Chapter 5: Lit, page 89.

♪ ♫ Oh, there ain’t no rest for the wicked. Money don’t grow on trees… ♫ ♪

Orpha knocks it off with the finishing school crapola and gets to the point.

48 thoughts on “Chapter 5: Lit, page 89.”

    1. As Spike explained it, there are only X [in this case, 79] zones where brothels may operate, whether or not there actually is one in any zone. If one of those zones goes away, that’s one zone they will never have again.

      It’s about options, and losing them, regardless of what the business is about.

      1. Only those 79 plots are allowed to have brothels? You’d think a city full of drug friendly flophouses and a prostitute licensing board would be equally as lax with zoning regulations.

        1. I get the strong impression that those 79 brothels were established in a much earlier “simpler” time when extorting your opponents (or just leaving them in shallow graves in the desert) was a valid and effective method of political discourse. And prostitutes have always had an almost uniquely good position to gain material for extorting politicians. Such methods are almost completely ineffective today, what with political sex scandals hitting the interwebs before the politicos can even reach for the kleenex (and the voters simply not caring), making establishing new brothels all but impossible.

          In other words, sometimes you have to fight a mile to gain an inch, and slippery slopes are slippery. It’s best to keep that inch and stay off the slopes.

          1. I get the distinct impression the Mariah battles where a much more dangerous and bloody time then anyone is willing to say…

  1. Oh no! One of your many, many bastion of power given over to helping those who want to help themselves? Clearly, this will lessen you and everyone like you in ways that cannot EVER be comprehended! Better go ahead and pull that ladder ALL the way up just to be sure, huh bitch?

    Orpha is everything that I hate in this world.

      1. What theft, exactamente?
        Reclamation is doing nothing illegal, nothing below board. Orpha here is the kind of person who says ‘there should be a law’ about things she doesn’t like, methinks, and acts like there is when there isn’t.

  2. Yes, Orpha your commercial enterprise will be so terribly hurt by losing a building you abandoned years ago.

  3. It’s amazing, truly, the physical reactions this woman provokes. I open my mouth, and every time I try to say the words, “You’re overreacting,” the sounds that come out of my mouth do not sound like that. At all. I think the words that actually come out more strongly resembles, “You really need to rethink your priorities, you stuck-up, self-important hag. You’re a madam in Templar, AZ. You’re only impact on this world is defined by others spreading their legs. Who gives a damn about you throwing your weight around and trying to hold onto a building that’s about to collapse just because you’re afraid of losing a possession of yours?”

    I may need to see a doctor about this.

      1. Really, Hanna? My rant may have been a little long, but that’s no excuse for being so INSULTING. “100% sane”…that’s just plain HARSH. (sniffs)

        1. Remember that most of the population would NOT get 100% sane rating. To them you’d still seem insane, albeit in a more peculiar fashion. :-P

  4. On the other hand I frikkin’ love Zebulon. I suspect that if it wasn’t for him the Doves would have collapsed under the weight of Orpha’s pretentiousness years ago.

  5. On one hand, Orpha is a bitch. On the other hand, having a zero-tolerance policy on succumbing to attrition is a practical neccesity when one’s business will NEVER have the moral support of the public. She doesn’t want to give an inch because every inch given is an inch her business will never see back in her lifetime, if at all. Odds are there have been previous attempts to shut the Doves down that have been more deliberate, and on a larger scale, that have instilled this mindset in her. Additionally, the people behind such previous attempts are likely still around, and may give Reclamation support as a means to bring the Doves down. Hence, her overreaction.

      1. I doubt she can “fire” him or she already would have. Unless you meant she’d murder him, which I also doubt. Murder would be so beneath her classy act. (And yes, when I say “classy”, I fully mean it. =P)

        1. If firing isn’t an option, she can always demote him to a lower position. I’d need to know more about his current position before accepting any work, though. There is very little that I am above administrating, but I wouldn’t be comfortable doing field work in that market.

  6. I’m sure we’ll learn more, but 79 still seems like an awful lot of brothels. I don’t think we even have that many Starbucks.

    1. We don’t know how big Templar is, and it’s heavily implied that there a wide variety of fetishes to accomodate. Victorian architecture and poor hygiene for the Past Timers, for example. Plus, there’s the summer dust in the air: Reclamation demonstrates there aren’t enough homes for everyone, and if the whorehouses are literal as well as their normal function, homeless may go there as staff and customers just to find shelter.

  7. Hrm. Sometimes it bothers me how moral people get over this comic. I can’t tell if Orpha’s bro right thurr is her boyfriend or her gay best friend.

  8. Are ALL the brothels in Templar owned by Orpha’s family line? Or is it just a general “all we’ll ever have”?

    Also, Zebulon’s line about whoring remaining while empires rise and fall is so true. His way of putting it is GREAT. And I love his remark of having eaten her food too. Reminds me of the childish games I played with my brothers when little. Fits here perfectly and reinforces my idea of them being siblings.

  9. So it’s like the hashcafes in Amsterdam? There are only so many licenses and once a place closes the licenses is Gone Forever cause there is no way they could pass a bill expanding the number of licenses?

    I imagine Zeb has a very deep, very southern accent but that’s just me.

    Orpha is still straight up Lucille Bluth.

    1. I don’t know, she’s an arrogant, conceited bitch, but now we begin to see where she’s coming from. She’s hardline because she’s had to be. As said above, her business cannot expand, and once ground is lost it is likely to be lost forever.

      That said, I think the best solution in this case would be for the Doves to work WITH Reclamation, keeping a whore presence on the site so that it isn’t completely lost to their purposes.

      1. I can’t really imagine Orpha cooperating with anyone her lawyers haven’t beat to the ground already, or can you?

  10. I can’t help but think of Orpha as a petty drone among David Icke’s empire of lizard people. I think I will do a little doodle depicting her as such.

  11. As personally repellent as Orpha is, I have a feeling she also Gets Shit Done. Gotta respect a hardass.

    1. No, you don’t need to respect a bitchy hardass, cause she don’t respect you one bit. You kick her out on her can and get a more sensible hardass on the job. Only way she’ll be any good is getting what she wants by fear of repercussions. Tyrants tend to get overthrown. Actually I think that’s her and the Rec right there.

      1. Just giving the devil her due. I don’t doubt she’s a Machiavellian’ hell-on-wheels, but like it or not that paranoia probably explains a lot about how Orpha got to where she is and why she’s still there. From what little we’ve seen of Templar’s brothel politics, it looks hardcore. Like a shark tank.

    1. Ah! Thanks! This I didn’t know. Unlike most biblical names, I had never heard it before Drawn Together.

      It does kinda sound like a sci-fi author’s name for some alien planet. Never would have guessed the bible.

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