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Good morning!! I did a couple of Asks on Tumblr yesterday to answer people’s (mostly) OP-related questions. You can check them out here. |
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| octopus pie by meredith gran is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-share alike 3.0 united states license. 
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2021 appearances None! |
comicbros |
"Oh, right, the people I know don't know me at all!"
I know that feeling.
Poor marigold! so lonely at the party
Looks like nobody is interested in Marigold :/
Ouch. Aren’t those the two women who were there the night she slept with Will post-relationship and had a complete mental breakdown?
It’s not just that they don’t know her, it’s that they don’t really care.
Anyway, I know that feeling of not feeling up for shenanigans when you’ve got bigger things going on in your life. Also, do parties like this really happen? I can’t imagine getting plastered like that (a) at work and (b) in front of coworkers. Maybe the people I work with are too old for this shit. I know I am.
You, my dear, have never been to a Christmas party after a stressful rush to finish up work before the Christmas break. Shit can get cray when people just don't care anymore.
yeah… they tend to happen where alcohol is allowed and people think they're still 18. i had to attend an after-christmas breakfast at one of my previous workplaces, and they had cola de mono (basically milk coffee + spices + moonshine). one of the older coworkers got drunk and started a fight. it was all just as embarrassing to see as mar's party.
Co-workers. Sometimes irritating, sometimes benign, almost always insubstantial. Like ghosts.
Ha ha, the one guy working instead of partying. He even looks just like the one guy at my office who does that. At least from this angle.
Oh gosh, the one girl just threw her drink on the floor over melon balls. Poor Marigold, she needs to move on to a new job where everyone doesn’t get smashed at office parties. Like she was telling Jane and Eve, she’s done smoking, maybe even drinking. I wonder if MariJane can even work with Jane still enjoying hard partying.
Stuff like putting aside smoking and drinking tends to come with age and being able to settle down a bit after the "OMG I'm an adult now and can do whatever I want" phase fades off. If MariJane becomes a thing, I can see them balancing each other out where Jane parties less (maybe because she doesn't need to look for any more hot ladies to bag) and Marigold starts to party a little more again because Jane could help lift up her spirits again.
Also in an office where no one gives a fuck and possible cleaning crew, the chances of shit being on the floor during a party is very high.
"too many carbs," says the person happily drinking fermented sugar. i can't.
this has been a really awkward day for marigold.
Hmm! This reads to me like Marigold wishes she had just dropped off the pastries and followed Jane home. She seems preoccupied with pleasant thoughts of her recent encounter, enough that she's excited to tell someone about it. But the look on her co-workers' faces definitely makes it seem as though they'll just use it as juicy gossip instead of being happy for Mar. And Mar doesn't want to throw Jane under the bus like that.
Also the last panel, where she's staring off into empty space. It makes me think that she wishes Jane were there. Or that she could escape to that quiet place despite being in a loud room.
Either way, I think we all know this situation too well. Something new and exciting happens, leaves our head spinning, but we awkwardly realize we have sort of a work obligation, only to instantly regret not ditching said obligation in favor of- in this case- smooching a cute lady some more.
It's really interesting to juxtapose Mar's obvious loneliness in this comic with the pictures she posted on Facebook that Hanna was making fun of in the beginning of "The Witch Lives". Marigold puts on a persona of understanding and happiness in adulthood that Hanna obviously envies, but she really isn't. And now, she has a chance at happiness with someone who didn't decide to be An Adult TM.
Nice comment tying it in with Hanna! I didn't think of it that way.
…realization…
The shift between a genuine human connection with someone to then being forced into an environment that's the completely synthetic version of that is simultaneously relatable and cringe-worthy.
And with regards to panel 2: YOUR "WADDUP BITCH" PRIVILEGES HAVE TO BE EARNED, LADY, AND IF YOU CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER HER EX THEN YOU HAVEN'T GOTTEN THEM.
Needed to get that off my chest.
It's interesting how Mar chooses to share about Will, but not Jane – because Will is a safer, more superficial topic at this point. The sixth panel (of her coworkers waiting wide-eyed for her news) seems like a shift of gears to me, where Mar may have considered saying something about Jane, but correctly sensed that this was not the best audience to open up to in a real way, at least not with news that she herself sees as confusing/vulnerable/not done processing.
I hope she does find someone who can be trusted to talk through this tho, like Eve. Unfortunately, it seems like the only friends she has who would give a shit and wisdom-bitch her on this new life development are also mutual friends of Jane's, which is a tricky spot. I just hope she doesn't get in a weird-isolated-headspace about it and talk herself out of pursuing a real connection that could be supergreat! (Shippin' it.)
I'm almost certain that these are the two ladies who hooked up with Larry, and were there when Marigold hooked up with Will post-breakup. They should have known who Will was, and they have no idea/don't care enough about Mar to remember.
It totally is: http://www.octopuspie.com/2012-11-26/556-lay-dees… (it's the beginning of arc 40, "You Don’t Need Anything." Reading it over, they are kind of the definition of what fake friends are.
For real. Reading it over again, I realize history is repeating itself. Clearly Mar had already told them about Will even before the Christmas storyline, and they forgot. Then they saw her completely break down later that night, and they still forgot.
The plastic cup in the third panel is drawn so awesomely it is like my favorite thing 😀
"Don't mind me — just saying 'Goodbye!' to my old life, is all…"
I feel like the people at this job of Marigold's seem to be very similar to the way Hanna perceives Marigold herself. All of the bad, judgy things that we may say about these people are things that Hanna has said about Marigold at some point (superficial, fake, hypocritical etc).
I didn't used to like Marigold much, back when she was dating Will, but now I really do. She's got the same insecurities, but she's hacking away at them. She's just trying to be who she friggin' is. She wants to work where she wants, and be who she wants, without having to lose her friends over it. And yet she's taken a vicious verbal beat-down from Hanna and has yet to fit in with her co-workers. On top of that, she's worried/stressed/something enough to go to the spa way too often. For enduring all of that, but staying the course, I'd say she's got some cahones.
Ohh, it's the carbs that are the problem, not the gluten 🙂
You know, every time I think I can predict where things are gonna go, this comic totally surprises me (and by every time, I mean between every panel not between stories cuz this is just that brilliant).
Still I'm making a prediction that this arc either ends with Mar going to Hannah or setting up their eventual reconciliation. As far as I can tell Mar's only friends are Eve (where Mar plays up being more together), Jane (who's now more than that) and work buddies (who can't even remember who Will is). Hannah was Mar's advice buddy and now she's totally missing that with something that's pretty heavy. Likely I'll be totally proven wrong and she'll go to Will, no one, or maybe Puget Sean will crawl out from wherever he's hiding. Either way, this story arc is awesome!
You know what? Honestly, if Hannah and Mar never get back together I'm okay with that. This comic is one of the rawest, realist things I've read in a good while, and in this sort of environment, it wouldn't be unusual if those two never had an intimate interaction again. That was some friendship ending stuff that happened there. At the very least I don't think Marigold currently considers Hannah somebody she'd go to with her emotions.
awwww yissssss gonna have to tell Eve about it now
Yeah those two HR co-workers of yours just couldn’t care less about you Marigold. This is the second time we’ve seen that the name Will just brings up *cricket chirps* around these two. http://www.octopuspie.com/2012-11-28/557-lets-kill-him/ and http://www.octopuspie.com/2012-11-30/558-be-the-dignified-one/
You mean the HR co-workers who ditched Marigold to make out with Larry?
http://www.octopuspie.com/2012-12-22/568-closure/
Marigold, don't go over to the dark side. You don't need to be like them or get these bitches' approval.
To me it doesn’t seem like Marigold is lonely, she seems quietly confident and uses the topic of Will to push her superficial coworkers away from her. Nothing from the rest of the arc suggests that she is struggling with finding comrades at work. I think she is much like Hanna in trying to find something more substantive and meaning in her life after the delusion she brought to herself no longer work. And maybe she’s found a little bit of that through Jane.
Love the drink that Marigold's co-worker just dropped when she saw the drunken melon balls and rushed off.
Panel five girls = fat pony!
<img src="http://www.kyru.net/gallery/d/175-2/uBT3a.gif">
This shit is why I won't work in a big office environment again. It's pretty much like going back to a school environment—and it's so unhealthy (and not just emotionally-speaking). Really seems to bring out the stupid in people.
poor bald guy with the afro bald spot not partaking in the partying.
While it sucks, it's also a relief to be so mysterious at work, they don't bring you up in job gossip.
But then, it's still so lonely.