170

Parked
Posted on January 5, 2022 by David M Willis

170 thoughts on “Parked”

  1. Vukodlak

    Congrats on reaching a bar above ground level.

    1. Reltzik

      I’m not sure that “ahead of Faz” is necessarily above ground level.

      1. Clif

        It’s good to see that Joe knows what the proper standard of comparison is though.

      2. Thag Simmons

        It’s somewhere below the Lehmann boundary

        1. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          “Dumbing of Age: At least it’s better than Faz”?

  2. Juanoku

    “and we’ll never see him again”
    “They’ll see me next episode”

    1. RassilonTDavros

      “And I’m a ghost! OR AM I?”

      1. Schpoonman

        Oh, shit, being a worse brother than Faz.

        Not that Joe was at any point, but just the idea is staggering.

        1. Schpoonman

          Goddammit.

          This was supposed to be its own original comment. Then I saw DBZKA quotes and I got distracted.

          Anyway, pay for content you consume, it’s how more gets made. “PHYSICAL MEDIA IS FOREVER, BUY LASERDISC.”

      2. Lumino

        Yes, Mike, yes you are.

  3. Suet

    Someone always gets bumped up ahead of Faz.

    *spookily* Dé-Joe vuuuuu she’s gonna come back again sooon

    1. Clif

      The ride is a lie.

      1. Opus the Poet

        The cake is with the ride, in the passenger front seat.

        1. Felix

          Alas, someone sat on it.

  4. The Wellerman

    *stares at sleek convenience store art with intense aesthetic interest*

    dammit now I want a hot dog

    1. Doctor_Who

      I want crappy convenience store coffee with too much sugar.

      1. The Wellerman

        Ooo! I JUST experienced my first sugar rush in years now! It was frickin fantastic! ??

    2. The Wellerman

      Speaking of which, what’s your favorite place to get a hot dog, and with what toppings?

      1. Thag Simmons

        There’s a local spot a few blocks from my place that does decent enough hotdogs with cheese and bacon and fried onions. Tastes pretty decent, probably not great for the heart

      2. anonymsly

        There’s a place called Dandy Dogs not far from where my parents live. I like to get a bratwurst and sometimes I even get it as a ‘bacon dog’, which is when it gets grilled onions, cream cheese, and bacon put on it.

      3. The Wellerman

        I’m currently torn between the ones from Costco’s food court and the ones from IKEA, I like both with ketchup, mustard and honey mustard. ?

        1. Deanatay

          I liked CostCo dogs back when they had polish sausage dogs and spicy mustard. Now, they’re just very cheap dogs. Although, that is reason enough to buy them.

        2. The Wellerman

          The one I went to had spicy mustard last time I checked, but I dunno about polish dogs. It’s been SO long since I went there actually.

          But when I did I would ALWAYS bring Jack in the Box’s honey mustard packets just for the hotdog. Seriously, that and mustard and ketchup on it taste AMAZING! ?

      4. Robbie

        Bacon wrapped hot dogs with mayo, mustard, and pico de Gallo are the best hot dogs I’ve ever had. They’re street food around SoCal

      5. OBBWG

        Martino’s in Milwaukee with cheese, chili and slaw.

      6. not someone else

        Sonic back when they had their Chicago dogs, but also Sonic now when you can get a chili cheese dog.

      7. Clif

        Mustard, bacon, pepper jack cheese, jalapeno relish and pineapple. If you add chilli, it’s best to leave out the pineapple. The hotdog itself is almost optional. Dunno if you can get one outside of my kitchen.

      8. Bicycle Bill

        Place in my hometown called “Coney Island” — been around for damn near forever (well, since 1922, anyway). Hot dog off a grill in the window, inna bun, smear of mustard, top with chili sauce, hold the onions, light salt across the top. Three of those and a draft root beer, no ice, and I’m a happy camper.

      9. Wizard

        I have this bizarre fondness for crappy convenience store hot dogs, usually with ketchup and pickle relish. I am a strange and complex person, but many of my tastes are surprisingly simple. If I’m in the mood for something a little better, I buy some quality dogs and whole wheat buns at the grocery and cook them up on my George Foreman grill. Yet another irony: I found the Foreman grill in a dumpster, and yet I’ve gotten more use out of it than I have several appliances I paid good money for.

      10. TheScreenJockey

        If you’ve never tried a Chicago dog, you should. It is objectively the best way to serve a hot dog. You’re going to think it’s way too extra, but it’s not too extra. It’s just extra enough.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          Topping a hot dog with seven ounces of arsenic is… A Strategy one could take, yes.

        2. The Wellerman

          Interesting. And what would be your choice strategy for toppings?

      11. Rose by Any Other Name

        I haven’t been in years due to COVID and other issues, but there’s this place in Jamestown, New York, that serves what they call ‘Texas Hots’ – which is just a chili dog, but it is the best damn chili dog I have ever eaten. The fact that they look exactly like the ones from Sonic Sat AM to an almost disturbing degree only makes them better.

      12. Liquid Len

        Capitol Lunch in New Britain, CT. The meatpacker for the dogs is on the next block, and I get them with onions, mustard, and their signature chili sauce. When I was a kid, my father would bring home a box of a dozen every so often on Fridays for dinner

        1. thejeff

          Ooh, haven’t been there in years. Those were damn good.

      13. Jo Giggles

        There was a street food hot dog stand outside Osgoode Subway station in Toronto. Owned by the loveliest man, always so friendly. I would get a Polish Sausage on a lightly toasted bun with mayonnaise, BBQ sauce, ketchup, bacon, fried onions, Sriracha sauce, and banana peppers. Best “dog” ever

  5. Sambo

    The “Liz out!” counter is now at 4, if I’m correct!

    1. Thag Simmons

      I almost believe her this time. Almost

      1. Clif

        I tell you, she’s heading back to Dan Akroid’s van to spend another night.

    2. Amós Batista

      One day, she will say “Liz out” one last time. In this day, we will weep.

  6. Regalli

    He seems vaguely disappointed to be beating Faz in the Best Brother department.

    Or maybe he’s realizing that he made this interaction weird and is also now worried about Liz because once is a joke/plausible, twice fair enough, but now it’s a TREND.

    1. Tan

      You don’t necessarily want to be in front of Faz.

      But you don’t really want to be behind Faz either.

      On top of or under are right out.

      Mostly one just doesn’t want to be in relation to Faz at all.

    2. Keulen

      I would be disappointed too. Beating Faz in the best brother department shouldn’t be very difficult.

    3. thakoru

      I think he’s sad because he’s realizing that he was, however briefly, below Faz.

  7. tim gueguen

    “Faz will beat Joe in the race for best brother. Faz assures you of this.”

    1. Rotunda

      Look at this chart Faz has drawn!

      1. Clif

        The one that’s upside down?

  8. keet

    ahh i enjoy this stepsiblinghood~

  9. bejouled

    We already did a “person claims to just be visiting but actually has nowhere to go back to” storyline with Becky. I doubt Willis would use that again, so what’s going on here?

    1. Doctor_Who

      Liz is Faz in disguise (the similar names is a giveaway) messing with Joe’s head so HE can claim “Best Brother”.

    2. Rotunda

      Probably not Liz being on the run from intergalactic mind-flayers whose secret vitamin stash she stumbled across in Muncie.

    3. Thag Simmons

      Maybe some drama related to her peers rather than her family? Like something that’s made her feel unwelcome or unsafe at Muncie?

      Hard to say without knowing more about her circumstances to be honest

      1. Rabbit

        …. Do we know where Ryan went. did he transfer.

        1. Reltzik

          We know he went to the ICU. After that, his parents went to lawyers. Don’t know what came next.

        2. King Daniel

          Until we hear from him again, Ryan is now an uncertainty lich.

        3. Reltzik

          … the fantasy-roleplaying undead sorcerer kind, or just the traditional-meaning corpse kind?

        4. King Daniel

          Behold, the Uncertainty Lich.

        5. Delicious Taffy

          Holy smokes, now there’s a comic I’ve not seen in a long time. A long time.

        6. Roborat

          Wow, that brings back memories. I used to read that comic, now I am trying to remember why I stopped. Will have to put it back on the reading list.

      2. TheScreenJockey

        My money’s on, “Liz is just easily distracted.”

      3. Heather

        Honestly I’m still working on the theory that because Liz can’t trust her friends (given that they treat her like shit) she doesn’t want to face them. I think she is still on some level processing the whole Joe thing and the fact that toxic Christian doctrines such as ‘being ruined forever’ which still has its grip on her mind. She’s not given any indication that she knows that type of thinking is false even (you know a case of her consciously being aware it’s the ghostly grip of brainwashing in action but still isn’t ready yet, which is fine), and like this worries me honestly.

        I mean she doesn’t really have anyone she feels she can hash this out with here either: but it probably becomes more pronounced when she’s surrounded by shitty friends who don’t really know her.

        1. Spencer

          Yeah I think that too.

          She’s not just going back to people who treat her like shit while living a lie, she’s going back with the knowledge that she can’t do Secular Adult things like sex with hot boys and weed drugs.

    4. King Daniel

      A thought occurs to me–perhaps Liz’s story, in some capacity, will mirror Willis’s own story of how he ultimately stopped attending IU in real life.

      (TL;DR the link: Willis forgot to actually register for the next semester of classes but pretended he had to keep up appearances, things spiraled out from there)

      1. Amós Batista

        Wow, never knew about this Willis history. It’s a nice bet, Daniel.
        Damn, Willis…

      2. Jason Rivest

        You’re probably right!

      3. C.T. Phipps

        Now I’m wondering how much of the comic is just true.

        I’m imagining Willis used to dress up as a superhero and beat incels.

  10. Nono

    Does Joe look… thinner in this strip? Maybe it’s just weird seeing him from behind.

  11. Archivist

    X-treeem gulp, is that you!?

    1. VanVelding

      My friends, we have come home.

  12. Yotomoe

    Liz out is suspiciously close to Lez out.

    1. Decidedly Orthogonal

      Oh? Does this a-muse your creative spark?

    2. Clif

      Faz out is suspiciously close to Fez out.

      Coincidence?

      1. Delicious Taffy

        He said “Good day.”

    3. Wizard

      So she asked Joe to stop because she realized she’s just not into dudes?

    4. Mewzard

      Now I’m just picturing this ends with yet another lesbian love confession to Joyce from a friend she first knew from something Christian.

      Joyce has the power to awaken strong feelings in her friends.

  13. The Wellerman

    “She’s definitely gonna remember THIS interaction instead of me being a weirdo back there.”

    ?

    Please don’t tell me I’m the only one who’s thought this exact thing repeatedly.

    1. Thag Simmons

      If it’s any consolation I don’t think people usually remember awkward strangers, if they notice you at all.

      I think it’s a higher bar of weirdness than that for most people

      1. mrnoidea

        Most people are just focused on themselves, I think. Not as a front against others, but so as not to start unnecessary (and therefore uncomfortable) social interaction.

        1. The Wellerman

          One part of my brain might say so. But the rest of it’s as buggy and sporadic as McAfee security when it comes to this stuff. ?

    2. Reltzik

      Does “She’s definitely going to remember me being a weirdo HERE instead of me being a weirdo back THERE” count?

      1. The Wellerman

        So you’ve had that same social fear and simultaneous obsessive hope that they’ll focus elsewhere?

        1. Reltzik

          Kinda, but I lean into it with intentional overdone weirdo bufoonery as a way of burning all bridges back to my starting point of imaging anyone will ever see me as normal, thus sparing myself the agony of hope because I’m a happy clown.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Oh hey, I remember that song. Used to sing it all the time as a defense mechanism. Played the CD so much it got laser tetanus.

    3. Keulen

      I’d like to hope having a very brief awkward interaction with a stranger isn’t weird enough for someone to remember as the weirdest thing that happened to them on that day.

  14. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    I’m not going to buy that he is ahead of Faz until I review the Powerpoint.

    1. Clif

      If you are going to review the Powerpoint, does that imply you’ve already viewed the Powerpoint?

  15. BBCC

    The fact the next chapter is called Trial and Sarah doesn’t have me seriously concerned about what’s up with Liz at aaaaaalllllllll.

    1. Thag Simmons

      Possible, although I am still leaning towards Trial and Sarah being some law class stuff and the return of Jacob (plus maybe Dana? We’ll see)

      1. Clif

        Liz goes to visit baseball bat wielding Sarah and then never returns? Sounds suspicious to me.

        1. Nono

          Ah, How to Get Away with Sarah.

  16. Nayann Martinelli

    Of course ahead of Faz, Joe; just not referring to yourself in the third person puts you at least nine steps ahead, easy.

    1. Clif

      On the other hand, Faz has never had to do apology donuts.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Faz has never chose to do apology donuts, but I have to assume he’s even more disliked by his peers than Joe was.

  17. Sirksome

    “Ride’s just outside.” Sure. I’m starting to think Muncie and Ball State don’t exist either.

    1. woobie

      Muncie doesn’t even sound like a real place. Try harder, Liz.

      1. Needfuldoer

        It is a real place! That’s where lasagna cat lives!

        1. Clif

          The Washington Prime Group used to own Muncie but then they went bankrupt.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Thanks to a Good Video Maker called Quinton Reviews, I now know more about Muncie than I ever knew I needed to. He’s quite the Garfielf historian.

        3. Needfuldoer

          *Throws the link to that excellent video through the window, like lasagna cat*

          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NxiwjaUSYJM

        4. Delicious Taffy

          I see you also are a person of impeccable taste.

    2. Robbie

      Taco bells website thought I wanted to order from Muncie tonight. I’ve never been to Muncie. I’m nowhere near Muncie.

  18. mrnoidea

    That last “Liz out” sounds like she was mad at being called out for reappearing.

    1. Thag Simmons

      She’ll be back, soon you’ll see

      1. King Daniel

        She’ll remember to return to Muncie

    2. Delicious Taffy

      She’s trying to signal Heimdall but he’s pranking her.

      1. King Daniel

        Maybe Skurge’s already replaced him

        1. Delicious Taffy

          That would explain a lot.

  19. Kitschensyngk

    …she shows up at Joyce’s macaroni dinner, doesn’t she?

    1. Sporky

      Oh, god, you’re so right.

  20. Robbie

    Joe’s “see you tomorrow” sounds in my head like something yelled by Bill Murray in groundhogs day

    1. StClair

      I’ve got you, babe.

  21. Opus the Poet

    Not going to lie, I’m composing this before I even checked to see if Ana Chronistic made the first post so I have no idea if this has been noted earlier, but being a better brother than Faz is a low bar to hurdle.

  22. Uly

    Nothing makes me think somebody is lying more than them tagging their sentence with the word “honest”.

  23. Florence

    Somehow Liz winds up in people dreams unsure how she got there, but she will be leaving at some point

  24. acher4

    ….really.
    What is Liz even doing!?
    It’s driving me insane!
    I want to knoooooow 😛

  25. ADLegend21

    to be fair, I’m a better brother to Amber than Faz.

  26. brute

    liz had a mishap in her bio lab and replicated herself. the clones all wanted to visit IU and forgot to work their visits out to avoid shenanigans.

  27. brute

    liz transferred to IU and wants to see how long it takes people to figure it out

  28. brute

    liz messed up a transportation spell and accidentally got herself stuck in the vicinity until the next full moon

    1. Opus the Poet

      Rule of funny says this is a true statement.

  29. Mr. Random

    Yeah… she dropped out.
    Or I guess is embarrassed about a gap year?

    1. King Daniel

      As I said above, I’m calling it now that she doesn’t have classes at Ball State currently, mirroring perhaps Willis’s own real-life experience at IU.

  30. Booyahman

    So next she walks back in because there was some kind of problem with her ride, yeah?

  31. Amós Batista

    If Liz is calling for Uber, I tottally understand why she keeps losin her hide…

    1. Opus the Poet

      You have to get a different Uber for long trips. I’m pretty sure Bloomington to Muncie would require it.

  32. Rabisch

    Let’s hope tomorrow Liz will go talking with Sarah and Joyce and stop haunting poor Joe.

  33. Sombrero

    DoA Book 12: Liz (not) Out! (in font size 256).

  34. Bagge

    Liz out!

    1. Bagge

      Or…?

  35. Lone Duck

    Better than Faz?! But the Faz is the best, by virtue of being Faz! Maybe this would be more clear if the Faz stood on a chair and explained it point by point.

  36. Mr.Morningstar

    Why do I get the distinct feeling Liz is not going back to her college?

  37. Zee

    “Liz Out” is about to become the title of Amber’s next slash fic.

  38. C.T. Phipps

    Liz has no ride. She’s going to be crashing someone’s couch.

    She’s runaway from college.

    1. Eldritchy

      Maybe Robin’s, Robin needs a replacement kid to pamper.

  39. Keulen

    Is Liz actually gonna go back to her college? Because this has to be the third or fourth time she’s said this sort of thing by now.

  40. DarkoNeko

    …uh
    I had forgotten that Paz existed

    Frankly, I was hoping to keep it that way

  41. Username Taken

    I am convinced that Liz is a ghost who appears when drama is needed.

  42. Chas. Owens

    There is something funky about your RSS feed. It often falls behind for days and occasionally drops comics completely (even though I fetch it every day). For example, today the set of comics stops at 2022-01-03:


    $ curl -s https://www.dumbingofage.com/feed/ | perl -nle 'print $1 if /\x3c(?:link|pubDate)\x3e([^\x3c]+)/'
    https://www.dumbingofage.com
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/indecisiveness/
    Mon, 03 Jan 2022 05:01:00 +0000
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/moveon/
    Sun, 02 Jan 2022 05:01:00 +0000
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/camehere/
    Sat, 01 Jan 2022 05:01:00 +0000
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/blog/happy-new-year-2022/
    Sat, 01 Jan 2022 04:59:37 +0000
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/drpepper/
    Fri, 31 Dec 2021 05:01:00 +0000
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/villagepantry/
    Thu, 30 Dec 2021 05:01:00 +0000
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/fought-2/
    Wed, 29 Dec 2021 05:01:00 +0000
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/nojesusland/
    Tue, 28 Dec 2021 05:01:00 +0000
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/blog/patreon-bonus-strip-for-december-2021-carla/
    Tue, 28 Dec 2021 03:08:26 +0000
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/lifealterin/
    Mon, 27 Dec 2021 05:01:00 +0000

    1. Delicious Taffy

      They’re starting the viral marketing for Matrix 5 early, eh?

    2. Amós Batista

      Poor Willis. He must fix it on WordPress…

    3. Chas. Owens

      After a bit more digging I noticed something really weird. If I hit https://www.dumbingofage.com/feed I get the same RSS feed from the 3rd above, but if I hit https://www.dumbingofage.com/feed/?uniq=1641768419 I get the RSS feed from the today. My bet is that the problem isn’t in the RSS generation code, but in some form of caching layer like a CDN. This means I can probably just tweak my code fetching the RSS feed to always include the time as a query argument, but if you could figure out what is caching it oddly you would probably make other people’s lives easier.

  43. Rani

    Furthermore, I consider Joyce did nothing wrong.

    1. Spencer

      she hasnt actually

      Or maybe a more nuanced view, since my ability to perceive Joyce’s wrongdoings are influenced by the fact that I don’t care when massive institutions of cultural destruction are called stupid by traumatized children, is that Joyce’s wrongdoings by way of Edgy Atheism are the kind of thing where a “yeah I’ll stop picking fights about it” will suffice, in that it’s probably important that Joyce only went off on one after being dragged into it, and nobody has asked why.

      And then, y’know, we can start talking about how:

      – Dorothy’s a neolib obsessed with civility doctrine only able to process Joyce’s crisis as something she needs to stop being so danged problematic about.

      – Becky’s a codependent nutbar that everyone who cares about her has to constantly apologize for.

      – Sarah’s picking a fight on the grounds that Joyce being loud about her trauma is annoying her.

      Like maybe the story of the series’ main character breaking free of her life-destroying status quo is bigger than just being problematic to the most oppressed group of all, gamers, and as it goes longer than “literally just two months in a series that’s meant to run indefinitely” we’ll see that, actually!

      1. Sombrero

        -“Dorothy’s a neolib”: Sounds cool, but the heck if I know what it means.

        -“Becky’s a codependent nutbar”: No, Sir, she’s a lesbian and a christian (I guess in this precise order).

        -“Sarah’s picking a fight”: Of course, that’s what Sarah do.

        1. Rani

          Neolib = Dorothy would never admit it, but she’s fundamentally drawn towards trying to fix systems and increase efficiency than actually helping people. She legit cannot get in the heads of anyone who doesn’t look at the world this way.

          *Becky is a codependent nutbar who is also a lesbian and a christian. There I fixed it lol

          Sarah’s emotional range being constricted to scowling and fighting is a troubling part of her character that goes totally unaddressed.

        2. Spencer

          I mean, it’s starting to. Just last chapter, Joyce made a pretty rueful comment indicating she didn’t quite look up to Sarah as much, and come a time where Sarah needs to give back a 1/1000th of the support Joyce gives her, she not only fails, she is actively detrimental

        3. Rani

          You’d think it would get more of a spotlight during the arc where Sarah tried and accidentally succeeded in pimping Joyce out to break up Jacob and Raidah, because she wouldn’t go out with Jacob when he was single…because she literally didn’t want to be happy.

        4. Spencer

          Well, remember: when Joyce found out about Sarah’s intentions, Sarah herself ended her involvement and Joyce pursued Jacob on her own.

          Sarah’s most defining moment as a person came when she did something absurdly difficult that had to be done for Dana (probably, maybe) and it exploded in her face. She’s already an introverted person, but what ended up happening is that she stepped as far as she could with the absolute best of intentions, and it made everyone who used to like her suddenly turn on her. For all she knows, the next time she steps in for Joyce will be another Dana moment.

          Sarah views herself as a last resort. She’ll hug a crying Joyce or intercept phone calls if she thinks she can, and, of course, she will cave skulls with a baseball bat for Joyce, that part’s easy, actually.

        5. Spencer

          Dorothy Keener’s the kinda lib who’d tweet “when they go low, we go high!”

          Dorothy Keener’s the kinda lib that, were she Canadian, she’d blame any Liberal Party loss not on the frightful incompetency that led to a snap election getting called on a pandemic with no change, but that the vote got split too much by ungrateful NDP voters.

          Dorothy Keener’s the kinda lib who puts a price on someone else’s anger.

        6. thejeff

          “Neolib” is one of those buzzwords that’s used so broadly it doesn’t mean anything, other than “bad”, but from a left perspective.
          In that way, it’s kind of like “socialist” is from the right. And plenty of politicians the right calls socialist, the left will call neolibs.

        7. not someone else

          I mean that’s largely because the right has gone so far right they think previous Bush Administration officials are socialists. It may sound like hypocrisy or le-shrug-those-radicals but what the right calls damn near anything has very little to do with reality.

        8. Spencer

          yeh

          I don’t need to judge my standards based on what right-wing fascists think.

          Right-wing voters don’t exist in the same reality I do.

        9. Opus the Poet

          From my reading on the subject “neoliberal” is Nazis rebranding with more emphasis on “socialist” but no actual socialism.

        10. thejeff

          I don’t even understand that one. Is it the Nazis calling themselves neoliberals? Or Nazis using the term to attack others?
          Because neither one seems right to me. It’s normally used by leftists to describe Democrats – and more broadly in the past pre-Trumpist Republicans.

        11. Spencer

          I can also go with “cowardly centrist,” “tool of the ruling class,” and “expects praise for not being Republicans, even when they’re Joe Manchin.”

          See, the problem with y’all is that you think calling the incompetent majority what they are is a failure on the part of the speaker instead of the target.

        12. Rani

          Look, formally speaking, neoliberals, they’re institutionalists first and foremost. The literal definition of the term has to do with free-market policies, but in this context, Spencer is basically accusing Dorothy of being a technocrat-in-woke-clothing. To be fair to the Dorothy supporters, there’s nothing in the text explicitly making that clear, but that’s because Willis likes her. I had a list of like 12 red flags, but I think this is the one that counts: a singular obsession with getting into one of the most 1 percenter educational institutions in the goddamn world and this stupid idea that getting into that college is part of a direct path to becoming POTUS-you know, as opposed to literally any kind of community engagement or elected office. She literally thinks the world is one in which her ivory tower climbing will be validated by political power.

          What the fuck kind of liberals lends itself to that kind of mindset?

        13. Rani

          *liberalism

        14. Sombrero

          On the other hand, all POTUSes in Dorothy’s lifetime came from Ivy League institutions, so there is some method in her madness.

        15. Rani

          Yes, a very neoliberal one lol

      2. not someone else

        ngl

        I have, like, personal Issues with antitheism on a visceral level but as soon as Becky started talking like she owned Joyce and couldn’t be friends with her if Joyce had free will I stopped caring about Becky’s perspective.

        Dorothy and Sarah I at least get because I feel like, especially in Sarah’s case, they’re reacting on a purely surface level of “could you not hold beliefs that sound like “fuck a substantial portion of the world’s population”” without quite grokking that Joyce is speaking from a place of trauma. She’s not somebody who grew up generic secular, maybe Christmas Protestant, watched some Angry Atheist videos and decided the only thing worse than those goddamn Christians was those goddamn Muslims. She’s someone who grew up in a fucked-up child-abusing miniculture of self-hatred.

        1. Spencer

          Yeah that.

          I don’t think Dorothy (and I’m focusing on Dorothy in that we haven’t totally gotten Sarah’s perspective yet) really grasps what Joyce is going through right now with that one panel where she goes “I love your anger when you do good things with it!” That she tells Joyce she should ease into atheism makes me think she’s approaching the topic from her own upbringing, where her parents went above and beyond to nurture Dorothy and let her figure things out in a safe manner, and she thinks Joyce needs to do the same because it worked for her.

          But I think the both of them are motivated by, and in writing this I recognize the inflammatory nature of my word choice and I do actually think they mean well by her, wanting Joyce to stop making noise. They’re blaming her, but they’re doing so in that they want Joyce to be happy and think she was happier the way she used to be without realizing their own complicity both in why Joyce does not want to be that person anymore, and why Joyce is being the person they complain about now.

        2. Rani

          Hot take: I have no idea how one could read the way Sarah and Dorothy talk to Joyce and not get the impression they are being condescending and patronizing as fuck. If you’re trying to level with someone and get them to listen to you, the last thing you should tell them is-to take Sarah as an example, “Don’t worry about being in the wrong; we’ll forgive you when you come around”

          That’s not just tactically stupid, but it shows Sarah really underestimates what goes on in Joyce’s head.

        3. Sombrero

          Dunno, maybe I’m just dumb.

        4. Rani

          You’re doing it wrong, you’re supposed to actually tell me to fuck off for assuming that everyone who doesn’t agree with me is an idiot, not subtly imply it through understatement.

        5. Sombrero

          You’re right, sorry about that.

  44. Amós Batista

    Let’s divert a bit from Liz’s saga and cheer the Delicious Taffy’s awesome Joke avatar.
    Finally Ruth lose all her sanity, huh?

    1. Delicious Taffy

      You know, I live in something of a society, myself.

  45. Roborat

    I like that Joe felt the need to clarify that he was ahead of Faz in the best brother category.

    Also, you fill that extreeeeme gulp and it can double as workout equipment. That much liquid has to be quite heavy.

    1. Opus the Poet

      Looks like 64 oz. of weight filled, that has to build some endurance to be holding it without spilling for most of the day.

  46. Heather

    Liz: when I shout words louder I am more convincing!

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