Today in the Dumbing of Age Book 13 Kickstarter, a SURPRISE SAL MAGNET was unlocked! Our sixth magnet, it’s just regular ol’ kick-ass SAL! She’s gonna be about 2″x4″ and you can have her tucked inside your book (along with your free Lucy magnet) if you pledge for the SAL MAGNET tier!
You can also decide to choose her amongst your curated selection of magnets if you go in for either the PICK THREE or PICK FIVE MAGNETs tiers, and of course she’s included if you go all-in for COMPLETE MAGNET POWER!
Next up at $40K, we unlock LAUNDRY DOROTHY and LAUNDRY JOYCE! And there’s probably…. four other magnets past them, at some point. WE’LL SEE.
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not sure I’m comfortable with “assload” and “come out the other side” in the same discussion
Hagaren (FMA) touched on this pretty well, though, with, “Stand up and walk. Keep going forward. At least you have strong legs to take you there.”
may as well also mention, I just read this book about college admissions, and in sum, they aren’t looking for the kids following the HYPS checklist like Dotty was doing so much as the kids actually experiencing life and even making mistakes (I guess, like in 21, the book/movie about the MIT card counters)
It’s a bit late for a comment reply, but I went to grad school with Irena. Great lady. Great book!
Huh. From the context of the assload being of people who NEVER passed out the other side, I think that makes it a metaphor about anal retentiveness.
That can kill you, you know… It all gets compacted and blocked up and solid and just builds and builds and it sounds BAD.
Still not as bad as being wrong about Star Wars.
Glorious reference, fam /o/ I should rewatch it (2003 is my fave though dhdnsh) Thanks for the reminder
“Dhdnsh”?
Keyboard mash?
Cute avatar btw
ADH&D the Movie
Dhdnsh = Didn’t Hate the Disney New Shows. (AKA Mandelorian et al.)
Joyce out here summarizing why I don’t talk to certain friends of mine who are religious anymore.
Question everything, unconditionally.
And as such, I’m questioning why Dorothy is asking about this.
She has spent her life in fanatical pursuit of the political power, believing that it is the way she can best help others and make her life meaningful – much in the same way that Joyce believed that being a good Christian was the path to a life of beneficence and purpose. Like, Joyce, Dorothy has had to face the fact that maybe what she believed about the Presidency, and thus herself and the dreams she defined herself by, is not the mythic power or good she thought – a fact which has thrown her into depression and self-doubt.
This is true.
But what broke her was facing how she was sacrificing living her life, being her true self and being able to do the good things she wanted. All for mostly illusory goal where she would have to betray her beliefs.
Bad means, bad end.
She’s been prodding at how wrong she was… About herself. And her goals, and the way the world works. In a way, Dorothy was very naive too.
How do you cope with a complete update of your concept of Self?
The fact of believing that you are now officially an adult implies that you must behave as one should. But it’s not like that.
In the case of Dorothy, she thought that if she had a serious and realistic vision she would do things correctly without mistakes, but no, in life it will always be like a roller coaster, ups and downs, but the important thing here is that we must move forward and From those moments gain true experience.
I feel that this is where Dorothy will tell the truth to Joyce, but she is afraid of her reaction, in fact, I think that previously she was already terrified that if she declined from her goals everyone would condemn her, but fortunately her parents, Becky and Walky They have proven the opposite. It has been seen that Dorothy’s feeling of helping is genuine, I trust that she will be able to find something where she can do it without the need to add unnecessary weight.
Let’s just hope that Joyce listens as she should (I say this because of how the alcohol will react in her system)
Well she herself is reckoning with her own crisis of faith, not religious faith but faith in herself
Yeah, Dorothy believed that her only limits were determination, and that if she just worked harder, harder, harder, she could do anything. Recently she’s realized that not only is that not really true, she kind of… isn’t happy doing that.
Because she’s been questioning if everything she thought she wanted was wrong for a few days now and doesn’t know how to deal with it?
… can I start by questioning the principle of “question everything”? Because there’s just too many things and not enough time to get to them all. ;p
Did I stutter when saying to question everything? Question everything
Why?
Because the world is full of people who will lie to you, starting with parents, preachers, teachers, politicians, and professors, and ending with reporters, dumbass friends who sound smart, and smart people who aren’t as smart as they think they are.
I didn’t get further than “because I’m a contrarian and that paradox is just to meta to pass up”.
Same.
because that is the way of SCIENCE!!1! *krakaTHOOM*
It is.
Technically yes, with the corollary that once you’ve received an answer for something that holds up, you typically move onto the next question until something actually casts doubt on an existing answer.
but ALWAYS write down the answers that are WRONG
so you can shove them in the face of the next generation and say
“no no, we already tried that, and it did NOT catch fire correctly”
Because otherwise you’ll learn nothing.
Yes, exactly! Why against everything! Burn it all down and build it up again, this time as an adult, instead of as a child spoon-fed what they want you to be.
But “question everything” is also the attitude that leads to believing that vaccines a a plot by the NWO to depopulate the Earth and that chemtrails are used to control birthrates and also that there’s a secret paedophile ring operating out of a pizza restaurant etc etc.
It’s not, really. If you actually question those things you discover they’re all nonsense. If you question the ideas that vaccines are good, chemtrails aren’t real, and the pizzeria didn’t even have a basement, on the other hand, you’ll find they’re pretty solid.
Questioning something does not mean “deciding the opposite is true”, it means actually looking into them. (And, to avoid doubt, finding a website that confirms your beliefs and deciding to believe it unconditionally is not actually “doing your own research”.)
Yes!!! Question it as in interrogate the notion and examine the facts available; not just doubt it because somebody has asserted it, without applying any brainpower!!
That’s exactly the problem here: some use “question (vt)” when they mean “deny without thought”. I am not pointing at anyone here, but we’ve all been exposed to this meaning and it’s natural to apply it to see if it decodes the proverb well.
There’s definitely a level at which people learn “You need to question what you were taught” and then only apply that to what they were originally formally taught. And this applies not just to the blatantly obvious conspiracy theories on the right, but also to the leftist “Everything is the fault of America/capitalism” version.
Disagree.
Conspiracists may tout a mantra of question everything but they put little effort into questioning their deeply held beliefs about conspiracy. Question everything, if the questions are sincere means being ready to learn you’re wrong about anything.
Perhaps, the problem is nuance, or the lack of nuance in catchy phrases like “question everything.”
“Question everything” and “live your life as a paranoid conspiracy theorist” don’t need to be synonymous… One of those questions you should be asking is “how credible is this source?” and if you understand anything about science, hopefully you then rate e.g. the WHO and epidemiologists as more reliable than anti-vaxxers…
Nah cuz those people were absolutely not question Facebook and Fox news. Question everything is basically another way to say “think critically, forehead”
Sadly, even when they do -or make an approximate attempt at doing so- at a certain point a lack of evidence becomes evidence of a coverup.
Dorothy is an excellent organizer and leader but her exposure to Robin the Politician, the dirty nature of politics, and the horrific nature of violence (seeing Amazi-Girl stab that jerkass horribly) has her realize that being President will probably involve advocating it as well as making a lot of nasty deals.
And she doesn’t WANT to do any of that.
She doesn’t even want to profit off her tragic story, which is some basic social networking.
One question she should ask: who do I trust with this, more than I trust me? Someone is going to take the job.
Who do I trust to operate the gas chamber more than I trust me? Someone is going to take the job.
Is she an excellent organizer and leader, though?
Sometimes you don’t even recognize the people you thought you knew.
Is that you, Fred?
She’s dealing with a lot of things, but one is probably her unspoken attraction to Joyce, hence the “coming out” query.
If you ever reached the point to go ‘well, no need to learn anything anymore’, life would be pretty boring.
I might regret that when I’m 70 and I have to learn how to use the iPhone 7294.
Learning how to use the iPhone 7294? Trivial.
Figuring out how to make it behave like an iPhone 6 like Steve Jobs and the Cheese intended? That’s going to be the challenge.
firast of all, how DARE you see me and Windows 98 and slrn and Notepad so accurately
Were Usenet more alive, I’d probably still be using slrn, albeit now as one pane of a tmux session on a Mac.
I’m 70 and I’m learning Lightworks now. Long way from 16mm films and my Viewmaster. But fortunately it’s a lot like Premiere Pro.
At some point you can stop learning but I’m not looking forward to that.
At 75 I just learned there’s a newish C++ with move semantics and I’m pretty bitter about it.
On the other hand, learning to navigate Large Language Models is kind of fun.
I was wrong about Star Wars movies. I once thought the Sequel Trilogy was going to turn out well.
Goddamn you, Jar Jar Abrams. And the other execs who okayed production without a remotely coherent plot, but mostly Jar Jar.
BullSHIT we see Danny entirely too much.
Also: Accept that if you were wrong before you will be wrong again. No one is perfect, we all make mistakes every day, and there is always something new to learn.
I agree, and find Jar Jar Abrahams a hilarious moniker (even if I largely like the character maybe mor than I should and enjoyed the director’s other works). I do fear that I am now just the adult hating the new Star Wars because it is not the Star Wars I grew up with – like how people hated the Prequels when I was a kid. However, given that I have largely liked the rest of Disney Star Wars, and the plots just seem so widely erratic and meandering, I maintain hope that the writing in the sequels is just objectively bad and I won’t look like a fool in 15 years with kids growing and pointing out how awesome they really were (as to be honest, I never saw the last one – I heard it was bad and the plot was nonsense, looked it up the summary, agreed with that assessment, and could not bear to make myself watch them just butcher their finally).
Also, what is this about Danny?
The Last Jedi has maybe the single greatest theme ever put to art, “It doesn’t matter what your origins are, only that you get up and try,” and Rise said “Ha ha, jklol, only the chosen few matter. Some people are just more important. Deal with it, peasants.” I have not watched a single iota of Star Wars since the end of 2019, but I understand I’m just not a fan anymore. There’s a lot of excellent art being made in that sphere, I just am completely disinterested.
I do wonder what ranks as the worst movie, though: Attack or Rise.
Omg someone with praise for TLJ, thank you. That’s my favorite movie of the sequels and I always feel anxiety when I see someone mention it because I get tired of defending it and Rian Johnson from whatever random pettiness people throw at it because… idfk. It wasn’t a perfect movie by any means, but having just watched a genuinely bad movie it sometimes feels like people just hate anything which isn’t perfect.
Adults who never matured who wanted something that never existed in the first place are responsible for 98% of TLJ criticisms. The remaining 2% wish Rose had a better conclusion after the single-best character introduction in the Sequel Trilogy: Tazing Finn.
The Last Jedi had the single worst plot, worst abandonment of prior established plot & lore, and was a pointless exercise in futility from beginning to end. It is an irredeemable movie, and solely the cause of Rise of Skywalker’s failure, considering that it tore down literally everything that existed before, but failed to provide anything new to build off of.
With that being said, this topic is very far from both the spirit and topic of the comic, so while we can make spurious connections to Jennifer’s love of Kitt Fisto, it is still not a reasonable association to make the claim that we are on topic. I suggest we keep the debate of ‘which movie ruined the sequels’ for other spheres.
Okay boomer.
OK ZOOMER
I would suggest Mano308gts read the alt text.
The Rise of Skywalker wasn’t the best movie ever, but it could easily have gone wrong in so many bad ways that it threatened and then didn’t, and remains a powerful statement of the importance of choice and the rejection of genetics as destiny.
I had to come back to this, actually, because 1) Your little “I’m going to get the last word by shutting down any further discussion on the matter after I’ve said my piece” bit was tired yet done better by my little sister 15 years ago, and 2) The above comic is two characters asking themselves “What choice do I make now?” The dichotomy of TLJ saying “Your destiny is what you make it,” and Rise saying “Hope you mattered before you were born,” is a wonderful example to explore.
Before Joyce’s character growth, she would lean heavily toward Rise. After all, God already made the choice for her. She had a “choice” in whether or not to believe, but as someone who grew up effectively forced to be a Christian until I was out enough from under my parents’ thumbs to freely be an apostate, no she didn’t. Conversely, Rise tried to portray Rey as constantly feeling the pull of the Dark Side to reinforce its theme that there are the elites and there are the rest of us, but nowhere in the film is that backed up. Yes, she gets angry, because she’s fighting for her life against someone who understands her intimately yet deeply betrayed her in the prior film.
On a related note, the reprisal of “I know what I must do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it,” was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever seen in a film (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, don’t judge me) which makes it all the more criminal and the movie as a whole that much worse that it was completely unearned. It doesn’t clash as badly while watching the movie itself (or maybe how fantastic the moment is blinded me to its fatal problem) because Kylo gets emotionally reset roughly to where he is at the end of TFA at the start of Rise, but 30 seconds after it happened I went “Wait, and just like that he’s a good guy? No other questions? Are you serious?”
Meanwhile, in TLJ Kylo’s choice to betray both Snoke and Rey are all his. After realizing that Luke was fallible, Rey made the choice to both keep some of the Sacred Texts but leave to confront Kylo anyway. Also her Grey Jedi outfit (and hair <3) are fucking incredible so Jar Jar Abrams apparently hates good fashion as well as coherent plots. Rose sees Finn prepping an escape pod and chooses to stop him, that it doesn't matter if he's one of the heroes of the Resistance, (she thinks) he's doing the wrong thing right now and he needs to be stopped.
The movie absolutely has its problems. I've dabbled in my feelings about Luke further down the page, the Poe subplot was a writing travesty on all sides from front to back*, we needed a movie where all three leads can actually play off each other for any length of time, and the casino planet needed to be reworked into a much smaller segment that better emphasized the war profiteering and didn't waste Gwendolin Christie. Sure, she's the Boba Fett faceless elite mook who doesn't actually do anything, but Rian, you're not supposed to copy the mistakes the OT made! For all Jar Jar's flaws, TFA is a wonderful remake of ANH that fixes the big flaw of Mark Hamill not being the best in live action. All of Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac were oozing charisma out their every pore.
*: All I will say about it is that they don’t get away in the first place if that Destroyer isn’t bombed, so a reprimand for losing an entire fighter wing? Okay. But it started with him getting slapped and demoted, and he refused to let that chip off his shoulder for the rest of the movie and it was a cluster until the objectively stunning light speed crash, which is another matter I will also not pursue right now.
It’s almost cute that you think a Star War conversation can be stopped by saying “But we’re getting off-topic”.
My hot take is that the sequals lore wise were a dumb idea to begin with bc effectively the og squad toppled an evil empire and another took it’s place in like 5 minutes. It’s hilarious. Any sequels should have taken place much farther in the future. At best the sequels could have only been a rehash of old material for that sweet sweet nerd nostalgia money. Therefore any serious indepth critique of any of the sequel movies like this take down of the last Jedi, is pee pee poo poo and a waste of time. I rest my case ur honor, loveubye
The Sal magnet was unlocked on KS, there’s a mock-up under the comic with the reference.
They were objectively bad. Episode 7 was just the AbramsTrek remake of Episode 4. You could almost chop Episode 8 out of the series entirely without affecting anything of note. Rey was the only one of the protagonists who did anything that wasn’t somewhere between “pointless” and “actively counterproductive”, and even she didn’t do very damn much. And then Episode 9 retconned, rendered irrelevant, or just straight-out ignored everything that did happen. It was nice seeing all the old hardware flying again in 9, though. Not just for nostalgia, but because, seriously, these guys are the
RebellionResistance against the evilEmpireFirst Order, they absolutely should be flying leftover rustbuckets from the ’70s, not brand new sleeker-and-cooler X-Wing models.The prequels were objectively bad, too. For Star Wars Day a couple years ago, I binge-watched the entire series, and holy shit. When I first watched them — I hadn’t seen Episode 1 since the first week it was in theaters — I was too distracted by all the other shit that was wrong with it to notice the acting, but I seriously cannot think of another movie where I’ve seen talented actors give such stilted and wooden performances. I mean, I know Natalie Portman can act. I’ve seen her do it. She sure as hell wasn’t in those movies, though. I have to assume that George’s direction was along the lines of, “Okay, try again, but slower and with less emotion this time. Try not to make it sound like something a human being might ever say.”
I’m increasingly convinced that the only reason the original trilogy was as good as it was (and take that as you will) is because Harrison Ford is a far better ad-libber than George Lucas is a dialogue writer, and George wasn’t yet so big that no one could tell him to fuck off.
There more ( why original series was good )
Lucas was only Director on new hope. His wife was editor of Godfather.
Empire strikes back was based on a script from one of the best ( female) writers in science fiction. He assembled top talent and let them make decisions.
I think the sequel could have been excellent if Lucas was involved as producer, script editor, contuity guy, mise en scene. Just banned from Dialogue rewrites, dialogue coaching and final editing . Or cringe stereotype characters.
“It’s like poetry, it rhymes.”
The sad thing is that after the first two films, it could have turned out well. But of course the big problem with the Sequel Trilogy, as a Trilogy, is that there was no overarching creative decision to come up with even the most basic plan for how the three films would relate to each other upfront. Force Awakens is largely unremarkable, but still a perfectly good setup. Last Jedi is absolutely phenomenal as a film– but the story it sets up is one that Abrams decided he had no interest in telling. And so we come to Rise of Skywalker, which is further hampered by a) not having Carrie Fisher to work with to complete the theme of each of the main OT trio, b) the probably-late-in-the-day decision to make it the grand conclusion of the “Skywalker Saga,” despite this being exactly the kind of overfixation on bloodlines that Last Jedi had raged against, and c) the decision to relegate a massive plot development to A FUCKING FORTNITE EVENT.
I have my fair share of issues with The Last Jedi, but Rise is offensively bad.
When Kylo said “You’re a Palpatine,” I looked over to my friend who bought my ticket amd was going to walk out, but he was asleep.
I feel like the only one here that didn’t like the Last Jedi/8th. I felt like more time should have been spent on how Luke got to where he was since it was such a whiplash from his original character arc. Show me the constant nightmares, the paranoia and drain on his mind. Show me a sleep deprived Luke slowly being broken down by the dreams, dread and maybe ptsd. I don’t think that I would have minded it getting there if it had spent the time doing it, but it instead felt like it was done for shock value and more rubbing it in old fans faces. Just didn’t sit well. The whole chase in space was just weird too, especially with a ship leaving the main ship and then catching back up. Why couldn’t the enemy ships get in front then? I could understand it if it was constant planet hopping, but a chase in space when you can jump across vast areas in a short amount of time or just have ships that wete stationed elsewhere cut them off just ruins the logic. I also agree that a lot of the goals of the characters felt pointless and didn’t result in much by the end of the movie. I think I heard someone say that some books made the movie make more sense, but if you have to read a book to make an original movie series (aka not made from a book) make sense, then you aren’t doing it right.
As for the Rise of Skywalker/9th, I went into it not having much hope and found it to be mostly a campy type thing. Sidious always seems to be the type of campy villain that the audience is supposed to boo and hiss at. Even the original triology wasn’t a serious dark or gritty movie. I don’t think that they were ever too complex or thought provoking. But sometimes not taking itself too seriously or trying to be what they are not is what makes some movies work.
One of my biggest problems with TLJ is how Luke was handled. I just don’t see how you could possibly go from “I sense good still in my father, Darth fucking Vader,” to “I sense darkness in my nephew, time to leapfrog to murdering him in his sleep.”
Luke freaking out and going into hiding out of shame for his failure? Perfect, no notes. Reversing 85% of his character arc from the OT? Not it, Rian. Should have listened to Mark on that one.
I totally agree with both your comments. Like I said before, maybe if they had showed the slow descent they could have possibly gotten me on board, but that would have required a lot of movie time spent on the flash backs. You can’t claim that a beloved character did a complete 180 and then have it all happen “behind the scenes” and never show it. Him running away and being cranky about someone trying to grab him to “save the world again” makes sense though.
Nah, Force Awakens is a dreadful sequel. Fine standalone, but it makes cowardly creative choices and ultimately doomed the trilogy
Right? It would have gone such a long way to saving those movies to have just a basic, tentative story that could be adjusted as needed arced out before filming the first movie.
I mean the thing is none of the trilogies have had a plan. The OT just had the various elements Lucas came up with as he went along happen to come together largely by coincidence into something that feels cohesive.
I have a lot of issues with the sequel trilogy but it’s not chock full of racist caricatures so I still rank it well above the prequels.
The OT lacked a plan because New Hope was pitched as a stand alone. The second two definitely had a coherent arc.
The prequel trilogy also had a plan. The plan had its issues, but it was still coherent.
While I think the sequel triology is MOSTLY empty popcorn, I did enjoy it for the spectacle that it is.
the headlock has me in stitches lol
they are both huggy drunks I guess. very cute. hope they keep it up.
And this what tv tropes calls, “1 dialogue, 2 conversations”.
Literary studies do it formally, even. Dialogue des sourds – It’s a thing.
I do hope they get on the same page soon , though. Both need this! But, like. For the sake of clarity , some order would do this talk good
One and a half – Dorothy knows at least much of what Joyce went through, but as far as we know Joyce still doesn’t know anything of Dorothy’s reappraisal of her life.
Kind of sums up a lot of my experiences.
I know people who would identify as Christian who are not assholes. Mostly because they are good people who happen to believe in heaven.
But they have the sense to BE GOOD rather than think themselves GOOD.
That’s the thing about religion – good religion has to keep questioning things. Keep exploring.
The best Judeo-Christian individuals I’ve known did that. One of them was catholic, and she studied heretical and gnostic texts to better understand her faith. We had some amazing conversations because we were both willing to listen and learn. And neither of us wanted to convert the other – we were happy to simply discuss and be. It was great.
The point being – it can be done. Religion and thinking. They can co-exist.
Makes me sad that, so often, people don’t question. And that so many denominations actively discourage thinking/questioning.
“Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, ‘I am not the kind of person I want to be.’ It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.”
– Frank Herbert, Dune
This is a great way to put it!
It’s funny that the New Testament is about 30% how the wealthy suck, 30% how religious fundamentalism is unhealthy, 30% how fascist politicians cater to the crowd, and 10% Paul screwing everything up by saying Jesus didn’t mean anything he said.
I almost think a slightly better way to think of it is “DO good not BE good”. That is. Good is a thing you do, not a thing you ARE, because as soon as you think of yourself as “intrinsically good”, you may stop questioning your own actions. After all, you’re good! so nothing you can do can be Bad.
This is not a problem silo’d to the religious, either. It is a basic human issue, really.
these two have a beautiful friendship
Yes, they serm to be very good friends :3
The thing is, there are people who ask those questions and then choose faith. Religion is not this behemoth of “Jacob begat Robert begat Thomas begat David begat Jayden and they’re all Christian because Jacob was and brainwashed the rest.”
Joyce is making some assumptions here. I’m not saying she’s entirely, or even mostly, wrong.
But assuming that people who have chosen faith have all done so blindly is every bit as pigheaded as insisting to everyone else that the things you memorized in Sunday School are ipso facto truth.
But from the way she is posing the question, does it seem like she is questioning herself?
She didn’t say people who have chosen faith have done so blindly. She said all the people she knows who never asked the questions she did are assholes. She hasn’t said anything yet about people who asked the questions she has and used those questions to update their beliefs while still remaining some sort of Christian. Or do you think she’s saying Becky is an asshole?
She doesn’t know who has and hasn’t asked questions, is the thing. Not everybody who asks those questions do so with the same level of publicity.
She’s saying that she asked those questions and people around her who didn’t are assholes.
Assholes they may unquestionably be, but the assumption she’s making is that they’re assholes because of blind belief. It’s the other side of the coin from “how can you be a good person if you don’t believe in Hell or God’s mercy?”
It’s an assumption that one follows from the other and that’s just not true.
I would call it an educated guess. When you look at people like Carol, or John, or even Tristan, it seems reasonable to assume that they didn’t ask themselves the hard questions and just assumed they were in the right.
In my experience, the people who dare to ask the questions, even if the immediately turn back to faith, are still very likely down the line to keep asking questions, and little by little said faith will be chipped away.
There’s a sort of beautiful point just before crossing the line, once you have chipped everything that is incongruent or illogical or even antithetical to what you thought you beleived and you are left with nothing but that faith, as you cling desperately to it: It’s the purest faith there is. You don’t believe because of empty promises of heaven (or hell avoidance), or because of tradition, or indoctrinated false assumptions about the world. You just believe because you have known nothing else and it’s all you have and it’s scary to let go and fall into the unknown.
I think that at that point, one could keep on hanging indefinitely… if it wasn’t for all the other Christians. The falsehood and self-servingness of their faith now exposed in contrast. Their willfull ignorance and hatred nauseating in your eyes. Eventually you reach the only possible conclusion that finally shatters that brittle last remnant of your faith: No reald God who actually exists and is good and has power would allow that sort of people as their followers. They are in themselves the very best argument against the existance of that particular god.
Personally I’ve never found alcohol to taste particularly like gasoline, but then I’m not sure I really have a good frame of reference for what gasoline tastes like in the first place. Like, the obvious idea is that it tastes like what gasoline smells like, but I’m not sure I really perceive that myself.
anyway, uh…
“I’ve got this burning like my veins are filled with nothing but gasoline!”
They’re drinking whatever whiskies a bar called “Hooch Place” put in a sampler, so the solvent aroma from the alcohol is probably not balanced well with other flavors.
and I guess, “gasoline” is at least 10% ethanol anyways.
“And with a spark it’s gonna be the biggest fire they’ve ever seen!”
I’m a simple indidvidual, someone starts quoting the Protomen, i have to join in.
Oh so it WAS the protomen. Great band.
“Cut me down, or let me run. Either way its all gonna burn. The only way they’ll ever learn”
I have heard that Malört tastes like it. I have been blessed to never be able to offer a comparison.
But what -kind- of gasoline?
Ohhhhh. So that’s where this is going.
Honestly this is such a great way to connect Tristan to Dorothy’s turmoil. Be thankful you can worry and doubt yourself – the people who can’t end up horrible.
I was surprised and delighted by this turn as well. Joyce’s faith as parallel and foil to Dorothy’s ambition is just *chef’s kiss*. I think because this comic all happens one daily strip at a time, and thus the audience tends spend lot of time stuck with just the necessary busy work of story construction rather than its paired narrative payoffs, I tend to forget just how great a writer Mr. Willis actually is. Once again I am humbled and my dreams of future literary success dim a little more before the burning brightness of his star. DAMN YOU WILLIS!
Ditto, and well said.
Holy shit, Joyce is a mauling drunk.
She’s not wrong, though. Religious or not, any crisis of the Self that doesn’t end up in some kind of actualization is a time bomb. You gotta ask the questions, course correct, and hope you’ll like better whoever will be on the other side of the mirror once you’ve taken some distance from it.
There’s tons of people who loudly deny they should’ve done therapy 8’DD And we’ve all seen how they affect their surroundings.
I think you mean maudlin drunk.
…. the one to suspect of being a mauling drunk is Dorothy, who is inexplicably placing Joyce in a neck lock.
Could it be she’s read A Civil Campaign and is just getting practice in early against the worst case of meeting the parents?
“Mother, Father, I’d like you to meet — she’s getting away!“
I contrived to be in the room when my partner listened to the dinner party scene for the first time. It was glorious, he just about fell off the couch.
I’m imagining that she tried the ol’ “I’m just going to stretch and oh look my arm is around you how did that happen” trick, and it worked far better than she’d expected.
Or did Joyce start it by leaning onto Dorothy and really where else is she going to put her arm at that point?
Tristan almost certainly had doubt, and decided, “Nope, no I don’t, actually everyone around me is more right than ever,” and this is why he says vaccines are Satanic.
I dont think he had doubt. I just think he didn’t care. He did his rebellious teen phase and then leaned into the “I’m part of crowd thats always right”
Everyone doubts themselves at least once. Tristan never followed that doubt for a second, is my point.
Hm, what I got from his post was “I want something from the fanatics, and if I pretend to believe this stuff they’ll give it to me.” But it’s campaign season so I am seeing that everywhere….
Gods I hope someone gives them some water. Preferably a lot of water.
ooo, wrong about Star Wars? like how everyone tells me I’m wrong because I think Revenge of the Sith is a better movie than Return of the Jedi?
I can only assume it’s foreshadowing a major crisis for Jennifer. Maybe she will have to go into the Force Tree and face Billie.
Revenge of the Sith is at the very least a more impressive conclusion to its trilogy, in that it’s the best part of its trilogy and just about makes suffering through the other two worthwhile.
Also it is very, very quotable.
Wasn’t the fight scene very well done in Revenge of the Sith? I thought I heard an analysis about that.
It’s impressive but a bit overlong. You can tell the movie is kind of desperate to one-up Obi vs Grevious and can’t quite land the emotional beats of Obi vs Anakin so it just takes fifteen minutes and goes on for way too long. Ewan kind of makes it work with “You were my brother!” at the end but it doesn’t really hold up imo.
Revenge of the Sith is the movie that connects the remaining dots between Clones and Hope, which means it’s a checklist of things that need to happen to get the plot from A to B. There are no surprises. Anakin becomes evil because the plots demands it. All the Jedi get slaughtered because Lucas needs to get rid of them. It’s very boring.
Worst of all, everybody’s hands gets chopped off. When it happened to Luke, it was dramatic. When it happened to Anakin, it made narrative sense because of the parallel to Luke. When it happens to Dooku & Windu, it has become laughable.
When I saw it, I noticed a visitor in front of me sobbing heavily at the ending. Certainly a nerd, a heavy guy in a black shirt, you know the type. I assume he cried because he was sorely disappointed. The movie was simply that bad.
I mean, have I adequately conveyed how massively *annoyed* I was at this stupid movie? Because I was. It was a slog.
In its defense, I am not sure that it had too much to go on. Other than Ewan’s Obi-Wan, a lot of the other characters didn’t have the best personalization. The romance story with Anakin and Padme was horrible (and the age difference was creepy). The relationship between Padme/Anakin and Anakin/Obi-Wan matters for the set up of the third. I got a better sense of their relationship from the cartoon about clone wars than I did the movies. If you don’t have it set up well, the breaking of that relationship just doesn’t hit as hard.
I would enthusiastically read a 300-page thesis on this. I think Return is the weakest of the OT, but the prequels are rough.
I can’t tell in A New Hope if it’s supposed to be like a six month journey or a very busy weekend. Luke romping around the Death Star wearing a storm trooper suit doesn’t feel like “this is the army that executed his family just that morning” to me.
Dorothy’s ambiguous pose is probably going to get more comments, but her asking that question is a pretty major step. She recognizes the similarities of their situations, they’d both planned their lives based off of ideas they no longer hold. And she’s scared about confronting it, but she’s actually confronting it now. and she’s recognizing that Joyce is the one with experience. Here, Joyce isn’t her project, she’s not Joyce’s mentor.
I think Joyce has already noticed the change in their dynamic, and moved Dorothy off the highest pedestal. They may fall back into their familiar patterns sometimes, but they are more equal now.
So progress on two fronts. Probably going to get awkward when Dorothy realizes she has a crush on Joyce, though.
There are no more filters, simply being honest about their respective problems, let’s just hope that with this a new determination will be achieved for Dorothy without annoying burdens.
I’ll be honest with you, for Dorothy to express those kinds of feelings to Joyce… it wouldn’t be a good idea, in the last strips it seems that she noticed that Joe was really hurt by Walky’s comment, it seems that she finally sees that the boy If she is trying, I mean, yes, she has shown a very great distrust, but I end up accepting that Joyce really loves Joe, for that reason I am not a fan of the Joyce/Dorothy ship, it seems that no matter what, they only want that be canon regardless of whether someone ends up hurt (Joe mainly and ironically Dorothy would also be affected)
I don’t see Joyce+Dorothy happening, especially not at this point in time. But I think there’s a pretty high chance Dorothy has feelings for Joyce that she doesn’t understand yet.
It will be awkward if realizes it and 10 times awkward if she makes a move.
Well, everyone has their favorite ships.
But I think this one has already gotten a huge reputation and not in a good way.
“You should feel bad for liking this ship even though you’ve just said you don’t even think it’s going to happen because I’ve decided everyone who likes it is bad” is a heck of a take.
[eyeroll] don’t put words in someone’s mouth, and then accuse them of the take you just made up.
Eh. That’s fair. I’m just so, so, so tired of seeing people say this is a bad ship because other people have been annoying about it. I should really stop reading the comments for the rest of this storyline. Or maybe take a break from the whole comic for a while. Like I said the other day, I’m definitely not actually enjoying it right now, because every smallest moment of even slightly cute behavior between these two makes me cringe in anticipation.
like I figure I fall into this category for you, since I’ve said a couple of times that Joe’s hypothetical feelings in no way factor into whether or not I like Joyce/Dorothy, but it’s actually not that I want Joyce to dump Joe right now this instant and break his heart. (Dunno what I want on that score, but I did like the idea of them as a throuple.)
It IS that I’m completely exhausted by constantly hearing people assert that it’s badwrongawful to ship Joyce and Dorothy right now because Poor Joe (and previously, before Joe and Joyce were dating, it was Poor Becky). I’ve seen all sorts of accusations, like people just assuming I must not only be totally rooting for Joe to get cheated on in this webcomic but also okay with cheating IRL.
You get sick of that. You start just saying “yeah actually fictional cheating is a victimless crime, whatever”, because that’s true. Joe isn’t real. He doesn’t have feelings to be hurt by what we say in the comments.
The real people being accused of “supporting” cheating and relentlessly told they like a horrible ship for horrible people and also should suffer guilt by association because somewhere, someone was obnoxious about Joyce/Dorothy once…………… we’re real, and we have real feelings, lol.
Have we ever seen Dorothy this cuddly of Joyce, rather than the other way around?
Are those single malt whiskeys? Or blended? I think Joyce should know.
Someone gonna be blended tonight, that for sure! XD
(69th comment, you know the drill)
At “Hooch Place”? I think they’d be lucky if they came in glass instead of plastic bottles.
Clay jugs with Xs on them.
Brewed in the back of a moving pick up truck on I-69. “Five minutes ago was a very good year.”
Authority and doctrine don’t like questions. Questions might lead to the discovery that the aforementioned are wrong.
All the more reason that they should be questioned. Maybe not while drunk for the very first time, but it’s a start. [I like this comment a lot.]
“Write unsober, edit sober.”
This is good. I like this storyline. Joyce widening her comfort zone and being strong for her friends. Dorothy, y’know, chilling out, like for even a second. Very heartwarming.
It’s also such a classic move that I’m kind of impressed at how much it snuck up on me. Joyce needed to let go of her previous notions of who she was and what right and wrong were — Dorothy helped her on that path. Now Joyce, who has shed every bit of identity she defined herself with, turns and reaches out to Dorothy and goes, “It’s okay to let them go, I promise.” Of course that’s how the story ends.
“Waiter, two more please!!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!”
– Spongebob and Patrick, also these girls in about 5 minutes
“Why do I always get the nuts?”
-Waiter in 5 minutes
I became a progressive because I asked a bunch of questions. Ironically, those questions led me to anarchism….and religion. However, I doubt anyone thinks of Jesus the socialist in my part of the state of Kentucky.
God is dead and we are drinking his blood.
The Traffic version is definitive:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=eq0ENLs0f1w
I had a lot more references to the lyrics in the original version of the post, but then thought better of it.
I listen to the version(s) from this collection: https://coldspring.bandcamp.com/track/john-barleycorn
Forewarning, the record label’s logo might make you wonder “fash or not?” I’ve looked up a handful of the artists, and some are “we oppose racism and nationalism” and one was like, “that was an ignorant period in my life I’m most ashamed of”, and some I can’t tell.
dorothy really forgot how joyce was acting when she really started doubting her faith
Also maybe don’t take “you just need to get laid” seriously. According to people like former rep “George Santos” that’s how everyone in congress copes with being a piece of shit.
You mean NBA all-star and WWI fighting ace George Santos?
Yeah I’m just gonna hyperfixate on that finger over there kthxbye.
Dorothy’s conversation be like “Yeah, this COULD be any random college teenager seriously questioning their sexuality but for me it was
Tuesmy decision that politics would be the be-all and end-all of my ambitions instead”, Joyce oblivious to BOTH possible implications, and Dorothy’s arm going “hahaha nope”Oh glaring Joyce in the last panel is hot, peak bad girl energy right there.
Underage drinking, wearing her clothes, and talking shit about people she hates? She’s channeling Sal like mad.
And if her mother sees her tweet they’ll share the Shitty Mom On Your Case, too.
“So, any other foundational beliefs you wanna test? Like tonight?”
By Jimmy Carter, I think we’ve found the loophole to bisexual experimentation!
I… gotta say, I approve of Junk Droyce… er…
I had to read it 2 times hahah
Once again getting Trans Vibes from Dorothy.
That is a well drawn hug. I love the visuals here.
It’s got that Ghibli hug vibe to it.
Yes, I can see it now that you mention it 🙂
We’re slowly running out of heterosexual explanations for This
…not that there were many to begin with.
Naw, I think it’s the opposite: after this, if Dorothy doesn’t question her sexuality then that makes her a solid 0 on the Kinsey scale. Which is how it’s looking rn.
I think Dorothy’s into Joyce, but that embrace could just be drunkenness.
Waiting now for the bar to catch fire, QC-style. Everyone gets out safely and the bartender has a harpoon.
Needs more Barry, or at least Jimbo.
I wonder if Joyce is gonna start venting about Sarah and Becky as well as the people she grew up with. Even Dorothy may not end up unscathed. She’s giving a lot of bitterness right now, and those three definitely fall into the category of “people who didn’t want me questioning what they said, just demanded I listen.” Through drunken lips pass sober truths, and I get the feeling this night is gonna be more transformative than Joyce was expecting it would be.
Half of me: what a wonderful night for these two to finally relax and be honest about their lives
Other half: one step closer to the chaos kiss of drama
Sure , I am also happy to watch Joyce and Dorothy realise their feelings and discover new parts of their sexualities but also
Chaos chaos CHAOS!!!!!
It’s fine if it’s a purely platonic night but also chaos chaos CHAOS!!!!
YES ✌️😈
You get it!
I see so much debate over the shipping when all I want is the chaos that comes from one little kiss
YEE!!! And hopefully some fine fine game material along with it!!
(stimming so much YEEEE!!!! ^^)
So much potential for chain reaction chaos, no matter the response. Becky kissing Joyce, Ruth kissing Jennifer, Joyce kissing Ethan, Jacob kissing Joyce, Dina kissing Becky, even Dorothy kissing Walky, all generated small to moderate amounts of chaos. Dorothy kissing Joyce would more of the cast in bigger ways than each of the others, in uncertain ways.
David, when are you and everyone else going to admit that the X-Men cartoon from Fox Kids wasn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be (at least the first 3 seasons and parts of season 4).
This was meant to specifically say you being *wrong* about the x-men cartoon but somehow that didn’t make it into the final cut. We regret the error.
i think it’s funny when people try to employ the caveat of “well the earlier stuff is better, it’s only the last-season stuff that’s bad” when, like, i’ve never even seen the late-season stuff, it’s the stuff everyone says is great, actually, that has my eyeballs threatening to commit mutiny on my brain, because it’s a show that looks like it was made with five whole dollars and the story is a far cry from making up that gap
my reply is, wait, it gets worse???
You take a brave stance, Willis. Like the noble Brotherhood of Steel against all of NCR.
Wrong.
But brave.
Haim Saban is the cheapest fuck alive and everything he touches absolutely reflects that. Watch for Wolverine’s disappearing arm hair and Spider-Man TAS episodes blitzing by at double speed.
Yeah when it comes to wringing every last dollar out of a production he’s almost as stingy as Roger Corman, who famously made an entire movie on a piecemeal basis because he had a couple days before a set from his previous movie was torn down.
I think the only people who were stingier and cheaper were Golan Globus, who ran the Superman 4: The Quest for Peace production. I’m borrowing from an ancient Chris Sims piece, but Superman starring Chris Reeves produced by Golan Globus is like if the Sci-Fi Channel made another Thor movie starring Chris Hemsworth.
Rogue is hot, and nothing else in that show matters.
Already Dorothy is dragging Joyce by neck? Ahaha weak.
I have both given and received that exact hug. And I love it.
And I’ve also had that Joyce panel 1 expression after a whiskey flight in a dive bar, too.
well joyce may have accidentally contributed to the death of dorothy’s presidential ambitions here
Not necessarily! Joyce is just saying it’s good to ASK the questions; applied to Dorothy’s case: if you don’t even consider how a position of power could cause you to lose sight of your morals in the heat of the moment, and thus facilitate war crimes etc., you’re liable to fall into this kind of behavior… but that doesn’t mean it’s literally unavoidable! Also, if she feels like the presidency has too many global ramifications, she could aim for a lower position such as senator, representative, or even state or local government. The important thing is to recognize the potential for corruption and strive to avoid it; also to recognize when she makes an error in judgment (whether out of her own faults or just a failure to realize the ultimate implications) and learn how she can improve her policies to minimize risk in the future!
Not that she can’t figure out some other path she could follow, but like… questioning yourself whether you’re doing the right thing? That’s a good start.
+1
Which is a really good thing. She is just not equipped for the job, neither in terms of skillset nor the lack of morality.
She’s 19. No one is equipped for the job of president at 19.
Look at the mess in Israel and Palestine and tell me that Dotty at any age would be happy to deal with that.
Nobody’s happy to deal with it. Nobody I want anywhere near the job wakes up thinking “Oh goodie, I get to deal with a war today.”
If it was just a war it wouldn’t be That bad but according to many sources… well US is complicit in a genocide.
Well, either the left is right and President Dorothy could just stop it with a phone call or she’d not be happy to deal with it, like most any President.
yes. which is why it’s a good thing. It’s not good for a 19 year old to devote their entire life, to plan to devote their entire life, to becoming president.
It’s something decided she wanted to do even younger! What got into 13 year old Dorothy’s head that she thought, “ah, yes, I am so good at knowing what to do in any situation, the US presidency is where I belong”?
I mean, even Prez from DC Comics waited until he was 21.
–Dave, I am NOT making this short comic series UP
“The most important thing to be wrong about”
Good question.
I’m glad Dorothy is finally getting a much needed Joyce hug… sort of. Not quite how I’d envisioned it.
More of a half Nelson but you get what you can!
I see Dorothy and Joyce have now reached the “sobering conversation” part of the evening. They got there quicker than initially anticipated, but that’s to be expected when A) they’ve gone through some fairly strong shots, and B) they’re both relative lightweights.
“That’s not even the most important thing to be wrong about.”
Thing is: for people finally escaping from that world, it IS. It feels like the ultimate thing to be wrong about.
It is the most important thing for the same reason her thing is the most important thing. It’s what they were devoting their whole lives to.
What’s the word for a female bromance?
“Oh my god they were roommates” is the current vernacular, I believe.
I don’t know if you’re joking or just very mistaken, but no, that is shipping lingo.
People say that about characters they ship.
There isn’t a word. Insert monologue about how that’s because homosocial behavior between cis women is more socially acceptable than homosocial behavior between cis men. (This isn’t really true, I think it’s more that the behavior in question is being desexualized.)
Now Dorothy’s ears are burning. Better tell Joyce what you’re talking about.
Most correct alt text ever.
Dangit, walking it back. I think original when I think Star Wars movies. Also, just thought there was a prior comment that none of them were good (not Christianity enough- true until the prequels). Now I’m she had said the prequels were the good ones and, thus the walk back.
Don’t look down on people, Joyce. But keep asking questions.
Nah, definitely look down on people if they’re awful and making the world worse.
I don’t know about being wrong about God. I think, in general, if they exist, they prefer us to make our own choices and own up to them. Good or bad, that’s each person’s choice. We make mistakes, we do dumb things, and we are imperfect. Essentially, we are kids. We’re expected to make mistakes, but what we do after we make them, and we know what we did, I suspect, makes the difference when it comes to being what kind of people we are. Yes, I am religious, essentially, a Christian, but in more of a nebulous manner, more trying to do right by others and helping those I can with what resources I have. I’d like to think I’ve been of help, but one can never truly know in the end.
My philosophy? Simply, be good to each other, help where and when you can, and in general? Don’t be a dick…
Welcome to the World of Ethanol: It burns sinuses, yet still not suitable as car fuel.
Raidah really got to Dorothy with the dreambuster
…It’s essentially why you have to keep up the fight.
There’s a lot of people with a lot of power who genuinely believe what they do is RIGHT and never question the horror, or genuinely believe that no one else matters but them.
Dorothy, you gotta fight.
Because not everyone does.
… really? Nobody? All right…
🎶 EEEEEVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG!
Black is white, up is down, and short is long!
And everything you thought was just so important doesn’t matter!
EEEEEVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG!
Just forget the words and sing along!
All you need to understand is everything you know is wrong!!! 🎵
Dogs fly spaceships!
The Aztecs invented the vacation!
Your brain is not the boss!
Yes, That’s right!
EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG!
come on! eat the blue moss!
The hug is cute, these two are cute, but also: herein lies the heterosexual explanation for the stinkeye Dorothy was throwing Joe and Joyce’s way in the gym, imho.
(At the time I was a little stumped, even though I didn’t think it was supposed to be jealousy of Joe, because her “gaze” zoomed in on Joyce. So the more obvious “envious of their happiness, missing being happy with Walky” explanation didn’t quite track for me.
But a generalized “being wrong about everything suuuucks” feeling? That works. Because she was definitely being confronted very directly in that moment about how she’d been wrong about Joe, and the zoom-in on Joyce makes sense in that context as further underlying “she IS happy in this relationship, whereas I thought she’d only be hurt”.)
OHHHHHH now I get it.