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Like. Oh yeah. I recognize this one. Someone else dresses you. Someone else feeds you. Someone else, who's just like you, but they get everything. The little toys and the waffle party. Helly is desperate and suicidal, but she still has to go to school work. You have to do work that doesn't make sense, but you'll understand eventually. The meaningless, manufactured rivalry between departments. The rumors??? “they have larvae that eat them?” “I’m livestock grown for food” “I’m a bodybuilder who has loads of girlfriends, but you don’t know them they go to a different school?” Punishment in the form of apologizing over and over, having to use all the right words, until you are believed. Endless hallways. Scary authority figures. "Are you mad at me?" Religion being the only type of media you see, until you read some shitty book that changes your life. Confusing, sudden camping trips that are supposed to fix you. Condescension. The words "innie" and "outie" are brought up multiple times as infantilizing. Of course his innie's voice is higher pitched????

Yeah. Reminds me a lot of a kid's Hypothetical Adult Self.

Your future self will understand. Your future self will thank me. Your future self will want you to have done this. This is for your (future self's) own good.

The appeal of severance, at least as we've been shown it so far, is that subjects can have unpleasant experiences (childbirth, a tedious workday, a dental exam) already having happened, to skip directly to the "afterward" and have the unpleasant experience actually experienced by another, lesser version of yourself. Right?

Which is also how a lot of adults feel about children -- either their own retrospective child selves, or the children currently in their lives (whose lives must be structured to best serve their future adult selves). The purpose of childhood is to get unpleasant experiences over with so that the Future Adult Self (the self-that-matters) can have them already over with.

It's so telling that the boss at the door factory who interviews Dylan compares severance to circumcision -- a surgery commonly performed on infants, without medical necessity, based purely on the justification "They'll want/need it done as adults." Now, that's not necessarily true (the world is fully of happily uncircumcised adults), but even if if were, it would raise the inevitable question "Then why not wait until they want/need it as adults?" and the answer is "Because surgery is unpleasant and we assume adults don't want to go through it. The Future Adult Self (the self-that-matters) will want this surgery to already have happened, to have been experienced by the Lesser (childhood) Self."

i was freezing cold and soaking wet so i took off my jeans and t shirt since no one else was there but a man walked in, in a full blue velvet tuxedo and when we saw each other in my state of undress we both apologized.

he said the men’s room was closed for maintenance and asked if i minded if he used the women’s and i said i didn’t.

he came back out of the stall and said he was tired and actually came in to rest for twenty minutes before he got back on the road and i said that was fine so he sat on the bench in the bathroom and closed his eyes and we were both silent for a few minutes and then he opened his eyes and asked where i was headed and i said i was meeting friends at some club and he said

“i don’t know why you’re going to the club when you could be going to Ravioli Night.”

i said, “to what?”

he sat up excitedly and began to describe what sounded like a black-tie ball, all centered on eating a multi-course meal of different ravioli dishes.

it was already ten at night so i assumed he’d just come from there. i said sorry i missed it but maybe next time.

he said, “it only happens every four years, but you’re in luck; the first course isn’t served until midnight.”

i said, “people gather at midnight to eat ravioli?”

he smirked mischievously and said, “until dawn.”

my dress was mostly dry so i pulled it on over my head and i said, “based on your tux, i think i’d be too underdressed.”

he said, “you can be my plus-one, and no one will ask.”

it seemed to me this man had some sort of major social authority in this mysterious, nocturnal world of ravioli.

i considered it, but i said, “sorry….my friends are waiting for me.”

he smiled sadly for a moment, stood up, and asked if i had a pen. i did in my purse. he wrote coordinates on my arm and said, “if you change your mind….”

then he left.

i walked outside and he was already gone. i got in my car and hesitated to turn the key, considering the thrill in my chest at the concept of so much ravioli.

I collaborated with the Human Artistry Project to make this strip alongside other web cartoonists to make the point that “Stealing isn’t Innovation” when it comes to A.I. usage. It seems to be doing numbers on instagram and elsewhere, so you may also read it here, tumblr.

“You’re not coping” Ok here’s the deal; I’ll stop feeling this anger when we have a national memorial (we don’t) or a cdc equipped to stop it from happening again (we don’t) or a population that takes a deadly disease seriously BEFORE it effects them personally (WE DON’T!)

The system intrinsically abuses poor people.