I actually hope Dorothy doesn’t decide to go back to wanting to be President because the point of college is change and self-growth. We’ve seen Joe, Joyce, and Walkerton have arcs about changing but I think that Dorothy has struggled with that because everyone thought she had it all figured out. When, in fact, we the reader know she was pretty miserable with her lifepath.
Also, we know she’s absolutely terrible at getting people to go along with her or making deals.
Yeah, but this could definitely lead to a new understanding of how she could make a positive difference in the world without becoming a Random War Crimes Generator.
I hope this is more of a “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” sort of deal. Take a step back, refocus, and find a new path forward that still uses her drive to do good.
1. Rationalize: better than a worse person attempting the same thing.
2. Carve name on moon.
3. Profit!
4. Throne built out of the bones of acceptable losses.
She was only miserable on her life path* when Raidah made her question it and think that it’s ridiculous to try being a “good” President. Jocelyn is pointing out that even if the world is chaos, not trying to change it means submission to that chaos.
*Okay that’s not entirely fair, she was having a bit of trouble thinking about transferring and leaving her friends, but that’s a different flavor of despair than a moral quandary over the possibility of a moral POTUS.
Dorothy was already expecting a critical remark from her. Just a different critical remark.
It reminds me of religious apologetics a lot. The main goal isn’t to convert other people, that’s secondary. The main goal is to repress one’s own doubts.
Dorothy had the doubt-repressing reply ready to go. “Nothing wrong with having goals,” isn’t meant to convince Raidah or whomever. It’s something that Dorothy might tell herself whenever anyone said something like, “that’s kind of silly at this point in your life.”
If Dorothy snaps back to her original goal, then it won’t be the end of this arc. It is a child’s goal and a child’s plan (and a child’s misunderstanding why so many presidents have gone to Ivy League schools). And if her desire is to shape policy to help as many people as possible, her very singular goal is a terrible way to do that.
The thing is that “you do understand what becoming president actually entails?” wouldn’t have landed if it didn’t build on her existing doubts and stuff she already knew.
One can go through change and self-growth without giving up on goala and dreams. It can provided guidance in re-shaping those dreams, or nuance. Just because someone’s goals remain the same, doesn’t preclude them from having grown.
Ooooorr, here me out, she goes back to wanting to be president, but with the prerequisite that she carves a way to be president without war crimes to get there.
For example, leading up to it, the capacity for power and influence of all positions of power in the world must first be reduced significantly with increased oversight.
Ah, so the much less ambitious and easier to achieve without making moral compromises goal of completely restructuring the political organization of the world.
The GOC would recruit her. It’s the SCP Foundation you’d have to worry about – you know Clef’s preferred method of dealing with Bixbys. (The Chaos Insurgency could also be a problem, as they’d try to mind-control her into working with them…)
This reminds me of why CD Projekt Red got rid of cyberpsychocis in Cyberpunk 2077. One of the criticisms of it in Cyberpunk the tabletop RPG was the fact that plastic surgery is something that has a powerful life affirming quality to trans people.
So portraying it as unnatural or mind destroying was unwittingly transphobic. Mike Pondsmith took this into account and made cyberpsychosis only apply to violent upgrades.
It was a relic of the “game balance” notions of the 80’s. To gain X advantage, you had to give up Y. In Shadowrun, the major competitor in genre, it was your ability to do magic that you gave up for implants.
A more modern way is how GURPS does it. You can take disadvantages to pay for advantages, but they aren’t tied to one another, and can be “paid off”.
Every time I see a link to the previous comic with these characters I always wonder what the eff is happening. I guess Dorothy was the bad guy? Is it like really weird for It’s Walky readers to constantly see Dorothy as arguably the most morally good character in the cast?
Dorothy debuted in the sequel strip Joyce and Walky!, and even then her appearances were mostly confined to the subscription-only stuff. Some of the commenters on her first DoA appearance don’t seem to know who she is, so I’m guessing she wasn’t very well-known to people who didn’t buy those?
Technically that’s an alien possessing Dorothy’s body, she was in sort of an antagonistic role as a romantic rival but the sympathetic kind where you mostly feel bad for them
I believe in that case, there was mind control. Look I only started this multiverse at Shortpacked and I read the wedding arc because it had some bits with Robin. I noticed the characters didn’t have the time to breath or wait for a punchline like in Shortpacked.
Being hyperlexic, I read from the linked comic to the end. That Dorothy was an abductee, with all the power that implies, and had also been modified by a dimension-hopping version of a Head Alien to absorb the consciousness of a Head Alien upon his death. In that comic, the one native to their dimension had died, and was piloting Dorothy’s body to try to kill all the abductees at the wedding and take over the world. Dorothy herself wasn’t guilty of anything except being in the wrong place at the wrong time earlier in the comic’s run, far as I can tell.
The truth is that that last panel reflects uncertainty, however, it is also the opportunity for a new beginning that obviously will not be immediate, but that little by little she will discover.
You could ask Projekt Melody who has tried to put a wiimote in her round hole. When it didn’t fit one instead of thinking “This was a bad idea.” and stopping she tried the other one.
And now you know why the word “character” is used for both a personality (making a mark on the world) and a letter (making a mark on a sheet of paper).
“It’s the rain. It’s the storm we all have to endure. We hate it. But it’s every raindrop, it’s every harsh element that runs down our faces, that traces out who we are. Our shape. It reveals the passion, the defiance, the space in the world the rain cannot displace. We are beautiful. It’s the world that’s ugly.”
It is possible to change the world for the better, though I hope Dorothy doesn’t go back to thinking she needs to become president of the US to do that. I hope she eventually realizes that she can work to replace the imperialist, capitalist US system with a better one that benefits the working class.
yeah she gotta break free of the narrative that change for the better happens all at once because of the efforts of a select few “worthy” individuals kids are taught to look up to in history books (a notion very much rooted in Elitism and conservatism),
where the reality is that progress happens gradually as a result of collective effort of countless people working towards common causes for social justice and humanity
hence Jocelyn’s affirmation to her, and to all of us:
WE need not be as gods to turn our world inside out. 🥲
Yes thanks you! It whole discussion has make me so exhausted it fells nice to hear something that makes sense to me and it’s actually applicable to this situation.
Yeah, the “Great Man” theory is largely bunk. There have been, of course a very few “Great Men” who were present at various historical flexion points, but in almost every one of those something was going to happen anyway. Germany in the 1930s was at a crossroads, for instance – the Weimar Republic was going to either change dramatically or fall completely. The presence of a former corporal in their army merely tilted how the balance fell.
For another example, Washington did precisely one thing that made a difference in the founding of the United States – he declined to run for a third term, citing the example of Cincinnatus in Roman history. The rebellion was already under way when they recruited him, and his military prowess was, um, not notable (to the point that when the French captured him as a young British lieutenant, they didn’t even ransom him back, they just released him with the advice to forget about the military). It’s entirely possible that, had anyone except possibly John Adams held the office of first President under the Constitution, they may well have followed Cincinnatus’ example too.
“Great Men” are not real, and it’d do Dorothy good to understand that. She can make a difference – but probably not as a one-woman act.
The “Great Man” theory is largely bunk, but not entirely.
It’s probably more bunk now than in past centuries when the folly of an emperor really could bring down a empire.
On the large scale, that’s predictable, in a sense. Empires tend to be structured in such a way that can easily happen – or so wars break out between rival heirs, but how and when it happens has ripple effects that change history.
The Weimar Republic was going to fall, but was that fall inevitably into fascism, a world war and the holocaust?
“Great Men” indeed are not real, desires to find them and give them power have been part of United States elitist culture since they were born of the anti-democratic sentiments of apologists to the British Crown after the American Revolution.
They sought the establishment of institutions to preserve the basic structure of aristocracy in which power winds up only in the hands of those who “prove themselves worthy”, because even the idea that there could be but one day a year when a noble man had no more say with their vote than a common peasant was to them, PROFANE. (-_-)
But not in the sense that everything is just impersonal forces and the people involved in events make no difference – even the powerful ones that have to make decisions.
“Secure your own mask before helping others,” to steal a motto from one disgraced writer. It’s true. I was just thinking of Jocelyne, but of course Dorothy also needs to work on herself before she can plausibly seek office even as RA.
I know Elon Musk’s rockets keep blowing up here on Earth, but someday he is going to successfully launch one to Mars, and so when it blows up it will make a hole in the surface there.
literally was just scrolling thru the comments trying to figure out if anyone else had started shipping them or if i was going to have to post that comment bc, yeah, they really do seem like a terrific match. not to mention that jocelyne herself said shes now attracted to women… 🤔
…I actually didn’t mean that to be a response to you but. Yes I agree, this is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen a fictional character say OMG
who the hell died to make Dorothy feel bad? it cannot possibly be Blaine
and it can’t be Mike either because he was fatally injured before the very dumb basement incident
is it Ross? she feels bad because two unhinged men had a fight and one of them lost?
Even though Ross was an awful and abusive father, he was also still Becky’s father. And it was a fight she helped to ‘egg on’ by planting doubt into Ross’ mind.
Dorothy’s rigid self control is a gift but it’s also a curse because it means she thinks everything can be answered for and adjusted for with enough work. Ross kidnapping them and getting beaten to death was a reminder that there’s always chaos in play and people will get hurt and die and even if you were president, you can’t stop that.
It is possible to know someone was a horrible person, to be directly affected by how horrible they were, and still feel bad/be negatively affected by their death.
Trauma doesn’t just do what you tell it to, sadly.
It is possible, and I have some thoughts on why (which may or may not be utter bullshit) :
If you, when reading/watching/playing fiction, are the kind that enjoy seeing death as a payback for the villain’s crimes (and believe me, I get that), then his death was not a result of vengeance. It was not done by the hands of those he wronged. He was not defeated, but instead just tossed away like a puppet once he’d outlived his usefulness, by someone even worse.
And then, there is the other path that many of us want to see in fiction: The actual path of repentance. Atonement. To realize your crimes, to truly understand the horrors you wrought… and then understanding that you need to right the wrongs you made. It is something that we see so seldomly in real life, so at least in fiction, we often crave to see acts of real redemption. Ross never got there. He probably never would. But there was, for just a little while, a chance. And then that chance got shut down.
And perhaps there is also the fact that there was a difference between Ross and Blaine that may or may not matter to many. Ross really believed he was doing the right thing. Blaine couldn’t give less of a shit about right and wrong, only what benefited him.
Again, for those of you that are or have been the victims of a real life Ross, you probably think there is no real difference between these two things. And you are absolutely correct in thinking so, because regardless of motivation, the end result is the same. So yeah, feel free to tell me to fuck off with that shit. I probably deserve it.
There’s also the simple fact that in reality death is often traumatic even for observers. Even when it’s someone who “deserves it”.
Also her friend Becky is even more traumatized by her father’s death and if she believes she was partly responsible by encouraging the conflict between him and Blaine?
In fiction, it’s easy to see death as payback. Or not enough payback, if you will. Or to wish redemption instead.
But that’s for us. For Dorothy, this isn’t fiction. For her it’s just death.
Also, Dorothy is fundamentally what could be called a Lawful alignment. Without getting into the morality et al, she believes a system and code of laws is the ideal way to approach the world, and in the most traumatic experience of her life or those of her friends, none of the people involved really had to reckon with that system. You could call it karmic justice after a fashion, but every person who doesn’t have a day in court, whether they’re obviously guilty as sin or not, is a failure of the system. Ross and Blaine both died before they could reckon with the “proper” outcome, and neither of them to the best of my knowledge, did things that merited the death penalty in states that allow for it.
Is this a “better” outcome? Maybe. But it isn’t the reality Dorothy wanted to pursue.
There’s also the thing where Dorothy watched Amazi-Girl stab the shit out of Ryan. Witnessing a friend be capable of violence is also kinda reality shifting. Ryan did deserve to be stabbed though.
Willis, that is some powerful stuff you had Jocelyne say in that panel. Like holy shit. Gives me new resolve to finally start HRT (which i will be once my move is finished in 50 days!!!)
Yay!! Welcome sibling!!! (I want to say sister cuz of your grav, but that could also just be a very bishi boy and not a pretty anime girl. hard to tell sometimes)
Congrats! It’s a really exciting time. My sister was recently able to get back on HRT (long story; the only Planned Parenthood anywhere near us got arsoned and it took them a while for repairs, and it’s difficult to get hormones otherwise) and it’s amazing how much happier she is now. I wish the same for you! (The happiness part. Not the arson part.)
I’m starting to feel like Dorothy organizes things as an act of service rather than as a Domme tbh.
Joyce on the other hand. Have you seen Joe? The girl made him fully submit to her and she’s been getting _such a rush_ out of it. Maybe what Dorothy needs is someone who’ll make her stop thinking :’33
That’s a pretty good point, Jocelyn has things outside of her control but she has still carved out control of her own world, her own destiny, despite them
Jocelyn is the perfect person to say this because as a trans person in a (let’s put it mildly) unaccepting family, she knows what it is like to deal with stuff simply outside of her control but at the same time she has pushed forward anyway and took control of what she can to achieve her goals anyways
I’m trying to be nice but this is just too cringe for me lmao. Jocelyne ily but there are more ways to be trans than othering (derogatory) and othering (affectionate). We’re just normal people.
That being said, this is tremendously in-character for an early-transition ex-fundie trans woman to say. Joss might seem a lot more mature than most of the cast (and she is), but early transition is like all of puberty packed into approximately two years: an unfathomable density of cringe. She’s got some growing up to do, too.
this is literally how I talk about myself and I been out trans for 15 years. Ya don’t have to like it but if theres a part of you that cringes at how other trans people act, whacha cringin’ from.
Why there a type of person bein themselves in the face of All This that makes ya go ‘well this aint normal enough’.
She’s being heartfelt. It’s not something you would say, but that doesn’t make it less mature. That’s a strange assessment.
Respectfully, if you find yourself cringing this hard from someone else’s heartfelt description of their own transition, you may wish to consider whether you’ve got some growing up to do as well.
As a mission statement for being trans, it just falls flat. I know everybody in this comments section is a bleeding-heart idealist who laps up anime-style “I’m gay and the laws of physics cannot stop me” declarations, but I personally find actual, practical results much more inspiring. I loved Willis’ insightful take on transmisogyny from alleged allies back in “That Perfect Girl,” but the comic tends to lose me when it goes down this rhetorical path.
The character you’re just talking about is transitioning socially and medically, came out to her fundie dad, came out to her sister and found out how much freer she’s also gotten, and is politically aware beyond her personal experience – enough to know what transmisogyny is.
She’s taken practical steps to be herself. She knows this world won’t make it easy and many will hate her for it, and she’s declaring she’s transitioning regardless to reflect her true self — when IRL politics are setting rules to make it even harder. Joce is stating unfair rules are to be broken, and a society that denies her existence has to be bent to acknowledge it.
I love this strip because it’s powerful and inspiring in the context Jocelyne is thinking of, but also terrifying in the context Dorothy is thinking of if you’re old enough to remember the invasion of Iraq, which was justified with this exact kind of rhetoric about how the haters were wrong and Bush could turn it into a democracy through sheer determination and righteousness.
“Guys like you are in what we call ‘the reality-based community’. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do” – Anonymous Senior Bush Administration Official
The idea that when you’re true to yourself the world itself /bends/ into place…
That was such a great line 😭
I really wish the world actually worked that way, instead of trying to bend you back into a shape that other people think you should fit.
Been thinking about this incredibly beautiful, powerful strip all day. Sent it to a relative who is dealing with a transphobe at work. This is the way.
Yes the world will push back, but it can not return to the shape it was. Every blow of the hammer bends it into something new. Just a little, but they add up.
Loading ...
It is you/.
You are bending the spoon.
*plays “The Sea” by Tomáš Dvořák on hacked muzak*
“I am the spoon that bends.”
… wait, no.
No, no, that’s right
Carve the shape of yourself unto the surface.
As within, so without.
As above, so below.
Jocelyne: The La(te)st Worldbender
“Everything changed when the 700 Club attacked…”
A much better response than mine. +1 to you. 🙂
I actually hope Dorothy doesn’t decide to go back to wanting to be President because the point of college is change and self-growth. We’ve seen Joe, Joyce, and Walkerton have arcs about changing but I think that Dorothy has struggled with that because everyone thought she had it all figured out. When, in fact, we the reader know she was pretty miserable with her lifepath.
Also, we know she’s absolutely terrible at getting people to go along with her or making deals.
Yeah, but this could definitely lead to a new understanding of how she could make a positive difference in the world without becoming a Random War Crimes Generator.
I hope this is more of a “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” sort of deal. Take a step back, refocus, and find a new path forward that still uses her drive to do good.
I think the plan currently reads:
1. Rationalize: better than a worse person attempting the same thing.
2. Carve name on moon.
3. Profit!
4. Throne built out of the bones of acceptable losses.
yes. it would also do her good to accept she’s not to blame for Ross’ death. She wasn’t ever in control of that situation.
Also seconding the hell out of this.
I had forgotten who Ross was. Toe dad I remember.
same, for a second i was like “when did the most annoying Friends cast member die? I don’t remember The One Where Ross Dies”
I think that episode involved an incident in Texas while dressed as The Hanukkah Armadillo.
She was only miserable on her life path* when Raidah made her question it and think that it’s ridiculous to try being a “good” President. Jocelyn is pointing out that even if the world is chaos, not trying to change it means submission to that chaos.
*Okay that’s not entirely fair, she was having a bit of trouble thinking about transferring and leaving her friends, but that’s a different flavor of despair than a moral quandary over the possibility of a moral POTUS.
If one person making a snide comment makes you reconsider your entire life, you were already reconsidering your entire life.
What does it mean if one person makes a supportive comment and you reconsider your life back to the previous path?
Means you’re easily influenced and should probably work on that.
Dorothy was already expecting a critical remark from her. Just a different critical remark.
It reminds me of religious apologetics a lot. The main goal isn’t to convert other people, that’s secondary. The main goal is to repress one’s own doubts.
Dorothy had the doubt-repressing reply ready to go. “Nothing wrong with having goals,” isn’t meant to convince Raidah or whomever. It’s something that Dorothy might tell herself whenever anyone said something like, “that’s kind of silly at this point in your life.”
If Dorothy snaps back to her original goal, then it won’t be the end of this arc. It is a child’s goal and a child’s plan (and a child’s misunderstanding why so many presidents have gone to Ivy League schools). And if her desire is to shape policy to help as many people as possible, her very singular goal is a terrible way to do that.
“It is a child’s goal and a child’s plan (and a child’s misunderstanding”
Batman is in this post and he doesn’t like it
The thing is that “you do understand what becoming president actually entails?” wouldn’t have landed if it didn’t build on her existing doubts and stuff she already knew.
One can go through change and self-growth without giving up on goala and dreams. It can provided guidance in re-shaping those dreams, or nuance. Just because someone’s goals remain the same, doesn’t preclude them from having grown.
Ooooorr, here me out, she goes back to wanting to be president, but with the prerequisite that she carves a way to be president without war crimes to get there.
For example, leading up to it, the capacity for power and influence of all positions of power in the world must first be reduced significantly with increased oversight.
Ah, so the much less ambitious and easier to achieve without making moral compromises goal of completely restructuring the political organization of the world.
I’m sure Putin’s gonna fully be on board with that plan
With society as is, the more oversight, the more war crimes are inevitable.
Jocelyn, don’t settle for carving your shape into the world, carve your name into the moon!
Crap, messed up my hyperlink.
CHa…
JOC
Somewhere behind that wad of stuffing beats the heart of a true American hero!
Spoon!
Have lunch with me, Dorothy. Adventure will follow.
Jocelyne is a beyond omega level reality warper.
The where are her friends the alien witch, the esper, the time traveler, the slider, and the mundane guy she is totally not in love with?
They got rebooted into another college AU webcomic.
What was Jocelyne up to in the old universe anyways
existing in one family photo as a kid, and attending joyce and walky’s wedding that one time much later on.
Back in wherever she’s living now, presumably
Fuck yeah Jocelyne!
She will be an awesome writer.
Nobody tell the GOC.
Government of Canada?
Yeah sure, you believe that.
The GOC would recruit her. It’s the SCP Foundation you’d have to worry about – you know Clef’s preferred method of dealing with Bixbys. (The Chaos Insurgency could also be a problem, as they’d try to mind-control her into working with them…)
Damn.
Seconded.
Indeed. “When you are yourself, the world bends”. The world may not make any sense, but it CAN be changed.
It’s poetry. And bad-ass.
This reminds me of why CD Projekt Red got rid of cyberpsychocis in Cyberpunk 2077. One of the criticisms of it in Cyberpunk the tabletop RPG was the fact that plastic surgery is something that has a powerful life affirming quality to trans people.
So portraying it as unnatural or mind destroying was unwittingly transphobic. Mike Pondsmith took this into account and made cyberpsychosis only apply to violent upgrades.
It was a relic of the “game balance” notions of the 80’s. To gain X advantage, you had to give up Y. In Shadowrun, the major competitor in genre, it was your ability to do magic that you gave up for implants.
A more modern way is how GURPS does it. You can take disadvantages to pay for advantages, but they aren’t tied to one another, and can be “paid off”.
I like the idea of humanity-affirming surgery (some kinds) along with humanity-decreasing surgery (the killing kinds).
So, she’s going to grab life by the horns, and smooch Joyce.
Alternate Dorothy: Yes, I can do it. I CAN BE A WAR CRIMINAL.
i mean, there’s some precedent for “alternate dorothy”s doing that specifically, lol.
Every time I see a link to the previous comic with these characters I always wonder what the eff is happening. I guess Dorothy was the bad guy? Is it like really weird for It’s Walky readers to constantly see Dorothy as arguably the most morally good character in the cast?
Dorothy debuted in the sequel strip Joyce and Walky!, and even then her appearances were mostly confined to the subscription-only stuff. Some of the commenters on her first DoA appearance don’t seem to know who she is, so I’m guessing she wasn’t very well-known to people who didn’t buy those?
Technically that’s an alien possessing Dorothy’s body, she was in sort of an antagonistic role as a romantic rival but the sympathetic kind where you mostly feel bad for them
I believe in that case, there was mind control. Look I only started this multiverse at Shortpacked and I read the wedding arc because it had some bits with Robin. I noticed the characters didn’t have the time to breath or wait for a punchline like in Shortpacked.
Being hyperlexic, I read from the linked comic to the end. That Dorothy was an abductee, with all the power that implies, and had also been modified by a dimension-hopping version of a Head Alien to absorb the consciousness of a Head Alien upon his death. In that comic, the one native to their dimension had died, and was piloting Dorothy’s body to try to kill all the abductees at the wedding and take over the world. Dorothy herself wasn’t guilty of anything except being in the wrong place at the wrong time earlier in the comic’s run, far as I can tell.
Huh, Joyce marries Walky in the future? Go figure.
The alien abductees Joyce and Walky. Different universe.
just b urself dorothy
The problem is that Dorothy keeps trying to fit that square peg into the round hole of who she thinks she needs to be.
The truth is that that last panel reflects uncertainty, however, it is also the opportunity for a new beginning that obviously will not be immediate, but that little by little she will discover.
Rectangular strap-ons can help with that.
Sounds like a bad dragon product
That sounds painful and not in a fun way.
You could ask Projekt Melody who has tried to put a wiimote in her round hole. When it didn’t fit one instead of thinking “This was a bad idea.” and stopping she tried the other one.
Given that the issue is shape instead of size¹, an adapter to round the flat end and face should do the trick.
[1] If people can take a fist/wrist, a wiimote should be – comparitively – straight-forward.
If you’re rounding the flats on a rectangular strap-on, you’ve failed the assignment.
I don’t even have mine yet, and I’d like to fail this assignment
Hey, at least the wrist strap substitutes for a flared base.
Unless you’d rather be someone else.
WOAH
I reject your reality, and substitute my own
With black jack, and hookers.
I understood BOTH those references dot gif
And I understood that reference!
For the True Name of Chaos, I will bend the world.
What, like Chairface Chippendale?
Thank you, I would have lost (more) faith in humanity if somebody didn’t make this reference.
Next step, Reshaping the Moon! With her giant space laser!
CHATHEY’LL KNOW YOUR NAME
BURNED INTO THEIR MEMORY
And now you know why the word “character” is used for both a personality (making a mark on the world) and a letter (making a mark on a sheet of paper).
Dang, Willis
The climax of Dorothy’s current arc.
“It’s the rain. It’s the storm we all have to endure. We hate it. But it’s every raindrop, it’s every harsh element that runs down our faces, that traces out who we are. Our shape. It reveals the passion, the defiance, the space in the world the rain cannot displace. We are beautiful. It’s the world that’s ugly.”
Damn you rain.
I’m not sure which of these two Willis quotes is more beautiful.
“It turns out, *I* am the rocks of the eternal shore. Crash against me, and be broken!”
I am the one who rocks?
Oh, fa shore!
It is possible to change the world for the better, though I hope Dorothy doesn’t go back to thinking she needs to become president of the US to do that. I hope she eventually realizes that she can work to replace the imperialist, capitalist US system with a better one that benefits the working class.
I think that comes with a similar problem as the first one. (Re: Being prejudicial to her mental health due to the sheer scale of the goal)
yeah she gotta break free of the narrative that change for the better happens all at once because of the efforts of a select few “worthy” individuals kids are taught to look up to in history books (a notion very much rooted in Elitism and conservatism),
where the reality is that progress happens gradually as a result of collective effort of countless people working towards common causes for social justice and humanity
hence Jocelyn’s affirmation to her, and to all of us:
WE need not be as gods to turn our world inside out. 🥲
Yes thanks you! It whole discussion has make me so exhausted it fells nice to hear something that makes sense to me and it’s actually applicable to this situation.
Stay woke, and may peace be with you.
Yeah, the “Great Man” theory is largely bunk. There have been, of course a very few “Great Men” who were present at various historical flexion points, but in almost every one of those something was going to happen anyway. Germany in the 1930s was at a crossroads, for instance – the Weimar Republic was going to either change dramatically or fall completely. The presence of a former corporal in their army merely tilted how the balance fell.
For another example, Washington did precisely one thing that made a difference in the founding of the United States – he declined to run for a third term, citing the example of Cincinnatus in Roman history. The rebellion was already under way when they recruited him, and his military prowess was, um, not notable (to the point that when the French captured him as a young British lieutenant, they didn’t even ransom him back, they just released him with the advice to forget about the military). It’s entirely possible that, had anyone except possibly John Adams held the office of first President under the Constitution, they may well have followed Cincinnatus’ example too.
“Great Men” are not real, and it’d do Dorothy good to understand that. She can make a difference – but probably not as a one-woman act.
The “Great Man” theory is largely bunk, but not entirely.
It’s probably more bunk now than in past centuries when the folly of an emperor really could bring down a empire.
On the large scale, that’s predictable, in a sense. Empires tend to be structured in such a way that can easily happen – or so wars break out between rival heirs, but how and when it happens has ripple effects that change history.
The Weimar Republic was going to fall, but was that fall inevitably into fascism, a world war and the holocaust?
“Great Men” indeed are not real, desires to find them and give them power have been part of United States elitist culture since they were born of the anti-democratic sentiments of apologists to the British Crown after the American Revolution.
They sought the establishment of institutions to preserve the basic structure of aristocracy in which power winds up only in the hands of those who “prove themselves worthy”, because even the idea that there could be but one day a year when a noble man had no more say with their vote than a common peasant was to them, PROFANE. (-_-)
They’re definitely not real in that sense.
But not in the sense that everything is just impersonal forces and the people involved in events make no difference – even the powerful ones that have to make decisions.
Oh that’s one of the sickest things I’ve ever heard. Jocelynn is now my favorite character.
If we do nothing for fear of consequences, we will never do anything of consequence.
Being Trans is legitimately so incredibly punk just in concept. Love it.
Think globally, act locally, within your own skin even.
You wouldn’t be able to help anyone by breaking yourself.
I realized this could be taken the wrong way, I mean that you can’t help people if you disregard your own needs in order to be “better” and “helpful”.
“Secure your own mask before helping others,” to steal a motto from one disgraced writer. It’s true. I was just thinking of Jocelyne, but of course Dorothy also needs to work on herself before she can plausibly seek office even as RA.
To the rollover text, I say, “CHA”
you can’t just shoot a hole into the surface of mars
OBJECTIVE: SHOOT A HOLE IN MARS
As Emperor of the Internet, We support this noble endeavor on one condition:
Use what’s-his-name that is obsessed with Mars as the “bullet”, or at least encased in a missile.
(We do know his name. We just feel dirty every time I type it out.)
Bets?
I know Elon Musk’s rockets keep blowing up here on Earth, but someday he is going to successfully launch one to Mars, and so when it blows up it will make a hole in the surface there.
“Save the Princess, save the world.” The quote has never been more meaningful.
I thought it was “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”
So, “Save the Dorothy, save the world”?
Jocelynes comment goes so hard! It makes me feel like my being trans is kind of bad ass!
That’s because it is!
Heh! Am I the only one shipping these two? They seem a terrific match.
Seeing more like a inspiration kind of thing.
literally was just scrolling thru the comments trying to figure out if anyone else had started shipping them or if i was going to have to post that comment bc, yeah, they really do seem like a terrific match. not to mention that jocelyne herself said shes now attracted to women… 🤔
<- only for trash-goblin mess-craving reasons.
I’m gonna commute that phrase to memory.
Needed to hear something like that after laat year took several people important to me away
Wow
You damn right, Jocelyn.
Jocelyne is being so zen right now. I wonder what is going on in Dorothy’s head in that last panel.
The internal screaming is slowly changing into internal crying.
[STANDING CHEERING OVATION HOLY SHIT]
Jocelyn that’s the most baddasest thing I could’ve heard to kickstart this fine January 2025. I love you, marry me sdkjgkdjg
Happy FUCKING 2025, holy shit.
…I actually didn’t mean that to be a response to you but. Yes I agree, this is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen a fictional character say OMG
HAPPY FUCKING 2025 INDEED, don’t worry ;33 Hope you have a good one!
//hi5
Or as it’s eloquently said in Kill Six Billion Demons:
Reach Heaven through violence.
Fellow kill Six Billion Demons reader!! HELL YEAH!! I adore that quote ;wwww;
Panel 4 is utterly badass and I am so here for it.
Sometimes it throws you in a basement and you get made into a girl though. Or so I’m told. It hasn’t happened yet but I’m still hopeful.
Comment/avatar synchronicity
There’s a reason I have Carla for my avy 😉
I wish Mike was alive to give Dorothy some kind of anti-Raidah cynical advice.
“Dorothy, you’d have more luck becoming President by befriending Carla than you’d ever have getting good grades.”
“Dorothy, by not becoming President you are, of course abetting war crimes.”
who the hell died to make Dorothy feel bad? it cannot possibly be Blaine
and it can’t be Mike either because he was fatally injured before the very dumb basement incident
is it Ross? she feels bad because two unhinged men had a fight and one of them lost?
I mean, yes.
She witnessed a man getting murdered in front of her.
Even though Ross was an awful and abusive father, he was also still Becky’s father. And it was a fight she helped to ‘egg on’ by planting doubt into Ross’ mind.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/terrified/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-14/01-everybodys-looking-for-nothing/getmeout/
She 100% feels responsible for his death.
Dang, that’s an angle I hadn’t really considered.
Dorothy’s rigid self control is a gift but it’s also a curse because it means she thinks everything can be answered for and adjusted for with enough work. Ross kidnapping them and getting beaten to death was a reminder that there’s always chaos in play and people will get hurt and die and even if you were president, you can’t stop that.
Ross has absolutely been on her mind.
It is possible to know someone was a horrible person, to be directly affected by how horrible they were, and still feel bad/be negatively affected by their death.
Trauma doesn’t just do what you tell it to, sadly.
It is possible, and I have some thoughts on why (which may or may not be utter bullshit) :
If you, when reading/watching/playing fiction, are the kind that enjoy seeing death as a payback for the villain’s crimes (and believe me, I get that), then his death was not a result of vengeance. It was not done by the hands of those he wronged. He was not defeated, but instead just tossed away like a puppet once he’d outlived his usefulness, by someone even worse.
And then, there is the other path that many of us want to see in fiction: The actual path of repentance. Atonement. To realize your crimes, to truly understand the horrors you wrought… and then understanding that you need to right the wrongs you made. It is something that we see so seldomly in real life, so at least in fiction, we often crave to see acts of real redemption. Ross never got there. He probably never would. But there was, for just a little while, a chance. And then that chance got shut down.
And perhaps there is also the fact that there was a difference between Ross and Blaine that may or may not matter to many. Ross really believed he was doing the right thing. Blaine couldn’t give less of a shit about right and wrong, only what benefited him.
Again, for those of you that are or have been the victims of a real life Ross, you probably think there is no real difference between these two things. And you are absolutely correct in thinking so, because regardless of motivation, the end result is the same. So yeah, feel free to tell me to fuck off with that shit. I probably deserve it.
There’s also the simple fact that in reality death is often traumatic even for observers. Even when it’s someone who “deserves it”.
Also her friend Becky is even more traumatized by her father’s death and if she believes she was partly responsible by encouraging the conflict between him and Blaine?
In fiction, it’s easy to see death as payback. Or not enough payback, if you will. Or to wish redemption instead.
But that’s for us. For Dorothy, this isn’t fiction. For her it’s just death.
Also, Dorothy is fundamentally what could be called a Lawful alignment. Without getting into the morality et al, she believes a system and code of laws is the ideal way to approach the world, and in the most traumatic experience of her life or those of her friends, none of the people involved really had to reckon with that system. You could call it karmic justice after a fashion, but every person who doesn’t have a day in court, whether they’re obviously guilty as sin or not, is a failure of the system. Ross and Blaine both died before they could reckon with the “proper” outcome, and neither of them to the best of my knowledge, did things that merited the death penalty in states that allow for it.
Is this a “better” outcome? Maybe. But it isn’t the reality Dorothy wanted to pursue.
What does that have to do with anything you weirdo?
There’s also the thing where Dorothy watched Amazi-Girl stab the shit out of Ryan. Witnessing a friend be capable of violence is also kinda reality shifting. Ryan did deserve to be stabbed though.
Willis, that is some powerful stuff you had Jocelyne say in that panel. Like holy shit. Gives me new resolve to finally start HRT (which i will be once my move is finished in 50 days!!!)
right? that line was very inspiring, I’m already doing therapy and talking to them about being trans and I really think this is my time. ~<3
Yay!! Welcome sibling!!! (I want to say sister cuz of your grav, but that could also just be a very bishi boy and not a pretty anime girl. hard to tell sometimes)
sister is great (she/her) honestly wish I could cause such confusion in people with my face sometimes. ~<3
Congrats! It’s a really exciting time. My sister was recently able to get back on HRT (long story; the only Planned Parenthood anywhere near us got arsoned and it took them a while for repairs, and it’s difficult to get hormones otherwise) and it’s amazing how much happier she is now. I wish the same for you! (The happiness part. Not the arson part.)
can i have a little arson, as a treat?
absolutely
Congratulations! And excellent choice of name 😀
fuck I am so jealous of Jocelyne right now, I wish I could have her perspective. ~<3
Hell yeah, Jocelyne! Hopefully that inspires Dorothy.
You know!
This is such a great New Year’s comic.
Happy New Year! 😀
I am genuinely terrified as to what Dorothy is about to do.
I mean, you think Amazi-Girl was an extreme reaction? We all know Dotty doesn’t like contenders…
Well, she now has experience with designing and making super suits so…
…wasn’t expecting *this* level of depth from a DOA strip this early in the morning O_Ou
It does that, sometimes. Smacks you right upside your face with the fresh-caught salmon of deep wisdom.
Dorothy gains 1 point of wisdom.
Despite everything
It’s still you
Trans hopepunk! He’ll yeah!!!
*she’ll yeah
*they’ll yeah
Dorothy, you like helping people by organizing them. Take charge of Joyce; be her domme; organize her artistry; arrange her book deals.
I’m starting to feel like Dorothy organizes things as an act of service rather than as a Domme tbh.
Joyce on the other hand. Have you seen Joe? The girl made him fully submit to her and she’s been getting _such a rush_ out of it. Maybe what Dorothy needs is someone who’ll make her stop thinking :’33
Walky for the non-thinking.
Jocelyne for the thinking.
Oh, I love this. Inspired omg
Holy shit. Panel 4 is the best panel in comics. Ever.
It is incredible.
Well, uh
I guess this comic can make me cry
neat
Thank you, Willis! This comic hits so HARD for those times I doubt my own journey.
I thought it was beautifully put! Hope you get to carve yourself into the world as well <3
Your drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens. Now let’s see you grit those teeth!
there’s still time for you to kill a ceo dorothy
you’re smart you could probably get a few of them
And this is when Dorothy became Lena Luthor.
Get bent, world.
That’s a pretty good point, Jocelyn has things outside of her control but she has still carved out control of her own world, her own destiny, despite them
Being not half asleep typing it this time
Jocelyn is the perfect person to say this because as a trans person in a (let’s put it mildly) unaccepting family, she knows what it is like to deal with stuff simply outside of her control but at the same time she has pushed forward anyway and took control of what she can to achieve her goals anyways
I’m trying to be nice but this is just too cringe for me lmao. Jocelyne ily but there are more ways to be trans than othering (derogatory) and othering (affectionate). We’re just normal people.
That being said, this is tremendously in-character for an early-transition ex-fundie trans woman to say. Joss might seem a lot more mature than most of the cast (and she is), but early transition is like all of puberty packed into approximately two years: an unfathomable density of cringe. She’s got some growing up to do, too.
Gatekeeping what is and isn’t acceptable way to look at transness, especially some else’s, is not a good look.
this is literally how I talk about myself and I been out trans for 15 years. Ya don’t have to like it but if theres a part of you that cringes at how other trans people act, whacha cringin’ from.
Why there a type of person bein themselves in the face of All This that makes ya go ‘well this aint normal enough’.
She’s being heartfelt. It’s not something you would say, but that doesn’t make it less mature. That’s a strange assessment.
Respectfully, if you find yourself cringing this hard from someone else’s heartfelt description of their own transition, you may wish to consider whether you’ve got some growing up to do as well.
As a mission statement for being trans, it just falls flat. I know everybody in this comments section is a bleeding-heart idealist who laps up anime-style “I’m gay and the laws of physics cannot stop me” declarations, but I personally find actual, practical results much more inspiring. I loved Willis’ insightful take on transmisogyny from alleged allies back in “That Perfect Girl,” but the comic tends to lose me when it goes down this rhetorical path.
The character you’re just talking about is transitioning socially and medically, came out to her fundie dad, came out to her sister and found out how much freer she’s also gotten, and is politically aware beyond her personal experience – enough to know what transmisogyny is.
She’s taken practical steps to be herself. She knows this world won’t make it easy and many will hate her for it, and she’s declaring she’s transitioning regardless to reflect her true self — when IRL politics are setting rules to make it even harder. Joce is stating unfair rules are to be broken, and a society that denies her existence has to be bent to acknowledge it.
I truly don’t know what’s cringe about that.
I don’t know man, I think it’s less other people “bleeding heart idealist” and more you being a cynical asshole.
You’re damn right Jocelyne, when your trans the world bends to you.
I’m celebrating my 31st year of being out as a trans woman today, this was a lovely comic to wake up to Willis!
LATE COMMENT IS LATE, but omg!!!! Congratulations!!! ;www;
I love this strip because it’s powerful and inspiring in the context Jocelyne is thinking of, but also terrifying in the context Dorothy is thinking of if you’re old enough to remember the invasion of Iraq, which was justified with this exact kind of rhetoric about how the haters were wrong and Bush could turn it into a democracy through sheer determination and righteousness.
“Guys like you are in what we call ‘the reality-based community’. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do” – Anonymous Senior Bush Administration Official
The idea that when you’re true to yourself the world itself /bends/ into place…
That was such a great line 😭
I really wish the world actually worked that way, instead of trying to bend you back into a shape that other people think you should fit.
Or as I always put it.
I AM A MIRACLE OF SCIENCE MADE IN DEFIANCE OR MAN OR GOD. I MADE MYSELF. I DIDN’T MAKE HIM FOR YOU.
Why? Well my sisters CD player could only play the audio from rocky horror for a whole summer when I was 12 which probably had an effect…
Been thinking about this incredibly beautiful, powerful strip all day. Sent it to a relative who is dealing with a transphobe at work. This is the way.
Yes the world will push back, but it can not return to the shape it was. Every blow of the hammer bends it into something new. Just a little, but they add up.
That is such an empowering trans narrative!