What we choose to believe impacts how we experience reality very much. It also impacts how we impact other people. If someone, for example, believes that their god says it’s okay to murder unbelievers in the street that belief suddenly becomes germane to other parties. Sometimes we avoid investigating what we believe because the cognitive dissonance becomes too much to bear. Unfortunately conflict arises when too many opposing beliefs rub up against each other.

You can choose to believe that a bullet won’t kill you, but there are limits to the power of belief.

Anyway, happy 2025. It promises to be interesting.

“May your life be interesting
my mother said to me
and since she laid this curse on me
I never have been free”

That is the opening of a poem a certain someone important to this comic wrote something like 30 years ago. It has been in my head all this time, much like they have, largely against my will. Yet it remains relevant, year upon year, despite any protestations I may have. We are all firmly trapped in interesting times. It very much seems like the more interesting times get the more unhappy everyone is.
I would very much like to gift all of you with a boring 2025 where you make enough money to stop worrying about everything, and you are healthy enough to not have to worry about that. If i could I would remove as much interestingness from your lives as I could without making it so boring that it became inversely interesting. Alas, all I can do is make this comic, and whatever other nonsense I fling out into the void for people to find. Just know that my prayers are with you and my intentions are, in a general sense, pure. Well, maybe not pure, but at least not openly malicious. It should be midnight on January first 2025 on the east coast of the United States when this comic goes live. So as the year slowly rolls across this great land we will all be enveloped in another arbitrary chronological epoch together, but not simultaneously.

I think the girl that wrote that poem all those years ago would be disappointed in me if she cared enough to look in on me, and I wouldn’t blame her. Even if I managed to turn that around in 2025 it wouldn’t matter as far as she and I are concerned in relation to each other. Nothing can change the fact that she was part of this though. Many people who I’ve disappointed along the way were part of this. I look forward to the chance to disappoint them for another year. XD

Hopefully you, dear reader, will not be among the number of disappointed people in 2025. I guess we’ll see. If nothing else hopefully we’re good until Friday. See you then.

29 Comments

If I picked any particular bullet, there is almost no chance it would kill me. There are a lot of bullets, after all, and surely only a couple might ever be aimed my way.

Take comfort in not being important enough for the bullets of the world to focus on you! I hope your 2025 goes much better than recent years – well, even!

Never fear the bullet with your name on it. Rather, fear the one addressed “To Occupant.”

The fact that his ex cheated on him means she was terrible, but his sister setting it up means she’s terrible, whether or not it was for some good cause.

What if the ex didn’t go for the cheating? Would Jess have just laughed it off and said, “I was testing her”

Not really a relationship one wants. Imagine a non sibling friend doing that to you? It wouldn’t be considered a good thing.

Might be a bad person for another reasons. Too little info here.

True. There could be other reasons she was terrible, but the fact that she cheated on him makes her terrible.

But also, she looks absolutely hammered in that image. Was she cheating? Was she even sober enough to know what she was doing? And also Jess looked surprised, as in “Oh no, Ed!” as opposed to looking smug like “See, Ed, I told you she was bad and specifically arranged for you to catch us so you could see the proof!” It almost makes one thing Jess really did just seduce his drunk girlfriend and then invented this whole “I was protecting you” excuse to cover her rear later.

Just merely using belief in a deity as an excuse to justify murder genuinely scares me. How fucked up is it that some people commit murder just from something so arbitrary?

I think it’s much more complicated than that; no one says “I believe a deity exists, so I’m killing you.” It’s an entire culture, of which you, somehow, become an enemy, and that’s why they attack. Which really isn’t much different than crazies who kill for cultural reasons that have nothing to do with religion.

There are still twenty-six minutes left for me to expire.

I liked the comments section and that mini-poem, although I think there must be some influences for older sayings/proverbs (alas requires some research to get the original story).
Happy 2025 for us all!

Regarding Ed’s logic… while understandable given the sibling connection, the end doesn’t always justify the means.

I’m not justifying how Jess sabotaged Ed’s romance, but- Jess’ past sounds like: Jess was tired of people hounding her to use her intellect at school, [so she then used dishonesty + deception], to get people to believe that she [wasn’t] extremely smart. [She [is] very smart.]

So that means-[dishonesty + deception] are the only tools that Jess has, when things go wrong.

Then- Jess saw that, [Ed’s girlfriend, in the past?], was a horrible person, [but] Jess didn’t know how to tell Ed directly, about this problem.

So- Jess, to end this problem- threw herself at [that girlfriend], and that made Ed drop that girlfriend.

If my idea is right, then, I guess- when Jess saw that [Ed’s love life with that girlfriend was no good], then Jess stepped in and…underhandedly…wrecked that love life, to try to help Ed. Hm.

But Jess is capable of, you know, speech. She could just tell him, if she saw the girlfriend do something bad or whatever. Surely Ed would have believed her, of all people. She even seems surprised in that image, like she was clearly not expecting to be caught, so…what was her plan? Tell Ed later that she banged the girlfriend? How does that not just prove that both of them are terrible people who betrayed his trust?

That could be. Who knows?
I’m not trying to prove that Jess is, or is not, a terrible person.
Cheers.

Eh, you used a heck of a lot of words on something about which you apparently couldn’t care less. Bear in mind- when you post comments on a public thread like this, people will, y’know, respond and question what’s posted, especially when it’s even vaguely contentious.

Doesn’t matter. She’s still trash.

Ed is giving his Sister way too much credit. It almost makes me feel like the author had someone like this in their life at some point and this writing is their mental gymnastics at trying to justify it.

Jacky said in another post that the bad guys win sometimes, so I think he agrees it’s bad, it’s Jess’s flaw. I’m curious to see the reason.

Everyone has points re Jess i can’t add to, so I have but one question:

Is the blonde with the flower in her hair one of the two women Ed knew Biblically?

/comics1/2671-big-iron

All I know is that every version of the story I’ve heard says Jess is the one seducing the girlfriend. Given Jess’ general comfort level with unpleasant truths, and inclination to skew to versions of the story where she’s in control…

I’m really not sure if Jess tried to seduce her at all. Like, I would not put it past Jess to do that, at all. But – if she’s doing it for the reasons Ed thinks – it’s an incredibly risky ploy, unless Jess has unusual levels of plausible deniability. Jess is reckless like that, of course. But… If Ed’s read is at all accurate, which I’m in no position to judge for…

In a timeline where the girlfriend was the one approaching Jess… Jess wouldn’t admit that. She’s used to lying. “I seduced your girlfriend, darling brother.” is absolutely a nicer lie than “your girlfriend has been consistently and intentionally making passes at me the entire time she’s been dating you.” At least, by Jess’ standards. (Or any less horrible variation, since even a few passes would do it.)

It sounds like the relationship was, in retrospect, full of warning flags. But we have no idea how it actually went down, and as someone who has no interest in romance, I have very little idea of typical relationship drama here.

Considering how surprised Jesse looks and how calm the other girl lools…I wouldnt put it past Jesse to be reframing things to both be more palatable tonher own image, that being she was in control, and also skewed to be less hurtful to her brother, that being she seduced a girl not good enough for Ed, and not that the girl was already acting unfaithful.

On the point of reframing…

It is also entirely possible that the panel in question is how Ed *remembers* it, and not how it really appeared. As it is something of a devil’s advocate position, and as annoying as it may be to contend with, Ed *is* somewhat of an unreliable narrator (in this instance) – he only has access to the information he has, and the reasoning he has used in that time.

This isn’t to tear down the possibility of what you’ve posted, in fact I genuinely believe you’re probably right. Full confirmation of the theory might take Jesse to tell her side though, and without a lens of distortion that she commonly throws up in most of her speech, to give a fuller, clearer picture though.

If Jess didn’t tell her brother the truth: It just leaves her as willing to lie and gaslight her brother for… what? Saving the reputation of someone who cheated? Coddling her brother over choosing poorly?

Still a horrible look for Jess.

“Sometimes we avoid investigating what we believe because the cognitive dissonance becomes too much to bear.”

Everyone is born ignorant. But ignorance can be fixed with information, if you’re willing to look for and accept it (that’s why we say: “I can deal with ignorance, but you can’t fix stupid” ;).

Purposely, or knowingly (whether consciously or unconsciously) living with cognitive dissonance is a form of living a lie. Also known as Schizophrenia, a form of insanity. This seems (to me, at least) to be the source of much of the modern Progressive movement’s incomprehensible behavior of late.

It’s also why I have no problem engaging in discussion regarding my beliefs. I have what I believe to be good reasons to believe them. But if I’m wrong I need to change my mind. I would hope you’d have the same attitude. Elsewise the “discussion” has a tendency to break down, cease being about finding the truth, and just gets loud and personal. That doesn’t do anyone any good.

I think everyone’s heard of the old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”