Superpowered middle schoolers fight evil spirits in their rural hometown. Come for the jokes, stay for the cast, the creatures, and the mystery that ties them all together!
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Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Kochab
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A YA F/F fantasy comic about Sonya, a lost skier trying to survive a snowy wilderness and find her way back to her village; and Kyra - a fire spirit trying to fix the home that she let fall apart around her.
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El Goonish Shive
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WARNING: This comic often ignores the Laws of Physics
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Spin off stories and other adventures from the world of Atomic Robo!
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Lucy Marlowe, a magician's apprentice, competes against other apprentices for an important, magical, Goverment Job.
Sufficiently Remarkable
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Guilded Age
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Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Demon's Mirror
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Based loosely off of "The Snow Queen", a story by Hans Christian Andersen, we see things take a different turn as the demons become central characters, and the side characters stick around. Yup, that's the only differences. Enjoy!
This is Not Fiction
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What do you do when the person you're in-love with is an anonymous romance novelist? Get your best friend to hire your worst enemy for help!
Atomic Robo
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The robot punches monsters and bad robots and one time he was a cowboy.
Lilith's Word
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Cyanide & Happiness
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Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
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A teen girl inherits a powerful alien artifact and proceeds to make a series of increasingly poor decisions
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Cuddles, gay flirting, weird feelings, and magic-fueled knife fights - it's an adventure across the queer multiverse!
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Monster Pulse
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Awaken
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Sam & Fuzzy
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Troubled by gangster rodents, lovesick vampire stalkers, or confused ninja assassins? Don't panic! Sam and Fuzzy are here to help. (For a reasonable fee.)
Widdershins
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A series of light-hearted Victorian-era adventure stories featuring grumpy bounty hunters, accidental thiefkings, and more, in England's magical capital city Widdershins!
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Kiwi Blitz
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The Sanity Circus
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Fireweeds Moors
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Monsterkind
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Wallace Foster, a young, bright-eyed human social worker, has his entire world view rocked when he's suddenly relocated into a city primarily inhabited by monsters.
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Devil's Candy
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Knights Errant
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A story about messy relationships. From friendly foes to crazy families. Nothing is black and white, just full of color. But, all colors can get a little hazy...
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A young Volant woman joins the military in an effort to upstage her war-hero father.
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What they should go for is swapping roommates. Amber never gets off the computer to have a conversation, and with Ethnan, Danny, and Walky out of the picture, she has no social life to generate visitors, all of which would suit Sarah just fine. This would free up Dina to room with Becky and Joyce to room with Dorothy.
WOW. Assigning dorm rooms by GOOD MATCHES rather than by randomization? Wild take.
Although i am not advocating for u-hauls so i think it IS better if Dina and Becky do not live together. Plus, Dina needs a lot of alone time, so it’d be detrimental for her to live with bubbly Becky instead of Amber who basically constitutes alone time. So…. actually i think Dina and Amber ARE a good roomie match.
But, Becky, i’m sure Dorothy is happy to vacate the room more often so you can canoodle. After all, Dorothy can go to the laundry room in that time
I would love to see Amber/Sarah roomate dynamics, but Joyce rooming with Dorothy gives me the shivers. Either they would both go completely feral or they would go full-mom-friend on each other and then so many shenanigans would ensue that they both would end up expelled. Joyce and Dorothy’s relationship is too powerful, it needs to be contained.
Sextuple pissed that she now gotta learn how to commit murder without vein’ caught, so she’s lost even more Dina-canoodling time to training (playing Hitman III for six hours a day)
You say that now, but imagine if the next time she tries to set up her Hell House, Mary is tragically crushed by an improperly balanced animatronic Satan bought with “dark money” (asking Robin for a couple grand with big puppy dog eyes)
Well he’s not the worst stealth game protagonist you could take influence from, a guy like Snake or Corvo would be way less instructive for this scenario.
Unfortunately a lot of stealth games bias towards trying to take down army guys or rich guys, often both at the same time, rather than some random college student.
Yeah, but college students are way less suspicious. Buy a set of coveralls and you can probably go pretty much anywhere in the dorms without anyone batting an eye. At most you might have to say “I need to do an inspection”.
Protestantism in general is bad at quantifying sins, you’re on this fuzzy meter of “hell” or “not hell”.
This is why Becky should convert to Catholicism and then spin this as actually fine because it was in defense of the faith, so that clears up the murder, and the premarital sex you can probably do some Hail Marys for.
The ultimate punchline is Newly Catholic Becky going “Sorry, Father, see, I knew Mary Bradford, and—“
“OH! Her! The girl we had to call the police to get her not to leave whole collections of those fucking Chick tracts all over the sanctuary and in the Eucharist and EVERYWHERE!”
“Yeah and I just keep thinkin’ hailing her is pretty much hailing Satan, ain’t?”
“You’re so right, my child. The snickering is a freebie, go forth and sin no more.”
I was once goign to get a new random roommate, as was the guy next door who I knew and liked. So we arranged for me to move in to his room, which had better furnishings (lofts). Then he flunked out, leaving me in Becky’s dream housing situation. Sadly, I couldn’t manage the canoodling.
Dorothy: No, no, I’m sacrificing myself for you. Not because I want to stay with my friends and hate the idea of leaving you all to go hang with a bunch of strangers while studying constantly. I love that. Honest.
She’s seen exactly one scene from any Witcher media, and it’s the one that involves doing it on a unicorn, and she’s like “man I am totally the lady-Geralt”.
This almost happened to me. My roommate dropped out over winter holidays and I didn’t receive word that I’d been assigned a new one — but when I got back to my dorm someone else’s stuff was there too. I later found out that she was a newly arrived transfer student, and she’d asked for a last-minute room reassignment because the girl she’d originally been roomed with was messy as fuck. She eventually became my best friend on campus, which just goes to show you, I guess.
I got a room to myself the second year of college by forgetting to apply for one until the last minute, so they didn’t have anyone to put me with. Procrastinating pays off once again! (Also, my RA called the room assignment a “dingle”, which is now one of my favorite words.)
I am located in a fairly southern US-ly area, and ‘yer’ sees pretty common play here. Somethin like “Yer noggin like ow this ole mess ends, kid.” would be considered a perfectly normal way of saying “You’re not going to like how this whole mess ends, kid.”
“Dotty this is a stupid fuckin’ idea born outta hella trauma, an’ I know from trauma! I’m a trauma world champ! Fun fact: two outta the three things I’m claimin’ to be mad about are me doin’ a coping mechanism! I’m deflectin’, Dotty! And you’re making me acknowledge it out loud!”
(also, that little “not to you” hurts extra, because like…Dorothy…you know that’s not how it works.)
For nearly the first time ever from me: Go Becky! Your points are strong and valid, even the one about non-constant canoodling, and you’re making them ver clearly and unusually honestly.
Yeah, Dorothy would have to do a whole lot of shit to help the First Nations people to maintain a clear conscience that she would not get enough support on.
I don’t know if you’re a Canadian if so then you know the institutional power of the PM is tremendous if they have a majority.
But I think Dotty would have an easier time of winning a ridding and working her way into Cabinet position or shadow cabinet position given that selectorate who determines party leadership is far smaller then those who determine who is governor a house member or senator.
I mean, the problem is that Dorothy isn’t really well-suited to be the face of a party, which is kinda the core part of the Head of Government job. She’d do great on a cabinet, USian or Canadian, but that requires a mature understanding of how government works and a nuanced undestanding of your own goals, rather than the slogan-style “gotta get the top job!” ambition.
I’m saying that the things Dorothy would struggle to do in order to be President are things she would still have to do if she wanted to be Prime Minister, and having to appeal to a smaller base of electors isn’t going to help with that.
It would also create all new problems. It’s not illegal for an American to become prime minister of Canada, but I can’t really see it happening. After the 1900s, we’ve had one prime minister who wasn’t born in this country and he was raised her since the age of three (also only served 79 days)
Tbh dot would be better off as like a. Small Town Mayor or local union leader. A position where she wouldn’t necessarily hurt a shit ton of people (or commit war crimes the president) and might actually make a difference
Also, after multiple storylines about stupid mutual secret-keeping by Becky and Joyce like a pair of knuckleheads that gets resolved with a beautiful reaffirmation of friendship, now we got a storyline involving a horrible secret with actual stakes. Thanks Willis. Thillis.
Is there a thing such as being too selfless? Though I do appreciate knowing Dorothy’s principles and ideals aren’t outweighed by her ambitions and I hope it stays that way with her. But can you really get to the top being %100 clean?
I guess to answer that you have to ask if you can think of any politician thats made it to the top thats 100% clean and what is clean when you get down to it
Everyone (probably) has a view on the abortion debate but when the buck stops with you, when its your decision (as much as it can be) and history will judge you
Or would Dorothy (at least this current version of Dorothy) be able to sign off going to war knowing the cost will be
Being a people pleaser def has its downsides, other than being paid for it or actually being fulfilled helping your friends who can actually reciprocate instead of seeing you as someone convenient/useful to them, I imagine it’d be draining overall
Yeah, even with the Presidential job – wouldn’t we prefer someone with some morals left even if they’ve had to compromise, rather than leaving the job to those completely corrupt from the start?
Becky’s dreaming if she thinks the campus will just let her have a room to herself for long when/if Dorothy transfers. One moment you’re Dina diddling, the next moment you’ve been partnered with an even worse version of Mary.
it might depend on how far into the year they’re in and if there’s a student who requested a room change if not a new student like booster (that said i’m sure they’d respect each other’s privacy and give becky and dina some time to themselves if they want to spend time together as a couple)
I knew a guy who’s roommate was supposed to have gotten a single and was finally switched out to where he was supposed to be in the first place within a week, and the replacement didn’t happen until the next quarter. Yeah that’s not forever but it’s also not a short amount of time either.
You’re not doing this ‘to’ Becky, Dorothy. Only to yourself.
But more importantly, she’s right, you would have to do worse. Because it turns out that real politics is not anything like you imagined or hoped.
I’m glad Becky is raising these excellent points. A very important and even more difficult life lesson is that sometimes bad things happen to us just because — but we can always choose, albeit sometimes not to any great degree, how to respond and move forward. And that response can allow us to make something beautiful out of the bad.
Poor Dorothy, though. She needs therapy and maybe to consider ways she can make a positive, widespread impact on the world without going into politics. As someone else said, “not to you” isn’t really how that works…
And, of course, before you can do something beautiful you first have to figure out what fulfills those qualifications…conventional politics may or may not be it.
it does seem like a huge opportunity but given what we’ve seen of her ‘perfectionism’, would she really last in yale? (tho i’m surprised more ppl don’t graduate from college with grey or at least salt and pepper hair, power of youth i suppose lol, i’d def be more aged at least)
I kinda get it. In a sense, it doesn’t matter what Becky’s *actually* feelings on this are to Dorothy, because she didn’t find out before resubmitting to Yale. She’s kicking herself less because she’s hurting Becky, and more that she didn’t consider how it would hurt Becky.
It’s something that she should work past and get over, don’t get me wrong, but Becky saying that she’s happy everything helped Dorothy out doesn’t change that Dorothy did it without her permission.
joyce would probably be the most upset but hopefully understanding in the end, but i don’t think anyone else along holding it against her to ‘move on up’
(Indiana to yale is apparently 12 hours away, while tedious it wouldn’t be impossible to catch up on holidays and the occasional weekends if not just keeping in touch over the phone/vid calls, but we probably wouldn’t see up to that point anyways)
Well, she could scam one of the parties, get their nomination, win the election, round up and execute the leadership of all parties and the power brokers who enable them, and then be good.
Admittedly, no one’s ever taken that last step, but there’s a first time for everything.
Thinking emoji. I’m gonna have to check on that one then, chances are good I got the country wrong. It’s been a while since I actually read up on the Obama administration lol.
It’d be nice to see less “You’d have to do worse as President” and more acknowledgment that not wanting the most traumatic day of your life, and the fallout from it, as the launch point of your career is 100% valid, normal responce to said trauma.
I think some of this response is because it’s been obvious for some time now to many of us, from our elevated perspective, that Dorothy does not have the actual qualifications for her chosen career, and is now, at long last, being confronted with strong evidence of this. It’s not (IMO) that anyone wants her to be traumatized, or to have a breakdown, except insofar as those are probably necessary steps in her becoming aware of and discarding her delusions, accepting reality, and setting more healthy and realistic goals suited to her actual talents, temperament, and moral character.
Yeah, absolutely this, with a side order of…like, no one who’s bringing up at Dorothy isn’t cut out for modern American politics is saying that out of a deep and abiding admiration for the modern American political machine. This ain’t exactly “wow, Dorothy, you weakling, why can’t you be cool enough to climb to power on some dead bodies”?
On the other hand, the very situation that traumatised her also demonstrated that she could be a really good leader in a difficult situation. If she can learn to deal with the fallout, that is.
I mean, is it really THAT important for her to figure this out? She’s 18/19, and it’s not like she’s President or Bust. It’s not UNrealistic for her to be a Congressperson or Senator, and sure, it’ll be depressing when she realizes in 10-15 years that it will be impossible for her to advance to her dream job, but she’ll still be doing the basics of what she always wanted (even if she also has to confront the reality of being unable to effect substantial change—but she’d have to confront that as President too). Not to sound too corny, but I don’t see a problem with the 18-year-old naively shooting for the moon, as long as she sets up her shooting trajectory to land in the stars if she misses.
That’s kind of been my problem with Dorothy’s ambitions all along. They’ve be so focused on “President”, we’ve never seen her talk about what she’d like to do along the way.
Even in the best case scenario, She’s going to have a decade or probably several in politics before getting into position to run. What are her ambitions for the time along the way? Seeing everything as just stepping stone to the real goal isn’t uncommon, but it’s not a good way to get there.
IMO, she probably is President or Bust, and has not and will not make any but the most perfunctory of plans for missing until she does (and the first couple of those are likely to be increasingly less-viable/more-desperate attempts to get “back on track”, like when she didn’t get into Yale on the first try).
Taffy, I cannot stand for this. While it may be true or not that Dorothy kneels at the shrine of the Hound of Geryon, there is absolutely no call to insult her dick.
It’s interesting how I would fully support Becky refusing to keep this secret, so that everyone can tell Dorothy that this is a dumb idea. But Dorothy just was keeping Beckys also dumb secret, so Becky can’t really do that very well.
I think we need Carla to find out.
I understand the mental state Dorothy is in, but she should also consider that given her unique combination of experiences with criminal activity, mental health, religious fundamentalism and the consequences of them, the admissions office at Yale could be seeing her as bringing a valuable perspective to their school.
Or in a good position to crack under the strain of the academic pressure and the emotional weight of such an admission. (E.G.: “I can’t believe I didn’t get an ‘A’ on that test. Mike DIED for me! How can I dishonor his memory by not succeeding in this school that his death made possible for me!?”) Nobody wants to be in guilt-debt to the departed for the rest of their life.
…I say this as someone who has done a fair share of trauma-selling of my own. And knows the toll that kind of “opportunity seizing” takes.
:-/
So, I mentioned this the other day, and one reply said “it was jarring” the other one said she was sucking in her bottom lip. I think Willis is now drawing Dorothy as having a fairly extreme overbite, and I know I never noticed it before. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose, but it’s a “thing I now can’t unsee” and is actually a little unsettling for me.
I really really hope the cast help Dorothy accept Yale. She’s worked for it, she knows she deserves it, and she’s dealing with shit by making it her moral responsibility where it simply can’t be. Learn to take the good in a bad situation when the bad situation isn’t yours. We’d miss her a lot, of course, but I think most readers will agree that she needs and deserves a happy ending and to represent the people in a not-full-of-sugar-and-terrible-ideas way.
She’s also changed a lot from the person at the start of the comic that was so focused on Yale. She might want different things now. She might have different priorities.
“Dorothy Keener is on record saying she would never drone strike a friend! Good news for Keener’s COMMUNIST FRIENDS in CUBA, CHINA, and ANTIFA!!!
We need a President who’s willing to drone strike anyone! Anywhere! No matter if you went to college with them or not!!!”
*images of drones blowing up anime drawings of Joyce, Sarah, Becky, and Dina, then Dina again, then Dina three more times; lens flare transition to Mary with a shotgun demonstrating willful ignorance of gun safety or even gun good ideas*
I’m Mary Bradford, and I approve this message! KACHOW!!!”
it’s easier to ignore tragedies happening to ‘thousands’ of people when they’re faceless and far away, a person you know having lost a parent is diff than sickly elderly patients in hospitals that end up being just a ‘statitstic’
I’ve took so time to admire the quality of today’s strip, and I’ll praise Willis for improving his draw skill more and more. I love each face and expression here.
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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“QUADRUPLE PISSED that Dina an’ me could be spite canoodlin’ RIGHT HELLA NOW in yer recently vacated space but YER STILL HERE”
alt-text: GO FOR IT
What they should go for is swapping roommates. Amber never gets off the computer to have a conversation, and with Ethnan, Danny, and Walky out of the picture, she has no social life to generate visitors, all of which would suit Sarah just fine. This would free up Dina to room with Becky and Joyce to room with Dorothy.
What could possibly go wrong?
Logically, nothing. The problem would be the huge hole in the premise of the strip.
WOW. Assigning dorm rooms by GOOD MATCHES rather than by randomization? Wild take.
Although i am not advocating for u-hauls so i think it IS better if Dina and Becky do not live together. Plus, Dina needs a lot of alone time, so it’d be detrimental for her to live with bubbly Becky instead of Amber who basically constitutes alone time. So…. actually i think Dina and Amber ARE a good roomie match.
But, Becky, i’m sure Dorothy is happy to vacate the room more often so you can canoodle. After all, Dorothy can go to the laundry room in that time
I would love to see Amber/Sarah roomate dynamics, but Joyce rooming with Dorothy gives me the shivers. Either they would both go completely feral or they would go full-mom-friend on each other and then so many shenanigans would ensue that they both would end up expelled. Joyce and Dorothy’s relationship is too powerful, it needs to be contained.
Dude that would actually be super content
Qunitople pissed they’ll assign you a new roommate
*unless that roommate is Dina
It’s Mary.
Sextuple pissed that she now gotta learn how to commit murder without vein’ caught, so she’s lost even more Dina-canoodling time to training (playing Hitman III for six hours a day)
I don’t know if Agent 47’s methods would be particularly effective here.
You say that now, but imagine if the next time she tries to set up her Hell House, Mary is tragically crushed by an improperly balanced animatronic Satan bought with “dark money” (asking Robin for a couple grand with big puppy dog eyes)
Well he’s not the worst stealth game protagonist you could take influence from, a guy like Snake or Corvo would be way less instructive for this scenario.
Unfortunately a lot of stealth games bias towards trying to take down army guys or rich guys, often both at the same time, rather than some random college student.
Yeah, but college students are way less suspicious. Buy a set of coveralls and you can probably go pretty much anywhere in the dorms without anyone batting an eye. At most you might have to say “I need to do an inspection”.
If you murder in order to have premarital lesbian sex do the sins add up, or is it a more than the sum of its parts situation?
Make it look like a suicide so you get A’s in all your courses!
(No, that doesn’t actually work.)
(Or so I am told.)
Protestantism in general is bad at quantifying sins, you’re on this fuzzy meter of “hell” or “not hell”.
This is why Becky should convert to Catholicism and then spin this as actually fine because it was in defense of the faith, so that clears up the murder, and the premarital sex you can probably do some Hail Marys for.
There’s a joke here about Hail Marys and Mary being the “new”/”murdered” roommate…can’t quite put my finger on it though.
Newly Catholic Becky goes to confession and can’t stop snickering whenever she’s mandated said prayer, the priest is getting suspicious
Raining hail on Mary would please me.
The ultimate punchline is Newly Catholic Becky going “Sorry, Father, see, I knew Mary Bradford, and—“
“OH! Her! The girl we had to call the police to get her not to leave whole collections of those fucking Chick tracts all over the sanctuary and in the Eucharist and EVERYWHERE!”
“Yeah and I just keep thinkin’ hailing her is pretty much hailing Satan, ain’t?”
“You’re so right, my child. The snickering is a freebie, go forth and sin no more.”
But at least in some corners of Protestantism, being with Dina isn’t actually a sin at all.
I just threw up a little.
We haven’t seen much about Mary as a roomie. But now I want to know if Meredith was a stoner before bunking with the floor’s biggest “Christianist”.
Wait, isn’t Mary’s roommate Roz?
Oops.
That I don’t remember that suggests we haven’t seen much of her as a roomie.
I was once goign to get a new random roommate, as was the guy next door who I knew and liked. So we arranged for me to move in to his room, which had better furnishings (lofts). Then he flunked out, leaving me in Becky’s dream housing situation. Sadly, I couldn’t manage the canoodling.
“Fine i’ll just become president myself” i doubt becky has aspirations/ambitions that high but that would be amusing to see in the short term
She has the soft skills for the job, at least.
pre-trauma dorothy would be motivated by that, current Dorothy would just go further into her self-loathing spiral.
A lesbian with an autistic ace-adjacent Asian wife, whose christian fundie father tried to murder her and all her friends?
Easy slam dunk for at least senator, even with her current ties to a Republican.
lmao she wouldn’t even wait for dorothy’s bed to be cold
the past five or so strips have given us SO MANY GOOD EXPRESSIONS. im living
becky panel five is literally a Papas Pizzeria protagonist upon showing up to work /pos /pos /pos /pos /pos
There’s a neat idea — a Galasso’s Pizza and Subs restaurant sim.
I’m glad people figured it out. It’s so perfect.
Dorothy: No, no, I’m sacrificing myself for you. Not because I want to stay with my friends and hate the idea of leaving you all to go hang with a bunch of strangers while studying constantly. I love that. Honest.
Since Becky hasn’t lost her faith, she has already had all the self-sacrificing she needs, way back when.
Are we drifting into New Math here?
You want to keep a secret Dorothy, don’t tell anyone the secret in the first place.
To be fair, she didn’t. Becky found out by herself.
Not that secret, the secret as to why shes not going. Its an especially bad idea to tell Becky given her feelings towards Joyce.
Yes. Compounding a lie when you get found out always ends well. Definitely.
Maybe she hasn’t?
Dreams are for sleeping. We all gotta wake up some time, kid.
At least Becky knows her priorities.
She’s seen exactly one scene from any Witcher media, and it’s the one that involves doing it on a unicorn, and she’s like “man I am totally the lady-Geralt”.
This just shows what a fake fan she is. If she read the books she’d knew she was Ciri who had a girlfriend.
Can’t canoodle forever, yanno. Someone’s bound to move in
Is being Amber and Joe step-siblings a worse thing?
I actually got super lucky one year – my roommate dropped out to join the Air Force after a month and they never got around to giving me a new one.
This almost happened to me. My roommate dropped out over winter holidays and I didn’t receive word that I’d been assigned a new one — but when I got back to my dorm someone else’s stuff was there too. I later found out that she was a newly arrived transfer student, and she’d asked for a last-minute room reassignment because the girl she’d originally been roomed with was messy as fuck. She eventually became my best friend on campus, which just goes to show you, I guess.
I was such an intolerable roommate no one wanted to live with me. This worked at college and in the Air Force.
I got a room to myself the second year of college by forgetting to apply for one until the last minute, so they didn’t have anyone to put me with. Procrastinating pays off once again! (Also, my RA called the room assignment a “dingle”, which is now one of my favorite words.)
Why does Becky talk with a Southern style accent (though not to Sal extent) but Joyce doesn’t? Did Toe-dad have that accent, too? I don’t recall.
I don’t think it’s Southern like Sal’s, I think it’s just a lot less formal and more slang-y.
Robin’s the same way.
Thank you.
.. Seems like I need to work on my mess.
*strongly disliking having an office mate*
I don’t feel like most Southern accents use “yer” very much. I feel like it’d be “you ain’t” rather than “yer not”. But I’m not an expert or anything.
I am located in a fairly southern US-ly area, and ‘yer’ sees pretty common play here. Somethin like “Yer noggin like ow this ole mess ends, kid.” would be considered a perfectly normal way of saying “You’re not going to like how this whole mess ends, kid.”
I’m pretty sure Becky is supposed to have a Midwestern accent. Which makes sense, because they’re in the Midwest.
I’m 100% with Becky here, denying even a second of canoodlin with Dina is unforgivable
Oh and all that other stuff too I guess
“Dotty this is a stupid fuckin’ idea born outta hella trauma, an’ I know from trauma! I’m a trauma world champ! Fun fact: two outta the three things I’m claimin’ to be mad about are me doin’ a coping mechanism! I’m deflectin’, Dotty! And you’re making me acknowledge it out loud!”
(also, that little “not to you” hurts extra, because like…Dorothy…you know that’s not how it works.)
I’m not sure she does, or has admitted it to herself.
Panel 2 Becky spitting straight FACTS
And yeah, I’m really wondering how well Dorothy’s gonna keep this covered up, and whether Becky’s gonna play along with it.
For nearly the first time ever from me: Go Becky! Your points are strong and valid, even the one about non-constant canoodling, and you’re making them ver clearly and unusually honestly.
HUG HER!
Dorothy, they’ll notice when you’re still here next semester.
The other characters don’t even know she got accepted, let along that she got accepted and turned it down.
Yeah, but they’ll still know she has not gone to Yale and there will be questions on it.
That sounds like a problem for Future Dorothy to worry about.
Dotty stop trying to be president of the USA
Move to Canada and become PM were you might actually be able to achieve your goals as long your party has a majority.
An immigrant can become Prime Minister of Canada as long as they are appointed Party Leader and their Party wins and they aren’t in prison
The obstacles preventing a President Keener would probably also prevent a Prime Minister Keener
Yeah, Dorothy would have to do a whole lot of shit to help the First Nations people to maintain a clear conscience that she would not get enough support on.
I don’t know if you’re a Canadian if so then you know the institutional power of the PM is tremendous if they have a majority.
But I think Dotty would have an easier time of winning a ridding and working her way into Cabinet position or shadow cabinet position given that selectorate who determines party leadership is far smaller then those who determine who is governor a house member or senator.
I mean, the problem is that Dorothy isn’t really well-suited to be the face of a party, which is kinda the core part of the Head of Government job. She’d do great on a cabinet, USian or Canadian, but that requires a mature understanding of how government works and a nuanced undestanding of your own goals, rather than the slogan-style “gotta get the top job!” ambition.
I’m saying that the things Dorothy would struggle to do in order to be President are things she would still have to do if she wanted to be Prime Minister, and having to appeal to a smaller base of electors isn’t going to help with that.
It would also create all new problems. It’s not illegal for an American to become prime minister of Canada, but I can’t really see it happening. After the 1900s, we’ve had one prime minister who wasn’t born in this country and he was raised her since the age of three (also only served 79 days)
The simple solution here is for Dorothy and Ruth to swap bodies.
Hey is doing blackface a requirement for being Canada’s PM?
I double checked, and yes. It’s in the Bible.
Tbh dot would be better off as like a. Small Town Mayor or local union leader. A position where she wouldn’t necessarily hurt a shit ton of people (or commit war crimes the president) and might actually make a difference
Also, after multiple storylines about stupid mutual secret-keeping by Becky and Joyce like a pair of knuckleheads that gets resolved with a beautiful reaffirmation of friendship, now we got a storyline involving a horrible secret with actual stakes. Thanks Willis. Thillis.
Is there a thing such as being too selfless? Though I do appreciate knowing Dorothy’s principles and ideals aren’t outweighed by her ambitions and I hope it stays that way with her. But can you really get to the top being %100 clean?
I guess to answer that you have to ask if you can think of any politician thats made it to the top thats 100% clean and what is clean when you get down to it
Everyone (probably) has a view on the abortion debate but when the buck stops with you, when its your decision (as much as it can be) and history will judge you
Or would Dorothy (at least this current version of Dorothy) be able to sign off going to war knowing the cost will be
Being a people pleaser def has its downsides, other than being paid for it or actually being fulfilled helping your friends who can actually reciprocate instead of seeing you as someone convenient/useful to them, I imagine it’d be draining overall
I don’t really think anyone makes it past the age of 18 100% clean.
So… no.
But that’s a terrible reason to stop trying.
Yeah, even with the Presidential job – wouldn’t we prefer someone with some morals left even if they’ve had to compromise, rather than leaving the job to those completely corrupt from the start?
Becky’s dreaming if she thinks the campus will just let her have a room to herself for long when/if Dorothy transfers. One moment you’re Dina diddling, the next moment you’ve been partnered with an even worse version of Mary.
I kind of doubt her sincerity on this part, like I think she’s just throwing that in as an emotional air cushion to maintain space.
it might depend on how far into the year they’re in and if there’s a student who requested a room change if not a new student like booster (that said i’m sure they’d respect each other’s privacy and give becky and dina some time to themselves if they want to spend time together as a couple)
I knew a guy who’s roommate was supposed to have gotten a single and was finally switched out to where he was supposed to be in the first place within a week, and the replacement didn’t happen until the next quarter. Yeah that’s not forever but it’s also not a short amount of time either.
I had two roommates who did this, though I never managed the canoodling part.
This might be the strip with the highest concentration of freckles.
You’re not doing this ‘to’ Becky, Dorothy. Only to yourself.
But more importantly, she’s right, you would have to do worse. Because it turns out that real politics is not anything like you imagined or hoped.
I’m glad Becky is raising these excellent points. A very important and even more difficult life lesson is that sometimes bad things happen to us just because — but we can always choose, albeit sometimes not to any great degree, how to respond and move forward. And that response can allow us to make something beautiful out of the bad.
Poor Dorothy, though. She needs therapy and maybe to consider ways she can make a positive, widespread impact on the world without going into politics. As someone else said, “not to you” isn’t really how that works…
And, of course, before you can do something beautiful you first have to figure out what fulfills those qualifications…conventional politics may or may not be it.
it does seem like a huge opportunity but given what we’ve seen of her ‘perfectionism’, would she really last in yale? (tho i’m surprised more ppl don’t graduate from college with grey or at least salt and pepper hair, power of youth i suppose lol, i’d def be more aged at least)
For the record, one of the unique things about Dorothy in this cast is that… she’s actually getting therapy.
I kinda get it. In a sense, it doesn’t matter what Becky’s *actually* feelings on this are to Dorothy, because she didn’t find out before resubmitting to Yale. She’s kicking herself less because she’s hurting Becky, and more that she didn’t consider how it would hurt Becky.
It’s something that she should work past and get over, don’t get me wrong, but Becky saying that she’s happy everything helped Dorothy out doesn’t change that Dorothy did it without her permission.
joyce would probably be the most upset but hopefully understanding in the end, but i don’t think anyone else along holding it against her to ‘move on up’
(Indiana to yale is apparently 12 hours away, while tedious it wouldn’t be impossible to catch up on holidays and the occasional weekends if not just keeping in touch over the phone/vid calls, but we probably wouldn’t see up to that point anyways)
THIS. ARC. is quite good
Sorry Dorothy, you’ll never be Hillary Clinton if you can’t coup a few Latin American world leaders for corporate profits once in a while.
^ Boom!
Or sell missiles to Iran and use the proceeds to fund terror organizations in Central America.
Yeah, it’s best she stop before she’s in too deep. This line of work just isn’t for her.
Well, she could scam one of the parties, get their nomination, win the election, round up and execute the leadership of all parties and the power brokers who enable them, and then be good.
Admittedly, no one’s ever taken that last step, but there’s a first time for everything.
Or blow up kids in Middle East with drones.
Pretty sure Iran/Contra wasn’t Hillary.
Not sure which Latin American coups they’re thinking of either, but that’s vaguer.
I recall Honduras and Nicaragua when she was Secretary of State, and I’m pretty sure there were others (though not necessarily all in Latin America).
Honduras I’ll give you, though it seems the only evidence is for blocking attempts to return Zelaya to power rather than support the coup beforehand.
In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega had been in power since before Obama’s term.
Thinking emoji. I’m gonna have to check on that one then, chances are good I got the country wrong. It’s been a while since I actually read up on the Obama administration lol.
Hillary didn’t get to be president either, so that’s not much of a roadblock.
THIS!
FUCKING THIS!!
That does seem to be one of the things our presidents do best. Along with a whole laundry list of other terrible things.
Did Becky think Dorothy was leaving mid-semester?
You would think stupid things too if you potentially had a space for 24/7 Dina canoodling.
It’d be nice to see less “You’d have to do worse as President” and more acknowledgment that not wanting the most traumatic day of your life, and the fallout from it, as the launch point of your career is 100% valid, normal responce to said trauma.
I think some of this response is because it’s been obvious for some time now to many of us, from our elevated perspective, that Dorothy does not have the actual qualifications for her chosen career, and is now, at long last, being confronted with strong evidence of this. It’s not (IMO) that anyone wants her to be traumatized, or to have a breakdown, except insofar as those are probably necessary steps in her becoming aware of and discarding her delusions, accepting reality, and setting more healthy and realistic goals suited to her actual talents, temperament, and moral character.
(tl;dr we’ve been waiting years for her to Figure It Out Already.)
Yeah, absolutely this, with a side order of…like, no one who’s bringing up at Dorothy isn’t cut out for modern American politics is saying that out of a deep and abiding admiration for the modern American political machine. This ain’t exactly “wow, Dorothy, you weakling, why can’t you be cool enough to climb to power on some dead bodies”?
On the other hand, the very situation that traumatised her also demonstrated that she could be a really good leader in a difficult situation. If she can learn to deal with the fallout, that is.
I mean, is it really THAT important for her to figure this out? She’s 18/19, and it’s not like she’s President or Bust. It’s not UNrealistic for her to be a Congressperson or Senator, and sure, it’ll be depressing when she realizes in 10-15 years that it will be impossible for her to advance to her dream job, but she’ll still be doing the basics of what she always wanted (even if she also has to confront the reality of being unable to effect substantial change—but she’d have to confront that as President too). Not to sound too corny, but I don’t see a problem with the 18-year-old naively shooting for the moon, as long as she sets up her shooting trajectory to land in the stars if she misses.
That’s kind of been my problem with Dorothy’s ambitions all along. They’ve be so focused on “President”, we’ve never seen her talk about what she’d like to do along the way.
Even in the best case scenario, She’s going to have a decade or probably several in politics before getting into position to run. What are her ambitions for the time along the way? Seeing everything as just stepping stone to the real goal isn’t uncommon, but it’s not a good way to get there.
IMO, she probably is President or Bust, and has not and will not make any but the most perfunctory of plans for missing until she does (and the first couple of those are likely to be increasingly less-viable/more-desperate attempts to get “back on track”, like when she didn’t get into Yale on the first try).
This is just letting Becky’s Dad win
Not that he’s in any position to celebrate his win, however…
That’s okay Becky, Dotty can just move to the laundry room and Everyone will be happy.
OBECTION! We’ve just seen that the dryers there are nowhere near enough stimulation for a lust-crazed sex maniac like Dotty!
It’s ok Dotty, you have between 3 to 5 years comic time before people start wonder why you’re still here
Dotty, you needle-dicked Orthrus worshipper. We just got closure on a boneheaded “Don’t tell Joyce” thing. Knock that off.
Taffy, I cannot stand for this. While it may be true or not that Dorothy kneels at the shrine of the Hound of Geryon, there is absolutely no call to insult her dick.
It’s not an insult, her dick is literally shaped like a needle and syringe, complete with a plunger and mysterious green liquid.
Oh! Well, carry on, then.
It’s interesting how I would fully support Becky refusing to keep this secret, so that everyone can tell Dorothy that this is a dumb idea. But Dorothy just was keeping Beckys also dumb secret, so Becky can’t really do that very well.
I think we need Carla to find out.
I understand the mental state Dorothy is in, but she should also consider that given her unique combination of experiences with criminal activity, mental health, religious fundamentalism and the consequences of them, the admissions office at Yale could be seeing her as bringing a valuable perspective to their school.
Or in a good position to crack under the strain of the academic pressure and the emotional weight of such an admission. (E.G.: “I can’t believe I didn’t get an ‘A’ on that test. Mike DIED for me! How can I dishonor his memory by not succeeding in this school that his death made possible for me!?”) Nobody wants to be in guilt-debt to the departed for the rest of their life.
…I say this as someone who has done a fair share of trauma-selling of my own. And knows the toll that kind of “opportunity seizing” takes.
:-/
Of course, she now seems to be cracking under the strain of “I gave up my dreams for this?”
So not really sure which would be better.
So, I mentioned this the other day, and one reply said “it was jarring” the other one said she was sucking in her bottom lip. I think Willis is now drawing Dorothy as having a fairly extreme overbite, and I know I never noticed it before. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose, but it’s a “thing I now can’t unsee” and is actually a little unsettling for me.
I see it as a really tense jaw. Like she wants to curl up into a ball, and has forced every muscle to relax, except her skull muscles.
Also, it’s a really awkward angle.
I really really hope the cast help Dorothy accept Yale. She’s worked for it, she knows she deserves it, and she’s dealing with shit by making it her moral responsibility where it simply can’t be. Learn to take the good in a bad situation when the bad situation isn’t yours. We’d miss her a lot, of course, but I think most readers will agree that she needs and deserves a happy ending and to represent the people in a not-full-of-sugar-and-terrible-ideas way.
::heart::
She’s also changed a lot from the person at the start of the comic that was so focused on Yale. She might want different things now. She might have different priorities.
“not to you” so does that mean if it was an anonymous person Dorothy didn’t know, she’d have an easier time doing this?
You wouldn’t drone strike a friend!
“Dorothy Keener is on record saying she would never drone strike a friend! Good news for Keener’s COMMUNIST FRIENDS in CUBA, CHINA, and ANTIFA!!!
We need a President who’s willing to drone strike anyone! Anywhere! No matter if you went to college with them or not!!!”
*images of drones blowing up anime drawings of Joyce, Sarah, Becky, and Dina, then Dina again, then Dina three more times; lens flare transition to Mary with a shotgun demonstrating willful ignorance of gun safety or even gun good ideas*
I’m Mary Bradford, and I approve this message! KACHOW!!!”
“As a compromise position if she insists, I’d be willing to drone strike Mary Bradford.”
welp, you’ve got MY vote.
Bradford? I thought her name was Clinton?
No, Sarah is Sarah Clinton and she does not deserve any drone strikes, as opposed to Mary whomst is karmically due like fifteen at once.
it’s easier to ignore tragedies happening to ‘thousands’ of people when they’re faceless and far away, a person you know having lost a parent is diff than sickly elderly patients in hospitals that end up being just a ‘statitstic’
I’ve took so time to admire the quality of today’s strip, and I’ll praise Willis for improving his draw skill more and more. I love each face and expression here.
GO BECKY!
Give her a break Becky. She still believes you can get elected without a few skeletons in the closet.