When Gabe and I were writing the strip, Brenna came in and was talking about some kind of altercation she had gotten into with a man online about "woke diabetes barbie." I feel like… I feel like if I had spent a lot of time thinking about that, I would be kind of embarrassed. I have a somewhat complex relationship with masculinity in general, which I'm sure comes as no surprise given my, you know, everything. I had to compile a custom manhood from snips of things I found on GitHub and I don't know if it would even be a durable identity for anyone else. I don't feel any particular compulsion to be a guard on the gate that winnows true men from beta cucks. I have much, much bigger fish to fry. Whatever masculinity is, though, I'm certain it doesn't involve arguing with my wife online about dolls.

Certainly, the predations of the woke mind virus must be considered universal - its ovipositor is always suspended, twitching, over what healthy flesh remains of the body politic. I do have a theory, though, about making a doll that has an illness: maybe that illness is fucking terraforming our species? I don't know. I read things sometimes. I'll scratch at a sore on my leg, and imagine it as a prosthetic; would I feel the itch, if there was no leg? That does happen. Anyway, if diabetes constitutes a coherent political constituency that we must guard against from the rampart I haven't been made aware of it. The world has gotten progressively, systematically worse and if our toys reflect that it's not the fault of the fucking toy.

I apologize for using the image of a wall sentinel twice in as many paragraphs, but I felt strongly that if I didn't use the word "rampart" I would begin to itch furiously inside my skull.

(CW)TB out.