements go into this it is not just one thing it is never just one thing
I think it’s notable since Anna has come on screen, she’s been dismissed and treated like shit by not just a lot of people in the comments section (despite there being many similar abrasive characters with fans) but also Becky and Mindy.
How has Becky treated Anna like shit? Other than the initial “didn’t realize she was in the deli line” thing, I guess.
Mindy’s said a couple things that could be taken that way.
….i don’t think she’s been treated like shit by Becky and Mindy, really, since it’s…really hard to respond to comments like the ones that Anna makes. but mostly they just ignored her, except for a few passive-aggressive barbs that Mindy threw
and i don’t think Anna likes being ignored, which is why she acts the way she does, but it doesn’t mean she automatically merits their attention when she is being insulting
TBH, I *hate* Mike, I always *have* hated Mike, and the ship in Shortpacked creeped me the *fuck* out. I’m fine with Anna as a character, but I’m definitely not feeling her as a strong romantic option. I do feel like there’s a double standard on the other side—we all have trouble pegging negging as negging when a woman does it.
Of course, I also think Anna’s demand would come across as a bit uncomfortable if she was a dude. Maybe I just have no sense of humor.
^I also dislike Mike
This is also p much how I’m reading this right now.
I’m surprised that some of the other comments see Mindy’s sudden coming-onto-Leslie as interest in Leslie, or defense of her from Anna’s maybe-attempted-compliment, because all I see is Becky saying “oh well, as long as Leslie gets married to ONE of you, dibs on bridesmaid!” and Mindy going, “O– oh… oh, right, Anna might… wind up married to this woman, and disappear forever…” and trying to stop that from happening.
The most optimistic take for Mindy’s feelings for Anna being requited is that they broke up mutually or maybe somehow through a miscommunication and Anna has no idea Mindy still has feelings for her and Mindy has decided to act on them and maybe Anna will realize she still has feelings for Mindy…
(You could definitely read Anna’s derisiveness about Mindy’s eyebrows as a poorly-socialized way of trying to keep Mindy single, too? But right now I’m reading her as totally unaware of the fact that Mindy’s still carrying a bit of a torch.)
But there’s so many different directions this could still go!! I hope everyone winds up happy at the end of it but the chances of high drama in the meantime and love triangle-y hijinks are not low by any means.
for whatever reason Anna finds it impossible not to point out people’s flaws!!! which really seems to be her main trait, hahah ohmygod. and i think that’s a huge part of the reaction she’s gotten, because absolutely no one likes to have their personal/behaviorial flaws pointed out. n o b o d y. and she just does this 24/7
i think what will be really telling is figuring out how Anna talks to herself. is she this sharp with herself? i think it’s entirely probable, because a lot of the time when people are this sharp with others they are even worse to themselves.
I think – it probably is all happening too quickly for Mindy to act on anything other than instinct. but i do think this domineering attitude is a really, really bad one. like, way to ignore Leslie’s actual interest. or Anna’s.
i think Anna and Mindy have had to have broken up mutually to be amicable later. and even close enough to be roomies. but, i mean, who knows at this point. it could even be something like going to different colleges that broke them up
i read them both as having feelings for each other that are pretty strong if terribly expressed. maybe they just don’t want to lose the friendship??? idk. but, yeah, I read them as being equally unaware of the other person’s feelings, and trying to poke at whatever is there while being unable to see past the end of their own noses. le sigh. learning to express love is hard.
so much drama. so intense.
The way I see it, I think Anna’s more insulting comments towards Mindy earlier is a way of trying to get Mindy out of holding a torch. I’m just making probably bad assumptions here, but I think both Mindy and Anna still have feelings for each other, but Anna thinks they were bad for each other. Her more jerkish remarks while being a part of her core personality are also probably supposed to be implying “this is why we broke up Mindy, we’re not good for each other as a couple and if we try that again we might not be able to stay friends”. Also, I actually interpreted Anna’s comments towards Leslie here as an attempt to redirect Leslie towards Mindy. Like a “Shit, she’s supposed to be interacting with Mindy, quick be slightly more abrasive than normal” reaction. Maybe I’m giving Anna to much credit. But also, people can be jerks and still be likeable. Anna’s probably naturally abrasive. And as a queer woman of color she probably has to deal with more stress and frustration that furthers that abrasive nature. Additionally, living with an ex you may still have feelings for is probably fraying both Mindy and Anna. Also, as I ranted a bit about a couple days ago, going to the grocery store can be a very hellish experience for some people. I honestly think Anna is being more reasonable than she could be (and definitely more reasonable than I would be in a similar situation) if very snide. Of course I’m not coming at this from the “negging” perspective, so that probably has something to do with my interpretation.
maybe??? i don’t know if Anna is that invested in helping influence her friends’ emotions. i get the picture that it’s just…how she sees the world, through the lens of people’s flaws. which is something that can be kind of depressing and also anxiety-inducing.
i am sure that Anna has a ton of reasons for being the way that she is, though, and i’m super curious about them
“The way I see it, I think Anna’s more insulting comments towards Mindy earlier is a way of trying to get Mindy out of holding a torch.”
that’s plausible on the surface, but also doomed to fail.. well, has already failed, for like ten years apparently.
I doubt Anna is oblivious enough to keep trying the same ineffective tactic for ten years straight.
“going to the grocery store can be a very hellish experience for some people.”
In my case, people acting like Anna is one of the things that can make it hellish.
this is going to be a game of serial escalation between mindy’s and anna’s assertiveness, won’t it. :p
oh, this will go delightfully bad. XD
Look at that. Negging does work, after all!
Gross.
So Leslie’s self esteem must be pretty fucking terrible.
Grrrr. Pisses me off that it’s working on Leslie.
I have great self esteem when it comes to relationships, but being negged made me feel fucking awful. I wanted to punch the guy.
Yeah if your self esteem is basically good negging tends not to work. The fact that it apparently works very easily on Leslie is why I said her self esteem must not be great. Tat’s what’s so awful about this method of “seduction” it preys on those who have difficulty defending themselves and intrinsically understanding they deserve better.
Finally get a character with my name and this is what I get. Thanks Willis
no this is “anna-banana-fee-fi-fo-shannah”, anna* for short. it’s a common misconception
*hopefully this headcanon makes u feel at least five percent better
It does <3
I want to see Becky MacIntyre: Lesbian Love Sleuth on a major network immediately! Make it so, Willis.
Clearly there is only one way to decide this. Fight to the death over the right to date Leslie!
Okay I’m almost positive Mindy is pushing for a date to keep Anna for herself but at the same time someone needs to save Leslie from her terrible fucking taste so I’m rooting for this.
I’m hoping it’s more Mindy realizing that Leslie is drawn to assertiveness and confidence (but apparently also being an asshole) and trying to display that as a result. It’s probably your thing though because that’s the most melodramatic possibility and this is Willis.
I am NOT fond of Anna. First of all, let Mindy’s eyebrows be as fluffy and gorgeous as she wants them to be. I also have occasionally overgrown brows so shove it. Second, you don’t give such backhanded compliments unless you’re a prickly person and not one to be nice to people. Anna, that’s not nice. Stop it.
I need to step in here and represent prickly people everywhere. We may be blunt, we may be grumpy but gosh darnit we don’t randomly insult people we’ve just met.
Especially as Anna doesn’t look annoyed during the insult. She looks chill like that was an okay thing to say.
Seriously people are doing us socially indelicate grumps a disservice by lumping Anna in with us. I’m tired of “blunt” being used as a euphemism for “cruelly indifferent to the feelings of others.”
Cosigned.
Sarah is prickly.
Anna is just a prick.
Double cosigned.
Sublime distinction made.
Becky MacIntyre: Lesbian Love Sleuth. Book 7 title? Possible spin-off miniseries?
Also, I wouldn’t go so far to call Anna terrible but rather blunter than a 4/20 blade. And Mindy is now giving off desperate Daisy vibes.
I’m guessing Mindy is going to force herself to act assertive enough to be Leslie’s type just long enough for it to be nice and messy when the pretense exhausts her.
I think we all can agree there will be a mess in the end of this.
It might be a good mess!
Yup, that’s my guess as well.
I think ya’ll are being a bit hard on Anna, she just casually insults people, it doesn’t seem personal or malevolent. She kinda reminds me of Billy a bit. Plus she’s funny.
Can’t we just call an asshole an asshole without trying to make it something cute? Not being able to go 5 minutes without insulting someone to their face isn’t fucking cut or funny or charming. She’s almost 30 and should have some idea by now how to talk to other people who with some basic level of respect. She’s a dick.
I mean, obviously “we” can, because around 80% of the comment section has been, and no one’s telling you folks not to, so … could we maybe have one comment section featuring Anna where no one yells at people who like her. Just. Please.
and let me be very clear: by “no one’s telling you not to”, I mean I have yet to see anybody reply to someone else’s negative-on-Anna comment to yell at them about how wrong their opinion is.
I wasn’t yelling?
I was speaking generally, but… these phrases did leap out at me as pretty dang hostile.
“trying to make it something cute” “[Anna] isn’t fucking cute or funny or charming” “she’s a dick”
These comments are being made every time someone says they like Anna. “Correcting” people who say they like her. Making dang sure they remember that she’s a jerk and no one should like her.
It’s exhausting and kind of depressing and if my stubbornness hadn’t been activated I would have just withdrawn from the comment section for a while because I’m really not enjoying commenting here.
I don’t read every single comment posted here. Sorry if you find my dislike of a character exhausting but I honestly find peoples eagerness to twist behavior I see as borderline abusive into something fun or funny to be pretty exhausting actually. So I’m going to say what I want to say. I’ll change my mind about Anna when I feel like she’s evolving but until then feel free to skip my comments.
“twist behavior I see as borderline abusive into something fun or charming”… apparently still not ‘yelling’, or being the least big hostile?
You can say what you want to say. No one is stopping you. zoe (and I) are just asking you to maybe not say it directly to us.
This is not an attempt to control you. This is a polite request.
*bit hostile, not big. sigh.
I never talked to either of you directly until you talked to me.All I did was respond to a comment and vented my frustration about a character like everyone does here all the time and I have now been told that I somehow had some kind of hostile intent with that comment that I never had and meant it as some kind of personal attack. You keep saying I mean things I don’t mean. You keep saying I’m doing things I’m not doing. I’m telling you that your responses have made me uncomfortable and they do in fact feel like attempts to control me and shut me down and honestly I’m done engaging.
Okay. Well. They weren’t. Coming into the comment section has lately made me fight back tears, so… we both feel crappy now. Which wasn’t my goal, but I very much need you to understand that the crappy feeling is mutual, and not only on your side of the keyboard.
@Li: I mean this doesn’t make me change my mind about what it felt like you were doing to me yesterday but it does give me some insight into why you were responding to me in such a way. I’m sorry the comment section has been so distressing for you lately. I think maybe you should read over what I actually said before because I get the vibe you weren’t really responding to my words but using my comment to vent your own frustration at a lot of previous comments made about Anna throughout week. That’s a very human reaction but it’s not really a fair one. Anyway I stand by everything I said before but I do genuinely hope you’re feeling better and suggest maybe if reading these things is such a taxing experience you should just avoid reading the comments when Anna shows up. But I fully understand I can no more make you do that then you and Zoe can make me stop responding to whatever I feel the need to respond to. So I guess we’ll all just do whatever we feel’s best and hopefully hurt feelings will be kept to a minimum.
…tone is hard to convey over text.
that being said, your words were kinda harsh here. and i mean you may not have been trying to come off as yelling, but it’s really easy for me personally to read it as yelling.
i understand and respect that you do not like anna. and that is totally your right! but, like, other people also have the right to like her regardless of your opinion. so i do think you were a little out of line.
i would suggest that maybe in future that if you want to vent maybe make your own post? and then you can find other people, who also need to vent, without being unnecessarily harsh towards people who do not share your opinion.
Okay I get that you probably feel like you’re doing your best to be very polite here but I honestly feel like you’re crossing a line with me right now. You really think it’s fair or appropriate to tell me what comments I’m allowed to respond to because you personally have decided you don’t like how I worded myself? I’m seriously just kind of blown away right now.
They were just making a suggestion, no one is ordering you to respond or not to respond to whatever you want. I personally don’t care, I enjoy debate, even heated ones. Others may feel differently.
noted! o7
ok, fair enough, i’m out
i’m sorry, li had this covered, i should have butted out
I don’t really feel like my thread was any more productive than yours.
yeah, but more than one person going in on something isn’t helpful, especially when it’s something this delicate
and oFFICIALLY OUT NO MORE WORDS
It’s totally fine to enjoy her as a character (enjoying jerk characters isn’t an uncommon thing), but handwaving her assholish behavior like the root comment up there did isn’t cool.
“I think ya’ll are being a bit hard on Anna, her comments don’t seem malevolent, and I find her funny” is not really… hand-waving her behavior (whatever that means?)
No one is being an Anna Stan up in here, trying to claim that she’s a perfect cinnamon roll who never did anything wrong.
also just yesterday people were calling her an abuser, and I expect more of that today. the comment section in general is not just calling her a jerk.
I mean. She’s still a pretty new character, so there’s time for a 180 turn, but remarks like that one about the nose actually are abusive when placed in a larger pattern, so.
1.) These comments were being made almost as soon as Anna appeared, way in advance of her bizarre maybe-compliment-maybe-insult-wtf-Anna comment on Leslie’s nose. People were immediately suggesting that Mindy’s parents had better taste than her and that Mindy being single (and sad about it) was good because it meant she didn’t have a horrible girlfriend, on and on and on.
But it is fine to dislike her, I’m not saying no one should dislike her, I just would like us to all afford each other a little bit more respect, because Anna and Mindy are fictional characters with no feelings to hurt, but there are real people behind every one of the comments that says “I like Anna”, and they do have feelings to hurt.
2.) I went back and checked on other character introductions way back at the beginning and Willis introducing people as unlikable jerks is actually pretty common. Billie’s intro was 100% her ragging on Walky for being a nerd and telling him to get the fuck away from her; Sarah’s intro was her saying low-key rude things to Joyce, while Joyce’s Stepford Smiling Unironic Love of Jesus did not net her many fans among new readers either; Ruth’s intro was threatening Joyce physically (and yes, Ruth was an abusive character, but I challenge you to say that that’s all we were meant to ever take out of her seven years later); and the first appearances of Dorothy and Danny split the audience pretty evenly on Dorothy being a cold-hearted bongo or Danny being a clingy overbearing Nice Guy ™ or both…
You say there’s time for a 180 like you don’t really think that will happen, but it’s kind of Willis’s pattern at this point to introduce about half his characters in ways that make them immediately unlikable and then deepen our understanding of them over time.
Li: My issue isn’t with people liking her as a character, it’s with one person saying that behavior that is a major abuse red flag isn’t malevolent or something to be hard on.
You’re kind of putting words in my mouth with your second paragraph. I said there’s time for her to do a 180 turn, but with the information we currently have now, this is how I feel. I am not making any kind of assumption about the future, either way, or comparing her to any other character.
Addendum to my last comment: Also, as of yesterday, I was going into this with hope that this might go well, and might be a positive thing for Leslie! So yeah, this was kind of disappointing for me how it turned out.
I shouldn’t really be responding to these comments at 1am, or fresh off of my very hurt feelings from yesterday’s comment section fiasco, so there’s also that. :\ Sorry if I am taking any of that out on you, that wouldn’t be fair.
I actually feel for Mindy a LOT in these panels. I just… have been very distracted by how polarized the comment section has become, which in turn is reflective of polarizing in fandoms at large, and the larger trend is particularly just… really saddening.
I have been abused. But these are fictional characters. That I don’t see Anna’s behavior as a major red flag of abuse does not mean that I… well, I don’t want to put more words in your mouth.
What is it that you want to correct me on, by telling me that Anna’s behavior is a red flag for abuse? What is your goal in conveying this information? Asking very, very genuinely.
Li: The person I am addressing, the person I in fact quoted, was not you. It was the thread OP. I am trying to address the narrow topic of this thread in particular, not the entire comments section. Like. You keep dragging the entire comments section for multiple days into this, and that is not what I am talking about. I keep trying to clarify my position, and I can’t tell whether it’s me not communicating effectively or what.
I’m…
OK, look. I brought that up as an explanation for my tone with you, as part of my apology, because I assume my tone with you has not been great. That is the only reason why I mentioned the context of the rest of the comment section.
When I ask you, “What is it you want to correct me on,” that is me, responding to you, telling me, that her behavior is a “major red flag of abuse”.
You just now said that to me. I am saying, “I don’t agree. What is it that you want to accomplish by arguing with me about it?”
That is, again, a very genuine question. Unless you’re saying that you wouldn’t argue at all, in which case I’ll just drop this entirely, because the last thing I want to do here is be a harassing presence.
Li: I…
*throws up hands* Idek what you want me to do here, because from the start you’ve been making this all about the past few days’ comments. Go back and read what you’ve written.
This entire thing has been me defending my first comment to you, “It’s totally fine to enjoy her as a character (enjoying jerk characters isn’t an uncommon thing), but handwaving her assholish behavior like the root comment up there did isn’t cool.” That is it. That is my position. You were the one who brought the word abuse and that whole rhetorical segue into it.
So to finally answer that question: If you disagree that insulting someone’s face in the guise of complimenting them while they’re flirting with you is a red flag for abuse, well, that’s your business and I’m frankly pretty done here because this has gotten SO far from the point I was making.
no, never mind. I’m going to drop this either way.
I am not in a good enough emotional place to be having these conversations without also hurting other people, clearly.
and like. two seconds late for that to read as anything other than a petulant tantrum, but. oh well. ._.
I think the reason people are reading it as hand-waving is that humanity has quite the habit of ignoring actual abusive behaviour from well-liked people. So people who see red flags in Anna are expecting that pattern to play out again, and while their responses are.. not great… I can’t really fault the feelings behind it.
Anna not being cis-white-male-etc complicates things more, since she’s got so much less privilege than the sort of person who tends to get away with abuse. I don’t think that gets factored in once the “it’s happening again” fear reaction gets going.
so on one side we’ve got “nooo don’t enable potential abuse” and on the other we’ve got “noo don’t assume the worst of the black woman”. which are both reasonable things, but they’re in conflict here, at least until we have more information.
see, and that’s what’s so deeply not okay with me:
I am not okay with being told that I am enabling potential abuse, especially not okay with being told that I would ever do this in real life, just because I decided to like this character we barely know anything about, who is a jerk.
There are larger societal trends at play in the reasons why, for example, Walter White on Breaking Bad was so much more popular than his wife. (I haven’t seen the show, I just know what I’ve heard, which is that the studio got enormous amounts of hate mail about her character, who they had tried to write as very sympathetic, to the point of the actress getting death threats.)
Walter White is a definitively horrible person. (The jury’s still kind of out for me on Anna, especially since I decided to go back and look at how most of the main cast was introduced back in the day — far from avoiding making characters unlikable on first blush, that almost seems to be Willis’s M.O.) But merely liking Walter White’s character is not sinister and does not tell anyone anything about a person.
I think it’s more like… you’re reminding people of a pattern of behaviour that scares them. even if you would never do those things yourself, the other commenters don’t know you well enough to know that. even if they do know that you wouldn’t do that, the reminder might be enough to freak them out anyways.
like, I have this friend who has a heart of gold, but an unfortunate habit of doing things that give off creepy vibes. I know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t do anything bad, but I can’t fault the women who choose to not take that chance, and stay away from him.
(I feel like I’m missing a piece of the puzzle here and it’s just barely out of reach… maybe someone else will find it for me)
You know, I know a guy almost exactly like that– well, I only felt like he was truly a good guy when I first met him, but I knew at least one person who would swear he was harmless and good. Many others were creeped out by him– me, I more just came to dislike him because I set really firm boundaries with him, the only time in my life that I managed to do that.
He ended up sexually assaulting someone, and so many of us weren’t surprised.
Anyway, this story had nothing to do with anything, it just came to my mind when I read your comment and apparently I’m in the mood to overshare.
the missing piece has something to do with the US fear-of-black-people… like, if people are honestly scared, but their fear is based in something fucked-up like racism, I have no idea how to address that.
plus I’m sure there are some commenters who are just being jerks themselves.
I think maybe… it has to be ok for people to go “this is scaring me please don’t”. but it’s not ok for people to attack you for scaring them. (y’know, so long as you’re not waving a
phoneknife in their face or anythingOkay, I’m not interested in the whole Anna debacle but reading through, I’ve become very concerned about you and the things you’ve stated because it looks like you may be setting yourself up to be very, very hurt. “I am not okay with being told that I am enabling potential abuse” – that is not a healthy attitude to have and I deeply hope you talk to someone about it. Whatever you think about Anna’s behavior, potential abuse is something to be concerned about, not spend hours arguing away because you think the potential perpetrator is “not so bad”, instead of examining their actions. A lot of passionate young people don’t realize that abusers aren’t evil mustache-twirling A-shirt-wearing villains plotting to slap around and isolate hapless young women, they’re often vulnerable, hurt people who genuinely think their actions are normal and justified, and convince their victims of such – it’s just ribbing, can’t you take a joke, I’m just telling it like it is, you should listen to my constructive criticism and stop being so sensitive, we’re friends and friends insult each other, you know you love it. Being a past abuse victim does NOT excuse one’s actions and definitely does NOT make one less subceptible to subsequent abuse.
Also, one thread that’s very common through abuse narratives is the abuser blaming the victim for their emotional reactions, not just justifying their degradation and aggression, but further beating down the victim with such statements as “this hurt me more than it hurt you, “I only said that because you don’t know how bad you’ve made me feel”, “telling me my words are harmful made me cry for hours”, “you manipulated me into saying those things”, “I just couldn’t control myself when you said those horrible things baby, I won’t hit you anymore if you promise to be nice”. It’s a huge part of why victims feel responsible for their abusers, not good enough for anyone else, deserving of hatred and having low self-esteem.
You can bet your ass my mom still feels like a victim for “having to” attempt to strangle me because I’m such a terrible sarcastic child and she’s had such a hard life having been abused herself. Self-analysis is a gift that is not given to many.
I think another missing piece is that saying someone is acting in a way that scares you is itself a “scary” action, since it’s so often used as a way to dehumanize someone and excuse hurting them.
There’s no good answer when both people are being genuine. But there is an enormous difference between saying Anna is showing red flags and saying Li is, and I think it’s fair to ask people to consider the effects their words will have before crossing that line.
Eh, I think there’s enough room in the world for one or two jerks. I admit I was disenchanted by her attitude at first. But she’s grown on me.
Contrary to what the internet has told you, it’s not a cool subversive character trait to casually insult people. It just makes one a jerk that’s unpleasant to be around.
Idk, she can’t be that unpleasant to be around if so many women want to hang out with her lol
…we have a sample size of one, Mindy, plus two women who have spent maybe five minutes tops around her and at least one of which hasn’t enjoyed that time (Becky)
How is that “so many women”?
Becky doesn’t seem to mind that much tbh. She has thick skin. And I like her, so that makes three people. Just saying, she’s really not that bad.
I don’t think you and I are even reading the same comic here.
This I agree with. It’s clear that two very different versions of the comic are being read by various people right now.
Becky hasn’t had any insults directed at her (well, not completely unprovoked ones at least), and she’s rather preoccupied with getting someone to smooch Leslie and not paying a ton of attention.
While I agree we haven’t seen enough of Anna to say she’s a monster, she’s still clearly kind of an asshole.
Even if she’s just being playful with all the insults, which would be fine with people like Mindy who know her well enough to take that as intended, she only just met Leslie. That’s not okay.
Yeah, she’s a bit of a jerk, but this comic is full of people who are a bit of a jerk, yet still perfectly loveable.
Yes, but usually we’ve seen the non-jerky side of them, or else they’re lovable as characters rather than as people. And even people capable of liking jerks aren’t going to like every jerk.
Also jerks get laid all the fucking time. It means nothing.
Hey, she can be a jerk and also fun to hang out with haha
People tend to find confidence attractive, unless it comes across (to them) as arrogance, etc. People who don’t give a shit about other people (or what those other people think of them) tend to present as very confident. (Those who do care are, likewise, sometimes perceived as insecure.)
Turns out PUA tactics also work on queer woman. Doesn’t actually make them appropriate.
Leslie and Mindy are both pushover characters who have established histories of being attracted to women who have dominating, borderline abusive personalities. Yes, I am including Anna in my summary of Mindy’s attraction patterns, because JESUS, ANNA.
Les has this as an established history. Mindy doesn’t have an established history beyond Anna, yet.
As I said, I’m including Anna in Minda’s history. Unfair? Yes.
i think that’s the kind of thing that is easier to convey in person than over text/picture
like. tone and body language and posture and all the ins and outs of how you say something mean so much. and it’s hard to explain over a flat medium
Definitely. Based on my limited ability to analyze, I think she’s doing it in a relatively non offensive manner, as no one seems particularly offended so far.
pretty much just like…the other characters in the strip
but because this is a day-by-day thing, it feels bigger to everyone outside because we get it in separated increments instead of minutes
so…it’s easier to develop a strong opinion of someone quickly based on little information
This is also my current sticking point. No one has seemed hurt by what Anna’s saying (to me), which makes me much more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt that her tone is friendly or something. :|a
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve happily continued to talk with someone who was hurting me. It’s a defence mechanism. (and not a great one)
OTOH, this is a comic, so maybe Willis would be giving us clearer hints (like the eyes during Rachel’s rant) but, I think it could still easily go either way.
I’m not saying it never happens, just that if people seemed, to me, to be being hurt by what she was saying in the comic, it would definitely change my mental picture of the tone she’s using.
Does that make sense?
so you’re saying “if people were hurt then I would rethink things”, not “nobody is getting hurt”?
that does make more sense
it is really hard to tell someone to stop. like. it breaks so many social rules. it’s not polite to tell someone to stop, however much they need to stop, and however much being clear resolves the situation. because being clear and precise hurts. and you have to be really careful about this even so, because what if you’re wrong, or what if you give them the wrong impression? even if you couldn’t prevent them getting whatever impression in the first place
and i mean, even when someone’s hurting you, it’s not like that’s always the only thing they do for you
it’s complicated and ambiguously grey and there are not always a ton of clear answers
Somehow I’m reminded of Beldin from Belgariad who insulted people every chance he got… Anna is much prettier than he was though XD
Guess this Leslie has a thing for messed-up lesbian relationships too.
Oh thank god.
This is all just gonna end horribly.
Won’t it?
So Anna is secretly Renee from Questionable Content, right?
Spot on. I was just thinking that she’s a Jeph Jacques character that somehow wandered into DoA.
Presumably she has some reason why it would be problematic and uncool to call her out for being obnoxious or just not enjoy it, like, say, Faye.
I think the difference is the general mood of the stories. QC feels much more light-hearted and some well-worded burn was pretty much the punchline in every early comic, which was somehow dull but also normalized this kind of banter. Here, we already have several established character relationships built on abuse, so readers are much faster to judge a new character and assume the worst in the future. I’d personally say, it’s just a hint, I don’t like Anna’s behavior much but let’s wait a few strips with judgement to see how this develops.
Yep. “Hey, assbutt” is an address of affection in QC. And I don’t remember many insults lobbed at strangers based on their appearance.
Anna is Faye who turned a little bit more abrasive on account of never getting to meet a super hot muscle robot lady.
So Renee?
She’s the Secret Bakery version of Faye whose abrasiveness is her major character trait.
Anna is the kind of person I’d hate to meet but love to see in fiction so long as she stays on the goddamned page and never manifests in real life.
If she’s Mindy, then where’s Mork?
morks her brother
Oh, so that’s why Becky was so happy about her being single.
Man, Leslie seems to always go for the jerky characters don’t she?
Why do I feel like Becky overdosed on 80s sitcoms as a child?
Watchin’ ’em on old VHS tapes because she wasn’t born until 1999, and it was that or Veggie Tales.
Considering the sliding time of this strip, she probably grew up on “Leave it to Beaver” and “My Three Sons”.
maybe i love lucy too
Becky. Can you be my wing woman??????????? PLZ?
Mindy is making me feel sad. ‘You don’t have to like me.’ She says, while smiling awkwardly. Someone has low self-esteem and likely self-loathing and this upsets me a great deal more than it probably should but it makes me sad anyway.
Solution: Mindy should date me. I offer unlimited hugs and snuggles and baked goods to taste-test regularly.
Dating someone like Anna must have been great for her.
nice, assertive, i think that will work
Mindy, don’t get weird about this.
ok all y’all going on about leslie’s terrible taste need to back the heck up because
1) it is leslie’s terrible taste, to have and to hold. you don’t have to share it for it to be legitimately hers!! if she wants to date the potato chips of people that is her business. her salty, crunchy, tasty, filled with MSG business. not all of us can be the vegans of dating, unfortunately, although i’m sure we’d all be better off if we could be.
2) whatever it is that leslie sees in the people you don’t think are good partners is something she sees, something she gets out of those interactions that are for her alone. not for you. if these relationships are unhealthy for her, that is something she needs to learn to say no to on her own speed. not anybody else’s.
3) sometimes people need to make bad choices in order to learn to make better ones. to find out what they really want and need in life. and like…that doesn’t make the bad choices bad choices; that just makes it places they needed to go and people they needed to be with before learning to walk away or set boundaries. or both!! both is always an option here.
…idk i guess on a side note like i’m really curious about like….all this outrage. where does it come from. like?? there’s this tone of shaming Leslie for her choices that is. really bewildering to me, and kind of unsettling. i would like to invite people who feel like Leslie has bad taste to 1) come in this post and explain why they feel like she does, and 2) as an empathy exercise, explain what they think Leslie sees in them. because i’m not sure you can justly say one without the other.
i promise a MINIMUM OF SNARK and, possibly, no actual answer, because i did ask people to come in here and explain their opinions and you don’t deserve an argument in response to that. i guess if you’d like to argue say so?? and i will happily oblige? but otherwise i will assume that you don’t actually want an answer and will leave you in peace having gotten a response to my questions
I think there’s some level of treating Leslie as a prize here, and I don’t mean that as in dehumanizing her, or consciously objectifying her in any way, but — people wanted Mindy to “get the girl”, because they felt that she deserved it, especially because, in their view, Anna was a terrible friend and a worse ex-girlfriend, and Mindy deserved better.
Leslie’s interest in Anna is seen as a terrible blow to Mindy, as well as giving Anna a completely undeserved reward for her bad behavior, and commentators are kind of taking out their frustration on Leslie, probably not fully consciously.
Just my two cents.
Personally, I was cool with Leslie going after Anna. Not so much after her backhanded compliments now, but I’d live.
But Mindy’s clear insecurity in not thinking she’s good enough, plus the lip-biting make me think that either Mindy saw what Anna was doing, and is trying to prevent something crappy from happening to Leslie, or she’s realizing she needs to be more assertive (though this would be overcorrecting a smidge if so)
Either way, it makes her very relatable to me, and makes me wanna root for her.
I’m more worried that Mindy’s lip-biting is because she doesn’t want Anna to get married, having implicitly carried a bit of a torch for her over their ten years of living together as “just roommates. nothing more.”
I would also like to see Mindy happy, and that “you’re too pretty for me” line was heartbreaking, but I’m genuinely worried that she’s not actually pursuing Leslie here out of interest in Leslie, which might not end well for anyone.
That crossed my mind too. Although even worse would be Mindy doing it specifically to make Anna jealous, and win her back
…. /sobs into hands
I’m really hopping it’s a more optimistic outcome but god yeah this could be interpreted in a lot of not fun ways.
i feel like there’s this expectation of better behavior from Leslie and i just…don’t really understand why?? like she’s entitled to make shitty choices just like everyone else. but i don’t think people deserve to be shamed for their shitty choices
i d k
Oh, there definitely is in fact an expectation that she behave better than this, be like… a good role model for Becky or something. I imagine it’s partly because she’s close to thirty, and adults are supposed to know better than this. (Weak, thirty-something laughter.)
*crying twenty-something laughter*
I think the whole “is a gender studies professor” thing also makes it especially jarring that she keeps gravitating to people who just do not respect her as a person when one would think she’d be the first person to recognize how toxic that is for her.
First: you yourself seem to be acknowledging this as a bad relationship choice, but saying she’s entitled to make bad relationship choices.
Which is absolutely true! But most people here recognize that dating a jerk who does things like insult your facial features is a suboptimal relationship choice, and so we’re yelling at the screen the same way you’d yell at the protagonist of a horror movie as she begins to walk upstairs. If you wanna call that shaming, I mean, be my guest, but I can’t agree.
ehhhhh. like. i mean, i’m not sure there are bad relationship choices at all in general. like there are definitely toxic people, and toxic relationships, but i don’t think that getting involved in them is necessarily a sign of Bad Decision-Making or a thing you have to regret forever
i think that if someone insulting you is not something you feel like you can respond to by asking them to stop when it hurts you, then that’s a problem, and it’s a bad thing to get into a relationship with that person; but if you actually don’t mind it, then that’s something else
my point is that there is something Leslie wants that maybe she doesn’t even know she wants; and what do you think that is???
what do Robin, Malaya and Anna even have in common besides being jerks, lmao, because they’re all very different flavor of jerk
Robin’s more thoughtless jerk. and she can be more crushing because she gets caught up in this whirlwind of activity and she doesn’t stop herself or consider other people
Malaya was more of a April Ludgate type, tbh, where she wasn’t sure what she wanted and was just kind of mean to everybody
Anna, Leslie has known for like five seconds and we’ve barely known longer. and she’s just…really rude and outspoken about people’s flaws to literally everyone she meets
and Leslie herself is a very soft and sweet person, especially for someone who had to be homeless for a long time. so you’d think she’d want someone just as soft and sweet as she is but…she doesn’t, lmao
so what does she want out of relationships, and what does she see in the people she dates
i mean it could just be this simple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNoKguSdy4Y
and like it’s kind of a thing where gay people don’t really hit the romances a lot of straight people have as teenagers until their adult years, because that’s when they first get to explore it
so you don’t get a lot of the experiences that mark first romances until you’re an adult, and that shapes how you react to stuff, and…yeah
I am down for empathy exercises. I have been wondering about what Leslie looks for in women. I suspect she is attracted to confident, more extroverted ambitious women. I don’t currently like Anna (more of a mildly negative neutral perspective) but I have no idea whether or not she would be a good girlfriend for Leslie. Like, I am not thrilled at her remark on Leslie’s appearance.
There could exist a close friendship where Mindy and Anna are blunt with each other. Mindy seems to be very polite while Anna is more assertive. It can be frustrating dealing with people who are reluctant to stand up for themselves or hyperfocused on being kind.
i think there’s a possibility that Leslie is looking for excitement? thrills and hills, babe. with Malaya I think she was just trying to move on from Robin, but this is…something else, haha. i mean, all she got from Anna was her appearance, and then her mouth.
i could really go with that confident/extroverted ambitious woman interpretation, though. like. I think there’s a part of Leslie that would really enjoy being a traditional wife, if not exactly having a traditional husband.
i don’t know how blunt Mindy is with Anna. it really depends on a lot we don’t know, i guess.
(god as someone who has previously been reluctant to stand up for myself and hyperfocused on being kind……………………..i feel that, you can feel the irritation like a freaking cloud)
thank you. the taste-shaming is icky.
A BIT
all this outrage. where does it come from
People…
– holding lesbians to higher standards of “goodness” than straight women?
– being harsher on WOC than white women?
– reacting negatively to butch women?
– seeing a non-white, butch lesbian be a bit rude and calling her an abusive monster while stanning… well basically half the cast who have been just as bad or worse?
It’s more likely thank you think
i do think that Anna is over-the-top in her rudeness – like, nobody nowhere likes to be called out on their flaws 24/7. nobody. and that seems to be most of her social interaction technique. like. that is a thing that is generally annoying and/or hurtful no matter who it comes from, a white dude or a brown woman
but otherwise a lot of this
Okay, no.
Bad relationships shouldn’t happen even IF people would have to learn about bad choices. Nobody SHOULD have to learn that way, and I honestly think people would and should rather not get into a bad relationship, because it won’t do any good.
Like, nobody can actually stop anyone from making a bad decision (like entering a bad relationship), but if I could, I would warn them if I know them and care about them.
tl; dr: Freedom of choice is a good thing, bad relationships are not.
And nobody is “shaming Leslie for her choices”. People are saying Anna is a jerk. Which she is. Maybe you’re reading this wrong, maybe I am. But the way I see it, people are concerned. (As much as you can be for a fictional character, but then again, same goes for shaming).
idk like sometimes you don’t learn to make good choices until you’ve made a bunch of bad ones, because learning isn’t always a straight path and there aren’t always good guidebooks out there. especially for lesbians! lesbianhood is pretty fraught with ambiguity and chaos.
primarily tho I mean: I would think that it’s important to tell a friend that you think the person they’re dating is scum if you think they’re scum, but ultimately you don’t have the right to control who they date. because then you’re just replacing a controlling boyfriend for a controlling friend. and, anyways, if you want them to learn to make better choices, it’s usually more effective to be supportive than it is to criticize.
I am kind of dealing with this with a friend right now!! our mutual friend says that her boyfriend seems emotionally abusive to her, and tbh our interactions lately have been marked by a lot of manipulativeness from original friend. Just…some not so good signs. but like I pretty much feel like I don’t have the right to make those calls for her, because at this point she is just going to dig her heels into her choices because she’s had them judged so much by mutual friend. And like she’s disabled, she has a lot of choices taken from her already; she deserves the freedom to make those choices without worrying about being judged for them. because the only way she’s ever going to learn to make better ones is if she makes them of her own free will.
and, like, the stuff I do have a right to put boundaries on are important enough on their own: telling her that she can’t manipulate me, enforcing that she can’t force me to be friends with her crappy boyfriend, enforcing that no means no and no isn’t a rejection of her. like. i feel like living that is important for me to do as a good friend because it exposes her to a clear idea of what boundaries even are. and if she decides that boundaries are something she wants, she knows who she can talk to about it. but otherwise, her life is hers to live.
(i mean, it’s also important for me personally, so that i don’t have to live trying to be friends with people i don’t like, but like. prioritizing her here, i guess.)
I felt like Leslie was being shamed!! so, that is probably a subjective impression, but it is mine, haha. it’s just. like. she’s an adult woman. she can date who she wants to date. i think with this post i was frustrated because it was just a lot of – concern, as you put it, but without empathy. and that kind of concern just feels kind of shaming/condescending to me.
because like – part of agency is making choices, and part of agency is owning your shitty choices. your shitty choices are part of who you are, just as much as your good ones. so, “why does leslie have such terrible taste in women” feels like shaming to me. “what does leslie look for in women?” doesn’t.
Well, I agree: freedom of choice is good. And also, telling a person someone is not good for them is hard and gets complicated and usually is not very fun.
So, yeah. Shitty choices happen, and while they aren’t neccessarily good, they are part of freedom of choice. Still sucks when they end up, well, being shitty choices. It’s not always obvious to the person who chooses. Just, here we are with Leslie who just got Robin out of her house, someone she recognized as “a bad choice”. Robin wasn’t rude to her like that, but she dismissed her feelings, she refused to go away and respect boundaries… and while she is still different from Anna, I can’t help but see a pattern, and I think many others do as well. And it’s this frustrated “why does she do this?”, because we want Leslie to be happy (and don’t think she would be with Anna).
Although it’s very understandable how that can sound unempathetic (just because we can recognize it doesn’t mean Leslie can), while I do think it didn’t mean to be.
(If that makes sense, my English is wonky right after waking up.)
Yeah, sorry. Mostly I reacted the way I did because there was a time when I fell for this crap from guys I liked and it makes me fret to see Leslie making the same mistake I did. I think what she’s attracted to is strength, and being challenged, which would explain her previous crushes. It might also relate to her marrying of Leo; he was sweet, gentle and giving, but she realized that she needed a more challenging partner to be happy.
Anyhoo, rambled a bit. Like everyone else was saying, Leslie is of course entitled to make her own decisions and her own mistakes, but knowing they are mistakes makes us fret because Robin was just so draining for her recently that she might need a break from that type.
I want to protect Mindy.
So I see we’ve established the Malaya of this strip. Hi, Anna!
I thought Malaya was the Malaya of DoA
the malaya was the assholes we met along the way
By that I mean a new character that causes heavy controversy every time she shows up. Malaya isn’t new here, so she doesn’t get to keep that title.
Sorry Malaya, there’s a new Malaya in town.
I can only imagine the shenanigans that would ensue in some meta-universe where she gets told that to her face.
It’s a war of Malayas!
A Crisis of Infinite Malayas!
OH GOD
I know! INFINITE MALAYAS.
Sadly I don’t think I’m going to get that wish.
Oh dear, look at this love triangle Becky just created.
Mindication
Watching this makes me want to drink for some reason.
GOOD. I LIKE MINDY, SHE SHOWS INITIATIVE.
Lesbian dating as presented by DoA:
Option 1: You’re already dating and get to occasionally make out in the background. Congratulations!
Option 2: You start out literally hating each other and committing acts of extortion and violence until it crosses over into mutual self pity and co-enabled alcoholism that kinda morphs into a somewhat functioning relationship and attempt at improvement….maybe?
Option 3: You are alone and THIRSTY!!!…Better run a school newspaper. (chicks dig journalism)
Option 4: You have a long unrequited crush on your best friend(we’re talking years here) Time to come out! Look out he’s gotta gun! Minus one father, plus one dino girlfriend? …But will that best friend sized whole in your heart ever be filled? Jack a local congresswoman’s twitter to distract yourself from those tough questions.
Option 5: Does your crush even know you have a crush on her? Who knows? Pose naked in her art class. She’s gotta get that hint right? RIGHT?!
Option 6: It’s been awhile. Maybe don’t go looking, you got tests to grade and minds to mold. Wait patiently for the congresswoman of your dreams…….Well she’s horrible. Taking a break was the right idea. Maybe look into adoption? Any young baby gays out there in need of a couch and a rolemodel? Stir well. Congratulations you have a date tonight!…Somehow (Note to self. Buy more fruit.)
The lesbian dating scene is confusing as fuck!
…. so it’s a dating scene.
Dumbing. Dumbing Of Age.
Then again I can’t judge Leslie that much I made the same mistake…I mean confusing these two not throwing myself into a possible toxic relationship.
Oh! Oho! Ohohoho! I mean this is not going to end well, no way no how no sirree, but once again I’m surprised! I didn’t expect this, particularly so soon!
Breaking these strips down is Cerberus’ job, but heck dog there’s a lot to unpack here, and I love me a good unfolding narrative to analyse. Like this whole strip seems so hectic; it’s not so much pandemonium as it’s just a LOT of information having to be sent out at once; the close ups on everyone, the cuts by strip, how everyone is basically ignoring what everyone else is saying. That factor seems almost thematic at this point, that these people keep ignoring what’s actually happening in favor of projecting what they want to be happening.
I’m a little disappointed Becky doesn’t look to be learning anything from this. But, kudos, she does at least know to accept and be happy anyway when Leslie doesn’t comply to her fantasy, which is I think the most directly damning aspect of shipping Real People (and uhhhh, something Joyce really needs to figure out soon enough). I do hope she does still, yknow, learn not to do it at all by the end of this arc, though now that she’s out I dunno how she’s gonna get back in. Maybe this drama’s gonna re-entice her to create a wacky sitcom scenario, like how Abed did in that one episode of Community and when it doesn’t work out she’ll end up realizing that that shit don’t fly.
I was pretty fine with a lot of Anna earlier, and yknow I get when people don’t have much of a filter. I’m autistic! I don’t get social cues! Sometimes I’ll say mean stuff without without realizing! And I’m still not gonna call Abuse on Anna right now cause, contrasting the earlier facial expressions, this hardly seems like a straight up malicious statement. Still, objectively speaking, this formula between Leslie and Anna suddenly looks…unstable. Being kinda grouchy and saying judgmental or vitriolic things isn’t the End All Be All, but it can’t go unchallenged. And between Mindy’s apparent meekness and Leslie’s blatant infatuation, it doesn’t seem Anna’s gotten very much healthy opposition in her life, which is, yknow. Not Good. If your friends can’t at least be a safety net, can’t openly point out when you go Too Far, then for a lot of your life you’re gonna end up hurting people deeply without even understanding you’re doing it, and they’re gonna end up with the brunt of it because if they can’t themselves up you’re just gonna end up putting them down over and over until you’re basically walking all over them, and then it really does become abusive. I know from experience, I’ve ended up on both ends a few times. The reason why Vitriolic Best Buds is a multiple person trope is cause it doesn’t work if it’s not mutual. And Leslie looks like she’s gonna end up setting herself up to fail, too.
Though this is most definitely not the Right Solution. Let’s talk about Mindy for a sec. Specifically let’s talk about This Moment and What Led To It. Because, we have to assume that with new characters, their First Appearance is their Natural Status. And if we conclude that This Relationship has been in a similar position as it is now, then what we’ve got is a mutually self-destructive friendship going on. Mindy can awkwardly joke about Anna’s behavior, but she can’t challenge it, partially from not being as naturally acerbic as Anna is, partially for being evidently too self-conscious and meek and passive and maybe even self-loathing (fuck dog, I don’t know much about crushes or relationships but I know pretty fuckin well how it is to go through life with the base understanding that You Aren’t Worth It), and partially maybe even still holding a torch for Anna all these years, but this moment, even though it’s our first, feels like it’s been happening so many times over the years. She seemed eager and nervous in her brief appearance yesterday; this may be the first time she’s actually gotten herself excited over the prospect of moving on in a long time. And then it gets crushed, like, what, immediately? And her reaction to it, casually trying to play it off, “you don’t have to like me”, that feels almost rehearsed. If things go wrong, if they just ignore her, if they go for Cool Confident Anna instead, she can deal.
Except, yknow. She Can’t. And she looks in panel 4 like she’s suddenly seeing the scene with that Profound and Frightening Clarity that only comes when you realize just how bad you’ve let your life become. And this is a pretty bad, horrible, anxiety filled embarrasing situation she’s in. She got talked into this by an excitable young dapper flapper in a grocery store, then immediately gets sidestepped by her roommate who wasn’t Nearly as invested in the situation, and in fact had already gotten it in her head that it wasn’t gonna work anyway. That’s already a Nightmare Scenario; but now literally NOONE’s paying attention to her. Leslie hasn’t even acknowledged her existance; Anna’s only barely invested in this situation and might not even have registered what’s going on with Leslie; even Becky just, blatantly gives up on her, because she was really just a pawn in her Scheme to Get Leslie a Date, so if it worked anyway then there’s no problems right? (I love Becky but wow-sers). I’m thinking a lot of the last decade’s just accumulated to this exact instance of her finally doing something Outlandish and Bold and Direct. That’s pretty big. I talked a bunch yesterday about Agency, specifically Leslie’s agency, but it didn’t occur to me that these other characters might have issues with agency in their lives as well (and look at that, ohoho, we’ve got ourselves another theme).
Of course, now we really are getting into some wacky fuckin sitcom shenanigans my dudes, which are gonna overshadow the fact that all these ladies are ABSOLUTE MESSES. Because finally Asserting For Yourself isn’t gonna mean anything to a person who doesn’t even know who you are. Leslie’s still attracted to Anna, I don’t even know what Anna’s doing but I get the impression the feeling’s not exactly mutual, and Becky’s just gonna end up rejoicing at all these tropes coming to life. This might feel like a George McFly moment here, but mark my words folks, it’s gonna become George Costanza real damn quick.
This is a fun analysis. Thanks for sharing!
oh thank you! i’d blush if I weren’t words. i’m sure ol Capn David “Willid Davis” Willis make it obsolete by tomorrow, but that’s all right. I’m really diggin this arc.
All Becky wants to do
Is see her turn into
A giant woman (a giant woman)
Now someone get Mindy a ukelele!
This is all really good analysis, seconding that. I also like this interpretation of what Mindy’s doing mentally a lot better than my own interpretation, because it is more optimistic. (I’m worried that she’s biting her lip like that and then diving into Leslie-go-out-with-me out of not wanting Anna to marry someone else, as we sort of implied she’s carrying an unacknowledged torch in the last comic where she spoke.)
Also good analysis of Leslie and Anna. I don’t know what’s up with Anna and I’m not sure how to interpret Leslie’s reaction to it in that panel, but the picture you paint is not a happy one going forward. (Not that I necessarily expect Anna/Leslie to work. I did expect Leslie’s interest, for pure dramatic irony, but I’m not sure I think Anna is looking for anyone. I could picture a version of it where it worked in my head yesterday, but less so now.)
yes, it is good, I feel like I’ve learned a lot from the comments lately. ..and not so lately.
so much insightful and thought-provoking stuff here!
I love this analysis and I think you’ve got Mindy dead to rights on the various stakes going through her head.
And yeah, this looks to be a disaster of epic proportions waiting to unfold.
Thank you for articulating why this arc is becoming increasingly loud fingernails on a chalkboard for me: “wacky fuckin sitcom shenanigans.”
If DoA were a TV show, this is the episode that’s the pilot for a spinoff series featuring the comic relief friend and her laff-riot hijinks.
Which is really unfair to Becky, because she so not merely comic relief.
I’m sorry but I would totally watch a TV show about Becky and Dina running around being dorks.
Or can you imagine the two of them as adults, hosting a Bill Nye type show about science together? It would be the absolute best.
Dina and Becky out Bill Nye Bill Nye! Tonight at 8!
That I would watch.
But awkward not funny romcom featuring a peripheral character I don’t find interesting and walk-ons from central casting? Nope.Nope.Nope.
Maybe it’s because DoA is the only Willis comic I read, so this is the only version of these characters I know, but I just can’t work up an interest in Leslie.
anna needs a big fucking filter on her mouth.
And cue geometric progression of shenanigans.
Are Mindy and Malaya related?
Do I ACTUALLY care?
Can we just line up Mindy, Malaya, and Mary, and this comic will finally have a satisfying punch-line?
*baddum-pish!*
But you can’t punch Mindy! You’ll hurt the caterpillars
this made me giggle weakly. I really do love her eyebrows.
…… okay, until proven otherwise, I am now assuming that Mindy’s natural emotional state is “cocoon”.
Not to mention Mike! What grudge does David Willis hold against the letter M???
(Marcie’s cool tho)
Oh crap it’s Anna not Mindy. Oh well.
It’s the letter that starts Mean!
So according to Willis’ twitter, Anna’s dialogue has been based on It’s Walky!Era Mike.
I’m having trouble reconciling this. I HATE It’s Walky era Mike, but I really like Anna. Maybe because she reminds me of Early!Malaya and I adore Malaya.
I’m not shocked. I could see today’s comments in a Shortpacked!Mike speech bubble with no editing whatsoever.
Ha, jeez. It really reads differently to me without Mike’s constant angry eyebrows, do you think that has anything to do with it?
Maybe? Though in the opposite direction for me.
I know part of why I like Malaya so much is because of how her constant over-the-top hatred of pretty much everything make it hard for me to imagine anyone taking it too personally. It defuses a lot of what would otherwise be much more hurtful behavior
Like, I don’t just enjoy her as a character, I could’ve probably have tolerated being friends with someone like her.
Then again Mike has a similar “done with everything” attitude a lot of the time and I loathe him here. I can enjoy him as a character, but I would punch him repeatedly in the face if I knew him in real life.
I don’t yet have a strong opinion about Anna so far, other than that she’s being a jerk
I think it’s because Mike is some sort of edgelord, Heath Ledger Joker wannabe. Like, Malaya can be mean and malicious, but there are things that she does actually care about. Mike, or at least DoA Mike, doesn’t. He just wants to cause as much harm as possible, regardless of consequences. People have said that he does it to make people improve, but I don’t really see him using his “just as planned” abilities for good. Correlation is not causation and all that. Basically, Malaya is lawful or neutral jerk, but Mike is chaotic jerk. Much like chaotic evil tends to be the worst evil, chaotic jerk tends to be the worst of jerkishness.
Becky is being so terridorable right now. I love it. On the one hand, she’s allowing Leslie the agency of not playing out Becky’s personal ship! Yay! Becky yes! But she’s treating Anna and Mindy (especially Mindy) like props! Boo! Becky no!
(I am also mentally treating Mindy and Anna as props—Mindy’s kind of a Leslie, Anna’s kind of a Mike, that’s all the characterization I need. What Becky and Leslie do is what I’m watching play out here. Becky ought to treat them like real people, though, because to her they are real people!)
This is bizarre, even for this comic.
If Becky is going to be playing Love Detective she needs a crossover with Jaime from Girls With Slingshots.
She’s already got the brown plaid look going on.
Dang it, beaten by 30 minutes!
I want to see Becky with a deerstalker and a pipe that blows heart-shaped bubbles.
Oh eat shit Anna.
Is it too early to ship “threesome-to-avoid-love-triangle”?
… also, is it too late?
a shipper is never too early, or too late. they arrive exactly when they intend to.
bless u both
Interesting how most commenters read last panel Mindy as being assertive. I kind of read it as foreshadowing yet another woman who will end up not respecting Leslie’s personal boundaries.
Even if that ends up being where this is heading, she’d kinda need to be assertive to do that.
Yeah absolutely. I meant the general mood seems to be “Yeah, go assertive Mindy!” While my gut says “Oh no…”
Given what we’ve seen of her so far, it feels more likely she’ll end up stumbling all over herself back into “I mean, if you’d maybe like to go on a date, if that’d be okay. But you don’t have to”, etc
It isn’t really being assertive in the normal way most think about it. I think it is Mindy admitting to herself that, if she doesn’t want to come second for the rest of her life, she’s going to have to occasionally knock Anna’s hand away from something that she wants. It’s a sort of epiphany about the need to act positively.
Yup. There’s been a few cautions pulled out of the pocket regarding her tendency to clinginess and yeah, this overcorrection especially in response to seemingly interpreting this as “she like assertive women” or “she likes jerks” is especially worrying.
And yeah, there’s no good end I’m seeing here, cause I can see Mindy going in the direction of bad at boundaries and I can see Anna going in the direction of abusive partner (especially if she’s based on Mike).
Wow, I see murder in the future :O
Oh, dear heaven, Leslie! Way to be a total doormat! Anna overtly insults you and you thank her? Mindy had to do what she did in panel 6: The only way to protect Leslie from a spiritually-damaging abusive relationship is to tell her that she is dating you: The doormat will respond to the demand in her usual submissive way!
I find it weird that people were giving Leslie so much shit for being attracted to Anna in the previous comic. How was Leslie supposed to know Anna was the jerky one? Anna literally hadn’t said anything to her yet!
Here people continue to complain that Leslie is interested in jerks but cheer Mindy for demanding a date with a woman who is completely uninterested in her.
I honestly can’t tell yet whether Mindy is doing this out of interest in Leslie yet. I think previous commentors who suggested this is about Mindy keeping Anna to herself may have a point. We wouldn’t have gotten that panel of Mindy looking sad while numbering the years they’ve only been roommates if it didn’t mean *something*.
Your interpretation works right up until panel 3 when Anna directly insults Leslie and Leslie responds by treating it like flirtation. I don’t know how bad (or even how NOT bad) Anna is but Leslie is demonstrating a worrying tendency, played for laughs but very real, to zero in on the jerky, abusive and/or unstable ones and then having a hard time to work her brain past her physical infatuation.
She doesn’t need to “zero in” on jerks.
Negging works by preying on someone’s insecurities. You show interest, while at the same time subtly undermining their confidence. This is done to make it feel like they’re interested, but that interest is slipping away, to try to trick you into wanting to try harder to please them and hold their interest.
Leslie doesn’t “seek out” abusive assholes. She likes assertive, confident women. Unfortunately, “abusive assholes” are a subset of that category.
Unfortunately for Leslie, she’s rather insecure, easily flustered, and not very good at recognizing assholes until it’s a bit too late.
The trope that anyone is actively, directly attracted to and seeking out abusive relationships is just off-putting to me.
This.
Plus, I’m ace, so I can’t speak 100% to this, but a thing I’ve noticed in allo friends is that attraction can override recognizing red flags. And Leslie is practically drooling just at the overall presentation of Anna (the confidence, the butch stance, the stare) so it’s easier for her to hear the parts she wants and overlook the parts that are warning signs (oh my Bob she complimented my hair, wait, what was that about my nose, probably unimportant, she likes my hair!).
Which yeah, is a thing PUAs and abusers exploit and try and deepen. Getting their target so invested in the good parts that drew them in, that they accept more and more abuse they have to shrug off to keep it.
What interpretation? Your comment is legitimately confusing me.
I’m going to say this more directly since I’ve apparently confused at least one person:
It seems contradictory that Leslie should get criticized for being interested in a jerk, even before Anna said one word to her, but Mindy gets praised for trying to force a date with someone who’s uninterested in her.
Hopefully the last paragraph in the original comment is clear.
The impression I got was “neither” or maybe a bit of the former. To me, Mindy’s expression in panel 3 says “Oh god, it’s another me. I’ve got to do something to get her out of this quicker than I did.” That’s her motivation. It’s not about what she wants because, as far as I can tell, pretty much nothing is.
Disturbingly congruent with her behaviour in this strip.
(I do have hope that Mindy’s not that far gone by some of her earlier behaviour, however.)
I love Becky’s pragmatism. Any lady smooch counts as a win!
Compare and contrast Joyce who would have gone down with her ship, no matter what.
Mindy seem to have taken a leaf from Dina’s book. Sometimes the direct approach is the best.
I wonder if a large part of Anna’s and Mindy’s motivation is not just getting one over the other – it seems they have a LOT of “it’s complicated” going on.
Go for it Mindy!
Somebody has to be the dominant one in that relationship and it sure as hell isn’t going to be Leslie. Smart of Mindy to recognize she can assume that role.
That said … geez Leslie. You’re a disaster waiting for the chaos boat.
I think she once said it herself, she has a terrible taste in women.
Why does one person need to be dominant?
Because heteronormativity?
Even in heterosexual relationships, it’s nonsense.
In any healthy, well-adjusted relationship, neither person would be exclusively dominant. Each person should take charge as needed, based on their respective strengths.
I’m not sure @zombieundergrnd meant “any relationship”, so much as the proposed Mindy/Leslie one.
They might have a point, based on what we’ve seen of Leslie.
Not all relationships are or need to be perfectly balanced. As long as the less dominant person can make their needs known and respected when it’s important to them, it can work.
They do need to be balanced in terms of power and respect. Like, even in a literal dom/sub relationship.
One person taking charge and being more assertive most of the time is fine, but not if they start seeing themselves as the boss of the other person(s). It should be a partnership, not a hierarchy.
I already hate Mindy as she jumps in and steals a date from her supposed friend. I like people who are open and angry about their feelings. Mindy, however, is passive aggressive and her behavior here really rubs me the wrong way along with taking a jokey sideways tone of insulting Anna earlier.
Anna may have a habit of insulting people but I think Mindy is the worse person by far. Then again, I admit, I’m inclined to cut her some slack due to the racial dynamic thing. Becky and Mindy both ignored her feelings as well as trying to set up the latter with her fellow white lesbian.
Makes you wonder if this kind of stuff didn’t happen several times already…
As for Anna’s behaviour… I feel she’s been like this for a very long time if Mindy’s comment is anything to go bye (about parents not exactly approving of her). While it Might have been tied to her race I think it was her behaviour that put the parents off and their relationship obviously didn’t work out.
There’s also the way Becky met each of them to consider. Anna was grouchy and mean, while Mindy was very nice and friendly. Which would you choose to set your friend up with?
There’s also the fact that Mindy “stole” nothing. Neither of them has dibs on Leslie.
You can’t “steal” a person dude, Leslie is fully capable of just refusing.
Wow. I don’t even know what strip you’re reading.
What strip were you reading exactly? And why do you think this is in any way about their race? Anna wasn’t very nice to Becky, and Mindy was. This was a choice of behaviour.
“Fellow white lesbian…” Okay, enough internet for me today.
Also what possible feelings on Anna’s side (Anna was not, at that point, aware of Leslie’s existence) could Becky possibly have noticed before trying to set up the date? Keeping in mind that the second Leslie walked past Mindy to talk to Anna, Becky abandoned the whole plan.
I’m having some pretty disturbing thoughts about Leslie’s behaviour. It’s like she considers being insulted adorable. Like she sees it as something that Should happen to her and something she should be grateful for…
If she is like SP! Leslie, it’s simply her crushingly low self-esteem. Getting trod upon is par for the course, as far as she’s concerned.
Now that’s just sad. She definitely needs a girlfriend who will do some hard ground work to prop up her self-esteem.
I’m not really comfortable with that idea. She needs help with building up her self esteem, certainly, but her girlfriend shouldn’t have all of that placed on her shoulders. Her girlfriend should, of course, be part of her support network, but the heavy lifting should probably be done by a professional, or, at worst, distributed across her whole support network. I’ve been in the position of being the primary support for a partner, and it wears hard, and isn’t great for the relationship.
Well I was half-joking half-exaggerating but I agree with you.
Cool.
And now she’s negging her. Yes truly I must have misjudged Anna and she has hidden depths of not being awful.
You’ve been judgemental consistently enough that I’m seeing this as “even a stopped clock is right twice a day”.
DAMN YOU WILLIS! Linking a comment generator on Twitter. I wasted all day clicking generate!
If you dare: http://inspirobot.me/
I sent this to my best friend with the words “BOOM! You’re welcome”
http://generated.inspirobot.me/053/aXm534xjU.jpg
To quote Markiplier in Until Dawn, “No. Nope. Nope. Nah…”
http://generated.inspirobot.me/056/aXm3662xjU.jpg
I’m pretty sure this has to be a Trump quote
http://generated.inspirobot.me/049/aXm1443xjU.jpg
Perfect picture
http://generated.inspirobot.me/055/aXm0xjU.jpg
Technically true… I think?
http://generated.inspirobot.me/051/aXm5918xjU.jpg
This is my dad’s dog during a thunder storm
http://generated.inspirobot.me/048/aXm7579xjU.jpg
And finally
http://generated.inspirobot.me/045/aXm4441xjU.jpg
Wot
http://generated.inspirobot.me/051/aXm6316xjU.jpg
Think that’s bad? Try this one!
http://generated.inspirobot.me/048/aXm3794xjU.jpg
Or this one that made me picture a guy screaming at a toaster “Why won’t you listen to me!?!”
http://generated.inspirobot.me/048/aXm7957xjU.jpg
http://generated.inspirobot.me/049/aXm7296xjU.jpg
Oh now that one is a winner there. Got to share it with an amateur science buff find of mine. Thanks
Thank you, I’m now stuck on this for the next few hours.
Spread the controversy!
On law enforcement.
Why are you making faces at the wall?
The picture really makes this one for me…
The Trump administration’s climate policy summarized:
The banking crisis explained.
Inspirobot obviously read the comic.
It knows Mike,
And Robin.
He summarized politics. http://generated.inspirobot.me/055/aXm536xjU.jpg
At least Mindy is not holding a gun while saying that
Damn there’s nothing more adorable than clumsy pick up.
I can make your first sentence a lie.
On second thought, that’s probably a bad idea. A knife’s a phone, but guns are serious business.
Anna is the lesbian equivalent of what people call ‘dudeobro’, huh.
Mindy is putting her foot down.
Well, whether it’s good for her or not, no one can argue that Leslie simply prefers the type of person that Anna is. It’s her preference and we can’t do a thing about that. It’s just Leslie. I personally prefer the Mindy type even though I’m married to more of an Anna type and don’t regret it one bit. At any rate, I see Mindy seeing this beautiful woman in front of her who’s available and Mindy not having had a gf or been out on a date for some time works herself up to act atypically and be assertive and ask Leslie out…ok, it was more telling Leslie she’s going out with her. Maybe it came out not quite how she meant it to come out, who knows? I know I’ve had that happen to me many times. Remains to be seen if Leslie goes with this or turns her down and continues flirting away with Anna.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Okay, yeah, definitely chemistry. Anna’s eyes aren’t leaving Leslie’s face and Leslie is so thirsty she might as well be in a Far Side cartoon about a man crawling in the desert.
Panel 2: Oh dear Mindy, that complete lack of self-esteem is a bit heart-breaking. She’s so convinced of her lack of value that she’s deprecating herself even in a “hey, how you doing?” situation.
Which, part of that might be from living with a person she still carries a massive torch for as that can be something that just shreds self-confidence like a blender, but it could be a lot of factors. Seeing the person she was about to be set up with going after her long-time crush and hitting it off is probably not helping either way.
Panel 3: Oh gross, negging. I am very much not a fan of this PUA shit and “negging” is one of the grosser pieces of it as it’s basically treating verbal abuse and insults as some secret piece of “game”. Especially as it’s usually about tearing down the person so they feel bad about creating and maintaining boundaries around you and that can be incredibly dangerous if there’s other chemistry that makes the other person more willing to go along with it.
Like, poor Leslie here, literally thanking Anna for insulting her to her face because the tiny piece of affirmation from someone she finds really hot is serving as a major selling point.
Like, it might not necessarily mean anything in the long-term but it’s a major red-flag to how she’d be in a big relationship, which when combined with how much of a mess her ex is and how she keeps putting her down, definitely raises major concerns about her potential toxicity as a partner.
Like, I might be wrong, but if I saw this go down with a friend in real life I’d definitely raise a concern or two before it went too far.
Panel 4: But I love Becky’s non-chalance here. To her, the goal is happy women-loving-women. The who or what matters less than that there’s a happy ending and in that manner, she’s in a lot healthier place than Joyce in recovering from her Church-based shipping and when this collapses in fire, will likely learn a valuable lesson about meddling in other people’s love lives.
Panel 5: Again, poor Mindy. Like this is likely a nightmare to the dream she’s been trying to keep buried, that her and her ex would get together again eventually just out of inertia (which yeah, that’s a dream that’s almost never going to happen and it’s way healthier to move on to a situation that doesn’t make you feel like shit). And to be completely ignored in all of this is likely the icepick to the brain that finishes this off.
She’s in genuine distress and there’s no way this all ends well.
Panel 6: Oh dear. This is going to completely blow up in the nastiest drama bomb possible, isn’t it?
And a side note to note one other thing. Anna is a red flag not because she’s abrasive but because of the negging as flirting. And Mindy being nice doesn’t mean anything as to whether or not there’s chemistry. Like, her decision to be faux-rude at the end because “Leslie clearly likes jerks” is actually a bad one that’s common to Nice Guys TM and is based on a similar misassumption which is that women are going for certain people instead of the “Nice ones”, because of some fundamental flaw to them.
The reality is, chemistry is chemistry. And sometimes that chemistry blinds you to some red flags, but that doesn’t mean any red flags will do. Not to mention there are concerns around dating Mindy as well. She’s carrying a major torch for her roommate, she’s low self-esteem to the point of demeaning herself as undatable in her introduction, and she’s demonstrated some tendencies for clinginess (which might be a major trigger for Leslie after Robin’s “we’re now cohabitating lovers” shtick).
Again, that might not mean anything. Becky carries a torch for Joyce and is still a fiercely loyal girlfriend to Dina, but it does mean that Mindy is not anymore “deserving” of Leslie than Anna simply for being sweet as pie.
Yeah. She’s been getting so much hate that Willis ended up posting on Twitter that he was writing her with the dialogue of It’s Walky era Mike and got very close to using butt pipe.
How have you been by the way? I’ve been MIA almost completely for a week or two so I haven’t been keeping up on your comments per usual. Long story short, I got sick, then got meds, then somehow got more sick, then ER super sick plus badly dehydrated, then more meds and crap, and now simi better! My kitten Danny was really pissed about less playtime than usual and kept trying to make me play, so I have scratches all over my arm and (couldn’t make this shit up) still trying to track down all my mail after he got on the kitchen table (where I sat it until I felt better) and scattered it everywhere. Then I’m guessing he moved some of it because I found one that had been mostly pushed under my bedroom closet door. Why!?! XD
Oh no, I’m sorry you got sick. I hope you’re starting to feel better and yeah, kitties always seem to freak out and know when you’re feeling under the weather.
I’m doing all right. Did some incredibly boring training for my new job that was super draining, but otherwise doing all right. I also got confirmation that my new employer knows I’m trans which was good, especially as the new boss wants to work with me on making the school more trans student supportive.
Oh my gosh that’s so freaking awesome! I was worried you might end up with another complacent idiot like last time. I know training us draining, but still. It’s worth it for your mental health and stability. Perhaps it will even help with the stress you were having about furthering your own education. I refuse to think negative about this because you deserve something good. ^_^
Also, happy pride month. Sorry it’s a day late. I’ve been watching a few movies that were recommended. Blue Is The Warmest Color was on Hulu which so many sites recommend, but I cringed at how many of the bi stereotypes the protagonist embodied short of being a unicorn. It had its moments, but still. When We Rise was divine. It’s a 4 part series that’s the true story of several American LGBTQ+ activists through the years fighting for rights, dealing with the AIDS outbreak, politics, doing the quilt, the evolution of what people thought of us, relationships and families, and so on all the way to marriage rights. I’ve seen it twice and would still like it even if it was all fictional.
I loved When We Rise and even aired parts of it for my Queer Club at school.
Yes! I love talking to somebody who can actually enjoy a move like that. Around here I get more Ew reactions. Seeing two people make out that appear to be the same gender seems to erk people bad here, especially 2 men. I’ve also talked with more than I would like to admit that were unaware that trans was a thing and good luck with pronouns. And my dad… he’s also okay with me being polysexual as long as I don’t acknowledge it, date a woman, date a non white male, tell him about it, comment on LGBTQ+ even if it’s on the news while I’m there and even if he comments first, or bring anyone who isn’t a white male near him.
So seeing as we have similar tastes, is there any others movies or the like I should keep an eye out for? I have Hulu.
I once walked in on some people mid-argument, and got asked “would you want to see two guys make out?” I reflexively answered honestly – yes.
Totally derailed the homophobe’s whole argument.
(and now I have a new show to watch, yay)
well fuck, Google Play doesn’t have When We Rise. *sigh* at least I can pay for steven universe now, I guess…
I love the argument
And Google Play does have it! I did a search
https://play.google.com/store/tv/show?id=P5mrKT8_WWg
It’s also on Hulu, Amazon, and the Playstation Store to name a few.
You can always do a trial of Hulu and binge for a while until you cancel before it costs anything. You can watch a lot in a month.
damnit google. I can add it to my wishlist from there, no mention of payment; I have to go into the app to be told it’s not available in my fucking country.
fucking regions.
I really like Sense8 which is on Netflix.
If you want a depressing time, I’d also recommend We Were Here or How to Survive a Plague which are really good but really depressing documentaries about the Plague Years.
Thanks! Appreciate it
Oh no! What a bummer. I wonder what got it flagged: the LGBTQ+ people or the occasional violence?
“the new boss wants to work with me on making the school more trans student supportive”
WOAH
YES
YES DAMMIT YES!
I might be wrong, but I didn’t get the impression of chemistry in panel 1. To me it seemed that Anna was giving Leslie a glare at mistaking her for Mindy. And it felt less like “negging” (which I didn’t know was a thing until now) and more trying to purposely drive Leslie off. Of course I might be wrong. I’ve mentioned before but to repeat, I have Asperger’s. I have difficulty reading social situations and interpersonal communication. It impedes my own ability to date in the past, and is a significant challenge (that I can thankfully overcome most of the time) when it comes to efficiently communicating with my current girlfriend. So I could be reading the situation incorrectly.
…
Also, Sorry I’m late to the comments. Had a night class that left me exhausted.
one of the great things about thought-provoking comment sections like this one is it helps me calibrate that social stuff. I can see lots and lots of different ways people interpret the comics, and people explain their reasoning, and I can learn from the way people disagree on things, and I can risk saying stupid things myself…
yay comic reactions!
and yay trans support! 
I’m wondering what you think of the “it’s not ok for people to attack you for scaring them” thing I was muddling through earlier. Like Rukduk, I have very little confidence in my own interpretation of things, so I want to know if I was still making sense or if I was accidentally heading in a bad direction…
“Anna is based on Mike”
That explains so much.
Ah. So I’m about to severely dislike Anna, I see.
Specifically It’s Walky!Era Mike, which means I’m probably about to go from ‘Aw, she reminds me of Malaya, I like Malaya’ to ‘Get this asshole off my screen now’. Which sucks, because I was excited for Malaya 2.0 not ‘Mike before he got to be anyone remotely tolerable’.
I like Walkyverse Mike plenty but that’s because the Walkyverse was a wacky screwball universe where a tree branch was a source of ultimate power and the omnipotent godly force was called The Cheese.
In this kind of comic, where even the superhero is a traumatized child, this behaviour isn’t endearing or charming or even that funny.
I didn’t even like Mike in It’s Walky. I pretty much only liked him in Shortpacked. So if this is IW!Era Mike, I’m going to want to throw things, oh dear.
Auuugh I’ve always hated Mike. I mean, he’s fine as a comedic character, but *do not ship him with anyone*.
And that includes Amber. Even in Shortpacked, which was apparently his most likeable incarnation, *no no no stahp*.
Surprisingly, Mike has done one good thing in DoA, which is provide Ethan an outlet for being a raging turbo nerd.
But, yeah, as much as I love SP!Mike, because the world he inhabited worked for him genuinely falling in love with Amber and becoming a good father, DoA!Mike is a trash fire who poisons the comic for me.
It’s funny, the way Mindy’s situation here reminds me of one I was in once. I ran into two people at a party in a park – we have some very chill parks here – and while we introduced ourselves I was growing a panic as I started thinking about the unfolding future. Just an idle dream, of course, but I saw the possibility of having a future with either one of these women, and the fact that I had to make a decision about which one I liked better instantly and based on no information at all, before the fragile moment of introduction was over and we were going to have to decide what to talk about, what to say, how to say it and who to say it to was overwhelming.
That is, I can see in panel 5 how Mindy pictures Leslie’s possible futures unfolding and sees her own chance of being one of the options slip away microsecond by microsecond as first impressions take form. And I love her desperate gambit in panel 6 because at least she tried something. If “Defending Your Life” is right and when we die we get judged only by what courage we have shown, Mindy has probably proved herself ready to move on to the next plane of existence in this one act.
And to be honest I think both she and Leslie would be the much better choice for each other so I hope it pays off.
Wow, at a first meeting? What would be wrong with just getting to know them a little first before deciding to be with either one (also taking into consideration how they felt about the matter).
That would have been a reasonable course of action. I thought about it later, after I had talked to them both for a while, failed to make an impression, and walked home.
Why do some people like abuse, verbal or otherwise? My sister is always in relationships where there’s constant verbal abuse from her against her boyfriend, and vice versa. I just don’t get it.
Some people feel like they deserve it, and sometimes there’s the idea that under the abuse and harm is couched a good person, where the abuser starts treating them better for a while.
http://xkcd.com/1768/
there are lots of detailed explanation out there for how people end up in those situations, but that was the only link I found right now. it’s too hot to think.
They don’t.
Mindy, Panel 2: It’s OK, you don’t need to like ME.
Mindy, Panel 5: Actually, on second thought, considering your other options, maybe you DO need to like ME.
(facepalm) Oh my god I hate Anna so much and goddammit Leslie why
SUMMON THE U-HAUL.
“You’re too pretty for me, anyway.” Mindy, noooo. I can’t tell if Mindy has had her self-esteem crushed after years of living with Anna, or if low self-esteem was what allowed her to date Anna, presuming Anna is always like this with people she dates. Regardless of how things turn out with Leslie, I hope Mindy finds someone who appreciates her, and that she learns to better appreciate herself.
All that aside, I love Becky in panel four, all, “Yes, mission accomplished! I am awesome. :D” and I’m really enjoying this introduction of Anna and Mindy. Mindy is like a fluffy, friendly golden retriever and Anna a silky cat with the softest-looking tummy, but super sharp claws. I like having antagonistic characters who aren’t outright villains (see: Malaya, Mike, Carla), but I also like the ratio not skewing too far, so it’s great having friendly, adorable characters added, too–and Mindy is super adorable!
oh thank god… you go Mindy. ~<3
Okay, so forget what I said yesterday; apparently Leslie is just accustomed to or even looks for abusive relationships.
Why that is, I have no fucking idea.
“I like the layered look you’re going for, Shrubby. It almost detracts from your abrasive personality.”
Mindy is operating the Early Anna Warning System – briefing tonight
All I know is I’d choose Anna in a second over Mindy. I really hope she crashes and burns.
I, uh, guess it’s your right to vehemently despise a character. Your priorities are yours to have.
I’ve met a lot of people who act sweet and kind but are really vicious underneath. Mindy reminds me of them. It’s led me not to trust people who throw their friends under the bus like Mindy just did. A real friend would be happy for them.
Guys, being an abrasive bully is not “having a fun, prickly disposition”. Speaking as someone who is seriously squicked out by any efforts to ship Mike with ANYONE human (sorry, SP fans), Anna is a negging jerk, and her manner is absolutely toxic when paired with someone like Leslie, who clearly doesn’t know how to stand up to it.
I don’t really like that Willis decided to make HER the butch woman of color, and her previous partner* the femme blonde girl, but I really, really don’t like the people who are taking a reasonable idea—”Commenters are applying a double standard and being harsher on Anna because of her race and non-traditionally feminine style”—and taking it to the extreme of, “Clearly, Anna is actually a decent, slightly prickly person with no blatant abusive tendencies.”
*I don’t want to go so far as to call Mindy an “abuse victim”, but, y’know, imagine a slightly more conservative estimate for now.
I’d really hoped DOA would be self-aware about this, but from Dave’s tweets, I’m starting to think he learned the wrong lesson from the double-standard readers are applying.
Readers liking Mike but hating Anna isn’t a sign they should like Anna MORE. Frankly, they should like Mike LESS. Mike only works as a jokey-jokey abuser—a gag character. Anything more than that, any lens more serious than “lol Mike is such an asshole”, and he starts to fall apart. Because, y’know, he is an abuser. He’s a funny character, but that’s all he really works as.
Don’t try to make a Likeable Mike. That’s going to send some really disturbing messages about abusiveness. At least Robin’s main crime was just being irresponsible and clueless.
Oh, also (sorry, I’m probably putting way too much thought into this), what about Malaya? Plenty of people, myself included, like Malaya. Maybe that’s because Malaya isn’t abusive. She’s rude to anyone she doesn’t like, but she never negs or manipulates, and she’s only rarely mean to people who are genuinely nice to her (which is part of why she’s so nice to Leslie in Shortpacked).
Anna, on the other hand, is shown to be verbally abusive towards someone she’s been “friends” with for a decade. Someone who we *know* has fairly obvious issues with self-image. Then she starts picking on Leslie, who she only just met, through really creepy negging practices.
LESLIE YOU HAVE TERRIBLE TASTE IN WOMEN.
But Anna does have nice hair. Also Mindy, that big-ass eyebrows comment Anna threw at ya earlier? You OWN those brows, my thick-browed sister. (fistbunp of solidarity)
Well done, Mindy! Save both Leslie and yourself from an abusive, self-confidence-eroding relationship!
I think Mindy saw herself reflected on Leslie here… Anna is starting to attack Leslie self-image and self-confidence before the relationship even starts, and Leslie is too desperate to care…
Anna,
Look, it’s very funny how we have similar names, how you look like someone tried to draw a browner and younger caricature of my mother, and how you appear in the strip right when there’s some BS happening in my life.
Anna. Your attitude isn’t cool. Work on your own issues and please, please stop punching down. You act like an unstoppable force and live off unusable doormats, but it won’t last. When the last of your friend will ask for some distance because you suck motivation out of them like some sort of motivation ghoul, will you understand ? Will you ?
OK, so this post is apparently participating in a hate wave around the character Anna and I regret it.
It’s not hate wave, it’s complaining wave.
Heh, don´t worry. I´ve seen in hetero, homo and whaddaya sexual identity that fits for people, a lot of the social “bluntness” that Anna overuses. My word: it´s never enough to call out people for that “attitude”. Even if it´s a fictional character. Nobody wants to be viewed as one like that, or, as Don Draper said to Campbell after he saw how he “harassed” Ann:At the end of the party, nobody likes to stay with the douchebag. You don´t want to end like that.
P.D. Case in point, I hope Mindy hasn´t got a dependent personality, that´s counterintuitive to what Leslie needs.
Ah yes, “negging” would imply she’s trying to lower Leslie’s self-esteem in order to control her. Anna isn’t. Anna is just being an ass. There’s a difference between gaslighting and being a jerk.
Mind you, I’m certainly of the mind Mindy is a shitty friend and passive aggressive but I understand that’s not probably the correct view to have about her.
I also think I’d rather root for the interracial lesbian couple.
Powerplay of the Meek. Shots fired!
Meanwhile, the Senator is watching through the security cams, at her office…
“Becky MacIntyre: Lesbian Love Sleuth” better be the spin-off/sequel webcomic of Dumbing of Age. Just saying… you can’t let such a good title go to waste.
i second that!!!!
Hey, we’re all entitled to our opinions.
1. Go Mindy! Scrape up some assertiveness. Ordering Leslie around will help her see you as hot. And you are. Your eyebrows are fine–much better than that freaky narrow over-plucked look. (I’ve known women who did that. “Shudder”.)
2. I think Anna’s a Mean Girl and an Unhealthy Friend. That’s what the direct evidence is showing me. My mind can change if given different direct evidence later.
3. I don’t much care what other forum members think about it. I get to have my own opinion; they get to have theirs. Doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the comic one way or another. If comments get too unfriendly, I can stop reading them.
Given a choice, I bet going on a date with either Leslie or Mindy would be lots of fun. Or both at once? Yowza! Anna’s at least as hot as either, but I’ve dated/relationshipped Annas. It was Not Fun.
I like how panel 5 Mindy’s face clearly says “NOOOOOOO!” without any word balloon required. Exactly what she’s NOing is still uncertain.
BUT, my guess is that Mindy has been lonely for a very long time. Anna–Nah. In my experience, Annas somehow manage to get laid as much as they want. Mindys–not so much.
Plus, Mindy has already shown that she really finds Leslie very hot. Anna? Not really. Unless insulting people less than usual is how she conveys that?
Leslie needs to learn that living with a constant barrage of insults is self-esteem destroying. Maybe that’s what she grew up with and still seeks out, because the familiar–no matter how awful–is still comfortable. Discuss this with your therapist, sweetie; and work on it.
Wiigii! Go, Leslie! #beckyandmindy
All 4 of you are bad at this.
Maybe Becky will finally learn that lesbian relationships can be as fucked up as any other ones.
Oh… oh no.