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Iantos @iantos.bsky.social ⋅ 20h
Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social ⋅ 6h
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 8h
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 5h
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 6h
Jon Munitz @jonmunitz.bsky.social ⋅ 10h
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 5h
Chris McFeely @chrismcfeely.bsky.social ⋅ 7h
TFNation @tfnationltd.bsky.social ⋅ 7h
Sorenson & McFeely
Lost media
Pre-recorded script reading
Special guest cast
Details below!
tfnation.com/blog/20...
#TFNation #Transformers
Iantos @iantos.bsky.social ⋅ 20h
assbutt @nasboat.org ⋅ 2d
Plastic Craic @plasticcraic.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
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Walky has changed to being Booster’s playback message
Being around Booster certainly seems to have made Walky feel more powerful.
It’s a buff. He’ll be back to normal after it wears off in a few more turns.
Depends what Booster’s cooldown is, and how long the effect lasts. They might be able to refresh it often enough to make it effectively a persistent bonus.
Aww. I’m really enjoying Walky’s expression in the first panel.
Reminds me of Asher.
And makes me want to punch him.
Those two thought might be related.
I was just thinking that!
That the expression on Walky’s face makes him look weirdly like Asher, I mean. Not the other part. Although…
Ah yes This is because the condescending/smug person who claims to use psychology when in reality all Walky is saying that we are changing to reuse the terminology instead of admitting towards the idea that we are frauds and not showing our true selves. This logic is flawed because not everyone is showing their fake self, because not everyone has this general idea/fear of hiding their true selves. A good tl;dr For this is: you’re not a smart person for reciting psychological bullshit
“This logic is flawed because not everyone is showing their fake self, because not everyone has this general idea/fear of hiding their true selves”
And yet every time I bring up the fact that I do and I’m worried about it, people tell me that it’s the same for everyone. I always suspected this was bull, but it’s nice to have it confirmed.
Everyone wears a mask. EVERYONE. Our ‘true selves’ is just when we wear a slightly more ‘honest’ mask. Even then, it’s our own definition of ‘honest’, so take it with a grain of salt.
So there’s no actual true self? It’s just masks all the way down?
You know what? Change those from questions to statements. The evidence indicates pretty solidly that the self we experience is just a construct that our brain mechanisms create to explain ourselves to ourselves. And furthermore they have learned to cheat pretty heavily to do it.
Any Buddhist will be happy to confirm this.
A construct sure, but not necessarily a mask. Who we are is different day to day and situation to situation basis, but its not necessarily ungenuine.
If it’s a construct and not the reality, I’m not sure how much more ungenuine you can get.
Yeah, people have many facets to how they work. Sometimes they’re contradictory, which doesn’t imply any of the elements being false. With reality being defined by those who live in it, our construct-based psychological makeup is as real as our needs to eat, sleep and breathe.
What I always want to ask when someone starts talking about this is who they are to start throwing around assessments about which of my selves is any more or less true than any other. Just because they’re different versions doesn’t mean they’re fake. They’re all me.
“They’re all me.”
BOOM! Nailed it. Claiming your expression of you is fake seems more often to be about denigrating a person than somehow protecting the rest of us from them. (See also”Fakey” -Malaya). Not that there aren’t people like that. (My ex perjured herself repeatedly in our last custody battle, fortunately, this time I had the evidence to prove it). But the times I’ve heard people attack others as fake seem to occur more often when the accused is being denigrated by the accuser, more than when the accuser is just warning others to be wary of the accused.
Alternately put, by Oprah Winfrey, “when people show you who they are, believe them.”
– Maya Angelou.
(I’m sure Oprah has quoted Maya Angelou as well, but that’s who said it first.)
And they’re all – here – sewn in the lining of me
In the seam-folds and the small mended corners
Tucked into collar and sleeves in the lining of me
— Talis Kimberly “Small Mended Corners” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbv4bnR7K-8)
Meanwhile, Walky’s expression in the last panel makes him look like Faz.
Re: Alt Text
Obvious Booster’s attacks do recurrent psychic damage which continues throughout the day.
They need someone to cast Esuna.
Or the old SCH cleanse: Leeches.
Part of me wonders if Walky changed their seats for the sole purpose of messing with joyce and delivering that line, or if he just didn’t want to walk too far
Walky’s the kind of person who would definitely prefer the back seats. It’s just that he sat with Sal on the first day and … didn’t like change?
I’m not sure he was even indicating the back seats specifically so much as all the seats, Lucy just jumped right on approving the most immediate option (lest she indicate a preference that Walky might not share), and from there Walky saw an opportunity to razz Joyce
Walky and Joyce will never stop being Walky and Joyce.
Also, Joyce, you sure you don’t need glasses?
Don’t see how they would help, she doesn’t have pupils.
Of course she doesn’t have pupils, she’s still a student!
Thank you. Someone had to do it, and I didn’t want to.
Same.
I may beneath all of you, but nothing is beneath me! -The Underminer
(golf clap). That’s a fine pun, for eagle.
He’s being mean.
just noticed…walky has a yellow stripe on the shirt under his jacket.
We all know what that means.
He peed himself in a very strange position?
Ooof. Gotta feel a bit sorry for Lucy cause I don’t think this is gonna go the way she wants it too…
Walky is such a great friend. Who needs Mike to attack insecurities when you got Walky?
The conservation of Mike principal at work.
Er, is the Asher smirk contagious??
An outbreak of smirkalepsy?
The Booster psychoanalysis is definitely spreading.
Yes…give Joyce glasses. The stars must align.
Joyce gets glasses, and also a haircut on the same day, and walks into the room looking oddly like Dorothy.
Becky’s brain would immediately break.
She would look like a mini Jocelyne
Yes, please…
All made up and nowhere to go
Welcome to this one man show
Just take a seat they’re always free
No surprise, no mystery
In this theater that I call my soul
I always play the starring role–So Lonely!
I wanted the Bonnaroo version but they don’t have it
Don’t be a smartass, Walky.
*powerwashes with a hose*
We have to learn to accept change. Especially when we’re getting paid in change.
Your saying we should cash in on change?
No, Yoto is saying that change is the currency of life.
I thought it was time we were spending.
Or wasting as the case may be.
Ask any baby; Change is good!
Else you get diaper rash….
You know who used to say “Embrace the Change”, Joyce?
THE SKRULLS, Joyce!
THE SKRULLS.
The ones that tried to invade and coquer Earth because of some bullshit ancient prophecy. So, yeah. The Skrulls, Joyce.
that was a an event… that I didn’t like…
That’s probably all we’ll get about Billie/Jennifer for a while, and I do have to wonder if Joyce isn’t right. The sorta-toxic-sorta-beautiful Ruth-Billie relationship was worth cheering for but also worth worrying about, and while getting with Asher does look like the definition of a bad decision, it’s possible that she had entirely justified reasons for leaving Ruth and her old self behind. Maybe she finally found out whatever Ruth was failing to remember here. I can’t point to hard evidence, but it seems like Rachel’s beef with her seems to be motivated by something more profound than just being a surly, terrible roommate.
It’s possible, but it’s possible that she’s also just leaving her old self behind and Ruth was part of that. Just as she didn’t change hair styles between high school and college, “Billie” was her name as a drunk cheerleader, as well as her drunk-lesbian-suicide-pact name. If she’s decided to make a clean break, Ruth could quite plausibly just be collateral damage. That would tie in with Ruth’s assertion that she “didn’t lose Billie,” which seems to suggest — or, at least, one possible interpretation of which is — that she did not actively do anything that led to the breakup. (Of course, it can just as easily be interpreted as “I didn’t lose her, I fucked up,” or “I didn’t lose her, I kicked her ass to the curb,” though the latter seems less likely given the fact she kept the spare chair in her room.)
I don’t think there’s any question that Ruth did much worse to Rachel than just be grumpy, but I don’t think it’s necessarily follows that the same thing caused the breakup. Jennifer doesn’t seem the type (to me, at least) to dump someone because she discovers they did something terrible in the past, and whatever Ruth did to Rachel was while her depression was untreated and possibly also while she was drunk (we don’t know when she became an alcoholic; if she already was by then, it might help to explain why she doesn’t remember much of last year, though it’s hard to imagine that Rachel wouldn’t have pulled a Sarah and got her kicked out — unless Gramps pulled some strings then as well, which would give Rachel another reason to be extra cranky). Ruth can have relapses, as we’ve seen, but emotionally she seems to have been on a much more even keel since getting treated, which suggests that her repeating that behavior with Jennifer is less likely.
From a storytelling perspective, I actually think it would be stronger for Ruth not to have repeated her behavior or anything: just because you’re getting better doesn’t mean you get to keep everything that makes you happy, including “the prettiest girl in the whole damned wing” whom you think you don’t deserve (while perhaps learning that it’s not a question of deserving anyway).
TL;DR: If Jennifer had entirely justified reasons for leaving Ruth and her old self behind, they might not have actually had anything to do with Ruth, just with herself.
Well, Rachel does remember something, but as she only drops hints without actually saying out loud „Hey you did XYZ and that was shit/hurt me/ ..l“ she seems to like holding a grudge.
Especially, as she knows that Ruth might not remember. Shitting on someone this way is crap. „Oh, you did something bad to me but I won‘t tell you what.“
Ah, yeah, nice to hear that you‘ll ride whatever it was for the rest of my life in your vicinity without telling me want it was.
I mean, ok, Rachel shouldn’t be held to higher standards then the rest, but her thinking herself morally superior while pulling that is about as annoying as Mary with her whole holier-than-though stick.
Or like a normal person, she thinks the “maybe I don’t” remember is just a bullshit excuse. Especially if it was something serious and Rachel isn’t just blowing a triviality out of proportion.
Or with all that DID go down, and knowing Ruth is foggy on it all, Rachel is just gas-lighting Ruth to keep fuel in her grudge and to have an excuse to be a raging asshole. Rachel sure doesn’t seem to have any kindness to spare for anyone else.
As somebody who dated a fellow who is foggy on some of his really angry shitty behaviours from when he was very ill: it is indeed annoying that he can’t remember it. While I know intellectually that his insanity and his meds can cause memory loss, it just appeared so convenient, you know?
I think he knows that he probably behaved badly when he was angry. But he really seemed like he wanted to shrug it off and act as though he hadn’t done anything at all, instead of acting, accurately, like a guy who probably did shitty things that he couldn’t quite remember. He didn’t present like a guy who would like to know what he did so that he could address it, the things weren’t real to him. There wasn’t much of a way to assess whether he’d engage in those behaviours again.
There’s really no benefit to dredging up my own fading memories and informing/accusing him about it. I don’t need him to apologize or make amends or anything. I just want him to go continue getting treatment someplace else. He’s on meds now! I wish him well.
It sounds like you have much better reason to believe that he really doesn’t remember anything than Rachel does about Ruth.
Especially as most people in fact don’t know that depression can cause memory loss (your sense of time blurs so a lot of similar events blend together and if it wasn’t significant to her as extra bad, but was to Rachel, it would be difficult to pick out or address as an individual thing) and Rachel has no willingness to believe anything other than her own narrative i.e. Ruth is evil and not willing to accept responsibility properly when the reality is more Ruth is actually unable to remember and getting annoyed at the snipes over something she can’t address due to lack of memory!
Joyce probably DOES need glasses.
If only she’d learnt that in Roomies! She’d have had no difficulties in seducing Danny then!
Or they’d help her to see what a cockwomble he is…
Your saying we should cash in on change?
That was supposed to be a reply. Let’s try again.
Good. Worked better the second time. Now if we could just delete our posts that were
embarrassingwrong.I’ve noticed this sort of thing happens a lot. Does it happen mpre with phones, or no?
I believe it’s happened across devices, but in this case it was on a tablet. Autocorrect is definitely worse on a mobile device, but I have to suspect the occasional comment displacement is a function of how the page logic is coded and the process sometimes gets confused, maybe when multiple comments come in at once. And honestly, part of it is probably user error. But definitely not for the comment that started this thread.
This. I’ve also noticed ‘new’ comments occasionally get loaded with my last comment’s content.
Anyone have a feeling she’s saying this because Jocelyne came out to her?
“Call people what they want to be called.”
I feel like Joyce isn’t annoyed because Booster is right, but because of how off the mark they are. Booster never really exactly knew Joyce. It would be odd for them to have this omniscient knowledge of the characters pasts, struggles, and neuroses. I think they literally just hit the ballpark and thought, “eh, good enough”.
If that occurred during the timeskip, and we don’t get to see it, people will riot.
A new option for the poll? Yeah, it’d win.
Wait.
StClair, you say there is an option for the comment section to riot? I’m always the last to find out these things. How does this work?
At this point, the ball is in Willis’ court and/or buffer. The rest of us will just have to see.
Mixture of the Barnum effect and cold reading. It’s very unethical to do snap psych evals in a group setting but very in character for a student.
Not many people can see how insightful you are.
Yeah, sounds like that. Booster probably heard a few rumors and then extrapolated from that as well. Most of their guesses are kind of vague and don’t really specify a person. We’re sort of expected to fill in the blanks here.
I’m seriously wondering if Booster guessed not that Joyce was an atheist, but that she was gay. People made jokes about her supposed sexual attraction to Dorothy, but Joyce doesn’t have a sexual attraction to Dorothy, it’s just a joke that sounds differently taken out of context.
If Jocelyne had come out I don’t think Joyce would have been so surprised by Booster.
Yeah, but she was surprisingly quick on the uptake. Unless she figured out about Carla at some point or Jocelyne came out to her, she wouldn’t have even known that much about trans people. Yeah, she was probably taught about it in gender studies, but it doesn’t seem like something that would have clicked so easily for her. This is the same girl, who a few months ago, thought that being gay meant you played with Barbies.
I like the idea of Joyce with glasses.
Walky has been an annoying little shit all along.
Bad Walky! No biscuit!
Walky has a new power! Booster knows not what they have done.
Come on, Walky. You’re falling down on the job here. How many times are you going to say that at her without taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by suggesting what else she could swallow?
Do I sense a new dynamic? Walkie’s little harem fantasy here? Careful with that cold water!
I’m not sure at this point whether Walky is teasing Joyce (and enjoying her reaction) or outright flirting with her!
Is there any difference? And, Joyce is the one insisting on sitting with him…
And Lucy.
Yes, I wonder if Walky is consciously aware that he has somehow become the focus of all the Good Girls’ attention?
I’m torn between asking for your definition of Good Girl and proposing that Walky can channel his inner churchmouse.
Let’s go with the first.
I mean there are certainly criteria by which both could be considered good, some of them superficial and some not, but you are simultaneously ruling out Dorothy, Becky, AmaziGirl, Mary, Rachel, and Dina as not being good girls, while leaving Lucy and Joyce in. Dorothy, in combination, creates a lot of difficulties, as by most criteria she is a model citizen and a perfect cinnamon roll. She has engaged in premarital hankypanky, but Becky, Dina, and Mary as far as we know, have not. Nor do we know about Lucy. Again Dorothy is an atheist, but Becky and Mary are not, and Joyce is falling somewhere on that spectrum. Mary is easy to eliminate based on her actions, but with Joyce we have the Jacob incident and with Lucy we have the whole stalking Walky pattern. So what possible definition of Good Girl could you be using?
The ones who are so overtly and outwardly nice, innocent and cheerfully wholesome in all their ways (note: whether they are actually like that is another mater and, honestly, one of the whole points of that type of character).
C.f.: Almost every character ever played by Doris Day or Julie Andrews
Is Dina not overtly and outwardly nice, innocent and cheerfully wholesome in all her ways?
I wonder what plot will Willis give to Walky, now that their school experiences are branching off.
Willis will probably just make Walky your typical smart ass douche of a guy who says inflammatory bullshit and then when you tell him to knock it off he will bongo about his rights.
but why would Joyce sit at the back TOO ?
Because a part of Walky kind of likes to sit with her. Who knew?
Everyone?
Sure. But shouldn’t that be a part of Joyce likes to sit with Walky? She’s the one braving a headache for the sake of his company. I doubt Lucy is that much of a draw.
“Guy that I’d Kinda Be Into” with Joyce as Christine, Joe as Jeremy, and Jacob as Jake.
Lucy, it’s not a movie theater. The lights will stay on. Everyone will see you.
The point is that Walky will be there to comfort her (or be comforted) if the equations get too scary!
Alt-text: I dunno, I think Lucy and Joyce are a bit too be sitting in Booster seats…
I don’t know. Even ^that^ comment was too short. Maybe we need Booster seats all around?
Joyce : “listen here you little doodoo”
After seeing “””billie””” i don’t think I’m ready for more change
Walky’s turned the smartassing up to eleven here.
You know what Walky, how about we call you Idiot Mc ShutIt from now on.
The problem is, if Joyce gets glasses… Then Danny will start hitting on her. And that will drive a wedge between Danny and Joe.
My problem with Joyce with glasses is that she would suddenly become that harder to tell the two of them apart. All that remains is for Lucy to decide that Joyce isn’t that much more bisexual than she is and the two would become close to twins!
My immediate reaction to panel one before the strip had finished loading:
NEVARR!!
I was always the nerd who sat in the front row. Part of it was because I DID wear glasses, and because my myopia is quite high, a side effect of my glasses is that it makes things appear smaller. Part of it was because I genuinely loved going to school and learning new things, and sitting up front gave me a closer view of graphics, charts etc. And part of it was that I was also an antisocial loner and since few people wanted to sit in front, that just meant more room for me! ;P
Someone please switch off the Walky before the power of Rod Booster ignites the whole sky.
they are married in another timeline
Yeah; sometimes it shows!
Wally looks really handsome in panel 1
Plot prediction: Joyce’s grades start to slip because her friends want to sit in the back, and she can’t make out the overhead notes.
It’s not just not being able to read the board, there’s also much less distraction and less social/interpersonal environment of distractedness at the front, more connection with the lecturer. I always sat in the front or second row myself, halfway between the centre and the left wall (a politics joke), and when I was doing remedial coaching I urged my students to sit at the front, pay attention, and don’t write notes. Also, if anyone went to the lecturer to ask questions after the lecture, to go and listen to the Q&A.
ok walky, now you’re just being a dick
Walky is getting on my NERVES.
Walky’s not even getting it right.
Change is NOT easy to swallow. Anything over a dime is a problem.
His new hair is very cute
Walky might even be indirectly pointing out that Booster is full of it… with a generic statement that could apply to many people.
After all, just because they’re a psychology major doesn’t mean they’re good at analyzing people. It just means they WANT to be good at analyzing people, and are still learning.
(I’ve known many psych majors that can’t read a room even if it had neon signs everywhere)
People have pointed out a few times that most of what Booster said was something they could have cold read which is far more general than it would have seemed to the individual or could have been worked out by the direct response said to them.
Booster isn’t some mind-reading genius, human lives just contain a lot of similar narratives and responses e.g. someone becoming aggressively loud out of guilt isn’t some special response, it’s something you can guess and it isn’t unlikely to be wrong if they are really overdoin’ it.
Hell I could say that several commenters on this site had a male figure they respected die from something affecting their chest or abdomen (guess where most of your vital organs are so I have covered everything from bronchitis to several types of cancer, men typically die earlier, and it unlikely that you will have respected 0 men in your life total). And it may be right, but it wouldn’t be because of special insight, it’s because with 7 billion people on the planet, of course there will be people that have experienced this same general narrative, I read on wikipedia that this is a commonly used general one that seems specific, and I also recall at least a few of the commenters being 40+ and at least a few mentioning their parents died back when Becky was playing Animal Crossing and got emotional. Even seemingly ‘specific’ statements like this one can still be extremely general when you actually consider every factor, the audience it is aimed at, and that it has zero specific details. Even if you zone in on a few details e.g. ‘at the hospital/at home’ or ‘heart disease’, very common places of death, one of the most common killers of people. Any random stranger can mash together a bunch of common likelihoods and someone will be like ‘I experienced that!’
Joyce: We used to sit in the middle, what’s wrong with the middle?
Walky: It’s easier for the artist if he doesn’t have to draw any people behind us.
Meh. Just go for a class full of circles and 5 year-old half-birds and you’ll be fine.
⁀ ⁀ ⁀
⁀ ⁀ ⁀
O O O
Probably not, but a couple of standard backgrounds that can be traded out should work fine.
So no Joyce needs glasses but won’t admit it plot line then.
This made me laugh, nicely done.
I wonder if that is the root of the “seat of doom” in anime.
Between the seats and the food and a lot of little things, I’m starting to think Joyce may be on the Spectrum.
What, just now?
…God dammit how did I not notice that I’m usually on the ball at picking out other people on the spectrum, real or fictional =S
Welcome to the club. People have been thinking that since at least back when Joyce and Jacob were hanging out so you’re not the only one!
The more that line gets repeated the less it sounds like any kind of burn. Like, yes? If you have to admit you have been a shitty person then committing to changing that is easier than deciding to continue to act the same way? And also probably better for you and the people around you?
Is it supposed to make Joyce feel bad about trying to change her mind or feel bad about thinking the things that she’s already pointedly feeling bad about thinking? Neither of those make any sense as far as I can see.