Discussion (110) ¬
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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 11h
Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com ⋅ 12h
trash panzer @panzertron.bsky.social ⋅ 18h
Meredith Rose @mrose.ink ⋅ 1d
Alex Wayne @aawayne.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
David F Walker a.k.a. BadAzz MoFo @davidfwalker.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Arren @arrenm.bsky.social ⋅ 3m
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
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But dotty got it.
But what will she do with it?
That’s like me with the fourth floor bathroom
…well, except I HOPE no one’s eating in THERE
It’s none of my business what people do in the privacy of their own stall. As long as they keep the giggling and other sound effects down.
That’s what headphones are for.
Headphones don’t do anything about the Joker on SPEAKERPHONE
I believe that situation calls for a hand grenade.
She is definitely trying, by God.
E+ for effort, Sarah.
I got that!
Wordplay!
Sh!
Okay what happened between this morning and lunchtime, how did Joyce get so cheery when she was bemoaning life with Joe just a few hours ago?
Probably good mood from getting some Dorothy hangouts, along with being happy to see Sarah.
That and/or she might be actively trying to not think about any of that.
the obvious joke is that she was moaning with Joe but-
Who doesn’t bemoan life when they wake up in the morning?
With their head on Joe’s stomach.
Or empty pizza boxes.
Empty pizza boxes on Joe’s stomach is enough to cheer anyone up.
She is someone where happiness over a short-term thing can delay sadness over a more long-term thing as she was also able to be happy about attending Sarah’s birthday party just to then slide back into sad again. She’s one of those people that can have a happy chat with one person while having a more sad one with someone else at the same time, and both are real truthful emotions and conversations.
Kinda like depression will allow me to have a happy conversation with someone, make jokes, and be concurrently contemplating the lack of value of my own life and refuting Camus’ assertion that Sisyphus must be happy. How many more breaths must I take before it just stops. Also, did you hear the one about a naked horse walks into a bar?
that would depend on a number of factors, like how old you are currently, how old you’ll live to be, your average number of breaths over X (a particular amount of time), and so on and so forth.
a brief amount of googling suggests that people take on average a total of ~ 8-10.5 million breaths per year.
so if you were say already 20, and you were going to live to be 71(WHO says global average human life expectancy is 72 based on 2016 data), you would have ~ 408010200 – 536479200 breaths left to take
Hanging out with Dorothy has probably energized her. She got some positive reinforcement, attention from her, attention to her needs too and even some dash of challenge. She probably trives on that and distracts her from the things that are not going so well in her life.
Give ’em the LAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaazy Eye!
We’re not far enough west to perfect that technique.
I don’t have to listen to this, I’m a god!
*mustache gunshots*
Joyce, come on, you know Sarah.
Does Sarah really dislike Joyce’s company, or is she just trying for some alone time?
She’s eating “where nobody we know ever eats.”
She’s dodging everyone she knows, not specifically Joyce.
She’s a pretty heavy intervert. Even with hiding in a room at a party all night last night, it could still be a bit much and Sarah needs alone time to recharge. Just hearing people talk is enough to drain me so I get it. And dealing with sobering Billie and Ruth, so she was not completely alone.
I’m a serious introvert/ very very shy, but I feel warm and happy when people actually want to have me around.
But I still worry that I’ll mess it up by being too much of a dork.
I’m kinda jealous you get warm and happy. I just start wondering what they want from me if I don’t know them well enough and if I do know them, hope I don’t get worn down too fast. I have low people tolerance, unless we’re playing a game where we don’t have to focus on one person, I get tired easily and wanna hide. And being a dork is a good thing, at least to me.
There are a few different flavors of introversion. Some of us are just fine alone while others actively need some alone time. Some of us are ok in small groups while for others small groups are mentally and emotionally draining. Most of us don’t deal well with large groups for myriad reasons. Some of us have an easier time with people we know well around while others don’t.
My understanding is that few are okay completely alone – though they may want less interaction than they actually get.
Personally, my tendency is to avoid or at least not seek out interaction, but I can certainly enjoy it, preferably with people I know and like as individuals or in small groups. Even then it’s draining and I will need alone time. But I also know I need some time with friends beyond just work. It’s an effort to make such time because I often do just want to go home and be left alone, but I know in the long run I’m happier getting at least some.
I think Sarah is almost always looking for alone time, and Joyce is normally a walking ball of happy…
But they are still “sisters”…
I think Sarah likes Joyce as much as she likes anyone. But Joyce has a way of pushing herself upon Sarah and not respecting her boundaries. If Sarah says she wants to be alone, Joyce often thinks she knows better and that Sarah shouldn’t be alone, plus she just likes Sarah.
I think she thinks Sarah isolates herself due to social anxiety, and that Sarah would rather be with people all the time but is afraid due to her experiences with Raidah and company. or maybe that she’d feel better if she socialized more. Joyce doesn’t understand introversion yet.
Erm, I really don’t think Sarah has social anxiety – she has been shown repeatedly being fine interacting with others and has never agonized over those interactions or avoided doing normal things to avoid those potential interactions.
Amber is probably the closest we’ve seen to having SAD (or generalized anxiety) especially when she was younger, but Sarah just seems like an introvert that doesn’t like people. She gets kind of shy and awkward around boy she likes, but that’s pretty standard fare. But she’s stated repeatedly she’s not there to make friends but it’s there for an education. It’s possible she has a close knit group outside of college that she’s perfectly happy with, or she may be the kind of person that doesn’t need people to be happy. Social Anxiety though ? Can’t see it at all.
note, “I think [Joyce] thinks Sarah isolates herself”. Which the rest of Norah’s post suggests is not the actual case, but what someone to whom introversion isn’t a thing might believe.
Thank you, StClair. That’s exactly what I meant.
Moira: I don’t think Sarah has social anxiety, but I think Joyce thinks she does.
The problem is Joyce is at least partly right. Left to her own devices, Sarah would isolate herself completely and that wouldn’t be good for her. Some of that is her innate introversion and some is the scars from last year. Joyce has been good for Sarah. If she’d properly respected boundaries that wouldn’t have happened.
OTOH, Joyce doesn’t distinguish between Sarah’s facade of grumpy misanthropy and Sarah actually needing space and downtime.
Damnit Sarah, stop half-assing this! Shave that eyebrow off and draw on a new one!
In this world, I don’t think an eyebrow is properly arched if it’s still attached to your head.
Or does that only work for surprise?
Sarah just has weak eyebrow muscles. What’s a good exercise for eyebrow muscles? Rolling your eyes? Maybe get some piercings for extra resistance?
sarah, you just gotta pull your bandana lower and draw your brows on there. solved!
dangit, which one was the gravatar i liked
This one.
And yet she’s sitting at a six-person table, as if expecting others. Hmmm…
She’s sitting in the very corner of an empty section. Knowing Sarah’s luck, she’ll end up with company, but it doesn’t mean she’s seeking it
dangit I messed up my email and now I don’t remember how to capitalize it for the right gravatar
If she raises her eyebrow any higher it’ll be beyond her forehead.
Oh look, it’s everyone else’s favourite misanthrope
Sarah got an overdose of people yesterday?
Maybe the conversation can utterly fail the Beschdel test and wander over to Jacob smooches.
Sarah has a finely tuned Joyce-sence
Sarah, you should take lessons from Mike. No-one ever seeks him out. No one even notices when he’s gone.
Wait. I’m confused. This is *not* the usual school dining facility they usually eat at? How many dining facilities does the school have?
Colleges have a lot of cafeterias and restaurants. Sadly, not enough good food to keep you alive in a healthy way.
This is at the Student Union, a large student-activities complex in the NW corner of the campus. Their usual dining hall is the one in the Read Hall complex on the S edge of the campus pretty Far East. I think we’ve also seen a food court located at the library.
Thanks. For some reason, I’d just assumed there was one large dining facility for the whole school.
Depends on the school. My oldest sister’s alma mater had roughly ten or so different places to eat, but my other sister went to a school that had a cafeteria and one other place to get premade food.
Depends. When I first attended U of H in the ’70s there were two in the student center, one cafeteria style. Then there was one attached to one of the dorms and hamburger joint in one of the old World War II temporary buildings for four in all. Now there is at least double that including a fancy fine dining establishment connected to the college of hotel and restaurant management.
At RPI in the 90s there were definitely more than one, and we only had about 4,000 undergrads, so much smaller than IU. The big one (“Commons”) was in amongst the freshman dorms. There was one at a large residence hall on the east side of campus, and one in the Quad. The student union had both a dining area and a “food court” area, which served burgers and tacos and such. There was a Ben & Jerrys off to the side, and then on the second floor a pub for the over 21s.
In all but the smallest colleges, I’d expect there to be multiple sources of food. Usually one per dorm (or cluster of small dorms in some cases). The way campuses can sprawl out, it’s nice to not have a mile walk for every meal.
This reminded me.
One crowded lunch hour in the hospital cafeteria, I was eating and reading at a table by myself. A colleague from another department, who I was on good terms with, approached me and said apologetically, ‘May I share the table? I promise not to talk.’ I assented, and we ate our lunches in civil silence.
It definitely clarified how I was perceived by my peers.
You can’t get rid of the quasi atheist naive white girl, Sarah. You have to deal with Joyce until either Integrivact stops working on Ruth, or until Joyce begins writing webcomics about nihilism and porn.
God won’t let her, by which I mean Willis.
Okay, now that I’m back on my computer and away from my phone and Joe face I gotta say…Joyce, something about your face n panel 5 is just really punchable. And that’s super mean, and normally you’re okay in my book, even favorable above others, despite your craziness. I’m gonna say my sleep deprived brain is going with “your face implies willful ignorance which I can’t tolerate right now so please stop”. Dorothy, please clue Joyce in.
I don’t actually think it’s willful ignorance. It’s just something beyond her comprehension at the moment. How can anyone want to be alone instead of with their friends? Does not compute.
Yeah, I wanna hold out that she’s just so extroverted that she can’t see it. But I keep remembering that she has acknowledged that Sarah has people limits, or at least Joyce limits. She hanged out with Joe and Faz, I think, because she was gonna wilt without socializing and recognized that Sarah had had enough of her that she had to leave her alone.
Oh! That’s why I wanna punch, it’s not her normal triangle grin, and thus it looks smug, just like when Faz tried to smile with his mouth closed. Yeah, unnatural things just scare me and I tend to go fight instead of flight.
Sarah, its months and you’ve still not realised that Joyce can’t parse non-verbal cues like t his?
Can’t? Or won’t. I’ve seen families where the Db level of their everyday dinner table conversation is louder than any family member I have shouting from the laundry room to the basement for “more soap, immediate! (Laundry’s room on 2nd floor, basement below ground level.)
it took me a minute to realize that was decibel and not D-flat; it makes more sense now
Decibels are “dB”. Capital “D” is for deka-, not deci-.
Thanks, it was early, not enough coffee. I appreciate the comment. Family’s dynamics is weird stuff”
Yeah, I read D-flat as well.
Music nerds unite!
I’m a fermata— just hold me!
FWIW, I really think it’s “can’t”, based on how completely shattered Joyce was when she realised that Sal really was annoyed and didn’t want her in her face and the like.
Some folks can’t take a hint because hints are not used in that family. Others just have a dynamic that I fail to get. Like having every conversation at 88 Db. Why are the shouting? I’m right here!
A lot of that is conversation dynamics. If the group has many people who tend to monopolize the conversation, sometimes shouting over that is the only way to participate. Becomes a habit. My family is loud. But at home with my wife, if I get animated, she feels i’m “yelling at her”. I’m a work in progress.
on this note, I recently ( like, 2-3 days ago) realized I can barely cock my eyebrow? I swear I used to be able to do it quite dramatically, but I just can’t seem to do it now. And if that’s not weird enough, I can get a little bit done with my left one, but my right one hardly can move at all?
I wonder if Medicare covers physical therapy for eyebrows.
I’m Canadian, but in either case, I think the problem is convincing your referring doctor that it’s important enough to be worth physical therapy
fuck me i really dreamt tonight that today’s strip would have Mike in it and I actually dreamt of the comment section discussing him. this is what you’ve done to me Willis
I believe you can sleep peacefully at least until Ethan appears again in the strip. Once established that Amber won’t start asking herself about Mike because of her dissociative issues, he is the only character that will be intrigued by Mike’s absence at least until the next day (around July/August in our timeline).
I had a flash of insight last night about the whole Mike/Blaine thing.
A lot of us are concerned ONE of them (well, concerned for Mike, at least) died because Willis had obliquely mentioned somewhere he might break ‘one of his rules’.
But I realized: If I remember right, his rules weren’t just ‘no one dies’. I seem to recall *ANOTHER* rule being no one has a truly crippling injury (because the physical therapy would take up.. well. until the sun expands).
I don’t think either Mike *or* Blaine *died*. Blaine dying removes an interesting villain, cuts a lot of story threads short. Mike dying, as much of an asshole as he is, would *utterly crush* Amber, I think. Especially if she felt she or Amazigirl was *responsible*.
I think either Blaine or Mike are now *grievously injured*, and/or will be paraplegic, though (or at least heavily incapacitated and needing a lot of physical therapy).
Both of these allow for interesting story arcs with the charters. Blaine, I think, would get even *WORSE* and obsessed with revenge, needing to recruit even MORE people, like the Professor X of Shitheads.
For Mike, it would be interesting to see how he would cope with it, and how other people would treat him because of it. Both of these, I think, are more interesting choices than one of ’em dying.
Wouldn’t Mike basically become House? Minus the Vicodin? Or maybe with, I dunno what he’d get for a spinal injury.
Sarah’s taken several steps back. That’s unfortunate. But considering her train of thought right now, I relate.
You sure? Looks like she’s stayed in basically the same spot the entire time.
Since no one else has said it yet, it falls to me.
Can you smell, what SARAH, is cookin’?
Shame on you all.
I think she’s eating?
The Rock, and his eyebrow raise. That’s what I was referencing.
I’m kinda bummed that I had to explain that . . .
“Hooray! It is Sarah!”
“Don’t worry Sarah! You don’t have to sit on your own anymore! Me and Dorothy are here to keep you company for the rest of the day!”
“Dorothy, is she really that unaware or is this some kind of really ultra-ironic performative thing?”
“I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out myself.”
Another Sarah’s plan has failed. There is nothing she can do against Joyce the unstoppable!!
The Masked Vigilanti, bloodied and bruised, stood over the attempted rapist, blood dripping from his fists. He readied to deliver one final punch, sure to send the scumball to hell, when a black glad hand grabbed his arm.
“Stop Mike-san, this is not the way.”
To be continued…
I don’t understand. What was the hand glad about? The ubiquity of autocorrect?
ragamafragin…. it was just very happy to be included in the story…
It’s spelled “razzinfrazzin”, I believe.
I can’t help but wonder how much her understanding of social norms and personal space were affected by both Becky AND her family/social circle. Like, were she and all the other kids in her homeschooling program constantly hovered over, to make sure they stuck together in an echo chamber and being supervised to make sure they weren’t doing anything that God would disapprove of?
Apparently her annoying as hell habit of waking people up was from her parents telling her to do that to her brothers.
And they were always at least closely supervised enough to make sure Joyce always had dolls and Jocelyne had trucks so they wouldn’t ‘establish an incorrect gender identity’. Iiiiiiit didn’t work that way.
It’s also apparently shared and approved up by Becky. At least she seemed to be serious in her lack of understanding when Joyce knocked on Sal’s door instead of barging in.
A lot of the religious families I knew as a kid were dismissive of personal boundaries – especially where kids were concerned. If you weren’t doing anything wrong, after all, why did it need to be a secret? I still remember my friend’s very unpredictable Dad slamming the door open and yelling at us because he assumed that the only reason to close a door was to do something shifty.
Sarah is a real hunter, recognising footsteps and characteristical sounds made by the prey.
More likely a prey animal, able to recognize footsteps and sounds of threats to her.
Knowing the cadence of her footsteps?
I mean, I love old musicals, but I can’t tell if it’s Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire tap-dancing by sound alone.
Planning for times where there’s not a lot of people in the canteens also work
I’m so tired of Joyce aggressively refusing to comprehend Sarah’s boundaries. Introverted people do not exist to be the “projects” of extroverts.