A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
All Known Alternatives
Karolina 'Kajotko' Jankiewicz
Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Hemlock
Josceline Fenton
A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
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I don’t want to be one of those people who falls into evil from carelessness or convenience. I want to be the one chooses evil, who embraces it with my whole blackened heart.
You missed a part. But those lemons in a bag, in slices, along with some broken glass, thumb tacks, or razor blades. You really want your enemies to FEEL it when you bludgeon them with them. Thumb tacks are best, if you can get them, because they don’t destroy the bag as fast.
P.S. Sorry for flagging you. I missed with the mouse.
I feel like those last three options (narcissism, stubbornness, evil) are very different from each other and it says a lot about Dorothy that she’s put them all in a row like that.
makes me wonder if there are ‘good’ narcissists. maybe ‘parasocial influencers’ that don’t cause scandals/ones that do makeup/makeover and modelling, tho considering there’s a whole subreddit, ideal that parents woujldnt’ be one
I mean in terms of the mental health thing, yes. If you set up a narcissist so that the best way to get praise and attention is to engage in constructive pro-social behavior, you get good narcissists. Not necessarily ones you want to be friends with, but good for the world.
The theme of the 13th Federalist Paper can be summed up as “pit ambition against ambition for the general good” so the theory of beneficial narcissism is literally baked into U.S. governance from the beginning. Hamilton, Madison and Jay recognized the danger of politicians acting from pure self interest but theorized enough of them would come to some sort of equilibrium.
Given they were basically (re)inventing democracy, I think they can be cut some slack. It’s also not like anyone’s really come up with a better solution since them.
Some tweaks on different ways to balance, but that’s about it.
True narcissism is a mental illness, so, yes, there are in fact narcissists who try not to hurt people. No mental illness in the world makes everyone who has it into a monster.
That’s ableist to say. Plenty of evil people weren’t narcissistic. Frankly, a lot of people who are labeled that way don’t fall under clinical criteria, whereas there’s good people out there who do.
I think the Narc label is simply what abusive parents are often labeled with. I prefer the term “abusive.”
I mean, not every use of the word “narcissistic” is referring to the personality disorder. Its still a personality trait based on the story of the guy who turned into a weird flower cuz he liked his face so much. Also a pattern of abuse, I’m not sure if narcissistic abusers always have NPD but it’s still a recognizable pattern.
You could say that in itself is ableist and the word should be used exclusively in a clinical context, i personally think it’s a useful word for the public vocabulary so I’d disagree. Just like how i think “psychopathic” is a useful word even though it’s not literally diagnosing someone with aspd
Powersliding between definitions- which people do regularly and then pretend they didn’t- is ableist as hell. The idea of “narcissistic abuse” is also very much based on demonizing NPD and broadening it into a pop armchair diagnosis and is not cool.
Narcissism the regular word is fine but it needs to be clarified more often what someone means due to bad actors, sort of like how you can totally be depressed without actually having Major Depressive Disorder but if you start talking to the public about how you dealt with and treated your depression you should probably specify whether you’re actually talking about the clinical, usually-chronic thing or “yo this celebrity I never met died and I was super bummed for a week until I did yoga about it”.
Sin is when you do something or are something that some dude claims has somehow injured an omnipotent being, but really it’s about that dude’s ability to control others.
Yup. She didn’t know as much as she does now, hence the point of going to college, a transformative experience. She must acknowledge that she only ever held unto her original goal under false pretenses, and learn not to frame her more fundamental goal too tightly. Instead of trying to solve “how to I become President”, instead she should solve “how do I help as many people as I can?”
Hey if Ruth is sufficiently conservative or left-wing she just runs for the other party and bam! that’s a win in an election where the base cares more about hurting the other side than bettering the country on common ground. Plus the “no value voters” – she has those on lock:
Was gonna say that she would sadly be ineligible because of that pesky natural-born-citizen clause, but then I remembered her Gramps was American, so she might have had dual citizenship from birth.
Her grandfather definitely lives in the US- that’s why Ruth is there now, after all. She lived in Canada until her parents died, after which she went to live with her grandpa that lives in the US.
Well, if Clint is an American citizen, that would make Ruth’s mother an American citizen, which would make Ruth an American citizen as well, wouldn’t it?
Yeah, unless there’s something we don’t know, by far the most likely case is that she’s a dual citizen.
Clint could have moved from Canada to the US, rather than Ruth’s mom moving to Canada, but there’s no hint of that. Ruth’s mom could have renounced her US citizenship before Ruth was born, but there’s no reason to think that.
Otherwise, she’s the daughter of an American citizen born abroad who’s lived in the US since she was 16. She’s a citizen.
It’s a stupid game. There are two entire continents with “America” in the name, and I don’t think my guildmates from Brazil would take kindly to being called Americans. Because connotations exist.
(There’s no SA data center for FF14, so they usually play on NA servers. I see as much Portuguese as I do English, at some RP venues.)
I’ve known some people from various countries who are annoyed at the idea that “American” should/does refer to people from the US precisely because there are two entire continents with “America” in the name. (Also, the Americas aren’t always separate in some continental division.)
It’s silly that they’re literally named North and South, but people wanna remove those helpful qualifiers. If you wanna refer to every single person from both by the same name, be ready to clarify a lot.
I do wish the USA had a snappier title for its citizens than “Americans” that a layperson is gonna know about, though. I think it’s more practical for these stupid ambiguities to be removed, but “United States Ian” doesn’t really roll off the tongue.
Thank you, phone, for putting that extra space there an attosecond before my finger hit the Post button, despite me checking twice to make sure you hadn’t.
My country is in north America and i *despise* that “oh you’re technically American too!” Game. It’s a semantic argument that exists wholely and entirely to be annoying because it has 0 practical use.
maybe the rules will change by then, given how many immigrants are in the US, and maybe ppl going outside of the country to give birth/get healthcare/etc, i wouldn’t be surprised if there was a decade where not many candidates would be born within the us , like even going to like the ‘best’ hospital in the world for birth care or even growing a baby in some kinda lab
Fun fact: if Alexander Hamilton had been born in the United States, that requirement probably wouldn’t be in the Constitution. It was put in specifically to disqualify him.
None of the Founders were born in the United States, as it didn’t exist prior to then. The early Presidents were covered by the “or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution” clause.
No need. Just claim the femurs were involved in a crime and seize them via asset forfeiture. If they want their femurs back, they’ll have to prove they weren’t used in a crime. Good luck with that, suckers!
The more time goes on the more I find myself relating to Dorothy – except the part where she has partners just lining up for her and cleans her room willingly.
I will die before I organize my bookshelf again – I will die on this hill (off unwashed laundry).
Last weekend I had to move the fridge and a few other things out of the kitchen because there was this foul smell coming from somewhere, like a dead rat. But despite killing a few random crickets and scrubbing down the floor and walls by that one fridge, that smell still lingered. And now I gotta check behind the *other* fridge, behind the metal sink fixture that doesn’t move, and maybe I’ll find the horror I’m looking for.
Cleanliness is a lot of work, but it’s sure necessary.
I have always wondered about the whole “President” as a goal. It’s got a very “grade-schooler thinks this is the highest echelon” but in life, it’s really not. It holds almost no power without having a workable legislature to help pass laws, Dorothy is way too smart to put all her stock into President as an end goal unless it was to work towards something even larger afterwards. Otherwise, yeah, if this is the first time she’s actually questioned it, she really should have been doing that much sooner than now.
There’s definitely folks who go into politics with an “I’m going to be president someday” mindset but statistically the vast majority of them do not become the president.
i’ve heard some ppl say “the president doesn’t do as much as one would think” yet those same ppl would turn around and be like “thanks obama”/blame them directly for stuff
but yeah given social media scrutinizing everyone i imagine no one would want to. if anything i’d expect some younger ppl that qualify to desperately run so it’s like “just so we don’t have another trump” and working together in a team to keep things afloat/stop from getting worse even if they can’t ‘undo’ the damage from the other presidents’ previous terms
There are plenty of things, both bad and good, that US presidents can do without needing the approval or law-making powers of Congress. Lots of presidents don’t tend to use those powers, at least not when it comes to doing good things that would help the average working-class folks. They do tend to use their executive powers plenty when it benefits the wealthy and large corporations though.
Almost no power without the legislature? Wow, your world sounds nice. Can I come live there?
Under the strict terms of the Constitution, you’re correct. In the real world, the President wields vast powers with little accountability. Either through legislation or lazy, cowardly inaction, Congress has ceded many of their responsibilities to the executive, including powers the Constitution explicitly delegates to the legislature.
The use and abuse of executive orders has been a problem for decades, and it’s only getting worse. Not only is this a usurpation that undermines the separation of powers, it also introduces tremendous uncertainty into the legal environment. Whatever the current administration does with the stroke of a pen, for good or ill, the next administration can reverse with that same pen.
Even more serious is Congress’s irresponsible surrender of power over such critical issues as war and taxation. The Constitution explicitly delegates the power to levy taxes and declare war to Congress, but Presidents have managed to seize powers far beyond their legitimate authority. Instead of a straight-forward declaration of war against a clearly defined enemy, we get open-ended “Authorization(s) for Use of Military Force” that Presidents then stretch beyond all reason. (See Obama’s illegal invasion of Syria for just one example.) Congress has also illegitimately ceded power over certain types of taxation, as well. (See Trump’s idiotic, self-destructive tariffs, which Biden shows no sign of lifting.)
Congress could readily rein in many of these abuses, if they had any hint of a collective spine. But that shows little sign of happening, for a couple of reasons. First, it would require congresscritters to actually take some responsibility and go on the record, one way or another. They’d much rather avoid the hard decisions and stick to keeping the pork flowing and shaking down donors. Second, there’s our current hyper-partisan environment. Too many people are more concerned about scoring a win for their TEAM, or denying one to the other TEAM, than they are about actually fixing problems. This means that a narrowly divided Congress is pretty useless at curtailing executive overreach. Even if they occasionally manage to pass a law, the lack of anything close to a veto-overriding super majority means the President can effectively tell them to go piss up a rope. The courts aren’t exactly helping, either. All too often, judges tie logic into knots and ignore the plain text of the Constitution in order to defer to the other branches.
It’s a big, complicated problem, and there’s no way to solve it over night. For that matter, as long as the will doesn’t exist, there’s no way to solve it at all.
You left one out: Congress writes laws that are necessarily incompletely and authorize administration regulations to work.
Sometimes it’s necessary but often times it’s not and some of the intended guts and bones of the legislation are gutted so industry has an opportunity to nullify parts of the law in it’s regulation and administration.
That’s what “executive” means. The policymakers make policy and allocate funding, and then the executive has received the authority to turn the policy into action. If the policymakers let the executive talk them into something, that was their decision and their responsibility. They can amend the decision.
Your second point: YES. Politics in the US today is treated like a sport or a religion, not a serious attempt to help people live together peacefully and further common interests. Probably because the party bosses like it that way — it won’t change until the parties are reformed (or replaced, if they won’t be reformed).
It’s like a kid who wants to play a sport as a professional. Nice dream as a kid. The number of things that have to happen that are out of your control is immense. You can be a politician and make a difference without getting beyond state legislatures. Or you can go to Yale and destroy the economy for funzies. No need to get all existential about it.
Yes. It is an underexamined child’s goal. A 19 year old should not be planning their life with the singular goal of getting the the possibly the most exclusive job*. For multiple reasons, which I’m sure have been discussed thoroughly.
She’s built up reflexes, mentally and conversationally, to deflect that the ideas that undermine that childhood goal. When Raidah brought it up, Dorothy was expecting the conversation to go down the “isn’t that silly” route, because that’s probably what she’s encountered before, either out loud or non-verbally.
And Dorothy’s crisis is “going to be president” is an identity for her more than it just is a career goal. It’s not a religion, but the crisis is not dissimilar. If there’s phases to it, she’s at the analog to “I’m not sure I’m hearing God’s voice anymore” part.
* I keep thinking about an interview with some of Obama’s college friends. He wasn’t special in college. As in any of them had what it took. There is a lot of happenstance and opportunities you can’t plan for, 20 years ahead of time.
There’s a question that needs to be asked, did Dorothy decide to choose the path she on out of a sense of duty and to do atleast something in history bring about a good change in the world for the people she would govern? Or was it feeling a sense of accomplishment and Ambition of a high standard?
Either way I’d sum up the problem she’s having right now as the old saying of “The grass wasn’t greener on the other side.”
be nice for more of a flashback, her parents seemed pretty chill while she was always an over achiever growing up according to that patreon preview of her room full of trophies(?), so idk if they had it as a goal for her rather than her learning of/being in an ‘inspiration speech’ rally at school that’d make her want the concept of being the president
I’m definitely wondering that too. What were Dorothy’s motives behind wanting to become president in the first place? Either way, better that she realizes the problems with that dream now. But I’m still curious why she wanted to be president.
Dorothy and Ruth are just casually representing the two wolves that live rent free inside my head.
“I MIGHT BE A BAD PERSON AND I SHOULD WORRY ABOUT THIS”
“Yes, but hear me out; if we do bad on purpose, at least we know where we stand?” (/j to the above)
I feel so hard for Dorothy here. She needs a hug and to go back to the ground and really figure out why she wants what she wants. I personally think politics could use more people who want to try to do well even if they’re aware it’s an unrealistic endeavor, but she’s never really given a reason for wanting to be President. I actually think something like social work or psychiatry could be up her alley if she can work through her own internalized stigmas and anxieties.
Or maybe even something like teacher or professor. There are a lot of different avenues to helping and guiding people and she seems to really want to help individuals. She shouldn’t give up on Politics because of Raidah, but it’s time to take a good long look and the mirror and figure out the Why of Dorothy.
I think the problem with those professions is that sometimes you have to cater to a mass class instead of an individual. And Dorothy seems to have problems with that. She makes spreadsheets of everyone’s issues and wants to cater to everyone. And that’s just a fast track to burn out especially if she’s going to teach a freshman class of 50+ people.
Therapist might work if she can get herself to learn when to stop helping too much. Or I dunno, dietician or something where she can make individualised care but can’t help too much.
If Dotty is willing to consider this chances are she is not a narcissist or evil. Although stubborn and sometimes she can be a bit of busy-body Ala Joyce.
But she is 18 or 19 so she shouldn’t judge herself to badly.
You think we are going to get an book where someone finds the book and uses it against the crew? Sort of like that old Justice League movie where the the Legion of Doom steals Batman’s contingency plans for the Justice League?
The funny thing would be if someone finds the book and tries to use it against them, but most of them have experienced enough character development since his death that the tricks outlined don’t work anymore.
That idea reminds me a lot of an old It’s Walky!strip.
…huh, Mike was pretty much tied with Blaine for closest DoA equivalent to the Head Alien, wasn’t he. (not counting the fictional-in-universe Dexter, I mean.)
I think it would be interesting if his book had enough details to, say, expose the mob’s involvement in the mass kidnapping. And which cops are mob stooges. Especially since Asher’s firmly a part of the main cast now, and the cop who shot Blaine in the hospital is implied in one of the Patreon strips to be connected to… somebody. (First strip for August 2020, for reference.)
But also, it should legitimately never be someone’s end-goal to be ome the President, esp. not during high school/college- end goal to go into Politics (TM), or to make an attempt to reach the Senate.. but a whole lot of highly successful politicians never make it past the House of Representatives (if that far)… And after 3 terms there, they’re literally set for life.
makes me wonder how many ppl could ‘fail upwards’ into being president
Flash forward 25 years into the future where Danny is president and everyone’s wonder how the hell it happened (not that danny is especially incompetent/unambitious but first name that popped in my head lol)
Idon’t really see a problem with having President as the end goal. A lot of politicians do, though they’re not usually quite so open about it.
I would have liked to see more of what she thought the rest of the political career would be like. Senator? Governor (which is a more common route to the Presidency)?
Well seeing that they’re both atheists, Joyce is a comic artist with a growing audience, and Dorothy’s brain is like a spreadsheet, they already have a massive head start. All they need to do is channel their autism and find a coder to bring their ideas to life.
Don’t choose evil they say they have cookies but there stale store bought off brand anise flavored pizzelles. Cookies shouldn’t taste like black licorice!
People say that oatmeal rasin are evil but they are full of fiber and that helps with you’re bowl movements. Ya know what ansie does? It lowers your potassium levels! Not only does It taste like death but it has adverse health effects true evil!
Oatmeal-raisin cookies are tasty,and the one and only case of cooking with raisins that doesn’t make them seem like something squidgy that fell into the bowl when nobody was looking.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m in my 30s, and I have plenty of doubts.
I just mean that the sooner she confronts some feelings, it’ll probably be better for her. Though, there’s no escaping from feeling like time has been wasted. When you’re older, it’s more time, but when you’re younger, you are generally less experienced at handling some of those feelings.
So, there’s no easy way to handle this, but hopefully, getting to it earlier will be good for her.
It’s here for all their differences in terms of background, socio-political religious/irreligious outlook, Joyce and Dorothy are really alike. While the jury is still out on the Autism question both are driven by very obsessive compulsive behaviors and vexing all consuming anxieties, thoughts and doubts.
whoa slow down, it’s not narcissist or evil, just silly and poorly thought out. Inertia.
Feels like the false dichotomy between “having drive” and “being a narcissist” is a defense mechanism.
I think it’s related to the recent Yale choice where furthering her goal would mean taking an action she’s not morally comfortable with, and she sees the logical endpoint of iterating that behavior.
i’m sure there are plenty of self aware ppl knowing what they’re doing is bad as opposed to justifying it. Though the caring is a good sign that dorothy wouldn’t go fully on corrupt tho that’d be an entertaining one shot where she’s a full on dictator and julia grey has to take her down ;p
Ruth, Ruth – I presume that’s you in the alt-text – you don’t want to cause problems. No. You want to be the problem. It’s kind of like the difference between villainy and supervillainy, and you and I both know you have it in you for evil greatness. So reach for the stars, Ruth…
Dorothy made the smart choice finding someone she disclose this stuff to. Now she needs to separate the issue she’s having with her feelings from the crisis she’s having with her values.
Step 1:
Take some time to just observe your feelings without judging them or assigning value to them. Just feel your feelings and they get processed.
Step 2:
Take some time to think seriously about what you value, what you think (at least currently) is truly important to you. This is a lot easier after you allowed yourself some space to process your feelings. Sure, it could be what you think you could contribute in the realm of politics. If you take the time to soberly consider why politics is important to you in the first place.
The last thing someone who’s like 19 should be doing is making some eternal vow over the vector of their life based on immediate feelings of doubt *or* desire, that sort of thing can change with the wind. And being in a state of judging your own feelings and drives is the worst possible time to make an important decision (also generally not helpful)
Ruth isn’t a bad choice but would love for her to have this same convo with Leslie too, and maybe even robin because of her experiences, to get some adult perspectives too. Well, as ‘adult’ as leslie/robin is within the doa-verse
I would legitimately be interested in seeing Robin try to explain why she initially got interested in politics to Dorothy, that would be a delight. Leslie is certainly the closest available character who can play the part of um… “nurturing, wise elder person” so I grok that instinct.
I’m for real interested in finding out how Ruth of all people will respond to all of this, I don’t think anyone has ever turned to her in this manner. Honestly, just the fact that Dotty found someone she can say all of this stuff to out loud is probably the most important part.
and yeah , minor tangent, nothing’s set in stone at 19 yet there are ppl who expect you to know what you want like right as you enter high school. like in first grade when you’re asked ‘what do you wanna be in the future’ that’s just for ‘fun’/possibly planting a seed of ambition for the future, but there def is pressure to immediately go to college after graduating and finding a major or so.
Dorothy, I fucking swear. Get hooked on an MMO and start getting big into RP. Or at least play D&D as an ambitious and sexy fire genasi. The point is, roleplaying can be a safe way to explore things you want IRL, without much potential for actual harm.
I (m) did occasionally bounce what I was thinking about off of my RA (f), and what I was thinking about was grappling with understanding the world in a new way. The male RA was at the way other end of the floor. I don’t know how much he engaged with the people living closer to him, but I think it was more than the Beck RA does in the strip.
If I were to run into her now, I guess I’d say, sorry for being dumb, thank you for helping out.
Personally I think the answer is in continuing to examine what you do want in life and allowing that to change, rather than being blindly ambitious with only a nebulous goal.
…I mean she’s just doing the basic RA thing of listening to people’s problems? I know it’s weird to see Ruth taking her position seriously instead of using it as an excuse to be an asshole, but it doesn’t really strike me as leading into anything.
Twist: Dorothy’s parents actually belong to a secret society who have dedicated their lives to a long-term plan aiming to bring about a human extinction, or at least massive reduction in global population and to limit the effects of anthropogenic climate change (disclaimer: please dont do this, also overpopulation is a racist-capitalist red herring not a actual pressing issue). Dorothy is unwittingly a sleeper agent they have trained and conditioned her from birth to become potus and be activated to sign the right documents when the time comes.
So it turns out the dream was evil all along.
This may or may not be plagiarized from a british tv show with stylishly saturated colours and a killer soundtrack despite a problematic premise
I appreciate the disclaimer. A lot of us comment section regulars have the power and resources to depopulate the planet in severe ways at a moment’s notice, and it’s good to have someone keeping us honest.
I love DoA, but sometimes it’s very important to ignore the age of these characters.
I’m just imagining if, in real life, I met a college freshman who was suddenly having a panic attack because she’s wondering if her childhood dream of being president is what she really wanted.
idk, is it that weird? if you come from a supportive family who have been setting you up for college, you’ve had childhood dreams of doing some big important job, you’ve spent your primary education taking and excelling the relevant classes and joining the relevant clubs, and now suddenly you’re shoved off into a dormitory and made to officially declare “this is what I want to do for the rest of my life”… you’re in a totally new environment and your parents aren’t there to coddle you anymore, people are prodding you about your goals, and when you sit down and think about them, you suddenly realize that you don’t really have much of a plan other than those vague dreams you came up with as a little kid… not to mention struggling with courses or adjustment to independent living… it’s not that weird to be stressed and wondering if the future you’ve been trying to set out for yourself is going to be everything you hoped for, or if it’s time for a sudden course-correction.
I meant that, as a comparatively Old Person, this just a typical type A freshman meltdown. It doesn’t make it less meaningful for Dorothy, but it also is hard to take too seriously. She’ll get over it, hopefully expand her horizons a bit, and then either get focused again and be more certain, or she’ll find something more important to her.
A lot of childhood moments are like that- they feel Big, and they are to the kid, but they are so rote and common in the human experience that Old People can sometimes be dismissive of them,
This is a tough one. I hope to god Dorothy is being hyperbolic and that she’s not seriously contemplating that her dreams might have been evil. Because she absolutely wanted to use the power of the presidency to do good.
Deciding that her ambition wasn’t actually what she wanted is all well and good, but I really, *really* hope that she’s not condemning herself for having them.
This is definitely a bit personal to me- I graduated college with the intent of joining the State Department- I never wanted to be President, but I did want to go into some aspect of government. I realized it wasn’t for me- 1) my anxiety and that type of job do *not* mix well, 2) I realized I like teaching better- but it was a perfectly fine objective to have, and I’m not a bad person for having it.
Yes, but where on Earth is Dorothy getting the idea that she would do those evil things from? Raidah’s quip about war criminals? I would honestly lose some respect for Willis if Dorothy’s convictions were so weak that they could be shaken by what’s ultimately a talking point rather than an actual argument. If he wants to set it up so that Dorothy starts advocating for anarcho-communism, that’s fine, but it needs more setup.
I think she’s been thrown off balance, by someone who pushed in a direction she wasn’t expecting, but not toppled. Let’s wait and see how she recovers.
I feel like she always assumed she would be doing the right thing in her political career, it never came across her mind that the job itself would probably be pushing her towards doing any atrocities. Not being aware of that can be a dangerous thing when you’re committing yourself to a mindset where your willing do anything to achieve a specific goal.
I don’t feel like Ruth is very suitable as an RA. She’s not really got her shit together.
I mean, you can still struggle even when you are a parent / guardian / authority, but i think she’s not fit as a therapist figure if she makes it about herself instead of actively listening and helping Dorothy find out what she needs to know.
I want to see where this goes before I make a judgment on how Ruth is handling this specific instance. She’s shown herself to be aware that sometimes, the scripted response is not what is wanted (like when she talked to Amber about having an abusive father), and that some people need to ease into talking about feelings (like she did with Walky, and when Walky called her out, she really did seem to take that to heart). It could be that Ruth is taking a more measured entry into this, and trying to relate to Dorothy when she talks about lying in therapy/feeling unsure. She and Dorothy do have more of a peer relationship than an authority-figure one; Ruth went to Dorothy for breakup advice, after all, which shows she’s aware of both her shortcomings and Dorothy’s astuteness. So this may yet be a productive conversation for both, not unlike the exchange between Jennifer and Joyce when they talked about changing and growing as people.
But also yeah generally, Ruth has no business doing this and it’s basically at her grandfather’s strong insistence that IU keeps her in the position. You’re right about that, globally. I just had some interesting thoughts as a result of your perfectly cromulent assessment of the situation,
You are absolutely correct in seeing first how this plays out. The strip after this shows some actually useful advice!
But ugh, people getting jobs because of *connections* rather than *suitability* really sucks…
Keep Going Dorothy! These are Good Concerns. Keep them! Hold them close. You’re trying to Change The World and these concerns need to be there when you’re trying to Change The World.
Do you think Robin has these concerns? No.
You levelled up! You get a new feat!
You probably want your self-accountability to be more like a hand to hold on the path than a gun against your head though.
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Choose Evil
the opposite of Live
…wait no??
So Lone Star, Now you see that Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb.
The evil ones always seem to live practically forever, so choose evil.
Except Jimmy Carter. He’s one of the good ones who lived practically forever.
Or…oh. Oh no…
Why settle for the lesser of two evils? Vote the Elder Party! Cthulu in ’24!
Oh that is a wicked slogan
I don’t want to be one of those people who falls into evil from carelessness or convenience. I want to be the one chooses evil, who embraces it with my whole blackened heart.
Dear Lord, lead us not into temptation. We can find the way on our own.
Congratulations, you have grasped the concept of true pure irredeemable evil. Not may can do that.
Dumbing of Age Book 13: I Can Choose Evil
DoA Book 13: Maybe This Has Been a Sunk Cost Fallacy for Too Long.
DoA Book 13: Evil I’d really like.
DoAB13: Is My Brain Lying Again?
Yeah, Ruth, I love lemons, too.
Ruth’s motto when life gives you lemons put them in a bag and bludgeon your enemies with them.
“Make life rue the day it thought it could give Dorothy Keener lemons!!!” XD
SHE IS THE WOMAN WHO IS GOING TO BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN, WITH THE LEMONS!
She is the one who knocks.
You missed a part. But those lemons in a bag, in slices, along with some broken glass, thumb tacks, or razor blades. You really want your enemies to FEEL it when you bludgeon them with them. Thumb tacks are best, if you can get them, because they don’t destroy the bag as fast.
P.S. Sorry for flagging you. I missed with the mouse.
Look the point of hitting someone with a bag of lemons is to cause a lot of pain without visible and lawsuitable bruises.
This only causes shallow scratches. Very shallow. Very painful scratches, but still very shallow.
I feel like those last three options (narcissism, stubbornness, evil) are very different from each other and it says a lot about Dorothy that she’s put them all in a row like that.
Narcissism and evil are not synonymous but are closely related and frequently intertwined.
makes me wonder if there are ‘good’ narcissists. maybe ‘parasocial influencers’ that don’t cause scandals/ones that do makeup/makeover and modelling, tho considering there’s a whole subreddit, ideal that parents woujldnt’ be one
I mean in terms of the mental health thing, yes. If you set up a narcissist so that the best way to get praise and attention is to engage in constructive pro-social behavior, you get good narcissists. Not necessarily ones you want to be friends with, but good for the world.
The theme of the 13th Federalist Paper can be summed up as “pit ambition against ambition for the general good” so the theory of beneficial narcissism is literally baked into U.S. governance from the beginning. Hamilton, Madison and Jay recognized the danger of politicians acting from pure self interest but theorized enough of them would come to some sort of equilibrium.
…God that’s cute in its naivete.
Given they were basically (re)inventing democracy, I think they can be cut some slack. It’s also not like anyone’s really come up with a better solution since them.
Some tweaks on different ways to balance, but that’s about it.
True narcissism is a mental illness, so, yes, there are in fact narcissists who try not to hurt people. No mental illness in the world makes everyone who has it into a monster.
Thank you jfc
That’s ableist to say. Plenty of evil people weren’t narcissistic. Frankly, a lot of people who are labeled that way don’t fall under clinical criteria, whereas there’s good people out there who do.
I think the Narc label is simply what abusive parents are often labeled with. I prefer the term “abusive.”
I mean, not every use of the word “narcissistic” is referring to the personality disorder. Its still a personality trait based on the story of the guy who turned into a weird flower cuz he liked his face so much. Also a pattern of abuse, I’m not sure if narcissistic abusers always have NPD but it’s still a recognizable pattern.
You could say that in itself is ableist and the word should be used exclusively in a clinical context, i personally think it’s a useful word for the public vocabulary so I’d disagree. Just like how i think “psychopathic” is a useful word even though it’s not literally diagnosing someone with aspd
Powersliding between definitions- which people do regularly and then pretend they didn’t- is ableist as hell. The idea of “narcissistic abuse” is also very much based on demonizing NPD and broadening it into a pop armchair diagnosis and is not cool.
Narcissism the regular word is fine but it needs to be clarified more often what someone means due to bad actors, sort of like how you can totally be depressed without actually having Major Depressive Disorder but if you start talking to the public about how you dealt with and treated your depression you should probably specify whether you’re actually talking about the clinical, usually-chronic thing or “yo this celebrity I never met died and I was super bummed for a week until I did yoga about it”.
To me, narcissism is just a facet of Pride, which is one of the Sins. I don’t know how stubbornness got in there.
Sin is when you do something or are something that some dude claims has somehow injured an omnipotent being, but really it’s about that dude’s ability to control others.
I assume she’s more often accused of being narcissistic or stubborn than evil— the evil thing is new to her.
Those things are often compared to each other in the environments she’s spent her life in.
Oh, Dorothy. We’ve all been there.
Trying to reconcile our new feelings through the lens of our old feelings.
Yup. She didn’t know as much as she does now, hence the point of going to college, a transformative experience. She must acknowledge that she only ever held unto her original goal under false pretenses, and learn not to frame her more fundamental goal too tightly. Instead of trying to solve “how to I become President”, instead she should solve “how do I help as many people as I can?”
Ruth for President. Clearly.
Hey if Ruth is sufficiently conservative or left-wing she just runs for the other party and bam! that’s a win in an election where the base cares more about hurting the other side than bettering the country on common ground. Plus the “no value voters” – she has those on lock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWdN4hA-rB0
Was gonna say that she would sadly be ineligible because of that pesky natural-born-citizen clause, but then I remembered her Gramps was American, so she might have had dual citizenship from birth.
Probably not her Parents were probably Canadian
According to Google, Ruth MIGHT be a US Citizen if her grandfather maintains a residence in the US. If not, then she’s not, even if he is.
I learned something today about the weird rules concerning citizenship.
Her grandfather definitely lives in the US- that’s why Ruth is there now, after all. She lived in Canada until her parents died, after which she went to live with her grandpa that lives in the US.
If either of her parents was American, Ruth could have birthright citizenship.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/us-citizenship/Acquisition-US-Citizenship-Child-Born-Abroad.html
Well, if Clint is an American citizen, that would make Ruth’s mother an American citizen, which would make Ruth an American citizen as well, wouldn’t it?
That’s what I was trying to get at, yeah.
Sometimes people forget the US immigration and naturalization system was designed to build a nation of immigrants.
*And then the Racist Nation attacked…*
Yeah, unless there’s something we don’t know, by far the most likely case is that she’s a dual citizen.
Clint could have moved from Canada to the US, rather than Ruth’s mom moving to Canada, but there’s no hint of that. Ruth’s mom could have renounced her US citizenship before Ruth was born, but there’s no reason to think that.
Otherwise, she’s the daughter of an American citizen born abroad who’s lived in the US since she was 16. She’s a citizen.
I love the amount of work you all put into determining whether a fictional character who doesn’t want to be President would be allowed to.
You know, when I made the joke, I thought about this for five seconds and decided Ruth was probably ineligible and to ignore it for the joke’s sake.
I appreciate that people worked it out better than I could have.
It’s come up before in other contexts
Ruth is Canadian and can’t run for president but Dotty can in theory be Prime Minister of Canada
Forget it. Doesn’t qualify. Not born American.
Canada is in America by any sensible definition of the word
Don’t call Candians Americans they don’t like that.
Those’re fighting words.
I’d say “Under the jurisdiction of the United States of America” is a sensible definition by which it is not.
I hate this semantic game so much.
It’s a stupid game. There are two entire continents with “America” in the name, and I don’t think my guildmates from Brazil would take kindly to being called Americans. Because connotations exist.
(There’s no SA data center for FF14, so they usually play on NA servers. I see as much Portuguese as I do English, at some RP venues.)
I’ve known some people from various countries who are annoyed at the idea that “American” should/does refer to people from the US precisely because there are two entire continents with “America” in the name. (Also, the Americas aren’t always separate in some continental division.)
I’ve been a US citizen since birth, and I’m annoyed by it. This confusion makes it hard to talk about two entire continents.
It’s silly that they’re literally named North and South, but people wanna remove those helpful qualifiers. If you wanna refer to every single person from both by the same name, be ready to clarify a lot.
I do wish the USA had a snappier title for its citizens than “Americans” that a layperson is gonna know about, though. I think it’s more practical for these stupid ambiguities to be removed, but “United States Ian” doesn’t really roll off the tongue.
Thank you, phone, for putting that extra space there an attosecond before my finger hit the Post button, despite me checking twice to make sure you hadn’t.
United States Ian, I ask you.
Its true, that is truly bizarre way to specify the nationality of Ian
Also no american has ever been named Ian. Ian, like Gemma and Liam, is a British word used by writers as shorthand for “this is happening in UK”
My country is in north America and i *despise* that “oh you’re technically American too!” Game. It’s a semantic argument that exists wholely and entirely to be annoying because it has 0 practical use.
What, you don’t think it’s practical to have to specify “No, I’m not from that shithole just because I happen to live on the same continent”?
or off the same continent, as the case may be
No. It’s in North America. The continent. Just saying “American” is shorthand for “from the United States of America”. The country. You know that.
maybe the rules will change by then, given how many immigrants are in the US, and maybe ppl going outside of the country to give birth/get healthcare/etc, i wouldn’t be surprised if there was a decade where not many candidates would be born within the us , like even going to like the ‘best’ hospital in the world for birth care or even growing a baby in some kinda lab
Pretty sure Ruth would be ineligible, I don’t think she’s a natural-born citizen
Fun fact: if Alexander Hamilton had been born in the United States, that requirement probably wouldn’t be in the Constitution. It was put in specifically to disqualify him.
None of the Founders were born in the United States, as it didn’t exist prior to then. The early Presidents were covered by the “or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution” clause.
Yeah, and with what John Campbell said, thar part about Hamilton is just… not true.
I’d vote for her.
maybe she’ll be on her advisors/staff
Good luck getting the Femur Confiscation Act passed.
You haven’t seen the bone lobby in action.
No need. Just claim the femurs were involved in a crime and seize them via asset forfeiture. If they want their femurs back, they’ll have to prove they weren’t used in a crime. Good luck with that, suckers!
Notably the femurs have to prove that they were notthe proceeds of crime, because the accusation is made against the femurs, not the owners.
The owners don’t have standing.
I see what you did there.
Stupid lack of an edit button.
You could have also said “Legally, the owners don’t have a leg to stand on.”
Oh wow
I love you for that pun
Or to randomly say it in a different language: ya lyoblyo tibia
I’d vote for Dorothy over any real-world candidate who has ever run.
Don’t knock evil. It’s fun. And at least it can be reasoned with, unlike stupid.
I’m Evil, my middle name is Misery, wo wo wo wo~o
Well I’m Evil, so don’t you mess around with me
…I want these two to be best friends now.
girlbossing their way up to the top together lol
The more time goes on the more I find myself relating to Dorothy – except the part where she has partners just lining up for her and cleans her room willingly.
I will die before I organize my bookshelf again – I will die on this hill (off unwashed laundry).
I read that as having partners that clean her room willingly, and I’m like wow, you can get those?
A good partner will help you keep your living space clean, yes.
(
σωσ) you have to reciprocate in some way. (could be cooking or something else that’s not cleaning but still)
Me, a knower of greek: are you covertly sending out an SOS
Do you.. do you hope that someone gets your message in an emoji
Organising my bookshelf is the only “cleaning” I willingly do
Last weekend I had to move the fridge and a few other things out of the kitchen because there was this foul smell coming from somewhere, like a dead rat. But despite killing a few random crickets and scrubbing down the floor and walls by that one fridge, that smell still lingered. And now I gotta check behind the *other* fridge, behind the metal sink fixture that doesn’t move, and maybe I’ll find the horror I’m looking for.
Cleanliness is a lot of work, but it’s sure necessary.
I have always wondered about the whole “President” as a goal. It’s got a very “grade-schooler thinks this is the highest echelon” but in life, it’s really not. It holds almost no power without having a workable legislature to help pass laws, Dorothy is way too smart to put all her stock into President as an end goal unless it was to work towards something even larger afterwards. Otherwise, yeah, if this is the first time she’s actually questioned it, she really should have been doing that much sooner than now.
There’s definitely folks who go into politics with an “I’m going to be president someday” mindset but statistically the vast majority of them do not become the president.
It seems to have become a habitually way of thinking for her, maybe taking the place of other, less ambitious guiding principals.
i’ve heard some ppl say “the president doesn’t do as much as one would think” yet those same ppl would turn around and be like “thanks obama”/blame them directly for stuff
but yeah given social media scrutinizing everyone i imagine no one would want to. if anything i’d expect some younger ppl that qualify to desperately run so it’s like “just so we don’t have another trump” and working together in a team to keep things afloat/stop from getting worse even if they can’t ‘undo’ the damage from the other presidents’ previous terms
There are plenty of things, both bad and good, that US presidents can do without needing the approval or law-making powers of Congress. Lots of presidents don’t tend to use those powers, at least not when it comes to doing good things that would help the average working-class folks. They do tend to use their executive powers plenty when it benefits the wealthy and large corporations though.
Almost no power without the legislature? Wow, your world sounds nice. Can I come live there?
Under the strict terms of the Constitution, you’re correct. In the real world, the President wields vast powers with little accountability. Either through legislation or lazy, cowardly inaction, Congress has ceded many of their responsibilities to the executive, including powers the Constitution explicitly delegates to the legislature.
The use and abuse of executive orders has been a problem for decades, and it’s only getting worse. Not only is this a usurpation that undermines the separation of powers, it also introduces tremendous uncertainty into the legal environment. Whatever the current administration does with the stroke of a pen, for good or ill, the next administration can reverse with that same pen.
Even more serious is Congress’s irresponsible surrender of power over such critical issues as war and taxation. The Constitution explicitly delegates the power to levy taxes and declare war to Congress, but Presidents have managed to seize powers far beyond their legitimate authority. Instead of a straight-forward declaration of war against a clearly defined enemy, we get open-ended “Authorization(s) for Use of Military Force” that Presidents then stretch beyond all reason. (See Obama’s illegal invasion of Syria for just one example.) Congress has also illegitimately ceded power over certain types of taxation, as well. (See Trump’s idiotic, self-destructive tariffs, which Biden shows no sign of lifting.)
Congress could readily rein in many of these abuses, if they had any hint of a collective spine. But that shows little sign of happening, for a couple of reasons. First, it would require congresscritters to actually take some responsibility and go on the record, one way or another. They’d much rather avoid the hard decisions and stick to keeping the pork flowing and shaking down donors. Second, there’s our current hyper-partisan environment. Too many people are more concerned about scoring a win for their TEAM, or denying one to the other TEAM, than they are about actually fixing problems. This means that a narrowly divided Congress is pretty useless at curtailing executive overreach. Even if they occasionally manage to pass a law, the lack of anything close to a veto-overriding super majority means the President can effectively tell them to go piss up a rope. The courts aren’t exactly helping, either. All too often, judges tie logic into knots and ignore the plain text of the Constitution in order to defer to the other branches.
It’s a big, complicated problem, and there’s no way to solve it over night. For that matter, as long as the will doesn’t exist, there’s no way to solve it at all.
You left one out: Congress writes laws that are necessarily incompletely and authorize administration regulations to work.
Sometimes it’s necessary but often times it’s not and some of the intended guts and bones of the legislation are gutted so industry has an opportunity to nullify parts of the law in it’s regulation and administration.
That’s what “executive” means. The policymakers make policy and allocate funding, and then the executive has received the authority to turn the policy into action. If the policymakers let the executive talk them into something, that was their decision and their responsibility. They can amend the decision.
Your second point: YES. Politics in the US today is treated like a sport or a religion, not a serious attempt to help people live together peacefully and further common interests. Probably because the party bosses like it that way — it won’t change until the parties are reformed (or replaced, if they won’t be reformed).
It’s like a kid who wants to play a sport as a professional. Nice dream as a kid. The number of things that have to happen that are out of your control is immense. You can be a politician and make a difference without getting beyond state legislatures. Or you can go to Yale and destroy the economy for funzies. No need to get all existential about it.
Yes. It is an underexamined child’s goal. A 19 year old should not be planning their life with the singular goal of getting the the possibly the most exclusive job*. For multiple reasons, which I’m sure have been discussed thoroughly.
She’s built up reflexes, mentally and conversationally, to deflect that the ideas that undermine that childhood goal. When Raidah brought it up, Dorothy was expecting the conversation to go down the “isn’t that silly” route, because that’s probably what she’s encountered before, either out loud or non-verbally.
And Dorothy’s crisis is “going to be president” is an identity for her more than it just is a career goal. It’s not a religion, but the crisis is not dissimilar. If there’s phases to it, she’s at the analog to “I’m not sure I’m hearing God’s voice anymore” part.
* I keep thinking about an interview with some of Obama’s college friends. He wasn’t special in college. As in any of them had what it took. There is a lot of happenstance and opportunities you can’t plan for, 20 years ahead of time.
There’s a question that needs to be asked, did Dorothy decide to choose the path she on out of a sense of duty and to do atleast something in history bring about a good change in the world for the people she would govern? Or was it feeling a sense of accomplishment and Ambition of a high standard?
Either way I’d sum up the problem she’s having right now as the old saying of “The grass wasn’t greener on the other side.”
be nice for more of a flashback, her parents seemed pretty chill while she was always an over achiever growing up according to that patreon preview of her room full of trophies(?), so idk if they had it as a goal for her rather than her learning of/being in an ‘inspiration speech’ rally at school that’d make her want the concept of being the president
I’m definitely wondering that too. What were Dorothy’s motives behind wanting to become president in the first place? Either way, better that she realizes the problems with that dream now. But I’m still curious why she wanted to be president.
I always thought it was the latter. I’m smart and capable and driven, what’s the most ambitious thing I can aim for?
Dorothy and Ruth are just casually representing the two wolves that live rent free inside my head.
“I MIGHT BE A BAD PERSON AND I SHOULD WORRY ABOUT THIS”
“Yes, but hear me out; if we do bad on purpose, at least we know where we stand?” (/j to the above)
I feel so hard for Dorothy here. She needs a hug and to go back to the ground and really figure out why she wants what she wants. I personally think politics could use more people who want to try to do well even if they’re aware it’s an unrealistic endeavor, but she’s never really given a reason for wanting to be President. I actually think something like social work or psychiatry could be up her alley if she can work through her own internalized stigmas and anxieties.
Or maybe even something like teacher or professor. There are a lot of different avenues to helping and guiding people and she seems to really want to help individuals. She shouldn’t give up on Politics because of Raidah, but it’s time to take a good long look and the mirror and figure out the Why of Dorothy.
I agree. You post a lot of wise comments.
I think the problem with those professions is that sometimes you have to cater to a mass class instead of an individual. And Dorothy seems to have problems with that. She makes spreadsheets of everyone’s issues and wants to cater to everyone. And that’s just a fast track to burn out especially if she’s going to teach a freshman class of 50+ people.
Therapist might work if she can get herself to learn when to stop helping too much. Or I dunno, dietician or something where she can make individualised care but can’t help too much.
If Dotty is willing to consider this chances are she is not a narcissist or evil. Although stubborn and sometimes she can be a bit of busy-body Ala Joyce.
But she is 18 or 19 so she shouldn’t judge herself to badly.
If only more 18 year olds were this self reflective tbh
Today’s Reddit post….In loving memory of Mike Warner: https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbingofage/comments/11×6956/dumbing_of_age_headcannon_mikes_book_that_held/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
You think we are going to get an book where someone finds the book and uses it against the crew? Sort of like that old Justice League movie where the the Legion of Doom steals Batman’s contingency plans for the Justice League?
The funny thing would be if someone finds the book and tries to use it against them, but most of them have experienced enough character development since his death that the tricks outlined don’t work anymore.
“Joyyyyyce, what if God was maaaaade uuuuup?”
“…I’ve literally dealt with this already.”
That idea reminds me a lot of an old It’s Walky! strip.
…huh, Mike was pretty much tied with Blaine for closest DoA equivalent to the Head Alien, wasn’t he. (not counting the fictional-in-universe Dexter, I mean.)
I think it would be interesting if his book had enough details to, say, expose the mob’s involvement in the mass kidnapping. And which cops are mob stooges. Especially since Asher’s firmly a part of the main cast now, and the cop who shot Blaine in the hospital is implied in one of the Patreon strips to be connected to… somebody. (First strip for August 2020, for reference.)
Man, this girl is spiraling right out of control…
But also, it should legitimately never be someone’s end-goal to be ome the President, esp. not during high school/college- end goal to go into Politics (TM), or to make an attempt to reach the Senate.. but a whole lot of highly successful politicians never make it past the House of Representatives (if that far)… And after 3 terms there, they’re literally set for life.
A lot of college freshmen hold on to the high school notion of careers being an assembly line.
makes me wonder how many ppl could ‘fail upwards’ into being president
Flash forward 25 years into the future where Danny is president and everyone’s wonder how the hell it happened (not that danny is especially incompetent/unambitious but first name that popped in my head lol)
Danny is definitely especially unambitious, and good for him.
Idon’t really see a problem with having President as the end goal. A lot of politicians do, though they’re not usually quite so open about it.
I would have liked to see more of what she thought the rest of the political career would be like. Senator? Governor (which is a more common route to the Presidency)?
Don’t worry, Dorothy. Just choose the evil you can live with as a fallback. Like for instance making totally evil Satanic video games.
Dorothy and Joyce Perform a Satanism: a Dumbing of Age Pornographique
Well seeing that they’re both atheists, Joyce is a comic artist with a growing audience, and Dorothy’s brain is like a spreadsheet, they already have a massive head start. All they need to do is channel their autism and find a coder to bring their ideas to life.
Video games are love tho ;P
Unless you plan to be a freemium pusher or so XD
Don’t choose evil they say they have cookies but there stale store bought off brand anise flavored pizzelles. Cookies shouldn’t taste like black licorice!
Truly the most evil of cookies.
People say that oatmeal rasin are evil but they are full of fiber and that helps with you’re bowl movements. Ya know what ansie does? It lowers your potassium levels! Not only does It taste like death but it has adverse health effects true evil!
Well, unless you have hyperkalemia.
Oatmeal-raisin cookies are tasty,and the one and only case of cooking with raisins that doesn’t make them seem like something squidgy that fell into the bowl when nobody was looking.
Wrong. 0_o
You just don’t appreciate the flavor enough and that’s a fact /my opinion
It’s what I imagine death taste like it’s so sweet it taste bitter
I like black licorice.
Besides, what’s potassium done for me lately?
Kept the electric potential in your cells and served as a counterbalance in transporter proteins?
Better to be asking these questions now than when she’s in her 30s.
ain’t nothing wrong with having doubts in your 30s
As long as you don’t indulge in self desctructive tendencies
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m in my 30s, and I have plenty of doubts.
I just mean that the sooner she confronts some feelings, it’ll probably be better for her. Though, there’s no escaping from feeling like time has been wasted. When you’re older, it’s more time, but when you’re younger, you are generally less experienced at handling some of those feelings.
So, there’s no easy way to handle this, but hopefully, getting to it earlier will be good for her.
oof, I have 30 and found the strip truly relatable, I do agree with your comment but I also felt a punch from it.
It’s here for all their differences in terms of background, socio-political religious/irreligious outlook, Joyce and Dorothy are really alike. While the jury is still out on the Autism question both are driven by very obsessive compulsive behaviors and vexing all consuming anxieties, thoughts and doubts.
Indeed. They could bond over their loss of faith.
whoa slow down, it’s not narcissist or evil, just silly and poorly thought out. Inertia.
Feels like the false dichotomy between “having drive” and “being a narcissist” is a defense mechanism.
I think it’s related to the recent Yale choice where furthering her goal would mean taking an action she’s not morally comfortable with, and she sees the logical endpoint of iterating that behavior.
Sorry ladies, y’all are too self aware and care too much about other people to truly be evil.
i’m sure there are plenty of self aware ppl knowing what they’re doing is bad as opposed to justifying it. Though the caring is a good sign that dorothy wouldn’t go fully on corrupt tho that’d be an entertaining one shot where she’s a full on dictator and julia grey has to take her down ;p
Yeah, you need the combo of self aware and caring. Just one or the other won’t help.
lol even with ‘evil’, even Ruth wouldn’t be pro-war crimes…Right?
Ruth, Ruth – I presume that’s you in the alt-text – you don’t want to cause problems. No. You want to be the problem. It’s kind of like the difference between villainy and supervillainy, and you and I both know you have it in you for evil greatness. So reach for the stars, Ruth…
…and steal them.
Dorothy made the smart choice finding someone she disclose this stuff to. Now she needs to separate the issue she’s having with her feelings from the crisis she’s having with her values.
Step 1:
Take some time to just observe your feelings without judging them or assigning value to them. Just feel your feelings and they get processed.
Step 2:
Take some time to think seriously about what you value, what you think (at least currently) is truly important to you. This is a lot easier after you allowed yourself some space to process your feelings. Sure, it could be what you think you could contribute in the realm of politics. If you take the time to soberly consider why politics is important to you in the first place.
The last thing someone who’s like 19 should be doing is making some eternal vow over the vector of their life based on immediate feelings of doubt *or* desire, that sort of thing can change with the wind. And being in a state of judging your own feelings and drives is the worst possible time to make an important decision (also generally not helpful)
Ruth isn’t a bad choice but would love for her to have this same convo with Leslie too, and maybe even robin because of her experiences, to get some adult perspectives too. Well, as ‘adult’ as leslie/robin is within the doa-verse
I would legitimately be interested in seeing Robin try to explain why she initially got interested in politics to Dorothy, that would be a delight. Leslie is certainly the closest available character who can play the part of um… “nurturing, wise elder person” so I grok that instinct.
I’m for real interested in finding out how Ruth of all people will respond to all of this, I don’t think anyone has ever turned to her in this manner. Honestly, just the fact that Dotty found someone she can say all of this stuff to out loud is probably the most important part.
Robin: “It sounded like a sweet gig with good pay and no actual work. And hey, it was.”
and yeah , minor tangent, nothing’s set in stone at 19 yet there are ppl who expect you to know what you want like right as you enter high school. like in first grade when you’re asked ‘what do you wanna be in the future’ that’s just for ‘fun’/possibly planting a seed of ambition for the future, but there def is pressure to immediately go to college after graduating and finding a major or so.
Me, I chose stubbornness.
Well, acting with integrity didn’t work out so hot for Ruth last time around. Maybe it’s time to try evil.
Ruth’s actually good at this. Who knew?
Dorothy, I fucking swear. Get hooked on an MMO and start getting big into RP. Or at least play D&D as an ambitious and sexy fire genasi. The point is, roleplaying can be a safe way to explore things you want IRL, without much potential for actual harm.
Going by that logic, turns out I wanna do as much magic damage as is mathematically possible; plus pints for sparkliness.
… Okay, now what?
(I studied chemistry, but *they didn’t let me blow stuff up*
)
You could become a high-ranking member of a church. They have a lot of magic and do a lot of damage.
Warlock, spam sparkly Eldritch Blasts every turn.
Ruth’s face today is def going to be a new avatar…
But whose?
It is a mystery.
Def not mine, as I forgot how to do it.
Jesus Christ, was Dorothy really that dead-set on being POTUS, specifically?
…did you somehow refuse to believe your eyes for all these years?
come on, become the first non tainted president of the US ever ! or something.
In all seriousness, it’s depressing how fast ideal candidates get in office and become shit.
Somebody have said talking to Ruth was a great idea…
I got an AAS at a community college, some 40+ years ago. Never attended Uni. Never lived in the dorms.
Is this the kind of thing a real RA deals with? Is it a women’s dorm thing?
(Sorry, but the worst thing I can imagine a men’s RA dealing with is “where do we buy kegs?”)
I (m) did occasionally bounce what I was thinking about off of my RA (f), and what I was thinking about was grappling with understanding the world in a new way. The male RA was at the way other end of the floor. I don’t know how much he engaged with the people living closer to him, but I think it was more than the Beck RA does in the strip.
If I were to run into her now, I guess I’d say, sorry for being dumb, thank you for helping out.
Drive and Ambition are different from Getting What You Want In Live.
One thing doesn’t automatically lead to the other.
Personally I think the answer is in continuing to examine what you do want in life and allowing that to change, rather than being blindly ambitious with only a nebulous goal.
Is Dotty talking about the “sunk cost fallacy” in front of a Maple Leafs poster?
Does she know anything about them?
Dotty know anything about sportsball? Perish the thought.
Well, until there are electoral votes to be had in Ontario…
But Ruth? Willis has set up the ultimate Leafs fan joke for her.
PS And he retweeted this (https://twitter.com/damnyouwillis/status/1638166658169688071) so maybe I should retire on this high note.
I thought this was going in the direction of Ruth oozing empathy (much to her chagrin), but maybe what we’ll get is Ruth getting a crush on Dorothy.
…I mean she’s just doing the basic RA thing of listening to people’s problems? I know it’s weird to see Ruth taking her position seriously instead of using it as an excuse to be an asshole, but it doesn’t really strike me as leading into anything.
Ruth has a history in being attracted to the kind of feeling Dorothy is currently projecting.
Ruth is also not constantly dealing with crushing emotions now, so, maybe not feeling so negative?
Twist: Dorothy’s parents actually belong to a secret society who have dedicated their lives to a long-term plan aiming to bring about a human extinction, or at least massive reduction in global population and to limit the effects of anthropogenic climate change (disclaimer: please dont do this, also overpopulation is a racist-capitalist red herring not a actual pressing issue). Dorothy is unwittingly a sleeper agent they have trained and conditioned her from birth to become potus and be activated to sign the right documents when the time comes.
So it turns out the dream was evil all along.
This may or may not be plagiarized from a british tv show with stylishly saturated colours and a killer soundtrack despite a problematic premise
I appreciate the disclaimer. A lot of us comment section regulars have the power and resources to depopulate the planet in severe ways at a moment’s notice, and it’s good to have someone keeping us honest.
Honestly exterminating all of humanity is a bit of a dick move. I felt someone should say it
Ugh, fine, what are my other options? I never get to have any fun.
birdwatching and crochet. those are the two hobbies
oh no, I left my button that destroys the universe in my room.
And what would this british tv show that this may or may not be plagiarised from?
I flubbed the quote. https://www.dumbingofage.com/wwdd/
Sorry, I was asking milu. XD
ah that would be Utopia. if it was plagiarized that is.
(it may or may not actually be loosely inspired therefrom)
(a taste of the killer soundtrack by Cristobal Tapia de Veer.)
I love DoA, but sometimes it’s very important to ignore the age of these characters.
I’m just imagining if, in real life, I met a college freshman who was suddenly having a panic attack because she’s wondering if her childhood dream of being president is what she really wanted.
idk, is it that weird? if you come from a supportive family who have been setting you up for college, you’ve had childhood dreams of doing some big important job, you’ve spent your primary education taking and excelling the relevant classes and joining the relevant clubs, and now suddenly you’re shoved off into a dormitory and made to officially declare “this is what I want to do for the rest of my life”… you’re in a totally new environment and your parents aren’t there to coddle you anymore, people are prodding you about your goals, and when you sit down and think about them, you suddenly realize that you don’t really have much of a plan other than those vague dreams you came up with as a little kid… not to mention struggling with courses or adjustment to independent living… it’s not that weird to be stressed and wondering if the future you’ve been trying to set out for yourself is going to be everything you hoped for, or if it’s time for a sudden course-correction.
Yeah it’s not uncommon at all.
I meant that, as a comparatively Old Person, this just a typical type A freshman meltdown. It doesn’t make it less meaningful for Dorothy, but it also is hard to take too seriously. She’ll get over it, hopefully expand her horizons a bit, and then either get focused again and be more certain, or she’ll find something more important to her.
A lot of childhood moments are like that- they feel Big, and they are to the kid, but they are so rote and common in the human experience that Old People can sometimes be dismissive of them,
This is a tough one. I hope to god Dorothy is being hyperbolic and that she’s not seriously contemplating that her dreams might have been evil. Because she absolutely wanted to use the power of the presidency to do good.
Deciding that her ambition wasn’t actually what she wanted is all well and good, but I really, *really* hope that she’s not condemning herself for having them.
This is definitely a bit personal to me- I graduated college with the intent of joining the State Department- I never wanted to be President, but I did want to go into some aspect of government. I realized it wasn’t for me- 1) my anxiety and that type of job do *not* mix well, 2) I realized I like teaching better- but it was a perfectly fine objective to have, and I’m not a bad person for having it.
My take is that if you would do literally anything to achieve your goal, that could someday include evil things
A major flaw with all forms of government is those who are willing to do evil things to gain power are more likely to gain power.
unless they have been strictly trained from childhood to become philosopher-kings. that is a foolproof plan
Yes, but where on Earth is Dorothy getting the idea that she would do those evil things from? Raidah’s quip about war criminals? I would honestly lose some respect for Willis if Dorothy’s convictions were so weak that they could be shaken by what’s ultimately a talking point rather than an actual argument. If he wants to set it up so that Dorothy starts advocating for anarcho-communism, that’s fine, but it needs more setup.
I think she’s been thrown off balance, by someone who pushed in a direction she wasn’t expecting, but not toppled. Let’s wait and see how she recovers.
I feel like she always assumed she would be doing the right thing in her political career, it never came across her mind that the job itself would probably be pushing her towards doing any atrocities. Not being aware of that can be a dangerous thing when you’re committing yourself to a mindset where your willing do anything to achieve a specific goal.
I don’t feel like Ruth is very suitable as an RA. She’s not really got her shit together.
I mean, you can still struggle even when you are a parent / guardian / authority, but i think she’s not fit as a therapist figure if she makes it about herself instead of actively listening and helping Dorothy find out what she needs to know.
I believe she is an RA because her grandfather insists on it, either to save money or because it looks good on your resume.
I want to see where this goes before I make a judgment on how Ruth is handling this specific instance. She’s shown herself to be aware that sometimes, the scripted response is not what is wanted (like when she talked to Amber about having an abusive father), and that some people need to ease into talking about feelings (like she did with Walky, and when Walky called her out, she really did seem to take that to heart). It could be that Ruth is taking a more measured entry into this, and trying to relate to Dorothy when she talks about lying in therapy/feeling unsure. She and Dorothy do have more of a peer relationship than an authority-figure one; Ruth went to Dorothy for breakup advice, after all, which shows she’s aware of both her shortcomings and Dorothy’s astuteness. So this may yet be a productive conversation for both, not unlike the exchange between Jennifer and Joyce when they talked about changing and growing as people.
But also yeah generally, Ruth has no business doing this and it’s basically at her grandfather’s strong insistence that IU keeps her in the position. You’re right about that, globally. I just had some interesting thoughts as a result of your perfectly cromulent assessment of the situation,
You are absolutely correct in seeing first how this plays out. The strip after this shows some actually useful advice!
But ugh, people getting jobs because of *connections* rather than *suitability* really sucks…
Keep Going Dorothy! These are Good Concerns. Keep them! Hold them close. You’re trying to Change The World and these concerns need to be there when you’re trying to Change The World.
Do you think Robin has these concerns? No.
You levelled up! You get a new feat!
You probably want your self-accountability to be more like a hand to hold on the path than a gun against your head though.