331

Coat
Posted on September 8, 2022 by David M Willis

331 thoughts on “Coat”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    EXCAVATING A WHOLE BASEMENT

    Joyce, eat a Snickers, you’re not yourself when you’re menstrual

    [get you a lovely lady who treats you like a lovely lady even when your head’s up your butthole]

    1. Dara

      itym “a HOLE basement”

    2. H.J. Fleischmann

      I have to ask, do you get early access to the new comics or is the website just a bit weird? I tried refreshing the page repeatedly and it only just showed a new one.

      1. Schpoonman

        $5 Patreon subs get to see comics a day early.

        1. Doctor_Who

          As for how Ana always manages to post first, I suspect witchcraft.

        2. Schpoonman

          Oh, she’s definitely more powerful than most people.

        3. Clif

          Does she know why people hang giant forks on the wall?

          I ask because I have never seen a fork of any size hanging on the wall and was today years old when I first heard about them as a thing.

          Well, not forks. I’ve heard of forks. Just not as wall decoration. Sounds moderately weird.

        4. Psi Baka Onna

          I’ve heard of Welsh Lovespoons but not giant fork decorations…

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovespoon

        5. Paradox

          I’ve heard of giant wooden forks and/or spoons being used as wall decorations in kitchens, but I’ve never seen them outside of sitcoms

        6. Azhrei Vep

          My Grandmother had a giant wooden fork and spoon pair on her wall. Never understood why.

          Hell, she might still. Been over a decade since i saw her last.

        7. TheCerpent

          Oddly enough, I actually remember these hanging up in the house I grew up in. If you look up carved wooden tiki fork and spoon on Google, you can find all sorts of vintage pictures of these things. It certainly looks familiar to me.

        8. Bicycle Bill

          Ana is actually Willis posting under a sock puppet.  If you were to be able to somehow access Willis’ buffer, you’d find the first comment by Ana is already there and in place.

          That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.   (;^P)

      2. ktbear

        My head canon was always that Ana is actually Maggie. I mean, prove me wrong.

        1. The Wellerman

          Ana is Japanese American, so I really don’t think that head canon checks out. At least I sure hope not.

    3. Lone Duck

      INSTALLING CAT8 ETHETHERNET WIRING AND PORTS IN EVERY ROOM.

    4. Yet_One_More_Idiot

      Who puts a giant wooden fork on the wall for no reason? It’s one of those comedy singing bass fish, or a pair of antique swords or guns, or an inexplicable moose head. But oversized cutlery? What’s the forking point of that?!

  2. Doctor_Who

    Sarah: And HOW long has she been at this?

    Dorothy: Four hours, and it’s showing no sign of stopping.

    Joyce: …subdividing my butthole to make condos…gentrification means the original residents can no longer afford my butthole…ha, you rolled a 4, my butthole has a hotel on it, that’ll be $1200…

    1. Alex C

      It *would* pay for college.

    2. The Wellerman

      WTF? Is she renovating or playing fucking Monopoly in there?

      1. Freezer

        Yes.

  3. The Wellerman

    FUCK YEAH!! STICK IT TO ‘EM, JOYCE!!! ??

    1. someone

      More like “stick ’em in it” given her metaphor.

  4. DailyBrad

    Suffer then, I guess?

    1. DailyBrad

      That’s too harsh of me, but just, as much as I hate being in Joyce’s position, people being pushy trying to help me, she wasn’t doing anything to fix her situation, and there’s no indication she was going to start. Sometimes, people push you because you need to get moving.

      1. Derek

        “wasn’t doing anything to fix her situation” it’s been what, two days since she spoke to a doctor?
        I know for us it’s been months but, geez, give her time

        1. Yoder of Kansas

          I think the doctor visit was yesterday. Dorothy was mad she didn’t get the pills yet and Joyce asked when could she, since she’s been in bed since class ended yesterday.

      2. Paradox

        True, but on the other hand, you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped

        If a friend if mine was acting like this, I’d just say “fine, you can be miserable if you want, you know where to find me when you want to stop being miserable”

    2. Freezer

      To be fair,

      A) Joyce’s chain of logic can be hard to follow at the best of times.

      B) This is FAR from the best of times

      C) She’s fed up with her friends infantilizing her

      D) The fact that her current self-harming behavior is spurring on said infantilization is only making her angrier and more irrational.

      1. GreyICE

        And the fact she knows she’s behaving like an infant makes the infantilization more annoying because on some level it’s actually helping her and what she needs right then. Which is angering.

        The only thing worse than someone doing the wrong thing when you’re in a bad mood is someone doing the wrong thing and it turns out it’s actually what you need.

      2. Needfuldoer

        C and D really strike a chord here. The last thing I want when I’m struggling with something is a bunch of condescending “advice” and “help”.

        1. thejeff

          But that’s only C. The problem is combining that with D.

          And it’s not just this either, so it’s hard to blame just on her current pain. The same basic thing happened with the glasses. Without the help, it’s hard for me to think she’d be doing anything at all.
          They’re infantilizing her because she’s acting like a child. Dorothy’s managing her medical care because someone has to. There’s no sign it’s going to be Joyce. Maybe she could find a better way to approach it, so that Joyce doesn’t feel infantilized by it, but the basic problem is that someone has to do it at all.

        2. Needfuldoer

          “They’re infantilizing her because she’s acting like a child.”

          Thus causing her to dig her heels in with further petulance (D), which just strengthens the feedback loop and leaves everyone pissed off.

          I sm well acquainted with this phenomenon.

      3. Psi Baka Onna

        I think calling Joyce’s behaviour self harming is a bit of a stretch. As she struggles to take pills, she’s probably learnt that sleeping off the worst symptoms and tackling problems when she feels more like herself/has the spoons is the best course of action for her. I’d be doing the exact same thing in her position. The doctor even said that the first few doses will be placebos as she can’t take the pills whilst on her period, something the doctor who prescribed the medicine to begin with may very well have mentioned. I get that her friends are just trying to help but this level of mothering can be overwhelming and in the end, it’s Joyce’s body. She knows what she needs to do to gather the spoons she needs to be able to get on her feet again. At this point, she just needs some breathing room.

        1. Freezer

          “She knows what she needs” would be “I’m not taking the pills because they make me feel worse” or “I don’t like the side effects” or “they don’t really work”.

          Not “People (I don’t know) will think I’m a slut.”

        2. Xaeon

          Joyce has given no indication that this is what she is doing. She has given every indication that her intended course of action is simply to ignore the problem to avoid perceived social stigma brought about by her upbringing.

    3. Rainhat

      Exactly. People don’t exist to serve you, if you make people (at least those who have no special obligation to help you) regret helping you, don’t expect them to hang around.

    4. Romanticide

      honestly. And Dorothy tried to give her space before with the Toe nail until Sarah arrived and went NO, NOW. She has been avoiding problems before

  5. True Survivor

    You don’t want to blow out a wall in there. That’s how you get septic shock.

    Also it may already have a breakfast nook – it’s called a colon.

    1. someone

      Yeah, a fistula doesn’t sound like a good thing to have.

    2. Bicycle Bill

      Rather than the colon, I believe a better fit for a breakfast nook would be the appendix – a little piece of the digestive system that is pushed off to one side and serves no useful function that science is yet aware of.

      1. Rotunda

        It is now believed that the vermiform appendix has a function. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appendix_(anatomy)

      2. True Survivor

        That is what I was going for but I was writing this very late last night and was very tired – I got mixed up.

        1. Clif

          Hey, it’s not nice to make fun of people with conditions.

          Joyce is clearly suffering from an advanced case of butts disease even though she has only been a cartoonist for a short time. I imagine that she will eventually show more typical symptoms.

    3. Max

      I just had a giant plate of nachos. I feel like I might be blowing out a wall later.

  6. Ray

    Both my wife & our daughter have Endometriosis – if Joyce is dealing with that too, I’ll cut her all the slack she needs….

    1. anon

      Wouldn’t you need a closer examination like an x-ray/something more invasive to know if that’s what joyce has too? In that case it feelsl ike she might need stronger medication than a monthly prescription but idk

      It’s a good thing she doesn’t have two uteruses as well, which is apparently a thing

      1. not someone else

        An ultrasound usually, and yeah, she’d need the extra tissue surgically removed. But if hormonal birth control fixes it there’s no need to worry if it’s endo.

      2. Lex

        Ultrasounds frequently do not show endometriosis. Mine was so severe that I had to have my left ovary and tube taken out because endometriosis had wrecked them. The ultrasound only found the cyst on my ovary. They found the endometriosis via laparoscope (the intent was to see if they could remove the cyst that way)

      3. zee

        Nah you can generally prognose that with symptoms, the only way to officially diagnose is surgery. I have it but i technically never got an official diagnosis bc my doctor doesn’t want to do surgery

  7. BBCC

    Oh god I feel both of them right now. Hating help when you don’t want it but also dealing with someone who NEEDS to do something unpleasant but refuses to because its unpleasant are both sucktacular.

    1. pickonecard

      yeah, I don’t think either of them are in the wrong here, as someone who’s been on both sides of this coin.

    2. Nono

      Joyce probably knows that this situation isn’t really Dorothy (and Sarah/Becky)’s fault, but she can’t exactly scream at her body, so she’s taking it out on them.

      She is a little lucky that Dorothy’s letting it slide.

      1. DailyBrad

        That makes sense, yeah, especially since she is otherwise so loathe to get on Dorothy’s case usually, and she usually is pretty fond of Sarah and (usually) Becky.

        Amusingly, last time she interacted with Walky, unless it’s been another time since then that I forget, they were actually getting along pretty well, with her following his advice and ditching her pants. You’d think if she was going to lash out at someone, it’d be him, but they seem to be on good terms.

        1. Clif

          Not counting Halloween, I believe the last time that Joyce and Walky interacted was when Jennifer was friend-shaming the group for not solving Joyce”s problem. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/04-dont-stop-billie-ving/hurghl/

          I have to admit, I don’t recall Walky talking Joyce into taking her pants off. Can someone help me out with a link?

        2. Koms

          This kind of https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/03-trial-and-sarah/roughing/

    3. thejeff

      Yeah, Dorothy (or Sarah or Becky earlier) could probably find a way to disguise her management of this so it wouldn’t bother Joyce as much, but that’s a lot to ask.

  8. Pinkie

    Dang it my iPad is spying on itself. I’m getting ostomy ads.

    1. True Survivor

      That is deeply disturbing.

      1. Stifyn Baker

        Ads are getting more invasive. The other week my sister was at my house, complaining about seeing ads for a particular product. At NO point in the conversation did anyone there say the activation phrase for our handy Amazon listening bug… yet the first ad for that product turned up on my Google feed about 30 minutes later.
        Sod what they say, Alexa and Siri are ALWAYS actively listening….

        1. june gloom

          It’s creepier than that. I’ve reliably gotten ads for stuff I was only thinking about.

        2. Anaheim

          They aren’t listening to you, it’s all based on algorithms and data collected on you, the people around you, and your social circle to make very educated guesses on what you would be interested in buying.

          Which is.honestly way more terrifying.

        3. Mark

          Except when they guess hysterically wrong….

        4. James Starkey

          The wierd part is I don’t speak any spanish, but I periodically get an ad in it. No idea why.

        5. Christina

          Do you live in a region with a large Spanish-speaking population, or regularly visit a place that might? Or possibly, do you know someone who’s learning Spanish online or on an app? That data would also be factored into targeted advertising!

        6. Taffy

          I swear, I have not once gotten an ad for even one thing I’d like even just slightly. It’s all bullshit clickbait with nasty images, insurance for shit I don’t own (car, house, boat), resorts, cruises, and services my town does not offer (GrubHub, Uber, etc.). And Evony, because somehow it’s always Evony.

        7. Anaheim

          I haven’t either but I also have adblock on all the time so I don’t exactly get to see a lot of ads. When I use the mobile version of imgur I get a lot mobile game ads, which makes sense, because I play a lot of mobile games.

        8. Anaheim

          Dammit, hit reply too early.
          That’s about as close as it gets, because none of the mobile games they suggest to me are ones I’m even remotely interested in.

        9. Clif

          I worry a lot more about privacy from the government than I do about privacy from people that want to sell me shit. The government wants to control me because that’s what governments do and the others just want to sell me shit.

          I get free information and entertainment at a price of getting ads. Either the ads are untargeted and annoying or they are targeted and scary. You can’t win.

        10. thejeff

          I’m particularly fond of the mobile game ads that have fun little minigames that are nothing like the actual game they’re advertising.

  9. anon

    sarah prolly would, but i wonder how it would’ve ended up being if they all just left joyce up to her own devices and basically ignored her completely

    Feels like she might need someone to talk to as well, pills aside.

  10. H.J. Fleischmann

    Hmm… I am not sure why, but it feels like things are about to start changing between Joyce and Dorothy. Not necessarily in a bad way, but I think Dorothy might start weaning Joyce off. Then again, who knows? I might be wrong and they might actually end up in a relationship.

    1. anon

      nothing wrong with depending on your friends/asking for help, though Joyce does need to try to do some things on her own and hopefully not be too codependent, that said this specific situation with medical issues is kinda on the ‘deep end’ of side versus something more college experience like going on another date

      1. H.J. Fleischmann

        Oh, definitely true. Having friends to depend on is great and I think it is nice, but I can not help the feeling that Joyce and Dorothy are heading either towards increasing dependence or a shift in their relationship.

  11. Joe Moose

    …at those books! Looking to tax shelters!

    1. True Survivor

      I am confused. Am I missing something here? Do I also need a monocle?

      1. Clif

        Monocles, like fezzes, are cool.

        You would think two of them would be twice as cool, but no.

        1. Bicycle Bill

          The only person I ever saw who could rock a fez (and not be a Shriner or a resident of Morocco) was Gomez Addams.

        2. Clif

          Are you possibly claiming that the Doctor couldn’t rock a fez?

        3. Azhrei Vep

          I’ve never seen a doctor successfully rock a fez. I have seen several try, and it never went well.

  12. Nono

    I’m anticipating a lively debate again about whether Joyce’s friends are being too mean and unsympathetic about Joyce ‘s condition and recent diagnosis affecting her mood, or Joyce is being too mean for being afraid of pills yet needing to be dragged screaming and ungrateful to fix it.

    1. anon

      I think they’ve been fairly accommodating, albeit seemingly begrudgingly a bit, although, it does seem like the type a thing a parent/relative should help you through but Joyce isn’t exactly on good enough terms with her parents where they’d help with it (though given she has like 5 or so siblings give or take, i don’t think her mother would be/approve of birth control)

      1. jpnr

        Jennifer was helpful and she respected Joyce’s boundaries

        meanwhile, Dorothy, Becky and Sarah were really all up Joyce’s butt

        which, wasn’t unjustified since Joyce was stubborn on getting her pills, but I can see how Joyce resents it

    2. Taffy

      What was she diagnosed with, having a uterus?

      1. Nono

        …Potential autism?

        1. Taffy

          Oh yeah, that. I think that was just a doctor telling her to maybe see about another doctor about maybe seeing about seeing if she might have an autism.

  13. RassilonTDavros

    “I knew it, I’m surrounded by assholes!”

    1. C.T. Phipps

      +1 Spaceballs reference

    2. Schpoonman

      Bravo.

    3. Keulen

      “Keep firing, assholes!”

  14. justin8448

    I get the feeling that we’re going to get a tie-in with Joyce’s potential autism diagnosis pretty soon.

    I suspect that Joyce isn’t just mad about her friends pushing her too much. She’s afraid of what the fact that they need to do that might mean about her.

    1. v.gay.person

      I definitely see this, too. I get the way Joyce is sometimes because stress/anxiety/AutOverload leads to task paralysis which directly impacts my capacity to manage my health/diet/house as well as extreme irritation and poorer emotion regulation/capacities. People try to help, but it feels more like having them as far up my anus as my small intestine. And can both help (because I have support around diet/cleaning) and hurt (because more overload/stress/feeling like I can’t manage my own life).

      So I appreciate this representation of both the impact on Joyce and those around her, and hope it’s treated compassionately

    2. Autogatos

      Yeah I wonder how much Joyce’s potential autism diagnosis is making her aware of how much she struggles with stuff like this for the first time, and if that is fueling some of her angry defensiveness due to insecurity. In my experience, a diagnosis of some form of ND suddenly makes you ACUTELY aware of all the ways your behavior is different from your NT friends. Which can sometimes be empowering (because suddenly you understand) but can also sometimes make you very self conscious because you’re suddenly noticing all these issues and wondering if everyone else has been silently judging you for them the whole time.

      1. Liliet

        Y e a h

  15. TheKelliestKelly

    Panel 3 Joyce is very anime

    1. anon

      i wonder how cold it’s supposed to be in indiana if she still has a ‘sleeveless vest/hood?’ even without a jacket even if it’s a ‘classic’ joyce look

  16. Sajuuk-Khar

    Joyce, this is probably not how you ask to try butt stuff with Dorothy.

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      **nods**
      I’d read that fan-porn.

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        Joyce: “Oh Dorothy! Move in some furniture!”
        Dorothy: “… maybe less with the dirty talk?”

  17. TheKelliestKelly

    Unrelated but today’s my birthday! Hooray for birthday comic! I love it <3

    1. Laura

      Happy birthday!

    2. True Survivor

      Happy Birthday to you. You like webcomics, too. Just a few clicks and they’re yours to view. Happy Birthday to you.

    3. The Wellerman

      Happy happy birthday to you!!!

      The world is a zoo!!!

      A comic that’s funny!!!

      It’s a year older too!!!

      ??? ????

      1. Clif

        Nuh-uh. It runs on sliding comic time, so it’s always the same age.

    4. Bicycle Bill

      Have a birthday that’s fine;
      Have a birthday that’s great.
      Now blow out your candles,
      But don’t spit on the cake!

    5. BBCC

      Happy birthday!

  18. Imogen

    Well, I guess we’re not doing any shipping today. Missed opportunity, but I guess it’s not in the cards for these two. Honestly, I can’t see it happening if this wasn’t enough to trigger a blush.

  19. Johan

    Oh hey a strip that totally goes with the name of the comic as a whole!

  20. Laura

    Dorothy could have done without the “people things” term, though. Implies Joyce isn’t a people. Kind of sounds like a not-so subtle dig at Joyce’s suspected autism spectrum condition. Like saying, “regular people know how to get pills, why don’t you.”

    1. anon

      yeah i didn’t like that phrasing either but feels like she would’ve said that pre-autism revelation too considering her “sheltered upbringing” or so

    2. alongcameaspider

      I know it hasn’t actually been long enough in universe but this, combined with the whole “you’re tired because you’re autistic” thing from the other day, and her weird hostility to Sarah bringing up the idea that she’s autistic makes me wonder if Dorothy harbors some (I’m going to be generous now and say unconscious) bias against autistic people

      1. DailyBrad

        As an autistic person, I’ve definitely seen this. I think that Dorothy and Sarah are both smart people and more worldly than Joyce in most respects, but both seem quite ignorant about autism. I would not be surprised if Dorothy has never (knowingly, anyway) been friends with anyone autistic before, and probably has no idea how shallow her understanding is, rather than malice.

        1. Liliet

          I didn’t get the vibe Sarah is ignorant actually. I actually got the vibe Sarah might be diagnosed (or self-diagnosed) herself, and just doesn’t see it as a big deal as a result – but does get offended by Dorothy’s attitude.

      2. Autogatos

        Ah shoot sorry I flagged this by accident while trying to reply! Willis plz ignore that, nothing is wrong with this comment.

        Anyway what I wanted to say was: yup I got that vibe too. Dorothy was super defensive about Sarah’s implication that she might be autistic too.

        I definitely make jokes about being “bad at people things” as someone who is ND so I don’t find that sort of comment automatically offensive. It can be a good natured joke made between friends. But Dorothy’s particular phrasing here and past context make it sound a bit condescending, like “why can’t you do this thing that someone your age should be able to do?”

        I feel like Dorothy is often positioned as the more knowledgeable, culturally-aware one on their friendship because of Joyce’s conservative upbringing so it would be interesting if this is all foreshadowing at a “Dorothy confronts her unintentional ableism” storyline. I’d actually really love that, as there is a frequent problem in progressive spaces of ableism still being something even the most progressive leftists don’t quite get/take seriously. People who would be horrified about making a gay joke or race joke still making ableist jokes, or talking about disability in condescending or dismissive ways, and not seeing how that’s a problem, not realizing that they still have something to learn there and are not being a good ally.

        Not saying Dorothy is a *bad person* in any of this. Like I have friends who have done stuff like this. Heck when I first got diagnosed with chronic illness, I had to unlearn a lot of internalized ableism (most of us do). So I think it would be a really valuable thing to explore! For a character generally confident in her moral awareness and allyship of marginalized groups to realize she has been a bad ally to one, and to confront that and learn to do better.

    3. The Wellerman

      That’s DEFINITELY it, Laura. Dorothy’s being condescending as fuck.

      Hopefully she becomes more aware of her ableist bias before she shows it around Dina.

      I don’t even want to think about how THAT would go. ?

      1. MisterJinKC

        I wouldn’t say she’s being condescending. More getting tired of the bullshit Joyce puts everyone through, including her, while still loving her as a friend and trying to help. Joyce set the parameters at the very beginning needing others (Sarah) to help find ways to force her to do basic self care. If not for Sarah helping make some shower shoes Joyce would not have even showered yet because it is a shared one. I get that she’s frustrated, but she’s been incredibly disrespectful and abusive to her “friends” ever since she decided to become atheist. Her world was always about her belief she was superior, but when she was religious she was nice about it at least.

        Joyce has no idea about any ableist bias because she knows less about it than Dorothy who, while not perfect, at least immediately began to learn what she could to be supportive. From what we’ve seen Joyce just tries to ignore it.

        I’m on the spectrum and would have done anything to have even one friend like Dorothy, much less all the ones Joyce has.

        1. The Wellerman

          As misguided as Joyce has been in the past, that’s really no excuse for her friends to deny her autonomy.

          As someone who’s autistic, I know what it’s like to be starving for friendship and supportive social interaction . But starving is better than not to taking the time to prevent food poisoning. Because toxicity, get it?

    4. Laura

      NGL, though. I’ve totally been that Dorothy, only way worse, and the family members I care for have definitely been that Joyce. It took me SO LONG to finally get to the point where I was willing to let them make their own health care decisions. It’s still hard. It hurts a lot to see those I love hurting and getting worse. I’m so lucky that they found a way to want to take care of themselves, in their own ways, after a while, when I did give them that space.

  21. Derek

    Panel 4 Dorothy can fuck right off.
    You don’t HAVE to do anything, you’re not OBLIGATED to get Joyce’s medication for her, she’s not your fucking child.

    Yeah, it’s nice that you care enough to go this far, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

    What Dorothy is doing here is taking Joyce’s agency away from her. Yeah the agency to make bad decision is still agency. Even without the distinct possibility that Joyce is neurodivergent, Joyce was raised in a cult that taught her she does not deserve to have agency of her own body, and whether she likes it or not, Dorothy is reinforcing that lesson.

    1. True Survivor

      Dorothy seems weirdly prone to forming bonds with those who seem to need help. She choice to get romantically involved with Danny, when he was even more clingy and less confident, and Walky who is well Walky. She chose to take Joyce under her wing. This wouldn’t be a bad thing – its nice she cares – but she either becomes over involved or rapidly burns herself out trying to care too much and then severs ties.

      1. Cerusee

        Someone described her the other day as a fixer, which I think is accurate. It’s not the worst thing in the world! Actually, it’s pretty great that there are people whose first instinct, when they see a problem, is to try to help, rather than to ignore it because it doesn’t affect them. But it does require a lot of self-awareness about behaviors and motivations, and setting and maintaining boundaries, to make sure you don’t go overboard with it to the degree where it harms more than it helps, or where you overcommit and burn out, as you said. I think Dorothy is very much still in the phase of her life where she’s prone to making the kind of mistakes on that front that she’ll learn from.

        1. StClair

          I agree with all of this.

  22. Suet

    Giant wooden wall fork? Doesn’t that come with a spoon, too? Shelf units from IKEA also not included.

    We are still kicking with the callbacks? Joyce must be hella expulsive.

  23. shadowcell

    truly a butthole is not a home without a chaise lounge

    1. PirateTawnee

      and now I have that song in my head again.

      (chaise longue by wet leg if it wasn’t obvious)

  24. Blackdrazon

    “Blow out a wall to make a breakfast nook” the fastest-selling Slipshine of all time.

    1. milu

      …that sounds sexy to you…? ?

    2. Alan in DC

      I can already see the Better Homes & Gardens’ fall article, “Twenty Ways to Decorate Your Uterine Walls”

      Where do you want your piano, lady?

  25. jeffepp

    The only reason she got out of bed was that Dorothy would maybe hold her hand. And, maybe Joyce could pretend they really were a couple. But it became a thing with question, some even out loud. And everyone (OK, there was only one) judging.

  26. Pocky

    Joyce; at this point it sounds like your butts gonna be in better shape then when you weren’t letting people help you with your hussy pills.

    1. hazel

      This is such a funny comment, sincerely,

  27. C.T. Phipps

    I admit I can see both sides for once.

    Joyce: Has made it abundantly clear she does not want to be dealing with people and everyone keeps trying to talk with her. Often intruding on her personal space and sleep.

    Everyone else: Joyce has been super-mean to Dina and that is punishable by death.

    1. Tricia

      She’s been pretty mean to *everyone*.

      1. Johan

        She’s in pain and people wont leave her alone.

        It would not cause harm if they had waited until she was not on her period/in pain to pick up the pills.

        Yeah she’s being rude af but can get called out and then also left tf alone.

        1. Tricia

          Yes, it would. The sooner you get on the pills, the better.

          Also, Dorothy was all set to leave her alone until Joyce realized she actually needed something from Dorothy.

        2. Nova

          Right… but that’s a choice she should have gotten to make for herself. The fact that everyone she knows thought it was appropriate to rock up in her room at the crack of dawn and shout at her while they knew she was in pain is just intrusive and rude.

          They’ve got great intentions, but intent doesn’t excuse impact.

          Joyce has made it abundantly clear that she’s feeling overwhelmed with how In Her Business everyone is and they are just not backing off. In her shoes I think I’d be mean as fuck too, honestly. Particularly when that intrusiveness is being peppered with judgement for her response to pain, trauma, the loss of her relationships with her family, the loss of her religion, and working through a diagnosis that comes attached to all kinds of internal biases (both in Joyce and others).

          TL;DR – She’s having a rough time and her friends are being weirdly unempathetic/super intrusive. I’d bite their heads off, too.

        3. Johan

          She’s not taking actual meds until she’s off her period she’s just taking the iron/sugar pills at the end of the pack.

          She didnt need to grab the meds immediately.

        4. Taffy

          Yeah, birth control isn’t fucking Claritin.

        5. Nono

          Sarah has to live with her, so she’s got a stake in it as well.

        6. DailyBrad

          I love Joyce, but she would not have done this by herself, period (no pun intended). Literally nothing about her behavior, including her absolutely histrionic reactions about birth control pills, has indicated that she was going to do anything other than miss classes, treat her friends like shit, and feel sorry for herself for the duration.

          Dorothy needs to curb her condescension, but Joyce was not going to fix this on her own. She can be embittered about the manner in which they’re helping, but she can hopefully do it without feeling like a drill bit is going through her abdomen once the medication does its job.

        7. Fuzzy

          She wouldn’t have treated her friends like shit for the duration because if it was up to her, she wouldn’t be around them.

    2. Autogatos

      I have been Joyce. Not the fundie part, but the “incapable of adulting” part. I had ADHD and a mom who loved taking care of everything so by the time I had to go off on my own in college, I literally had never had to do things on my own.

      I too am very torn. Because absolutely someone insisting I do something for my own good is pretty much the best way to make me NOT want to do it, but I am also someone who would have been super grateful for Dorothy’s offer to just go get the meds FOR me, which Joyce didn’t really react to. So clearly I am not exactly like Joyce and can’t really figure out if she’s being reasonable or not here by being so miffed at her friends.

      I mean, I don’t really know what exactly she wants and I suspect her friends are bewildered too. They tried leaving her alone originally and it didn’t seem to do much good (plus Sarah has to live with her so she is subjected to Joyce’s bad mood regardless). But she’s also resisting any offer of help so, what exactly are they supposed to do? Just put up with her wallowing in misery however long until she finally feels better, and possibly do this again every couple months if she hasn’t decided to get her meds yet?

      Joyce seems like the sort of person who does sometimes need a little push to do what she needs to do. And tbh maybe in the long run this is actually the healthiest way to handle it, because it shows her she can’t just not solve problems and expect her friends to patiently wait for her to stop being cranky while doing nothing. If she doesn’t want them up in her business, but still wants them in her life, maybe she will be more motivated next time to actually solve the problem herself. Also as someone who has never done this sort of stuff before, I think there is value in Dorothy dragging her through it because she can see it’s not the big scary thing she’s made it out to be in her mind.

      I know Joyce is TECHNICALLY an adult, but just barely, and was super sheltered, and speaking as someone who grew up super sheltered, you end up still being kind of emotionally immature as a young adult and people treating you like a kid in spite of your age isn’t exactly unreasonable if you are acting like one.

      Don’t get me wrong, I love Joyce. None of this is intended as judgement or to say she is a bad person or her friends are perfect. They’re all immature college kids still figuring out the world, all with good qualities and bad. And I have a TON of sympathy for Joyce because she reminds me so much of myself at times.

      I also know how pain makes a person cranky, as someone with chronic pain. But as someone with chronic pain, I’ve learned you can’t just be kind of a jerk to your friends and excuse it because of pain. If the pain is making you super cranky, you either need to solve the pain if you can, or work on not letting out that frustration onto your friends. Joyce has kind of been expecting her friends to be there when she needs/wants something, but then being a jerk to them when she doesn’t. And she’s going through a lot right now that explains that behavior but again as someone who has been there, I also can’t blame her friends for just not knowing wtf to do about it and trying to push her to solve it.

      1. Bryy

        I had a family member ask the other day if me pausing before I speak means I think everyone else is stupid.

        That really shook me. A family member asking me that point blank.

        Then I responded that my autism brain needs to compute how to accurately discuss things in a timely fashion without going all ham on everyone.

        They then made a “nope, it’s what I thought” laugh when I did it again.

        So I’m right here with Joyce as well.

        1. v.gay.person

          I found out what “rolling your eyes” meant last month. I always thought it was when you think for too long before answering because that’s when I was accused of it. Amused the heck out of my sister. If I don’t take a moment, I just blurt out whatever I assume they *want* to hear, even if it’s not true, just to avoid being accused of “rolling my eyes”.

      2. v.gay.person

        I relate to this all, too. I’m AuDHD and I get like Joyce (dysregulated and paralysed by small tasks) when I’m stressed and overwhelmed. I hate it and want to be left alone because I hate the way I get and resent the fact that I need help (with cleaning/nutrition/time management/keeping appointments).

        Pain plus trauma plus stress plus general period-related hormones is like the ultimate attack combo to demolish general capacities including emotional regulation and social capacities which for Aut peeps (especially youngins) are already lower than average. I appreciate the Dorothy is being compassionate and giving some leeway. Joyce will have all the time in the world to regret her behaviours later when she’s not so overloaded by everything, and hopefully she’ll get to see a psych/social worker/some support person soon who can give her some insight and skills to manage better next time…. although I think that’s a bit optimistic of me

        1. Autogatos

          Yeah the ND experiences Joyce is dealing with are not the sort of thing that gets resolved quickly. I was a mess in college. And for a while after. I think life in general is an ongoing learning process and I’m sure I’ll look back on my 30s someday and be like “wow I was a mess then and am so much more together now” the way I now look back on my teens and 20s.

          College/young adulthood is a lot of fumbling through stuff just trying to figure out how to exist. It’s messy. It’s even messier when you’re ND. And messier still when you are a character in a webcomic because fiction needs drama to be interesting and it would be boring if everyone learned all the lessons and reacted rationally and maturely all the time. XD

      3. Vukodlak

        While Joyce is technically speaking a legal adult, maturity wise she is FAR from it. This isn’t her fault she wasn’t raised to be an an adult who’d make her own decisions. She was raised to find a husband, it was a damn check mark for going to college. Which is kinda ironic given how domineering her mother was.

        That being said the pushyness has probably gone a bit to far, and they probably need to give her another couple days before trying to bug her about it.
        Then again this IS a webcomic where time passes very slowly so he needs to finish this part of the arc NOW. Rather then wait six months in real time for a week to pass.

      4. Autogatos

        I also feel I should add all my critique of Joyce here isn’t even really critique. It’s just observations heavily informed by personal experience. I have all the sympathy in the world for Joyce as a character as someone who is ND and has a very messy chaotic brain and is bad at social interaction and all of this. Every time I say “she needs to learn X” it’s really because I needed to learn that.

        She’s going through a painful difficult growth period right now and I think that’s one of the reasons I love this comic. Because it captures the ND struggle of learning how to adult and also realizing how much you have to learn and all the mistakes you make and struggles you have interacting with people super well.

        I really appreciate Joyce having the flaws she has but still being a character who we are supposed to like and empathize with. It’s nice for those of us who have shared these flaws or similar, and been insecure about them, to see a character like that. I feel like it’s saying “it’s okay, some people have these issues but they are still good people worthy of love and respect.” It’s nice having a messy main character I can relate to instead of a hero in a story I can never live up to.

        This applies to a lot of the cast in this comic tbh. Walky’s likely ADHD is so relatable. As is Dorothy’s almost compulsive need to solve and manage things.

        1. StClair

          Agreed (again).

  28. Tricia

    This is about when I would just shrug and say “Okay, you want to be left alone? I’ll be happy to accommodate you.” Maybe it makes me a bad person, but Joyce has been nothing but terrible to people that are just trying to help. Throwing a tantrum when Dorothy’s gone out of her way to be incredibly accommodating would be the final straw for me.

    It’s probably a good thing that I neither have or want kids.

    1. Derek

      establishing boundaries and being upset that people trample over those boundaries is not a tantrum

      1. Tricia

        Dorothy *agreed* to follow the boundaries. She was set to leave the room and leave Joyce alone until Joyce realized that she actually needed something from Dorothy.

        We didn’t see Joyce actually leaving the room, but presumably she did it under her own will. How exactly are her boundaries being “trampled over”.

        1. brute

          a good chunk of the commenters seem to believe Joyce can do no wrong, and that anyone who commits even the slightest imperfection in her presence is a supervillain.
          additionally, becky and dorothy were already some favorites in the comment hate brigade, so even though a lot of people are understanding that joyce is being incredibly difficult to interact with right now, many others are taking the opportunity to paint her as the poor tortured saint of a woman that they see her as.

          for the record i don’t hate Joyce i just hate the weird biases people cling to regardless of circumstances.

        2. Derek

          Joyce can and has definitely done wrong and Dorothy is not a supervillain. You don’t have to be a supervillain to have an infuriating paternalistic attitude towards your friend’s health.

        3. Autogatos

          I feel like there’s also a tendency to take any negative comments about a character or any acknowledgment of them doing negative things as saying “this character is bad” or “anyone who acts like this in real life is bad” when it’s totally the opposite imo.

          I love that this comic portrays these very flawed characters as likable people we want to root for. Everyone has issues, I think many of us pointing out Joyce’s issues are not speaking from a place of dislike or judgement, but rather a place of familiarity. We see ourselves in her and are reflecting on the growth we had to go through.

        4. Derek

          Autogatos you hit the nail on the head!

        5. Derek

          What Joyce wanted was a pad, not help with her prescription. And she left the room to look at her published comic on the newspaper. So I’m not sure what point you’re making.

        6. Tricia

          We don’t know why she left the room, because it happened off screen. At no point is Dorothy dragging or forcing Joyce to go anywhere. Until she saw the signs, she was perfectly willing to go into the pharmacy and get her prescription.

        7. Derek

          Fascinating that you seem to think that dragging someone physically is the only way to force them to do something they don’t want to do.

        8. Derek

          let’s review the relevant comic: specifically panel one
          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-13/01-bring-me-to-life-drawing/nonevent/

          Joyce is looking disgruntled and Dorothy is saying this is no big deal, essentially still trying to convince Joyce as they’re walking in. That does not read as “perfectly willing to go” to me at all. Charitably, it reads as “she was convinced to come but she’s doing that with clenched teeth”

      2. jpnr

        but Joyce doesn’t really have boundaries

        she wakes up Sarah by jumping all smiling over her, has Dorothy come wake her up at the crack of dawn to go run, and sleeps with Becky in the same bed. Sarah has also slept with Joyce

        all three girls who are all up on her ass right now have been used to Joyce wanting them that close

        1. Cerusee

          She doesn’t do the morning routine wake-up thing anymore because she finally got that it was intrusive and unwelcome; I don’t even understand how agreeing to go running with Dorothy in the morning is a sign of not having boundaries? What? Why is that on this list?; Becky was sleeping in Joyce’s bed for like a week because she was a HOMELESS RUNAWAY WITH NO BED OF HER OWN, and they found an alternative arrangement when Sarah pointed out to Joyce that given the one-sided attraction there that Becky needed to get over, it wasn’t good for Becky to keep doing that—will you look at that! New boundary established and subsequently maintained even when it took some work!; uh Sarah slept in Joyce’s bed that one time because Joyce had been assaulted and *drugged* and refused to go to the hospital and her friends were legit worried she might stop breathing in her sleep.

          Also, all of these things happened months ago, and all these respective relationships have evolved during that time, and so have the people, especially Joyce. People change. People’s needs and wants change. You have to let them.

        2. jpnr

          I will give you running but still:

          she openly criticized dorothy’s choice of boyfriend in walky (iirc in front of walky). Quite honestly dunno how dorothy didn’t make her shut the fuck up right there

          she invited an atheist to church to try to convert them, then when she became an atheist she made up a sexual relationship with Joe just to impress someone else

          yeah, she has changed and her relationships have changed. She continues to not have many boundaries with people, just in different ways

        3. Fuzzy

          “No” still means “no” even if you’ve said “yes” to that person in the past.

        4. jpnr

          sure, but you can’t blame dorothy/becky/sarah since she asked them to not help her only to immediately ask them for more help. So how do they know which order to follow?

          also dorothy and becky already had to take joyce to the optometrist and then to actually get glasses, which was another ordeal just like this one, and everything turned out fine. Which is why they are doing the whole dance and song again

    2. june gloom

      Joyce has been pushed around and treated like a child with no agency of her own by “well-meaning” friends who mostly find her suffering an inconvenience and they want their happy pollyanna back.

      But sure, she’s the bad guy here.

      God I’m so tired.

  29. Derek

    “I’m forcing you to do this thing that makes you want to crawl out of your skin because I decided this is for your own good” doesn’t sound good does it?
    Especially since, by Dorothy’s own admission, the first round of medication is placebos.

    Fuck the idea of making this concept accessible to Joyce or perhaps ease her into it by suggesting she take tictacs on a schedule for a week or something. Nope, just barrel right ahead, no holds barred. Clearly that’s the best and healthiest way to do this /sarcasm

    1. anon

      wonder how jennifer would’ve handled it, though i suppose it’s good to get it outta the way eventually versus her condition getting so bad that she couldn’t physically move, i suppose you could get some medicine ordered/delivery but idk how reliable deliveries would be with that kinda stuff with stories of ppl stealing packages from doorsteps (though at least there’d be someone like Asma hanging onto stuff so less chance of a theft but yeah)

      1. Sajuuk-Khar

        Jennifer texts Joyce “u can do it champ. Believe in u” and then turns her phone off so Raidah doesn’t see her texting The Enemy

      2. thejeff

        Her condition isn’t likely to get that bad this time and if it does the placebos that are the first few pill won’t do anything about it. She’s going to suffer through the last days of this period regardless.
        Of course, that just means with the crisis over and no one pushing her, she can put off starting the pills until the next time around. When she’ll again be too sick to do anything about it.

    2. Mano308gts

      Yea, I really can’t get the argument that friends just need to roll over and accept their friends’ “help”.

      This whole entire plot-line of the comic has been Joyce’s friends trampling over her, and yet Joyce seemingly being called the bad one.

      It’s about time for her to tell them to shove off.

    3. Tricia

      This round of medication does nothing, but it sets up for the next round which will actually help. Versus Joyce’s method of putting it off indefinitely, so she just goes through the extreme pain in 2 months again. And two months later. And two months later.

      1. Derek

        I’m repeating myself but here goes: for the next week it literally does not matter if Joyce takes the medication, breath mints or gravel; because the first round of medication is placebos

        While there is an advantage to having the medication on hand to be ready for the second round, which DOES contain hormonal birth control, I highly question if that advantage outweighs plowing through Joyce’s boundaries and comfort zones like a raging bull.

        Why are the two options “Joyce gets the medication now” or “Joyce never gets the medication”? Surely there’s a middle point where Joyce maybe gets the medication five days from now, which is still useful for her next cycle but also gives her some time to ease into the idea?

        And yeah, there’s a possibility that without outside influence, Joyce would just put this off forever and suffer needlessly. But the entire premise of this comic is about Joyce adapting and pushing her own boundaries in ways that surprise even herself.
        Maybe this was another opportunity for her to do that. But now we’ll never know.
        (don’t eat gravel)

        1. Nono

          Knowing Joyce and how she reacted to the ‘hussy pills’, would anyone actually expect her to pick them up herself in a reasonable amount of time if left to her own devices?

        2. Tricia

          Considering she didn’t do anything about the crippling pain for literal years, there’s little to no chance she would have done it without some prodding.

        3. Nova

          Holy fucking victim blaming, batman.

          She didn’t do anything about the pain because she was raised to believe that it was normal and her punishment for being a woman. Using that like it’s some kind of evidence she can’t take care of herself is yikesy.

        4. Autogatos

          I didn’t read that as victim blaming at all. When you’ve grown up believing your suffering is normal, someone encouraging you to do something to ease that suffering can actually really help because they are 1-pointing out it’s not normal and you don’t HAVE to experience this, and 2-essentially giving you permission to not continue to suffer.

          Saying that sometimes people need that isn’t necessarily an implication they can’t take care of themselves, it’s just a fact in many cases. I don’t have the exact same background as Joyce but as someone who grew up with chronic illness (that got diagnosed very late and experienced years of medical gaslighting prior to that) I thought my suffering was normal and that I was being weak for not being able to ignore it. People essentially saying “omg no you do not need to suffer like this, you should seek medical help!” did not at all make me feel like they were blaming me for my own suffering or implying I couldn’t take care of myself. It was a RELIEF. It was validation. Their incredulity at the fact I’d just been suffering for so long without solving the problem helped me realize it was not unreasonable to want to feel better and helped me realize that what I was dealing with was NOT normal or expected.

        5. jpnr

          but at some point or other her friends would have to explain to her that birth control pills could help her with her period

          you are only asking to kick the problem down the road

        6. Derek

          1. what Nova said: she was taught this is NORMAL and if she suffers it’s because of Eve’s Sin or whatever bullshit. She had no frame of reference about how abnormal this is

          2. her parents were likely to punish her for seeking medical care without their permission and knowledge and they would have outright disowned her if they found out it was for hormonal birth control pills. This was during the years when Joyce was a minor. HOW, pray tell, could have Joyce have done ANYTHING about her situation while under her parents’ thumb?

        7. jpnr

          yeah but, if the friends don’t intervene and explain to her that this is yet another aspect of her fucked up upbringing, how do you expect Joyce to learn about it?

          chances are she would become sexually active _before_ casually reading a blog that says “hey, birth control pills help with menstruation pain”. She took a full class of gender studies…and seemingly it didn’t come up!

        8. Derek

          explaining that this is not normal and encouraging her to seek medical helps is fine and good. What I have an issue with is barreling through her discomfort to get her the medication RIGHT NOW when a few days’ delay would not make a difference

        9. Derek

          before the next cycle? Probably not. But after that? I have optimistic faith in her ability to change

        10. Autogatos

          I mean sometimes people need a little push to do things, especially if they have major issues that are preventing them from doing the thing they need to do. Dorothy has just shown Joyce that this is not the big scary thing she thought it was, and Joyce seems to be irritated enough by the interference in her life that I do think maybe next time she’ll be more able to just do it herself. Whereas had it not gone down like this I suspect she would’ve put it off forever out of anxiety.

        11. Derek

          would you agree that pushes can become excessive? that a well-intentioned push can have negative consequences if taken too far? What would be your threshold of “too far”?

          Huh, I think you’re off about the idea that if Joyce is irritated by Dorothy’s presence here she might be encouraged to go by herself next time. Joyce is not merely irritated, she’s terrified and Dorothy is not the source, it’s her own sexual shame.
          I think you’re correct about her anxiety would probably make her put it off much longer

        12. Autogatos

          I mean it’s gonna be different for everyone. And for every situation depending on the context. “Too far” for me also changed with age. When I was younger (like Joyce’s age) I was more easy-going/welcoming about people micromanaging because I was used to that and not great at having my own autonomy. Now as a 30-something adult parent I get more annoyed at micromanaging because I *can* usually handle things myself.

          I dunno whether Joyce’s friends were being too pushy here. I feel like with the way things had been going the only alternative would’ve been to be frank about how her situation was making them feel, and ask her what she’d like them to do. Though I do think they did the second part, I can’t remember exactly, but they didn’t make it clear it wasn’t just about helping her at this point, but also about how this was affecting them/their relationship with her. Perhaps a convo like that would’ve been more productive because it would force Joyce to consider this isn’t just about her (especially when living with a room mate). But tbh that is possibly expecting too much insight and rationality of college kids. I don’t remember being great at having frank, productive discussions about my feelings with friends, and about how our interactions were affecting me, at that age.

          I know Joyce is anxious because of her shame and that Dorothy isn’t the source, but I was saying that having done it once now, it probably lifted at least some of the anxiety in the long run because whatever worst case scenarios she had built up in her head did not come to pass. It may be slightly easier/less terrifying for her next time having already done it once.

        13. Autogatos

          Also honestly I kind of cheered internally for Joyce when she snapped at everyone for getting up in her business. I feel like both things can be true here: Joyce sometimes needs a nudge to get stuff going, AND her friends might still be being too pushy.

          I think the best possible outcome here would be for this to motivate Joyce to claim some more agency. Because sometimes that’s what it takes for a passive person not used to claiming their own agency to finally do it: getting pushed and pushed until you finally go “wait, okay, I have had enough of this, I should just take control here.” I feel like we’re starting to see glimmers of that and it’s a key character development thing for Joyce going forward.

          I mean it’s not clean, but it works. That’s how life goes sometimes.

        14. Derek

          “I kind of cheered internally for Joyce when she snapped at everyone for getting up in her business” you and me both, I was really hoping she’d tell them off and was glad she did.

    4. Regina phalange

      The placebos are a necessary part of the cycle. Sure she could take tictacs for four days, but how does that help her acclimate to taking her *needed* medication?

      This also isn’t just something Dorothy decided is for Joyce’s own good. This is like seeing your friend has the flu, the doctor has confirmed they have the flu and should go on meds, and then you push them to go on meds so they don’t, you know, die. They all see this is a traumatic enough cycle for Joyce that it totally changes how she interacts with people. A doctor has confirmed this needs to be medicated and how. This isn’t Dorothy being controlling; it’s someone who genuinely cares about another person to stop them from being an absolute dumbass. Frankly, I’d be fed up with Joyce at this point. You can’t use your physical pain as an excuse to treat other people like shit, refuse to medicate it, and still expect people to want to be around you.

      1. Derek

        While I see your point, this isn’t a one-off medicine that will help Joyce with a flu: this is something that she might need to take for the rest of her life and something she was taught is inherently evil. It’d be much healthier for her to make peace with this concept in her own time rather to be forced to take them.
        There are real life instances of people suffering because they resent their medication and eventually refuse to take it. Joyce is set up for that situation.

        “You can’t use your physical pain as an excuse to treat other people like shit, refuse to medicate it, and still expect people to want to be around you.” I mean, Joyce DOESN’T want Dorothy around her right now. She makes that clear in the last panel

        1. Sajuuk-Khar

          Joyce only doesn’t want Dorothy around because Dorothy is giving her advice on and trying to help deal with something Joyce finds unpleasant and would rather ignore, my dude

          Like, three strips prior Dorothy and Joyce were talking about comic strips and Joyce was pleased as punch to have her around, it’s just the “hussy pills” and the asking her to do things that get Joyce’s dander up

          Neither one of them is “right”, shockingly, but this false dichotomy of GOD JUST LEAVE HER ALOOOOOONE DOT is silly.

        2. Autogatos

          As Sajuuk said, Joyce only doesn’t want Dorothy around when Dorothy is telling her things she doesn’t want to hear/doesn’t want to deal with. Which yeah it’s Joyce’s body and business, but her discomfort has been impacting all her friends as well. I don’t think it’s fair to just expect them to shrug and ignore/put up with her wallowing in misery and being snarky for a week every couple months.

          I hate when the “respect people’s boundaries” concept gets turned into “you can never encourage your friends to change their behavior or complain when they’re doing something that’s affecting you negatively.” Joyce’s friends have boundaries too that she has frankly really pushed their entire friendship, over MANY things, and they have been VERY patient. It’s not unreasonable for them to just be like “look Joyce you need to deal with this” at this point.

          I am saying all of this as someone who has BEEN Joyce both in terms of not being able to deal with various adult tasks on my own and in terms of living with chronic pain and in the past kind of letting that affect my mood/attitude. If people hadn’t given me a little kick to start handling things better, I might never have learned.

        3. Autogatos

          Tl;dr it’s fair for Joyce to ask them to back off but also fair for them to be frustrated that when they don’t get up in her business, she doesn’t take care of the things she needs to take care of. She can’t demand they back off and then not do anything about her problems and take it out on her friends/be generally miserable to be around, but still want them around so long as they never say a word about her doing anything to change her current situation.

          Having both been the friend who was miserable, and had friends who were miserable, it gets draining being around someone who is utterly miserable for some solvable reason and always complaining about it, but not trying to solve the problem. It’s exhausting and most people cannot put up with that forever (and should not have to).

        4. Derek

          Maybe I should go back and check the archive, but Joyce was not being mean and snapping to her friends while on her period until they started crawling up her asshole (as it were) about taking the medication.
          Like I can buy that it hurts Dorothy to see her friend miserable when there’s a viable solution to that, but how many times must Joyce say “I’d rather not do this right now” and have Dorothy ignore it before it’s official Dorothy doesn’t care about Joyce’s agency?

          And yeah I see your point that it would get very frustrating and draining to enter a cycle of “I’d rather not do this right now” becoming “this is never getting done”, but this is happening DAYS after Joyce got her prescription. This cycle of frustration hasn’t happened.

        5. Autogatos

          I mean she’s also been kind of salty in general for a while, ever since her crisis of faith. And there was the glasses thing before this. And presumably multiple periods before this where she was like this for a week. I can’t remember if she was cranky with her friends before but she was very loudly complaining about how miserable she was over and over. So I can’t blame her friends for being like “well then DO something about it.”

          No they didn’t necessarily have to go get the prescription RIGHT this second, and maybe it would’ve been better to wait until Joyce was at least feeling better physically. But from Dorothy’s wording here it seems like she didn’t know the pills wouldn’t help this cycle and she was maybe hoping Joyce could get some relief if she started them asap.

          That or maybe she was worried once the physical misery was gone, Joyce’s motivation to go get the prescription would be even lower. I’ve done that. Thought about how I really ought to solve a medical issue while it’s happening, but put it off, and then once I start feeling better I go “well I’m okay now…” so it seems less pressing, until the next time I feel bad again.

        6. Autogatos

          I should also clarify: her saltiness is entirely justified and expected for everything she’s been going through. I’m definitely not saying it’s not! I’d be super cranky too. But eventually she has to move on from that and find healthier ways of dealing with all of this besides just being a ball of seething misery and I think that’s where her friends are at, their patience is running thin. I think both she and them are understandable in their reactions here. I sym

        7. Autogatos

          Oops, hit reply accidentally before I finished. *I sympathize with them all. And personally it took me YEARS to move out of that general crankiness when I was Joyce’s age dealing with both newfound atheism/jaded attitudes about the world, and chronic pain. It may not take Joyce years because then we wouldn’t see any progress in her character arc for like 80 years per comic time though. XD

        8. Derek

          It’s probably relevant to mention that at one point in my life I was the friend nagging someone else about a self-destructive habit and why they should stop. It nearly ended a long friendship and it did basically nothing to stop the habit.
          When this friend actually DID stop was when they took a look at their life and decided the situation was unsustainable. (it helped that they got out of an abusive situation and had breathing room to change their perspective)

        9. Nono

          It may also be worth considering that Joyce may not necessarily react the same way as your friend.

          Some people react better to patience. Some need the tough love.

          Maybe Dorothy’s approach may not work. Maybe it might. But I can’t blame her for wanting to try and make sure Joyce gets over this problem. Because the alternatives are… either put up with a sulking Joyce every two months, dropping Joyce as a friend, or just sit and pray that Joyce gets over herself when, to be honest, she doesn’t have the best track record for it.

        10. Autogatos

          This exactly. You put it perfectly. Both in terms of: everyone is different and what works for one person may be the wrong approach for another. We’re not gonna know if this is the right approach for Joyce until future strips but my hunch is, just based on her past behavior and how this stuff went, she is someone who has so far needed to be pushed a bit outside her comfort zone to learn that she CAN handle this stuff herself eventually.

          But ofc I may still be projecting my own experience on her here. That’s how I was at that age and then as I got older I got better at handling it myself and less keen on people trying to micromanage.

          I feel like from the storytelling we’ve gotten already, Joyce is intended to be someone who didn’t grow up with a ton of autonomy. And sometimes when people lack autonomy their whole youth, they can’t just go straight into having it even when they break free from the environment they were brought up in.

          Dorothy is kind of serving as a useful…what’s the word…placeholder? Transition? There’s a better word probably but I can’t think if it right now. But basically Dorothy’s micromanaging likely gives Joyce some familiar structure while not being as damaging or rigid as her parents/church. So she maybe helps Joyce get a sort of jumpstart on these tasks while also being someone who will hopefully step back once Joyce gets more comfortable handling this stuff on her own.

        11. Autogatos

          I do agree ultimately you can’t force people to change, they have to want to change. But sometimes, for some people, a friend being like “hey it’s not okay to just keep doing nothing about this” is what the person needs to hear to finally decide to change. Not always of course, like you said, sometimes it backfires and makes a person even more defiant about solving the problem.

          Honestly I’m surprised Joyce didn’t take Dorothy up on her offer to just go get the meds for her. I’d be all over that when in pain. But in the long run it was probably good for Joyce to get them herself/go with so she could see it wasn’t that big a deal and she wasn’t going to be judged for being a “hussy.”

        12. Derek

          “sometimes it backfires and makes a person even more defiant about solving the problem.”
          this is exactly the scenario I’m worried about, and to me a worse case scenario than putting off starting the medication later. starting off a (lifetime?) of new medication with resentment is a bad precedent

        13. Plonker

          Joyce may speak the words to that effect, but I actually doubt that she really want her friends to back off and stop pushing her, and her resistance more of a game she’s playing in her own head to save her ego from being bruised by needing others to do things for her that she, as at least technically an adult, ought to be able to deal with on her own.

          If I’d been around, I would, however, still have respected Joyce’s request for me to back off and mind my own business, because I operate on the principle that what I’m told, and especially if I’m very explicitly told something, is the truth and their true wish for how things should proceed.

          Also, I’m not a mind reader, and I refuse to pretend to be one. “No” may sometimes mean “Yes”, but I’d rather follow the letter of what I’m told and be a failure at interpreting someone’s true intention, than fail to heed a clearly articulated “No” that really meant “No”, and be a failure as a human.

          But my experience from actually doing what I’m asked is that some time later, sometimes even a long time later, I’m sometimes confronted with something along the lines of “Why did you abandon me?!” or “Why didn’t you help me, you knew I was in a bad place?!”.

          When I point out that they not only demanded in no uncertain terms that I back off, but also pretty much shoved a map with a route away from them into my face, to underline their demand, I’m told that “[I] should have known that they didn’t really mean it!”.

          When I point out that I told them, before backing off, that if they changed their mind about needing help, all they needed to do is let me know, I get a reply that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but is on the general theme of “[I] should have known.” or that they believed that I hated them, or something else that in no way lines up with anything that happened in that period, and thus very hard to take seriously as a fact, and not some lie/excuse concocted long after the fact, possibly in this very moment.

          Like, they claim to have thought I hated them, but we continued to spend lots of time together, kept inviting each other to do things etc. We both just didn’t touch on the stuff they’d told me to back off about.

        14. jpnr

          at some point you just gotta endure people

          otherwise you end up distancing for no good reason; see how Jennifer decided to just cut off Joyce and Sarah due to how they treated her in this exact arc

          and dorothy is no stranger to just cutting off people she no longer deems necessary, fun or useful. Maybe dorothy should just walk away now and maybe late both can apologize to each other

    5. Sean Smith

      Dorothy didn’t force Joyce to do anything.

      1. Autogatos

        Yeah, this too. Unless she physically dragged Joyce to the pharmacy against her will, or blackmailed or threatened her, clearly Joyce made a decision to go with her finally. Dorothy nagged, and yeah nagging can be annoying, but she didn’t FORCE her.

        And nagging someone about taking care of a medical issue when they’ve been complaining about said medical issue and have an easy solution that they’re not utilizing is not entirely unreasonable. I don’t really get the one-sided “Joyce’s friends are being terrible by being so pushy” but not directing the same energy to the fact that Joyce’s friends have had to put up with her mood for a week (?) every other month in some of these comments. Pain and physical illness sucks but it doesn’t have to make you super cranky towards everyone around you and if it is, you need to do something about it.

      2. Needfuldoer

        Dorothy mommed her into doing it.

        I don’t know if that’s better or worse than bodily dragging her there.

        1. Bathymetheus

          How about saying that Dorothy is acting as a mentor?

  30. alongcameaspider

    I mean hey, she has her medication now, maybe nows a good time for Dorothy (and everyone else) to back off and give Joyce the space she clearly wants

    Also side note there’s an obnoxious NBC ad that expands and covers the comment box on mobile, I dunno if this is a good place to bring that up and if not where should I bring that up?

  31. Bagge

    Aw, Dorothy <3

  32. Deadjolras

    God, I wish I had a Dorothy in my life.

    1. Nova

      And I’m so glad I don’t have anyone like that in mine.

      I think it’s interesting how differently people can respond to the same input, the comments section is always a great cross-section for that.

      1. Autogatos

        I half do and half don’t. My mom is basically Dorothy (in terms of micromanaging other people). And I loved her just handling everything. But it also made it very hard for me to learn how to do stuff myself and I had kind of a hard time once I finally was off on my own.

        I’m at the point now, in my 30s and as a parent myself, where I prefer handling things myself and find micromanaging kind of stressful a lot of the time (and have learned to set boundaries/be more assertive when I want to handle things myself). But when I’m physically feeling awful, I am very grateful to be able to call her and ask if she can help me with stuff and she’ll just…happily go and pick up a rx for me or whatever.

        1. Autogatos

          Loved her handling everything when I was Joyce’s age I mean.

    2. zee

      Same. The practical usage of a mother without the inherent fear and anxiety that accompanies one

  33. Alex C

    She has her coat, her pills, and probably soon her alarm. Joyce right now might just need some space. Though I have to give a nod to Dorothy for sticking this long with Joyce.

  34. Kitschensyngk

    Buttholes inside of a butthole. A butthole Inception.

    That said, as someone with autism, I do like to be given the agency to make my own decisions. I can remember pretty well when I’m supposed to do something, but I can’t stand it when people remind me to do what I’ve already decided to do, because to me it feels like I’m doing it not because I chose to, but because somebody else told me to. I know when I need help, but I don’t want to have someone hold my hand the entire time.

    Not to say that Joyce would have easily walked to the counter and picked up her meds WITHOUT encouragement, but I can understand how smothered she feels.

    1. The Wellerman

      RIGHT?!?!?! Finally, someone who GETS it!

      This kind of smothering is actually a form of ableism that’s all too common and REALLY needs to stop. ?

      1. -

        You’re so full-on, all the damn time. It’s really irksome.

        1. The Wellerman

          I may not be the best at reading social cues, but I don’t think it’s a really good idea around here to condescend like that to an autistic person who’s had to put up with this insidious ableism for their entire life.

        2. Taffy

          That’s basically all I’ve seen the hyphen do. Best not to engage, it’ll be better for your brain’s HP bar.

    2. Nova

      Exaaaactly. I’m really bothered by the fact that she keeps stating how smothered she’s feeling and is getting zero space to deal with that.

    3. Needfuldoer

      “I kNoW yOu KnOw, I’m JuSt ReMiNdInG yOu!!”

      Bleh.

    4. Keulen

      As another autistic person, yes, this very much.

  35. Stephen Bierce

    Took that wall down
    Really got it all down
    Thought that would get us somewhere- -but no!
    So Fred Said let’s have another cuppa tea
    And we said right-o!–the late Bernard Cribbins

  36. Reltzik

    Joyce, please. They’re just trying to ass-ist you.

    1. Cerusee

      Badum-tsch

  37. Some1

    Honestly Joyce, that just seems more uncomfortable for them than it does for you. Okay, maybe not the breakfast nook part, but even so.

  38. Robbie IronWill

    I’m disappointed that the Mike version of the anniversary banner doesn’t end with a gravestone. XD

    1. Yoder of Kansas

      Same.

  39. G127

    Since these pills won’t help with her current situation, why are all her friends so adament that she has to get her medication now, instead of next week when she feels better and has gotten used to the idea.

    1. Tricia

      a) While they won’t help with the current situation, the sooner she gets on the medication the more likely it is to help the next time this comes up.

      b) Joyce is even less likely to want to go get the medication when she doesn’t have the pain actively reminding her why she needs it. Remember, this isn’t a recent issue. This is a problem that has been going on for *years*, and she’s just now getting it fixed, and only because she was coerced to.

    2. Sam

      The placebo effect could still help for one thing, and for another, she’s even less likely to be willing to take them when she does not have pain. Because then she can say she’s fine and doesn’t need them.

    3. zee

      Its Joyce. She’s not gonna get used to anything until she’s confronted with it

  40. Qube

    well maybe if you asked Jacob nicely…

  41. moriarty70

    In honour of those lost “I blew out a wall in your mom’s butthole for a nickle.”

    1. Clif

      <3

  42. John

    this is the most Walky that Joyce has ever been.

  43. Rabisch

    Dorothy is awesome. Sweet and patient, always ready to help Joyce, but able to tell her how insufferable her behaviour can be. Their relationship is just beautiful♡.

  44. Cass

    Man, with how bad Joyce’s periods are I’m surprised they aren’t chucking the placebos and working on getting her period-free ASAP.

    1. Derek

      birth control pills don’t work that way my friend

      1. Cass

        Yes, they do. It’s perfectly safe and common to do so in order to stop menstruating.

        1. Derek

          just to clarify: when you say ASAP, do you mean to stop the cycle or the current one? Because there’s nothing Joyce can take at this point to stop the current one.

        2. Aubrey

          I think they meant stop the cycle in general, but you interpreted it as stopping the current one.

        3. Cass

          Oh, yeah, I get where the miscommunication is. Stop the cycle in general, with how debilitating her period is I’m surprised at bothering with the placebos instead giving her the chance to make it stop as much as possible.

          (…Then again, this is Joyce, she might well have issues with the thought of that as well and was given the option but turned it down.)

      2. Aubrey

        I skip my periods with birth control (via skipping the sugar pills) and they do, indeed, work this way.

        For the vast majority of people, there’s no medical reason to get a period each month. The “period” you get while taking the sugar pills isn’t a true period anyway, in the biological sense. The only reason why birth control is structured in this way is because back in the day they believed it would be more widely accepted (i.e. not condemned by religious groups) by society if it mimicked a “natural” cycle.

        I used to have awful periods that took me out every month. I haven’t had a period in literal years (though I do occasionally experience some spotting).

        1. Cass

          High five to escaping the pain!

          It’s amazing to me to think of how much of my teenage years were wasted by me being in so much pain I could hardly stand moving, but if it was during the school year being forced to anyway because my school only allowed you six absences per semester.

    2. Cass

      I should clarify that by “they” I mean the actual health-care professionals, not Dorothy or any of the others. When I was first able to go out and get birth control on my own, which I was doing for the same reasons as Joyce rather than being sexually active, the coversation was pretty much just “My periods are horrific and I want to never have one again if I can” and the person at Planned Parenthood went “You can absolutely do that, here’s your options, you might need to try a couple to find what works best for you.”

    3. BBCC

      Right? I have my first OB appointment soon and if they say it’s okay, those placebos are going in the TRASH.

  45. foducool

    it’s free real estate lmao

  46. v.gay.person

    Hard relate as an AuDHD person. Need structure to function but task paralysis happens because of X (stress/pain/anxiety/overload) leads to people to try to help leading to more of X leading to resentment of the people trying to help.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Then they keep doubling down and ignoring you while their “HeLp” gets condescendingly childish when all you really want is for them to point you in one direction and then get the fuck out of your fries.

      I’ve played that game too many times over the years… If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the angry dome.

      1. The Wellerman

        Right?!?!?!

        I’m so sorry to hear that, I know how this relentless infantilization feels, fucking AWFUL ??

        1. Needfuldoer

          I left out the best part. If they’re in a position of authority, there’s a very good chance you’ll get actively punished for having the meltdown or shutdown they goaded you into by “jUsT hElPiNg”. Kids these days don’t realize how good they’ve got it compared to 20+ years ago, hanfling-of-neurodiversity-wise.

          (Sorry, back to the angry dome.)

        2. The Wellerman

          ??? this systematic bigotry is just fucking awful. nobody deserves this

        3. -

          Chill. Why you always make the comments section so damn unpleasant I do not know.

        4. The Oracle

          They used a couple emojis and said something sympathetic, don’t tone police people. And you’re one to talk, anyway.

        5. zee

          Mood

        6. Blume

          I also know how it feels. No idea if I’m ND yet, trying to figure that out currently, but I am disabled (legally blind). I’ve been Infatalized all my life, and then the people babying get shocked when I don’t know how to do “simple” things. They treat me like I’m grown when it’s convenient, and baby me when they feel like it. And get angry at me when I do or say something they feel is dumb or a tantrum. The worst part is, I act the part. I don’t want to act the part, but I don’t know how to stop. And I don’t know how to establish independence when I barely know what that is…. I’m not sure if this is related to the comic anymore, I’m just having a really bad time.. I guess that’s why I relate so much to Joyce and get so angry for her.. It also feels like a lot of people in this comment section don’t get how overwhelming, and confusing it is. At some point you stop understanding what YOU want the more people ask. Not even the comment section believes in Joyce’s ability to change and grow on her own. It gets sad, it feels suffocating, I’m. Not sure why- and I’m probably being over dramatic.

        7. The Wellerman

          You’re not being overly dramatic, Blume. You’re doing just fine.

        8. Blume

          Thank you. I’m also recently getting into “adulting” like the characters, and school has always felt like a lot for me. I just wanna relax and be happy one of these days. Seeing people who get it here is very comforting.

        9. The Wellerman

          ?

      2. v.gay.person

        YES. Pushed too far and I meltdown or shutdown which makes everyone feel bad. Either they think it’s a tantrum and it confirms their infantilization, or they know it’s involuntary and feel helpless/guilty/afraid for me…. or I wind up hospitalised.

        1. Icalasari

          Ye, it’s why I defend Joyce in comments – Because I have been in her situation due to my own Autism and ADHD. I’m 31 in less than two months and only recently do I not feel infantalized to hell and back

        2. v.gay.person

          To inject some positivity, I’m very grateful for my mum and sister and that I’m able to have conversations with them about my experience and what actually helps. It goes both ways since the whole fam is ND
          – If I need space/recharging they know to give me that (I use signs on my door). During parties/gatherings there’s specific quiet spaces
          – Offering company without pressure to participate, so we will parallel play (eg crocheting/video games)
          – They’ll ask if I need help with particular tasks (like if I have dinner sorted/or help cleaning)
          – Checking whether I have the capacity to do something they’re asking me to do, or writing it down so I can do it when I can
          – My sister and I have code words for when we need to leave a place, change a subject, or if we need something no-questions-asked.
          – Asking whether advice/help is needed instead of assuming

        3. Needfuldoer

          “Asking whether advice/help is needed instead of assuming”

          Sooooo much of this. Compare Jennifer offering to accompany Joyce to a walk-in clinic visit to Dorothy booking an optometrist appointment for her and all but physically dragging her there. Make an offer, leave it on the table. Respect autonomy.

  47. Axel

    rereading today, I found this mike-foreshadowing

    1. Axel

      and forgot the link
      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/impulsive/

    2. Cerusee

      Given the current state of the Danny/Sal ship, that strip and the ones preceding it are extra adorable.

  48. darkoneko

    a… breakfast nook ?

    1. Needfuldoer

      That’s just rich people for “eat-in kitchen”.

      1. Lone Duck

        Fancy pantry without a door.

      2. Nicoleandmaggie

        We have one. I’d go for fancy pantry without a door over eat in kitchen since it’s actually outside the kitchen. Unlike eat in kitchens they’re often near windows. And there’s often a separate dining room. Since Covid ours has been converted to a computer station for the kids.

  49. PirateTawnee

    Very unlike the comments section to not leap all over panel 3 with “Dumbing Of Age Book 13 : Everyone’s Up In” etc..

    are you all ok? I hope you’re doing ok.

    1. Reaver

      A lot of the time anything you say is taken in the most uncharitable light ( The genera you) so Idk maybe people are afraid of being accused of wishing Joyce got suppositories or something.

  50. powderweapon

    right now dorothy is reminding me why i dropped my smothering, condescending, i-know-best “mom” friend years ago.

  51. Reaver

    Joyce’s light blue shirt is such a pretty shade of blue.

    1. Rabid Rabbit

      Which is the warmest color.

      1. Reaver

        The most human colorrr

  52. Rabid Rabbit

    Look, Joyce, if you’ve decided you don’t like anal, that’s absolutely fine. It doesn’t mean everyone’s obsessed with the idea of doing you that way. (Though undoubtedly some are. Sorry. Men are pigs, and doubtless some women too. And probably some of the in-between folk too.)

    Look, Dorothy. If Joyce is embroidering weirdly detailed butthole-related metaphors, maybe not talk about her feeling like shit? (Though congratulations on your refusing to tone down your language just because it’s Joyce you’re talking to. This may be progress.)

  53. milu

    oh heyyyy there’s the comment section we know and loathe. (just punning, i actually love y’all, go off quings)

    have fun i’ll see y’all tomorrow maybe xxx

  54. Anaheim

    Man… No one’s denying Joyce’s autonomy, they’re pushing her to do the thing she already knows she needs to do (and has agreed to do, or she wouldn’t have the prescription at all) but is reluctant to do because of her own neuroses. She has even admitted in the past that it’s necessary (see the end of the toenail debacle where Sarah literally takes off Joyce’s shoe and sock to be rid of it, and Joyce is grateful that she did so!) and her pattern of behaviour in the strip thus farbhas reinforced this. Joyce is just irritable right now because she’s in pain and dealing with the remnants of her shit upbringing (“hussy pills” etc). Much like the glasses debacle, Joyce will calm down and deal with the problem herself going forward (I’m sure future prescriptions she’ll pick up herself no problem). But she does need to be bulldozed into the initial steps or she won’t do it – see the glasses debacle, where she was just going to let her poor vision impact her studies because change is scary.

    I’ve most definitely got ADHD, possibly autism (it runs in the family) and I’m often like Joyce here – needing someone else to shove me into doing the initial steps so the ball gets rolling (and I’m even older than Joyce is) and also simultaneously being pissy about it, but grateful once it’s done.

    1. frogger44

      “…where she was just going to let her poor vision impact her studies because change is scary.” According to some people here that would be considered “victim blaming”.

      Also seeing quite a bit of “Well my diagnosis means I’m right and everyone else is wrong and there is no such thing as “nuance” or “the aggrieved person in question can be a bit misguided since “wrong” is apparently the wrong thing to say.” Bit wordy tho.

      It’s funny to me. Joyce needs the help because she’s crap at getting it for herself for the most part. The complaint about people babying is valid, but so is mentioning that she kinda acts like one to some degree. Both can be correct.

      It’s the “Well one is more right than the other” sort of attitude that springs up in the comments section that make me laugh.

      1. Autogatos

        This exactly. Whether someone nagging is intrusive or necessary really depends on a person’s headspace and maturity level. People keep talking about how Joyce isn’t being given any autonomy but she’s NEVER been given autonomy so she doesn’t know HOW to claim it.

        Some people find it on their own through gentle guidance, but speaking as someone who grew up in a micromanaged environment, no amount of “being given space” helped me claim my own autonomy. It just left me floundering. The ability to claim my own autonomy came with age and experience and was a very slow and gradual thing and honestly continuing to have my boundaries pushed in the process helped because it forced me to learn how to stand up for myself and push back.

        I’m not saying this is the right way to raise a child from scratch. It absolutely isn’t. Ideally you respect a kid’s boundaries and give them autonomy from the start so they learn early. But when you’ve already got a child whose autonomy was so severely suppressed as Joyce’s was, she’s not going to go from that to a functioning independent adult overnight. And until she builds that confidence and learns to do things on her own and learns how to set her own boundaries, some amount of prodding from friends may still be necessary. I think we’re starting to see that confidence and autonomy forming though, based on her telling her friends to back off. she’s very close, she’s just still at the “telling them to back off but still not taking the initiative to solve the problem herself” stage which means telling them to back off isn’t going to be as effective or empowering yet.

        1. thejeff

          It’s also not to say her friends are handling this perfectly – they’re definitely not. But then they’re also just learning to adult and figure out all this for themselves.

          I think the narrative is doing a pretty good job of making it clear that Joyce needed that help and that she has justifiable reasons for being upset about how it was given.
          It’s just that the commentariat (and I don’t exclude myself here) tends to grab onto one side or another as completely right and to lose the nuance.

      2. Anaheim

        No victim blaming, just a statement of fact, and one that I sympathize with, to a point – change IS scary. However, it’s gonna happen no matter what, so buckle up and get on it (or, if you’re me, have someone shove you into it half the time). She’ll eventually learn, like I sort of have, and for now her friends are keeping her somewhat stable (as grumpy as that might make her).

    2. Alex

      I think this is certainly how Dorothy sees it. I think possibly Joyce is changing beyond that person that blindly obeys authority and feels comforted by others taking charge of her.

      1. Cerusee

        Oh now *that* is an interesting thought.

        I think Joyce is pretty used to people getting up into her business and telling her what she’s allowed to think or feel, and what rights she doesn’t have—but it’s always been her parents and her church. She spent a LOT of time in the pre-timeskip era slowly moving to a place where “God” and “my parents/pastor/other authority figures” are not only no longer synonymous, but where she no longer believes there *is* a God and she’s doubting that kind of authority exists at all, and it’s left her shaking.

        Now she’s got a bunch of well-meaning friends telling her what to do about incredibly intimate and personal things involving her own body, and instead of just blindly going along with things that make her physically, emotionally, psychologically uncomfortable, she’s pushing back, and not just through avoidance, but through pretty much telling people to FUCK OFF AND I MEAN IT. (Which her friends are ignoring! So…I guess we’ll see what happens there.)

  55. Francoinblanco

    Aww its cute when teenage rebel and parent takes it calmly

  56. Doom Shepherd

    “I don’t want your help and solutions and ‘actually fixing things!’nI want to be in pain and upset and mad at everyone about it in a self-destructive spiraling rageball!”

  57. Taffy

    This one’s just a total minefield, and every possible response is gonna get people crowing about how morally superior they are for not responding the way you do. Whatever. It’s all just stuff that’s happening moment-to-moment.

    1. Taffy

      Got a (very exaggerated) scenario in my head that amused me and had to write it out. Just wanted to try and capture the energy of this comments section on a Bad Day. All very tongue-in-cheek and meant to be light-hearted, of course.
      _____

      Commenter 1: “This strip about these characters eating pancakes is pretty cute. All I had for breakfast was some cereal.”

      Commenter B</B: "Oh, I noticed that when you said you ate some cereal for breakfast, you intentionally left out what sort of cereal it was, like you're worried I'll think you're #Problematic for eating it. Which makes me think it's probably a cereal produced by a company that's recently been involved in some huge scandal. So basically, what you're telling me is that you not only tacitly support the actions of that company, you also know it’s wrong to do so and you’re using your breakfast as an excuse to dogwhistle your support, because you intend to cause me harm by reminding me about it in a way I can’t control. Telling me you ate ‘cereal’ is your way of quietly removing my personal agency and exercising control over my life.

      I also noticed that you didn’t offer any sort of list of alternatives to this ‘cereal’, something I could eat without guilt, which by the way also signals that you don’t care about my dietary restrictions, which is a whole other kind of bigoted. When I was 4, I was diagnosed with Can’t Eat Cereal Syndrome, and I grew up surrounded by people eating cereal, which was very traumatic, so didn’t you ever think your comment might be directly harmful to me? Of course you did, we’ve already established that it was targeted.

      But hey, go off about how fucking great it was eating your Kellogg’s Dogwhistle Crunch, I guess.”

      Commenter III: “Based on 1’s previous comments, I’m pretty sure they’ve also got some sort of pro-pancake bias. Probably a French toast person if I had to guess, which… Well, that’s just its own can of worms that I won’t touch with a 29.5-foot pole.”
      _____

      IDK, maybe it’d be funnier in screencap form. Not an artist or writer.

      1. Taffy

        And of course I fucked up the HTML.

      2. StClair

        “You and your cereal-loving ways! What’s wrong with good, honest eggs and toast and bacon or sausage, I ask you?!”

    2. Autogatos

      I routinely fluctuate between enjoying the in depth serious discussions here, and feeling exasperated at how seriously people take a fictional webcomic. And I include myself in that.

      It is useful to regularly step back and remember these are fictional characters and how they act does not need to be a moral guide map for how people should act IRL. Their behavior serves as useful springboards for discussing various issues and how they might apply in a real world context but how problematic or moral or good or messy the characters themselves are doesn’t really matter because they are not real and we can enjoy every degree of characterization in fiction, even the most flawed, because often that is what is most interesting.

      1. Autogatos

        I do find a lot of the discussion in todays comments interesting and worthwhile! But when it gets to the point of having an in-depth moral scolding over a character’s behavior when it was literally just a punchline, it gets a bit much for me.

        Like when characters do something so on the nose (like Roz swooping in to Rozsplain birth control to Joyce, or the way all Joyce’s friends responded to her not getting her birth control in ways that reflected their key character traits (Becky suggesting lesbian hijinks, Dorothy taking charge and figuring out if she could just handle it herself, Sarah saying something snarky) and the comments were filled with fury over how awful they all are as friends. I was like…this is clearly supposed to be funny. And it is. The joke was they each reacted in the most obvious over the top way possible for them. We gotta lighten up and remember to laugh sometimes. XD

      2. Taffy

        Yeah, that’s about where I’m at. Maybe it’s a copout to say “They’re not even real”, but oh well. I’ve taken a couple of breaks from the comments recently, and it’s been a big boon to my mental health. Sure, nobody’s “fOrCiNg” me to read them, but external force isn’t required for a compulsion to happen. Some people take that sort of thing too personally, I think. I do like the more interesting and pleasant-to-read comments though, and I do hope we can see a lot more of those soon.

        1. Autogatos

          Yeah I actually don’t participate/read the comments very often. Specifically because I find it too stressful a lot. Especially when it gets to be very heated moral judgements about fellow commenters based on whether or not they say good or bad things about a given character. Just dove in tonight because I have insomnia.

      3. Nono

        I’m just gonna say I do appreciate your input in the comments section today.

        1. Autogatos

          I can’t follow the threading so not sure if this was directed at me or someone else, but if me, then thank you! I dunno what the right answers are, and don’t think there necessarily are set right answers here, so I’m mostly just musing based on my own experiences with similar stuff when I was Joyce’s age.

  58. crow

    Theyre like pinworms

  59. The Oracle

    Maybe Joyce’s current crisis isn’t a good reason to treat her like a difficult toddler? Just a thought. People are constantly saying “These characters are adults”, so maybe we could treat her as an adult who’s still having a difficult time adjusting to her new environment? Anxiety and freakouts aren’t “childish”, they’re not age restricted. It’s been 12 years for us humans, but it’s only been a scant few months for the characters. Can anybody here really say they completely reinvented their entire self in just half a year, with no speed bumps or difficulty adjusting? I really doubt it, and I sometimes wonder if y’all apply these lofty standards to people in your actual day-to-day lives. Somehow I still doubt it, so the level of vitriol and grandstanding over what’s clearly an ongoing panic attack, it seems like there’s a disconnect there.

    That’s not a judgement, I’m just often confused by people’s reactions. Confusion isn’t condemnation, I feel the need to clarify that.

    1. Autogatos

      I can’t speak for everyone but my comments on Joyce being exasperating lately are not actually me saying “Omg why is she acting like this she needs to grow up already.” Her behavior is very very normal and expected considering her age and circumstances. It’s more just me reflecting on the growth I went through as someone who was a lot like her. Kind of reflecting on the flaws of my younger self with the benefit of age and distance and recognizing why those around her might be frustrated with her atm.

      When I say she is being super difficult I am saying it entirely out of sympathy, if that makes sense. I remember going through similar things. And would not judge a person IRL negatively for being like this, but might talk about how I went through similar stuff and talk about the realizations I had to come to in order to get past it.

  60. Carms

    Ah, the phase of a depression session where you actively try to push support away cos fuck them and also you don’t deserve them. Passed through there again myself this Monday! Good memories. (bad memories)

    1. Alex

      I think maybe Joyce just resents the intrusion into her personal life. She didn’t ask anyone to help her with this and suddenly everyone has a lot of opinions about it.

      1. Carms

        Haha u rite I rong silly billy

  61. Nicoleandmaggie

    This is so realistic!

    And it’s hard to know what to do in this kind of situation, when someone you care about is hurting but isn’t taking steps to make it better. I’m not sure there is a perfect response.

    Also I feel like there’s a good butt stuff joke in here but I can’t figure it out. Maybe I didn’t know Joyce was so into butt stuff?

    1. Autogatos

      This spot on. I think a lot of people are trying to say what the right answer is and I don’t know if there is a right answer. It’s hard to know what to do in this situation. Both Joyce and her friends are just messily trying to work it out.

      1. Sam

        Pretty much and honestly, I think the answer would more vary case by case and person by person.

        Joyce likely wouldn’t have bothered to fix things if people didn’t push her. If her friends didn’t even try, people also would have likely called them unempathetic dicks because Joyce has a lot of issues and could use the support. Some people will be grateful if you push them ultimately and thank you for not letting them spiral or get stuck in a pit.

        But ultimately in most cases, even if you want to push and force someone, you don’t have the right to. They are allowed to choose suffering and to be miserable. You cannot force someone to take their meds, to get the psych help they need, to go to the doctor etc. and if you try to or do, they are allowed to be unhappy about it.

        But you also don’t have to put up with their misery and may distance yourself because it is hard to be close to someone who is unwilling to look after themselves.

    2. Alex

      Yeah exactly! It’s easy to say someone should handle something another way, but that’s likely to cause problems of a different sort. For a long time Dorothy didn’t get involved or try to solve this problem, and now she is. Neither approach is perfect and they cause problems for Joyce in different ways.

  62. Fetch85

    Fun fact: Once Upon a time there was an entire (scripted world’s worst) transformers convention inside David Willis’ butthole.

  63. Zaxares

    Is… Is this gonna turn into some weirdly specific fetish for you, Joyce? XD

  64. Grayfinity

    Both sides have a point and both sides suck at this. We wouldn’t be going through this if CAROL DID HER JOB AS A MOTHER.

    1. Taffy

      We’d have a lot less problems in the world, I think, if more parents would do their fucking job.

      1. Joy

        Seconded.

  65. spriteless_auntie

    You know, I remember someone in my family complaining constantly about his chipped tooth and never going to fix it. Well, he’s lost that tooth and the one next to it but at least he doesn’t complain constantly.

    The moral of the story? idk sometimes things suck and the most you can do is say “you can fix it yourself you know or please stop complaining” and ya just have to hope their mandible doesn’t get infected.

  66. Smooti

    joyce has a bit of a point, dorothy tends to be a bit… overbearingly mothering to her loved ones, for both the good and bad of that.

    but also joyce has been a… difficult person to be around lately, too, and she needs to not be taking out her emotions on others

  67. Username Taken

    Joyce is venting about more than just the meds, right? This is about losing her faith, skipping classes for a day, insulting Christianity, arguing with Becky, insulting Dina, needing meds, getting a referral for a possible autism diagnosis, and her closest circle of friends getting on her case about ALL of it.

    I think it’s ultimately a good thing that Dorothy pushed Joyce to take care of herself. It just might have been one intrusion too many, even if it was a well-intentioned and possibly necessary one for Joyce’s health.

    1. Alex

      Yeah it’s probably about more than just this one thing.

  68. RassilonTDavros

    2007(?) Dorothy and 2010 Dorothy kinda look like they’re checking each other out in her banner variant.

  69. Keulen

    The metaphor may be getting a bit weird, but Joyce isn’t wrong.

  70. Fuzzy

    This problem can be fixed next week. The choice between “get this done today” and “give up and let Joyce suffer every other month forevermore” is a false one.

    “This is always gonna suck” is not a good reason to do something as soon as humanly possible. Sucking is relative. Sometimes it will still suck later but not as much.

    Since the first few are sugar pills, this happening today is not materially any better than it happening in three days. But even if they weren’t sugar pills, medication like this generally doesn’t act that quickly. If they want to fix the Right Now problem, they’re better off buying some chewable painkillers. The long-term solution can wait.

    1. Alex

      I think there may be a certain element of “if we let her delay now, she’ll delay forever”. And I think there is some truth in that. It’s usually better to get unpleasant things over with. But I also understand the perspective that it could have waited a few days until she didn’t have horrible cramps.

    2. thejeff

      On the Doylist level, all the tension goes away if this doesn’t get addressed until next year.

  71. Nyx

    (1) Joyce wasn’t given agency to do this on her own time/schedule. Jennifer offered help and got her through the doctor’s appointment without forcing her to do anything. Nobody since then has asked Joyce if she wants help.
    (2) This could have waited a week when she could not be in *agonizing pain* to have happened, but she was strong-armed into doing it immediately. Gross.
    (3) All Joyce wants is to be left alone to cope with the pain and nobody will give that to her. Of course she’s going to be upset when people refuse to let her be.
    (4) I can’t wait until Dorothy gets seriously checked (probably by a yelling Joyce if I had to guess) about making decisions *for* Joyce. As many people have been saying for a while, she’s not Joyce’s parent. She should be making suggestions and giving information to Joyce, but not forcing her to immediately do things she’s not comfortable with or informed about.
    (5) Mental health stigma and incorrect stereotypes piss me off like nothing else and I feel like Dorothy is using the *possible* autism diagnosis (Remember, she’s only gotten a referral. I agree it’s likely, but not yet confirmed.) to justify continuing to baby Joyce… I get why, it’s a common mistake that people make when confronted with something they don’t have knowledge about and don’t inform themselves fully before reacting. But the big (relatable) oof is there. Oooooooo

  72. Tama

    This is legitimately one of those times where you spin someone around, slap them in the face, and tell them, “THEN STOP ACTING LIKE A CHILD IN CONSTANT NEED OF SUPERVISION.”

    Joyce is being absolutely extra here and it’s definitely wearing thin on even the most caring and patient of her friends.

  73. zee

    Haven’t seen anyone mention it so here’s a break from the discussion with some fun news: the queen is dead!

    1. milu

      yay =P

      hey, she was technically your queen too, right? isn’t jamaica in the commonwealth? anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      anyway, here’s some mighty talented lads tap dancing to “Another One Bites The Dust” in front of Buckingham Palace, that’s appropriate

      1. The Wellerman

        fucking PERFECT!!! ??

        Thanks for sharing Milu!

      2. zee

        Unfortunately
        That’s why I’m celebrating ?
        I hope she reunites happily with her dear beloved cousin Phil in hell

        1. Doom Shepherd

          Much edge. So Lordy. Wow.

        2. David M Willis

          never in my life have i seen such an incredible misreading of what “edgelord” means — a term that’s usually directed at privileged people on the top smugly punching down with shock humor at those who rarely have station to respond on equal footing — directed at the resident of a colony towards their unelected imperialist overlord who literally lived in several castles

  74. Perdellian

    Oh, so is that what the kids are calling it these days?

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