THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: Is it cold in here? on 20 Nov 2010, 17:13
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In the short term, anyway.
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I'm guessing she'll beat herself up someone - probably Sven, possibly Faye or Hannelore - tells her to pull her head out of her arse. Don't know if there will really be therapy involved, or if she'll finally confront Faye about all these pent-up feelings... depends where the story goes. Either way, something will happen. You wind up a spring tightly enough, then it's either gonna bounce violently back, or it's gonna snap. And Dora is getting pretty tightly wound.
Of course if that doesn't happen, then the obvious scenario is mumble mumble mumble mumble Lazer Sharks.
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They'll mope about for a while
The others will take sides
They'll try to rekindle things but it won't work
Faye and Marten will go on an Emergency Bourbon bender and wind up having pitty sex
It will be awkward between them after that for a while till Marten hooks up with Marigold
Tai will seduce Dora.
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Dora will move in with Sven in the short term, and throw herself into running CoD, but I still don't see her getting into therapy. She never went into therapy after any of her other blowups. I don't know if she is ready to seriously work on her problems yet.
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Throwing herself into her work, alcohol, and Tai.
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I am not sure who they will side with, Hanners does seem to has acted as devil's advocate in Martin's girl complaints before (first when she was first introduced and again when Martin and Steve went to drink and complain about girl problems).
edit:
Also, I do not see the group, as a whole, abandoning Dora. She is a core member of the clique. I could see her and Martin staying friends (heck, Faye and Martin are still friends with everything that happened between them). Yes, she will probably move out and yes there will be a major fight between Faye and Dora that lasts for a couple days (of story time), but I ultimately see them ending up reconciling.
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All of the above
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I'm actually thinking, of the CoD-centric cast, the one most likely to take Dora's side would be Penelope.
From her strong reaction to Marten's "crazy ex-girlfriend" comments, it doesn't seem likely she'd see his side of things.
I wouldn't order pizza for a while, if I were him... ;)
(Of the other CoDites, I have hunches on how Faye, and Hanners might respond to the situation... but I'm not too sure about Cosette. It's not like she's a main front-and-center character, but still...)
I'm not sure how Dora 'throwing herself into her work' would... work. I've had a similar job, and it's not like theres hidden subtleties to engross yourself in or anything... unless there's major inventory or accounting errors for her to fix, we've pretty much seen the whole job depicted.
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SAhe'll definitely be beating herself up for a while about this. And I also see her moving in with Sven for the short term.
This bodes ill for both of them, since no one gets you to fall back into your old personality traits like family.
I don't see her willing to get romantically involved with anyone for quite a while.
Good thing she's got that big box o' party favors!
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I am not sure about Hanners. I may not understand her character well enough, but I could see her going either way (or staying neutral). She will probably plead relationship ignorance. It could also depend on what pills she popped that morning.
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I'm sitting here wondering what kind of beat-down she's gonna get from FAYE.
Or if Faye will just tell her, "Okay, I didn't want to do this, but you've forced my hand, #####."
Dora: "What? Who are you calling?"
Faye: (talking into her cell phone) "Hello, Miss Vance?..."
Dora: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"
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Faye: (talking into her cell phone) "Hello, Miss Vance?..."
Yes.
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I don't see anyone really "siding" with Dora. Even Penelope, who seems to have issues with past relationships would be hard pressed to point anything that Marten did to deserve getting dumped. Way I see it, if Dora couldn't get over her issues with Marten/Faye, she should have voiced it much sooner than now. She knows it, and she's probably (hopefully, in the sense that if she doesn't these forums will implode) gonna feel guilty about hurting the one nice guy she's ever dated. Mope, work, drink, get yelled at by Sven, for being self destructive instead of trying to fix her issues, standard sibling fare. Everyone else's reactions really hang on Martens. If he does decide to head back to Cali for a bit, I wouldn't be surprised to see Faye act more aggressively toward Dora over this. Same with Hanners. As far as who's next for Dora, I honestly don't think Tia would do that to Marten when Dora broke up with him. If she does hook up with someone, it will probably be some random person. Which may lead to a Sven interven-....wait, isn't this the shit that got the other thread locked up? Shit.....uhm.....
LOOK EVERYONE AT THE PSYDUCK!!!!!
:psyduck: :psyduck: :psyduck: :psyduck: :psyduck: :psyduck: :psyduck:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/AngelofShadows/psyduck.gif)
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I'm fairly certain Faye is going to lose her job over this which may or may not cause others to quit. Raven probably will come back, Tai is going to be pissy with martin (after making the much needed jokes about Dora's availability). They will try to salvage the relationship but both will come to a mutual agreement that it's over.
Just following the pattern of the comic thus far, not too terribly happy about this. I've been with the same woman for almost 10 years, there are hard patches and there are fun times but no matter how screwed up you are after a couple of years together you don't just break it off over a silly argument and insecurities.
At least not in 2 minutes of dialogged, people (especially like the character Martin portrays) tend to beat their head against a very hard, spiky, wall before just giving it up. Take it from me, I'm married to the aforementioned woman, and I've had serious discussions about divorce because of me being bipolar 1 and refusing to get medicated for it (I hallucinate don't take pity, it's just furthering the explanation). Also, Dora's too bull headed, this is a character 180.
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everything becomes too awkward for anyone to handle, so they each hop on a roomba-jet and fly away.
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I don't see anyone really "siding" with Dora. Even Penelope, who seems to have issues with past relationships would be hard pressed to point anything that Marten did to deserve getting dumped.
Ugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. What is wrong with you people? Relationships aren't some kind of contest with rules and winners and losers. Did Marten do anything to "deserve" getting "dumped"? No. Did the relationship run its course to the point where it was no longer viable and had to end? Yes. There is no "side" to take. If Marten had been the one to break up with Dora, he would have been totally justified because her behavior was getting unacceptable. Dora realizing that her behavior was getting unacceptable and ending things does not make her into the "evil dumper" either.
Way I see it, if Dora couldn't get over her issues with Marten/Faye, she should have voiced it much sooner than now.
Why do you assume she KNEW she couldn't get over them? All evidence in the comic (and everything Dora's said) points to the idea that
a) she was largely repressing the conscious knowledge of how much the Faye thing still bothered her (in fact, she may well have thought this was a way of dealing with her insecurities)
b) she thought that she would be able to get over it
She realized that it was still an active problem for her and she would NOT be able to get over it as of this last fight--and broke up with Marten.
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she gets hit by a truck.
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Each one has some interesting potential
1) Dora spends more time with Penelope, we get for development on her, maybe some on Will, basically expand other characters.
2) Tai finds out what happens, maybe a comment causes a fight with Marten, maybe he ends up taking something harder than he should, maybe Tai fires him, maybe nothing happens but Tai decides to comfort Dora reasoning that Marten has a lot of people to turn to. We get more background on Tai aside from 'lesbian fond of sexual exploration'
3) Angus offers to help Marten through all of this, or maybe instead offers to help Dora out as a friend to listen to, if not just for her sake but for Fayes as well.
4) Coffee of Doom becomes wired with about a metric ton of dramamite, maybe Dora actually decides to take some time off to do something else to avoid the tension, either that or things keep escalating and one errant comment causes the explosion.
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In reply to JackFaerie.
Did the relationship run it's course? I personally reserve that for when both parties are at the finish line. The look on Martens face in the last panels of 1799 and the first of 1800 seems to me like he's still at the last checkpoint.
And I say that Dora couldn't get over her whole "Marten is only with me because he couldn't be with Faye" issues is because they keep, erh, kept popping up. The fact that Marten seems annoyed that he has to again state that he wants to genuinely be with her would, at face value, be an indication that it was a subject that came up more than once. She's voiced them before.
And that's the issue I have with her reasoning (as of now. Future comics could make this clearer. Hell, she could be lying about the reason she gave Marten in the first place) is that it just isn't justifiable. Not in my feeble little mind. She voiced her insecurities about this shortly after they started dating. And the way she worded her explanation made it seem like they kept fighting over stupid shit because of that insecurity. Her "trying" to deal with it seemed to be just pushing it down, which, at least in my experiences, means she was still, at some level, aware of it. Instead of finding a means of dealing with it, she hid from it, pushed it aside in her head until it was to big to deal with, to big to hide from. Like Godzilla. For over a year. While living with the source of her Godzilla....or would Fayezilla be more apt? Know what, I'm gonna go with Fayezilla. Yeah, that worksinsecurity. That just....I guess I don't understand her logic, even though I know emotions are an illogical thing to begin with.
If a problem is to big for you to handle, you go to your SO. That's the uber perk of a relationship. Problems aren't so big if it's split into two.
I guess I'll end this pointless ramble here. Though I will make an amendment to my previous post. Penelope could probably point out that if Marten had just gotten a place with Dora instead of having her move in with him and Faye, none of this would have probably happened. Oh well. No point dwelling over hypotheticals and "what ifs"
Should I do the whole "oh...wait" thing? I was going to but damned if it doesn't make me seem like a bigger internet asshole. So maybe I'll end with this (even though I already said I'd end it like a paragraph ago)
I would like these fictional people who's life's I read about five days a week (unless Yelling Bird shows up) to be happy. Dora isn't a bitch for this. I just don't think she's right in this case. But hell, I'm not Jeph. I don't know what's gonna happen. Probably something that makes me (and what appears to be half the forum users now) look like a stupid jackass. Eh, such is life. Such is Psyduck :psyduck: :psyduck: :psyduck:
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I actually think Jack's post was pretty spot-on.
This isn't a game of Monopoly here, or Scrabble or whatnot, with sides, winners and "losers". These are two friends who have just had a really difficult decision made, one that was in many ways inevitable.
I think the absolute worst thing that could happen would be for people in the group to make things worse by "taking sides", trying to punish one person or the other, or whatnot.
Maturity means both comforting friends and realizing when backing off is warranted.
And always having Emergency Bourbon onhand.
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If a problem is to big for you to handle, you go to your SO. That's the uber perk of a relationship. Problems aren't so big if it's split into two.
But she did go to Marten with this, on a regular basis, as we've seen (see the foreshadowing thread). And he repeatedly reassured her.
And it didn't help. Because he and his choice (and her perception of it) was the problem. There would be nothing he could say that would allay her fear, ever.
And repression just doesn't work.
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I think the best way to go from the perspective of stopping CoD from no longer being the center of the comic, would be for Dora to leave for a while, go grow as a character and move on and everything before she comes back. It could lead to wacky hijinx if, for instance, Sven had to run the shop while Dora was away. (Although that itself could also lead to Faye/Sven shenanigans.) Given that Jeph's implied that we are going to get back to wacky fun times in the near future, this would seem to be the route to do it.
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Ugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. What is wrong with you people?
Wow. Pretty big reaction to someone having a respectful, but slightly different opinion about a webcomic. I'm beginning to understand the hyperbole about these forums.
It's weird but true- sometimes in a breakup or divorce, even well-intentioned mature ones, someone "gets custody" of specific friends. I've seen it, even among people who would (under normal circumstances) be considered reasonable adults. Doesn't make it Risk or whatever other board-game metaphor's convenient. It's just a thing people actually do, sometimes.
Moving on- a lot of the QC setting 'hinges' on Dora right now, and I'm wondering if people haven't been 'asking about Dora' for that reason. For instance, aside from being Sven's sister, she's the employer of most of the rest of the regular cast. How she '"sticks the landing", socially and mentally-speaking, might have a sizable influence. (Thinking here of the "I am the boss" strips, where Dora's stress over CoD's finances spilled out as attempted drillsargentry.)
Personally, I'd be disappointed as a reader if it turned into a bender. (Mr. J's depicted them as sorta-fun, before (with imaginary animals and whatall)... I don't see how that'd fit these circumstances.)
ETA: Actually... road trip? So long as it's not permanent (with all those 'running away' connotations), that might be good for a while.
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Dora has to be in charge at CoD. May be it was too tiring for her to be in charge in her relationship, too? After all, she was calling the major changes (getting started, moving together). May be she needs a guy (or a gal) who will take the lead in the relationship? Not an alpha goth arse hole, but a more assertive guy than Marten. Don't get me wrong, Marten was very good for her, but (somebody else asked this earlier, but I'm too lazy/drunk to dig out the reference) did he ever fight for Dora? He did fight for Faye (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1731) :evil: May be there's more than a little bit of Helen of Troy in Dora?
The future of CoD will be extremely awkward, if the crew starts taking sides in the breakup. One of the perils of hiring your friends. A possible silver lining of the dark cloud hanging above CoD is that this may bring back the SASS. Faye seems to have mellowed down as her relationship with Angus is warming up. Pen-Pen is there for sure, but she pales in comparison with the old Faye & Dora. Hanners and Cosette won't be pulling their weight for quite some time.
Like many other posters I can't see Dora (or Marten) getting romantically involved with anyone for a little while. After a recovery/growth period? Sure, but who would be man enough? Dale? I'm not shipping DoraDale, but (excluding Sven and Marten) he is the only unattached male around, so naturally comes to mind. Tai? Not ruling her out but can't comment anything about whether they would be compatible, as I have lived a sheltered life and have never had girl-girl couples in my social circle.
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Quick question. Does anybody think the relationship would have been this rocky/ended the way it did if Marten and Dora had their own place?
I'm not all too sure on the answer myself.
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Quick question. Does anybody think the relationship would have been this rocky/ended the way it did if Marten and Dora had their own place?
I'm not all too sure on the answer myself.
That's actually a good point, even if a lot of the speculation running now is idle. I understood the fiscal logics of the living arrangement, but given their respective pasts the emotional logic wasn't really there. Suppose I should have took that as a sign.
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I personally doubt that it is completely over. The smart thing for Marten to do right now would be to rekindle the relationship on his own. Doing so would not kill Dora's insecurities, but it would be a great first step to allaying her fears that she is only his second choice. At the rate the comic is going now Dora is the only girl for Marten to be with; Hanners still has a few too many problems for a serious relationship though I personally hope for something good to come to her, Marigold, while adorable at times, isn't Marten's type(the only way I see Marten and Marigold together would cast Marten as a douche bag, seeing as how that is the exact opposite of his character I just don't see it happening, also Dale,) and Marten getting with Raven would just be cruel to Dora, he is(as mentioned previously) not the cruel type.
If it was though the only plausible idea I've read is the Dora soul searching Sven running CoD theory, Dora is too much of a major character to completely disappear, and the coffee shop is too good a plot item to get rid of. The clique can't completely die from this because that would effectively end the comic. A split would make for good drama but the way Jeph treats his characters that leave they'd either have to come back or they'd just fade into the background(reference: see all of Steve's exes, the other half of deathmole, the blonde in the beginning, etc.) Tai/Dora while an interesting idea was already ruled out by none other than Tai herself.
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Dora performs a dramatic fake suicide attempt for attention at the Coffee of Doom.
Unfortunately, because of Cosette's clumsiness, the attempt is successful.
Faye goes on a drinking binge with a case of emergency bourbon. She passes out and Pintsize, realizing his chance, undresses her, gropes her, and takes pictures to post on 4chan.
It's actually worse than that, as Faye has to be taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.
Okay, maybe not that dramatic ... but I can see Faye being hospitalized.
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nah suicide is too old hat now... k now imma go hide in case Faye catches wind of that statement.
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Throwing herself into her work, alcohol, and Tai.
In that order, and quite literally. :-D
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Marten and Dora are so clearly going to stay friends. There might be an initial period of awkwardness, but neither of them did anything so bad that the friendship can't survive. I don't want to think about the group being divided over this... even though I know Faye would probably choose Marten as a friend over Dora, I wouldn't want her (or anyone) to be in that position. Dora will be mature about this, she's already set aside her angry moment.
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In the words of the immortal Bette Davis, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night."
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Just following the pattern of the comic thus far, not too terribly happy about this. I've been with the same woman for almost 10 years, there are hard patches and there are fun times but no matter how screwed up you are after a couple of years together you don't just break it off over a silly argument and insecurities.
At least not in 2 minutes of dialogged, people (especially like the character Martin portrays) tend to beat their head against a very hard, spiky, wall before just giving it up.
Absolutely. Been married for quite a while, and the last couple strips didn't quite ring true. One thing I will say, if the boy leaves there's a chance they will get back together. If the girl leaves it's most likely over. It shouldn't be that way, but that's how it seems to fall out.
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Quick question. Does anybody think the relationship would have been this rocky/ended the way it did if Marten and Dora had their own place?
I'm not all too sure on the answer myself.
I'll say yes and no. Yes in that the incident with the post-angus date is dramatically less likely to have occurred, which would have been one fewer big fight, and would have made the argument less likely. BUT the problem isn't a particular incident insofar as it is Doras insecurities. Even if Marten had moved in with her the insecurities probably would have manifested in different ways. It might have taken longer, and yes, it's possible that Dora might have actually gone and gotten help over what happened, but it doesn't feel especially likely. If he had gone to visit Faye, or if he took a little too long to get home, or anything else. What set Marten off so much was that Dora didn't respect him or his boundaries and while she would explode at him for trivial things when he, ONCE, brought up his frustrations after she had violated his privacy and then apologized with an expression that said she was doing it as a courtesy rather than feeling sorry she called him a 'vindictive prick.' Now I should point out that I actually like Dora as a character and was actually kind of shocked when Dora broke things off.
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I personally doubt that it is completely over. The smart thing for Marten to do right now would be to rekindle the relationship on his own. Doing so would not kill Dora's insecurities, but it would be a great first step to allaying her fears that she is only his second choice.
I find this an interesting take. If Marten were to actively pursue Dora (after a short cooling off period), it may well finally allay some of those her fears. Until now, the only reason he's given for choosong her was that she made him happy, but generally, it doesn't take much to make him happy. Showing her that she's important enough to him for him to actively do something to make it happen would be a breakthrough moment for both of them.
Which is why I kind of doubt it's going to happen.
But it could work...
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Guess I'll be grasping at that straw.
It has a better chance of success than Marigold's idea of guilt-tripping Angus into making out with her.
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It's not really a secret that I really like Dora/Marten. In fact I was going to post fanart of them, but now it feels wrong. Last week was definitely a numbing and sad experience for me, but I still love everyone.
I would love for Marten to pursue Dora. It wouldn't get rid off all of her doubts, but it would certainly help.
But Marten has to evolve before I would be really happy about it.
He's become a secondary character in his own life. Before Dora, it was Faye, and lately it's been Dora, Faye or everyone who's not him who has had more priority for him. Until he becomes leading man in his own movie, him pursuing Dora would seem like an act of convenience.
As for Dora...
She needs a vacation, I was hoping for a while that Marten would take charge and take her on one. She's overworked and underpaid.
I wouldn't be surprised if she called in sick for a week and cried for most of them. I think she'll be okay in the long run, because unlike Marten, she can do fine without anyone.
It's just sad, and I don't see her doing anything or anyone for a while.
While she's on personal leave, everyone would realize how much she puts herself into things and people she believes in. Someone will have a crisis, Faye's sponsors will return, and everyone will be unfufilled with everyone else's advice.
Dora will be monotoned for the next month.
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No... not Tai.
Bailey, maybe.
Of course, this is going to wreak havoc on her social life. Most of the people she knows outside the coffee shop she knows through Marten or Faye, and in the coffee shop, Cosette and Hannelore are closer to Marten, Faye is... Faye, Penelope is not really that sociable generally, and Raven is basically gone.
EDIT: No, wait, better idea. Not Tai. Not Bailey. The one for her has been there all along...
Veronica Vance.
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It's interesting. I was about to say "come on, Dora must have had a social life in this town before she hired Faye and met Marten, she's a social outgoing girl, she must have friends who aren't at COD even if she hasn't seem them much in the last 18 months" and then realised "yeah, she did, it was the coven". Oh dear.
Yeah, apart from Penelope, pretty much the entire circle is actually Marten's friend first. Nearly all of them met Dora through Marten, and on-screen have spent more time with him than her. Faye is the exception, and it's clear enough that Faye is not going to be Dora's best friend over this whole thing.
Who have we even seen Dora socialise with without Marten present, besides her employees? Angus, I guess, since he comes to the store, but even then he hasn't really socialised much directly with either Marten or Dora so he'll probably be neutral as to Marten and Dora and just concerned about how it all affects Faye.
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Dale.
He's the only cast member who knew Dora before he knew Marten.
But he's probably not the only regular customer who knows CoD's secret menu. Dora can build a whole new circle out of those losers them.
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The only one of her social circle who she knew before Marten & Faye was Raven. And she's on a bus to college.
...Hey, isn't that the 505 Greyhound bus coming up from Springfield?
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Burn it!!! DON'T LET THE SIMPSONS GET OFF!!!!!!!
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Springfield MASSACHUSETTS, doofus.
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You can't forget Agent Turing!!!
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Springfield MASSACHUSETTS, doofus.
Exactly
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The only one of her social circle who she knew before Marten & Faye was Raven. And she's on a bus to college.
...Hey, isn't that the 505 Greyhound bus coming up from Springfield?
...I have a hunch you've never actually been to Pioneer Valley.
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You would be correct, sir.
I was just trying to make teh funny about "Wouldn't this be a good time for Raven to suddenly reappear in the comic..."
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I don't want to think about the group being divided over this... even though I know Faye would probably choose Marten as a friend over Dora, I wouldn't want her (or anyone) to be in that position. Dora will be mature about this, she's already set aside her angry moment.
This, simply because I know among most adults, it's entirely possible to remain friends with both parties of a break-up within a tight-knit group of friends provided you set the boundaries properly. I'd find it unrealistic if half the group suddenly got cold toward Dora and the other half toward Marten (or however you'd divide them). There's no real need for taking sides here; it's their issue. The only one I could have seen having to choose is Faye, and clearly she's perfectly okay with both of them, feelings of murderous rage aside. (After all, someone's not really a friend if they don't make you want to kill things once in a while. True story.)
...But dude, you know the Vespavenger would bust out of prison just to have Dora's back. I'mjustsayin'.
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...But dude, you know the Vespavenger would bust out of prison just to have Dora's back. I'mjustsayin'.
She's not n prison - she made that killbot, she's working for the DOD now...
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under very close observation I'm sure :police:
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You would be correct, sir.
I was just trying to make teh funny about "Wouldn't this be a good time for Raven to suddenly reappear in the comic..."
I know, and it would be a perfect moment of comedic timing by Jeph to bring her back at this point.
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Unfortunately, that means he won't. :|
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Yeah
Dang it.
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Unfortunately, that means he won't. :|
Yet.