200

Creeak
Posted on April 24, 2022 by David M Willis
gonna launch the book 11 crowdfunding MONDAY, y'all, meaning sunday at midnight, aka tonight, just so you folks know here's the pre-launch page, where you can sign up to be notified when it goes live

200 thoughts on “Creeak”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    I wouldn’t have figured Becky to even damn straight but I get it, I’ve done this myself

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      So how long did you hold out? Better than Becky’s 15 seconds?

      1. Thag Simmons

        Becky made it at least a few hours through virtue of not interacting with anyone she could brag too

      2. Ana Chronistic

        I don’t remember how long it took to load my computer back in the day, but first person who logged on

    2. Rex Vivat

      Yeah, the amount of damn varies on denomination, but there’s nothing straight about it at all.

  2. The Wellerman

    You really said that in front of your arch-nemesis, Becky?!?! ?

    Do you have a brain worm, or is it just ME?!?! HA HA HA

    ? ??? ??? ??? ?

    Parasite Powers: SECRET SIPHONING!!!

    *plays “Youma Attack” from Sailor Moon CD on hacked muzak*

    1. BarerMender

      Highly suggestive of The Theme from Peter Gunn.

      1. Taffy

        A lot of anime from Back In The Day, the composers would sometimes get a little lazy and “accidentally” steal a Queen song. I think an element of it has to do with temp tracks often being licensed music and the higher-ups just lazily saying “Make it sound like this” without thinking.

    2. Opus the Poet

      Like Cowboy BeBop, they didn’t scrimp on the sound track.

  3. Darkoneko

    Well that went from 0 to 100 in a microsecond

    1. Doctor_Who

      Becky in a nutshell.

      1. The Wellerman

        so much for post-NUT clarity ?

    2. Decidedly Orthogonal

      It takes time to appreciate it fully. It’s subtle. Like nuclear supercriticality, or a solar flare observed from the corona of Sol.

  4. Sirksome

    Good to see Becky can stick to a plan!

  5. Kyrik Michalowski

    I get the feeling that Becky couldn’t comtain the news any longer. To be fair, she was strong for those first 15 seconds, so we know she tried.

    1. The Wellerman

      Well just to be fair, Becky DOES have the added handicap of dealing with at least one brain worm right now, which may or may not be myself. ?

  6. Thag Simmons

    And that’s the sort of subtlety we’ve come to expect from Becky

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      She really did try but Becky’s natural lesbian instincts were too strong to hold it back.

  7. Yotomoe

    Walky/Billie WIP3
    https://imgur.com/a/4GlPY26
    Missed a night. Now I’m getting a bit looser with it. Still a while before we get to any actual sexy bits but buildup is half the fun!

    1. Sirksome

      I think you’ve nailed the characterization of these two. Billie would totally call out Walky for not having the gauchos to make a move even on his girlfriend. And they have proven to be this causal about their platonic intimacy in the past. Although it might not be platonic for much longer.

      1. Yotomoe

        Keeping the characters incredibly really close to canon is my favorite. What’s the point of lewding a character if they have to be out of character!? CHARACTER IS THE SEXIEST PART.

        1. The Wellerman

          ☝️ THIS

        2. Darkoneko

          THIIIIS

        3. Rose by Any Other Name

          This.
          So much this.

    2. The Wellerman

      Looks really tasty, human! ?

      Enjoy Toonami!!! ?

    3. Kyrik Michalowski

      I’m excited, Billie is pretty and Walky is cute, the perfect storm for porn creation.

      1. newlland(Henryvolt)

        Back in the day before Billie & Ruth became a strong power couple and Dorothy & Walky where falling madly in love at times I wondered what their kid would look like.

    4. newlland(Henryvolt)

      The build up when down right often is the best part.

    5. Rose by Any Other Name

      Lovin this so far. ^^

    6. DEAD MEME

      I don’t know the context for this, but I’m intrigued! Is this gonna be available anywhere when it’s done?

      1. Yotomoe

        I mean I’m posting it here! and on Imgur! I am considering making a twitter for all my DOA stuff though. Whaddya think?

        1. The Wellerman

          Excellent idea Yoto! ?

        2. newlland(Henryvolt)

          DoA fanart Twitter page, nice.

        3. aelfwine

          Anywhere we can see it all together, or ought we go link-hunting?

        4. Rose by Any Other Name

          I’ve been collecting all the links in open tabs as they come and replacing the WIPs with inked as they come out.

        5. Needfuldoer

          Twitter? Tumblr? Bueller?

    7. Taffy

      We do love some casual wake-up sass.

      1. Yotomoe

        And casual wake-up ass!
        …
        I mean I didn’t draw any yet but it’s coming!

    8. Amós Batista

      Just loved the Billie’s face in the first panel.

  8. Mr. Random

    Endorphins are still running high I see.

    1. Amós Batista

      Sex was really really awesome for their.

  9. Yumi

    Damn, that’s cute.

    1. Thag Simmons

      These two have been consistently extremely cute for what, seven years at this point?

      1. pope suburban

        And now Dorothy is adding to the cute too. Her face in that last panel is great. It really shows the best of her character, that she’s someone who cares deeply for others and their happiness. This room is filled with adorable people.

  10. thakoru

    I know I’m a bit late on this observation, but it merits saying multiple times that “damn fucking straight” may not be quite the right choice of words in this instance.

    1. Yumi

      Shout out to when I was at an LGBTQ+ camp and, when giving directions, “go straight” would be replaced by “continue gayly forward.”

      1. The Wellerman

        Oh yes human! This gay energy is delightful! Keep it coming! ?

        ? A little song for your reward:

        *plays “What Are You Waiting For” by MLCD on hacked muzak*

      2. Needfuldoer

        Go forward!

        Move ahead!

        Try to detect it!

        It’s not too late!

      3. Nova

        I am stealing this.

      4. Bicycle Bill

        Seven syllables (continue gayly forward) instead of two (go straight)?  That is just mind-fuckery and word-play on a magnitude yet immeasurable by modern scientific instrumentation.

        And just to be pedantic, the word is correctly spelled ‘gaily’.

        1. Nova

          Yeah, but if you say it quickly enough those extra syllables don’t count.

        2. Sev

          And if you say it loud enough you’ll always sound precocious~

        3. Yumi

          “And just to be pedantic, the word is correctly spelled ‘gaily”

          Yeah, uh, not in this case.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      I mean, if we take “fucking straight” to mean “heterosexual sex,” we could potentially interpret this as Becky damning, in the colloquial “to hell with” sense, straight relationships in favor of lesbian ones. Which, considering the sheer levels of comp-het she grew up in, would make perfect sense.

      This has been another exciting adventure of Captain Taking-Things-Way-Too-Literally.

  11. Taffy

    Oh, what the fuck. Suddenly I’m a fan of Becky now. It’s the grin, gotta be.

  12. Nono

    I honestly can’t blame Becky for this one.

  13. BBCC

    I love Dorothy. Evidentially, despite loving to give her shit, so does Becky, else she would’ve ACTUALLY kept this secret from her.

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      There’s also the chance she told Dorothy first because Dorothy was the closest person.

      1. BBCC

        I could see Becky telling someone she hated out of spite, but she seems pretty genuinely happy and celebratory here, so I stand by my take 😛

  14. Friendly Frankenstein

    I love these two.

    And on a related note, one of my Parent(nb!)’s old queer friends in the 80s, whenever someone would say ‘straight’ as in ‘okay now go straight down this road’ would always theatrically go

    Oh NO, darling! *Always* forward, NEVER straight!

    and I just love that, and use it myself.

    1. Yumi

      Oh, wow, should have saved my little “gayly forward” anecdote to reply to this one with. But yeah. I know those vibes.

      1. Shadowsnail

        If everyone started using the math class definition of “line”, then we’d never have to tell people to walk in a straight line. Then we could start using “queue” like British people.

        1. ValdVin

          That’s right in line (segments) with the classic Second City sketch “Football at the University of Chicago”.

  15. King Daniel

    “HEY GUESS WHAT, I’M A FUCKING-LESBIAN!”

    1. Opus the Poet

      And a lesbian fucking. Sorry, didn’t see the hyphen until after I started to post.

    2. Deanatay

      “Hrm, where can I hide my current virginity status? I know, I’ll hide it in this CLOSET, next to my sexual alignment. No one will find it here!”

  16. not someone else

    And all was right with the world. (Until next strip, anyway.)

  17. Owlmirror

    Had Becky dropped F-bombs before this?

    1. Taffy

      Yes.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      Yeah, she has. While she doesn’t drop them all the time, she’s never been particularly averse to using them– or at least not to the same extent that Joyce is.

    3. John Campbell

      Yep. This is #7 and #8.

      (If you hover over the bars in the upper part, it’ll do popups that show when and for what each segment of the bar was earned.)

      1. The Wellerman

        Quite some dedication you got there! My compliments to the coder!

        1. John Campbell

          Ages ago, way back around Family Weekend, I made a comment that Billie said “fuck” more than everyone else in the comic put together, with the disclaimer that I hadn’t actually counted. Then I got curious and actually went through and counted. Keeping it up to date since then is pretty trivial. I’m checking the comic every night anyway, so it’s just a few minutes work to add the line and update appearance counts when someone actually drops an F-bomb. PHP does all the heavy lifting.

          (Turns out that at the time I made the comment, it wasn’t correct. Ethan’s mom had put “everyone else” over the top a little earlier. But for a lot of the early comic, Billie actually was beating out everyone else combined.)

        2. Jungle Dwayne

          Thank you for the work you put in this. I think Dina’s count should be 0, not 1, because she doesn’t use the word “fuck”, she mentions it (just like I’m doing right now). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction

        3. King Daniel

          The count counts every time the word passes the characters’ lips (or fingers for sign language, especially in Marcie’s case), regardless of circumstance. If you “mentioned” the word verbally, it would very definitely count as an example of you saying the word in a literal sense.

        4. John Campbell

          My criteria for counting doesn’t judge the purpose of saying the word. If a character says it in a mainline strip (not a Patreon bonus or Slipshine or whatever), and all four letters are present and at least legible, they get a point. (I made allowances for Marcie on that front.) I didn’t count the time Carla was wearing a shirt that said “FUCK HUMANS” on it, partly because I couldn’t figure out how I should count it… just once? Every panel it was visible? Each strip she wore it in? I think I did count a text message once, though.

          Sal only got partial credit for that one F-MIRV strike, because a lot of the theoretical F-bombs were partially or entirely obscured, and Joyce doesn’t get a half-point for that time she said, “FUUUUUUUUUUU…” But Dina gets a point for saying it even if it was just in reference, and Walky gets a point for that one time when he was just directly quoting Billie.

          Say it as an expletive, say it literally (like Jennifer a few days ago), say it in reference, say it quoting someone else who said it, say it in discussing whether someone else actually technically said it or not… if you said it, and we can see in the strip that you said it, you get a point.

  18. Kitschensyngk

    “HEY GUESS WHAT! I’M STILL A LESBIAN!”

  19. DailyBrad

    I am glad Becky is not keeping it *too* secret.

  20. The Wellerman

    Humans… go figure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  21. nothri

    Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead and the other one isn’t Becky.

    1. thejeff

      It’s interesting because Becky can keep secrets, despite her outward facade. This seems to have just bubbled over. Not used to keeping happy secrets, maybe.

      1. Needfuldoer

        She keeps things secret when doing so is to her benefit. She hates being out of the loop herself.

        She’s just lucky that Dina was following her lead on this anyway. She would’ve been hurt by Becky just blurting this out to someone (even someone as trustworthy as Dorothy) if she wanted to keep it on the down-low herself. And conversely, Becky would’ve felt like Dina trampled her autonomy if Dina told someone else and word got back around to her.

        (It’s understandable, since keeping secrets for survival’s sake and “you don’t need to know” were such a big part of her life until the last 6 months or so. She just needs to get a better handle on nuance in these situations, rather than falling back into her loud, brash, impulsive masking strategy.)

        1. StClair

          see also: Jim Kirk, in the first and second of the new Trek movies.

  22. AbacusWizard

    Looking forward to seeing Dina try to follow Becky’s lead.

  23. Taffy

    Almost like the whole thing was always an excuse to justify people getting their way. Hm. Fancy that.

  24. Sirksome

    I just gotta say that this entire comic and especially the last panel is a perfect example of how Becky’s relationship with her religion was always in a much healthier place than Joyce’s ever was.

    1. Joyfulldreams

      Uh. I dunno. This doesn’t seem super healthy to me, feeling compelled to follow these bizarre restrictions that you very much don’t want to follow, obligated to feel guilt over things you enjoy, only ALLOWED to enjoy something if you partake in performative guilt and shame afterward, like. Saying you want one thing and then immediately contradicting yourself in the next moment with barely a beat in between.

      Like, nothing about that seems healthy to me? It’s just more flexible, but that in of itself is not necessarily BETTER or HEALTHIER.

    2. Joyfulldreams

      Like. Lets not sit here and somehow BLAME Joyce becoming an atheist on the fact that “her faith wasn’t healthy”, like, “oh you’re only an atheist because you believed wrong”. BOTH Joyce and Becky were raised in a cult and abused. Neither is better than the other, neither is “””more healthy”””, they are just responding differently to the situations they grew up in, and are responding differently now to the new situation they are in. That’s it.

      1. Cerusee

        I try to remind myself on a regular basis that Joyce and Becky’s respective paths out of the cult-upbringing that is evangelical Christian fundamentalism are meant to illustrate and contrast and that neither, contrary to the bizarre hot takes popular among the commentariat, is likely intended to Really Show Up Those Weak-Willed Atheists Who Just Didn’t Have REAL Faith in the Crunch *or* to illustrate like, UGH, the SICKening hyPOcrisy of people who feel strong religious faith even outside the confines of dogma when everyone one knows that real religious faith is determined by your ability to believe exactly one thing your entire life without nuance, exception, or evolution.

        People reeeeeeeally do bring their personal agendas when they’re reading this strip. I mean, it’s a testament to the power of the narrative and the relevance of the subject matter, that it gets folks this hot and bothered, but man is it exhausting.

        (If I see one more person characterize Joyce’s religious faith as “fragile” or “weak” because it was broken, especially in comparison to Becky, I’m going to fucking snap, though. It’s pejorative, and holy shit is it victim-blamey, especially when you’re talking about a person who is a) walking away from her lifelong faith community, in an immensely painful process of exploring and re-defining herself, after realizing she could not reconcile herself to the immense harms caused by that faith community, and b) dealing with the shattering realization that her sense of kinship with her faith community WAS the part of it that felt to her like a connection to the divine—and without the kinship, there was no deeper sense of God after all, no personal relationship with God that she could carry away with her outside of her church. Like oh my effing—do you have any idea of the courage and the integrity that it requires, to actually choose to go through that process. To actually let yourself *feel that kind of profound doubt*! That shit is TERRIFYING. To be able to actually say, “I don’t know” when you’ve been raised in a worldview that insists that it knows all the answers! I just…absolutely despise the implication, when people describe Joyce’s faith as being, like, shattered because it was so rigid, because she never REALLY believed in God, she didn’t have real faith, only rules, that her current unhappiness is her own fault, because *real* faith could persist through any trial. Yes Joyce likes rules! But she doesn’t value rules over her bone-deep sense of right and wrong, and that is what broke her away from her faith community in the fucking first place! She’s experiencing very literal nihilism—the sense that everything is meaningless, that there is no right or wrong—in this sudden disconnection from the strict rule system she was immersed in literally since infancy—but the impulses inside her that pushed her to challenge her family, her faith community, and that highly elaborate system of rules in first place are still very much alive and active. That’s why Joyce freaked out at the idea that the fluidity of sexual identity meant she could have “fixed” (read: harmed) Ethan when she dated him to guide him back to heterosexuality. Joyce’s faith is in fact bone-deep and it’s not even close to being broken. It’s just that she didn’t know what it *was*. She’s a deeply kind person who wants to be a force of good in the world; she believes that is possible and a thing worth pursuing. *That* is her faith. That is who Joyce has always been. She was raised in a religion that claimed to value that, and promised that the way to do it was to follow its rules. What Joyce is going through right now is the process of disconnecting that religion, which is not at all what it promised her that it would be, from being the person that she wants to be—from the person that somewhere, deep inside her, she knows that she already is.)

        1. thejeff

          Don’t have anything to add really, but also don’t have a like button.:)

          Very nice analysis of Joyce that catches some of my problems with other takes on her in a way I hadn’t really put together.

        2. Spencer

          I also give this comment an A+.

          I get the feeling way too many people here don’t get, and never really got, the sheer depth of “I need this to be factually real” Joyce had going on, like to them it’s just “oh the Christian girl went into the real world and lost her faith,” and so Joyce’s behaviour now is some kind of overreaction and not an expression of the collapse of her entire worldview.

          I’m not religious, I haven’t had faith since I was 12, but I get the rigid adherence to a kind of dogma where some things need to be real to function.

        3. StClair

          I just think of her borderline OCD with food. It puts a lot of things in perspective.

        4. Spencer

          I just…absolutely despise the implication, when people describe Joyce’s faith as being, like, shattered because it was so rigid, because she never REALLY believed in God, she didn’t have real faith, only rules, that her current unhappiness is her own fault, because *real* faith could persist through any trial.

          Ah, missed this part.

          I’ve definitely said “Joyce did not have faith, she had rules” as a shortform way to express that it was about rigid literalist thinking. It “wasn’t faith” in the sense that God was as real as the dinosaurs on the ark, the same way I don’t “have faith” in math. God was inerrantly real until he wasn’t anymore, and I don’t think that made things easier on Joyce becoming an atheist, like “oh X is wrong so Y is right,” but that no longer believing in God has been something that’s been absurdly, crushingly painful to her since it robbed of her a foundation of stability she used to rely on.

          I definitely do not view it as a matter of “real faith persevering” or anything like that, mind, let alone that her current distress is her fault, but I do view the crux of Joyce’s belief in God was about it lining up as inerrant fact. I think describing it as nihilism is actually really apt for Joyce right now, considering that she’s outright stated that the person she is didn’t matter since Heaven and Hell aren’t real.

      2. Opus the Poet

        Yeah, if you’re going to use multiple quotes like that you might wanna use a little HTML on the left side &“ to get the left quotes in a row and not look wonky. “

        1. Opus the Poet

          OK to many ampersands in that “ should look better.

        2. Opus the Poet

          Dingbats & #8220;

          If that doesn’t work the code is ampersand#8220; then close quotes per usual with the comments software which puts close quotes after every open quote.

        3. Needfuldoer

          Whether thy quotes be curly or straight, thou must always use them in pairs, lest others be left bewildered as to where the quotation shall end.

          -Dingbats 82:20

      3. Sirksome

        Uh…I feel like you’ve put some words in my mouth that I never said. I don’t blame Joyce atheism at all on her not being a healthy enough Christian.

        What I’m saying is that Becky’s approach to religion is a more mentally healthy way of reconciling it. The fact that she is willing to reflect on her “sins” without feeling such paralyzing guilt. Joyce still feels uncomfortable even glancing at a guy in his underwear because of the internalized guilt of “sin” even being an atheist now. That’s how badly her upbringing effed her up. Becky can commit a sin and still function, still decide what that means to her. She’s not so all or nothing, I like the word “flexible” you used. It’s important with anything you believe in to not let it completely define you, and that’s what Joyce had done with her Christianity much like the mini arc with Liz and her fear that’s how her friends perceived her. And that is not healthy, but that’s not Joyce’s fault. On not blaming her atheism on some personal failure of her faith.

        1. Joyfulldreams

          Okay, but you’re still using extremely victim blamey language here. Like with the phrasing that Joyce “let” her faith define her. She didn’t “let” her faith define her, she was literally forced to do that because of how she was raised and indoctrinated into an abusive cult that would have completely ostracized her or maybe even physically hurt her if she hadn’t found SOME way to reconcile all of the bullshit they required her to believe.

          Like it’s really strange how you feel the need to compare them at ALL in this way, pointing out that Becky’s is healthy and therefore Joyce’s wasn’t? Making the comparison at all implies you’re putting Joyce down in some way, out of nowhere.

          Also Becky literally IS still fairly All Or Nothing, though, she just keeps flip-flopping between All and Nothing like, constantly.

        2. Sirksome

          The original intent of my comment was just to make an observation that Becky is capable of evaluating her connection with faith in a way Joyce wasn’t. It wasn’t to put down Joyce in anyway.

          I will take more careful consideration of the language I use in my comments in the future. The last thing I want to imply is blame on Joyce for her forced religious upbringing.

          That being said I feel you chose to take my original comment as the worst interpretation of my words and implied things that I didn’t intend. I just found the situation intriguing not that Becky was somehow better than Joyce for retaining her religion, just that Becky had a healthier approach to analyzing it.

          I do think self-evaluation in general is a healthier mindset to have than Joyce’s deeply internalized guilt. I have no idea how to articulate that more accurately without apparently sounding judgmental and dismissive of Joyce’s abuse.

          I don’t thing Becky is as black and white as you believe. I think the whole story arc she and Dina just went through highlights that fact.

        3. Spencer

          Becky’s black and white in the sense that she’s shown to be really rigid about stuff that works for and against her.

          Joyce has to be my buffer and cannot exist in any other context. She should have ditched the unimportant stuff and just focused on what mattered, which is entirely up to me and liable to change at my discretion (and my discretion is my girlfriend’s hat). Leslie has a girlfriend, which means I am going to get thrown out now that I’m in the way. Joyce likes Dorothy, which means she is a friend-stealing hussy and is overreacting about Joyce needing glasses.

          Or to put it another way: I think Becky’s really black and white with her thinking when it involves her faith, and her faith is an expression of her need for safety and stability that she’s been robbed of. She’s able to easily* adjust thinking if it comes to her benefit, but less so when it challenges her status quo. I think she likes Dorothy now, for example, because Dorothy stopped being a threat after the glasses thing, and she used to be fearful of how she couldn’t provoke lust in Dina until Leslie explained the ace spectrum to her, and once it stopped being Dina’s “fault” it started being Becky’s sinful loins to blame.

    3. Sombrero

      Don’t know if “healthier” is the right word here. They are certainly different, and the narrative is showing both of them going to healthier places that they were before following different paths. Becky’s attitude seems currently kind of more positive, but this could well just be because of her impulsive and proactive personality or it could be the result of having the advantage of a solid companion in Dina, someone Joyce is still lacking.

      1. JBento

        And also because, you know, everybody in-comic is supporting Becky (including Joyce) while Joyce is being told “this change you’re making is bad and invalid and bad” by everyone (especially Becky and except Walky).

        1. Daibhid C

          Can you remind me when Joyce supported Becky? Was it after the massive row where she said Becky should also be atheist, but before she told Sarah that of course Becky was going to realise religion was for idiots eventually?

        2. Spencer

          The… the part where Joyce rescued her from homelessness, then a kidnapping attempt, then protected her from her mom and their congregation back home, then hid her in her dorm for months until Becky started finding other places to crash, and then got kidnapped herself for knowing Becky.

          Those all feel like support.

        3. JBento

          And besides the parts Spencer pointed out, when Joyce extended an olive branch to Becky in the form of dinner. It still counts, even though Becky immediately set that olive branch on fire and then hit Joyce in the face with it.

        4. alongcameaspider

          After their discussion in the restaurant they both made it clear they weren’t going to change for the other

          Joyce has thus far respected that

          Becky has not

      2. Sirksome

        I think “healthier” is exactly the right word, I’m not sure what else applies. More flexible is also accurate, but to be clear I never wanted to imply “healthier” as “better” I don’t know how people just went to that. I swear I didn’t mean to start a whole thing with my comment. By “healthier” I just meant more well-adjusted, more comfortable with reflecting on her sin without blaming herself. For example I feel like if Joyce was still Christian she’d rather stay a virgin till marriage, than risk re-analyzing herself after sinning. I feel like that would’ve been a much bigger crisis for Joyce, kind of like the potential of sin was for Liz.

        1. Needfuldoer

          It’s “healthier” in the sense that it’s “less unhealthy”.

      3. Cerusee

        I think rather than “healthier” I would describe Becky’s current approach as “less painful for her, right now, than Joyce’s approach is for Joyce, right now,” a distinction absolutely with a difference.

        It’s a bit of a mental trap to assume that immediate or short-term comfort or happiness is the most important indicator of whether your methods for handling conflict/trauma are healthy/good/right/optimal. (And this is without even going down the rabbit hole that is emotional masking for other people’s benefit. Making the people around you feel comfortable at all times should not be your highest priority!)

        Some experiences are so wrenchingly destructive, so terrible to undergo, so traumatic to the psyche, that there is no way to survive and process them that will not involve serious pain. I mean this very literally, in the sense of the stuff often *happening inside your brain*—chemical stuff, physical stuff—while you are going through experiences like that. You cannot the-power-of-positive-thinking your way past brain chemicals. Many have tried! It’s a bad plan.

        Becky and Joyce come from a similar background, but they are different people and they’re handling things in their own ways, using the respective toolsets they currently each have available to them. (I will…refrain from the sub-essay on THAT topic.) Super interesting to contrast these traumatized 19-year-olds! I think that’s the point of having them both here, intersecting! I wish people would stop trying to use them against one another for comparative morality, though, as I think that’s NOT the point. (Also, it’s gross. It’s like hauling up a multi-sibling family where the kids all suffered abuse from their parents, and assigning them game show points for “cut all ties” or “still talks to mom, but not dad” or “got hit the most” or “got hit the least but if I leave, mom will lose the family home and it will be all my fault”. None of it’s good, y’all.)

    4. Spencer

      I mean, they had the same one until Becky rolled in from Anderson.

      Like it hasn’t really been spoken aloud yet, but the only reason Becky had the luxury to keep her faith was because Joyce saved her life. If Joyce rejected her, would she still be a Christian, or was Joyce saving her the proof of God’s love that Becky needed to go “my dad is wrong, Joyce is right”?

      1. JBento

        I think one of the parts Becky’s still keeping from her religious upbringing is that one that Joyce brought up in the early days of the comic: “all good things you do are god acting through you”. You can see it when she says that god sent her an awesome girlfriend and a superhero to save her life. It’s not Dina that’s interested in her, it’s god that made Dina interested in her. Amazi-Girl isn’t actually a hero because it wasn’t her that made the decision to risk her life to save Becky, it was god that mde her do it. It’s sort of the reverse of that little Bible-made-up tidbit a bunch of people like to forget where the pharaoh was totally ok with the jews fucking off wherever, but god mindcontrolled him to say no (guess god’s respect for free will that christians like to harp on about to justify why an omnipotent benevolent entity would still let horrible shit happen to innocent people is only valid when it means, well, that horrible shit gets to happen to innocent people).

        In the same vein, it wouldn’t really be Joyce doing all those things, it was god acting through her.

        1. Spencer

          I do actually believe this as part of Becky’s character, maybe not in the same wording.

          Joyce saving her is proof of God’s love and that Becky is completely correct to feel comfort and stability after a nightmarish year that starts with the death of her mother and capped with the death of her father. God, to Becky, is unending love, but Joyce broke the script because Joyce isn’t a Christian anymore and Becky can’t square “Joyce loves me” with “this isn’t my Joyce.”

          She’s cripplingly dependent on Joyce existing in one state forever where Becky has constant access to her time, attention and even her thoughts, because that Joyce needs to exist for Becky to process the rest of the world and go through it thinking “I’m gonna see my mom again, my last memory of her will not be finding her body.” I don’t necessarily think of it as “All the good is just God moving his puppets around” so much as every act of good in Becky’s direction done by good people is proof that God is in her corner, and Joyce stepping out of her box is the biggest possible dent in that rigid thinking.

          And it’s nonsense, of course it is. Joyce loves Becky because she’s Joyce, but Becky can’t think of it that way because she’s just as trapped in rigidly All or Nothing fundie thinking as Joyce.

  25. brionl

    Well, I can see that she really wanted to tell someone. And Dorothy probably won’t go blabbing it around, so kinda still on the DL. Medium low?
    Depending on how loud she was shouting just now and/or how much noise they made last night.

  26. ADLegend21

    lmao, her need to brag to Dotty has superceeded her desire to still be a good christian girl

  27. Kaffeeteria

    I’m glad that Becky doesn’t need to pray to find out what the premarital hankypanky means to her.
    God, since he doesn’t exist, won’t answer her prayer, so I’m looking forward to a bright future for Dina and her.

  28. huehuetotl

    I know the creak serves a narrative purpose, but I bet Carla has some WD-40, fix it right up.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Carla would scoff at using WD-40 as a mechanical lubricant. That stuff’s for cracking rusty bolts loose and temporary fixes.

      Use Tri-Flow or motorcycle chain lube for door hinges.

      1. The Wellerman

        You really seem to know your stuff!

        Is that the kind of work you do at the TV station?

        1. Needfuldoer

          You haven’t lived until you’ve put a $5,000 fluid head under a drill press because one of the brass knobs busted off and you have to get the broken part out with a screw extractor.

  29. Wraithy2773

    Maybe, but Liberal Religious Folk tend to include “not using their faith as a cudgel to be a complete fucking asshole to marginalized people” in things.

    Like, I get being annoyed by them picking and choosing, but lets not “both sides” this whole thing.

    1. JBento

      And yet, Becky has made a whole fucking thing about Joyce no longer being religious.

      1. thejeff

        It’s not like Becky is a particularly good example of a “liberal religious person”. She was raised in a fundamentalist church and has little if any exposure to liberal Christianity. She’s a recovering fundie, not part of any liberal religious tradition.

    2. Spencer

      Pffffft yeah they do.

      It’s just expressed as “I’m not actively attempting to murder you because I’m a Good Christian, that means you’re not allowed to criticize my institution of cultural genocide. Also I voted Conservative last provincial election but don’t get mad at me for that I’m totally okay with the gay thing.”

      1. JBento

        Like, literally every catholic is supporting an organisation that is anti-choice, homophobic, transphobic, and enables pedophiles.

        1. Spencer

          Yes but look at this way: have you considered that saying this makes you the real bigot? It’s important that we quantify right now that being reminded of the oppression and violence inflicted by the cultural face that my personal relationship with the spiritual draws from is, actually, you trying to blame me for every single act of bullshit levied at every single queer person in North America in history, when what we should be focusing on is that it’s not my fault and, really, I’m the victim because those mean nasty guys are making my faith look bad.

        2. Needfuldoer

          You’re acting that role a little too well…

          It scares me.

        3. thejeff

          And seriously? The Catholic Church is a lot of things, but “liberal” is not really one of them.

        4. JBento

          Not that I disagree, but you wouldn’t think it with how much people gush about the current pope.

      2. King Daniel

        “Also I voted conservative last election…”

        I think you misread part of the description you’re replying to. Though you always take the worst interpretations of everything and everyone, so I shouldn’t be surprised really. I don’t even know at this point why I’m replying to someone who’s unironically used the “no, everyone else is wrong” meme line to describe their own opinions in the comments section.

        1. King Daniel

          (I reserve the right to walk back the severity of this comment later, but right now I’m tired and pissed.)

        2. Spencer

          m replying to someone who’s unironically used the “no, everyone else is wrong” meme line to describe their own opinions in the comments section.

          It’s been a hot minute but I’m pretty sure I said this while describing myself as a degenerate who likes seeing these characters suffer horribly for my amusement.

      3. Rose by Any Other Name

        As thejeff says, I think you may be confused about what ‘liberal’ means.
        I am a ‘liberal religious person’ – a neopagan specifically.

        I vote Democrat. My very small religion has committed no cultural genocide (you can argue that some ancient pagans did, but not the modern variety). I create works of fiction that are actively sex-positive. I believe in the true separation of church and state (no faith, mine included, should ever effect governmental policy). Generally speaking, my political views cleave closer to Roz than anyone else in this comic.

        Unitarian Universalists would also qualify as a ‘liberal’ religion. Maybe a few others I can’t personally think of.

        What you are describing is not a ‘liberal’ religion.

        1. Spencer

          I mean yeah, queer neopagan women who believe in separation of church and state probably don’t have the cultural power to commit large-scale wrongdoings.

          Which is to say you’re correct to object to what I wrote there, since my wording was poorly vague and generalized. It’s easy for me to fixate on Christianity since it’s, y’know, a cultural touchstone where I live, and also I still need to be clear with my wording anyway so I don’t end up saying things that sound like “there are no progressive religions” like I think it came off as.

        2. thejeff

          Even within Christianity, not everything is fundamentalist – and the narrative that fundamentalism is “True Christianity” is deeply dangerous even when employed to try to drive people away from Christianity.

          Christianity is not in any meaningful sense a single religion. It’s a broad, complex web of different understandings. The basic original message (Whatever that was) interpreted by different groups in different way through different lenses. And this goes back to the earliest days – the very New Testament itself is the work of multiple authors with very different theologies and understandings. Not just Paul, but each Gospel writer has his own message to push, as do to a lesser extent the other authors involved. A single literal interpretation of the Bible isn’t possible since the texts don’t agree. (As an atheist with an amateur interest in the development of religion, I find this fascinating.)

          Taking Christianity as a whole and tying it inextricably to the worst subgroups will backfire. Blaming denominations led by openly gay bishops for homophobia because they’re still Christian and Christianity must be homophobic isn’t just weird, it’s counterproductive. It’s like calling MLK racist because he was a reverend and many churches supported slavery.

        3. Spencer

          Christianity gets tied to its worst subgroups because those worst subgroups openly inflicts terror and misery on the marginalized and there’s no amount of Good Christians, presumably there should be if “the worst subgroups” are as small as I am told they are, to make it stop.

          Like it’s not my responsibility to be nice to something that’s used by the guy who wants me to not have health care. I should be kind and respectful to Christianity as a cultural institution because it’s good manners, not in the hopes that it will then stop stepping on Queer lives.

        4. thejeff

          Why do I even bother talking to you?

          You’ve got your own ideas firmly fixed and twist everything you read to fit with them. I have never even hinted that you “should be kind and respectful to Christianity as a cultural institution because it’s good manners”.

        5. Spencer

          Course you didn’t, I did. This should be pretty easy to get, since it’s right there, and in the extremely simple, so easy a child could parse it context of “I probably wouldn’t have this specific argument if this one religion could stop bringing my human rights into question, but since I do, that means this religion as it exists does so with the expectation that it’s allowed to inflict misery on people like me.”

          You were just spouting that same coward-ass nonsense about how it’ll “backfire” if Christianity is tied to its worst subgroups that it constantly fosters and places into positions of power, the way it is absolutely not backfiring now with no tangible cost to human lives or anything, and that’s bad because Martin Luther King somehow. I bet that dude would love to get brought up in reference to an institution of complacent moderates sitting idly by while their institution ruins marginalized lives.

        6. thejeff

          Yup. So damn fixed you don’t even read my words, just assume I’m saying whatever it is you want me to say.
          Going back to not wasting my time.

        7. Spencer

          Rather be fixed than a spineless moderate invoking the name of a guy who very famously spoke against timid, weak-willed moderates and was killed by a white supremacist agenda.

  30. Amós Batista

    I guess it’s a process, nobody improve in the same way. If Becky could experience things, and she is able to negotiate with your religion, why not?

  31. eh, whatever

    It must be painful to be such an extrovert!

    1. StClair

      and probably exhausting for anyone less so (which is to say, almost everyone) to deal with.

  32. Shadowsnail

    Shit is out of them and sheets are brown. Coincidence?

    1. Opus the Poet

      They look dark yellow on my monitor 🙂

  33. StClair

    Does the dishonesty pretense make it any better?

    e.g. “prosperity gospel”

    1. Needfuldoer

      “And the only TRUE path to SALVATION, is for you to give me ALL of your money!”

    2. Needfuldoer

      Blessed be our lady of perpetual exemption!

      1. JBento

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35K6vQRt67g

  34. Sporky

    If my assumption’s correct and you’re an atheist like me, I really don’t understand the problem. If there’s no truth to religion, then why should you care if they’re following the “real” version of the religion or not? They’re both equally fictional. Do you really care more about being able to score some points by pointing out hypocrisy than decreasing the amount of hate and bigotry in the world?

    1. JBento

      I think Smith’s objection is that the liberal religious then go on to claim that the parts they like should be super-important in how they’re treated BECAUSE they’re “religion”. But you can’t go “well, this part about not fucking doesn’t count because I don’t like it, but HOW DARE YOU skip church on Sunday mornings?”

      1. Spencer

        Yeah that.

        It’s cool to pick and choose in a personal relationship with a higher power but that then necessitates that you hand that exact same amount of autonomy to everyone around you.

        This has not panned out.

        1. Miri

          My 7 year old was telling me how G-d is part of everything so I’m G-d, she’s G-d, etc, and my response (as a Jew raised reasonably but not ultra-Orthodox – lax Orthodox? The one where you think you’re hardly observant at all until you realise that actually a lot of things you think of as normal parts of this are considered extreme by other people – married to and co-parenting with a Catholic who goes to a Baptist church on the rare occasions he attends one) was “well, that’s A theological belief, yep. If it works for you…”

          And yes, writing the “o” in that word feels really wrong to me…

  35. Bagge

    Dina is wise to follow Becky’s lead.

  36. Icalasari

    Dina must be happy about this

    “Yes, my Becky is now defying her imaginary sky abuser.”

  37. Deviant

    Damn-fucking-straight?

    Well no. There was no straight fucking at all.

    1. Arianod

      None whatsoever ^^

  38. CJ

    Is Becky trying to reverse-psychology Dotty into thinking they didn’t?

  39. Booster

    Wait..where was Dorothy?

    1. Diane

      She goes on a morning jog, I do believe, she was shown doing so before the time skip, I doubt winter means anything to her.

    2. Needfuldoer

      Not in Dina’s room, where the deed was done.

    3. thejeff

      Out running in the morning.
      They did the deed in the evening/afternoon in Dina’s room. Then split up with Dina going to talk to Joyce, then came back to sleep together in Becky’s room. Presumably Dorothy slept there as well, before getting up to go running.

  40. JBento

    “But…but you can’t treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can’t say yes please, I’ll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind. Its table d´hôte or nothing, otherwise…well, it would be silly.”

    ― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

    1. NickG

      Moist was lying to avoid getting his picture taken at the time though.

      1. JBento

        “Moist was lying” is pretty much an accurate sentence all on its own all the time.

      2. JBento

        Sorry, that thing ended the reply for some reason, skipped this sentence:

        But, like, how much can you change about a religion and keep it the same religion?

        1. The Wellerman

          “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is deconsecrated, and the human at last is compelled to face the reality of their condition, of their relationships with other living beings, under sober circumstances.”

        2. Needfuldoer

          What does God want with a starship?

        3. JBento

          I dunno, myabe they just like the blinking lights on the consoles. Don’t kinkshame.

  41. Rabisch

    Because Becky is always Becky ♡.

  42. Zaxares

    Clarification for Dina: When Becky says “let’s keep this a secret”, she really means “let’s keep this a secret from JOYCE.” 😉

    1. Blue

      Which is why she immediately told Joyce’s best friend.

      1. timemonkey

        Dorothy’s not the gossiping type.

  43. Ziggy78eog

    Well, so much for, “let’s not tell anyone”; that lasted all of 3 seconds? But that is not who Becky is. If there is something wrong, she is going to tell you. It might not be in the most mature way, but you will know.

    1. thejeff

      Unless it’s really wrong, in which case she’ll cover it with a facade of wacky Becky – see Joyce never finding out Becky’s mom committed suicide or Becky going the whole day without letting on anything was wrong when she first showed up on campus.

      She might not have the same experience covering up happy secrets.

    2. Blue

      She’s just too proud of being a lesbian, prouder than her religious guilt even. I think that’s a good sign.

  44. thejeff

    Pretending doesn’t really help. Nor does it somehow make so-called literalists a more real or valid form of Christianity than other sects. They all “pick and choose”, if that’s how you want to phrase it, though I think that’s very misleading. I’d say they all interpret, since there’s no way to take the Bible (or even just the New Testament) seriously without doing so. Nor, in most cases, do individuals just pick what parts let them do things they like. Liberal churches actually have developed theologies, with reasoning behind them. They don’t operate as a buffett. (Arguably individuals could choose which church to join based on the selection of things they want to do, but that’s not really how the vast majority interact with religion.)

    Now, there are certainly valid reasons to criticize even liberal religion, but this particular approach bothers me, because it’s not really true and even more because it echoes and validates fundamentalist rhetoric about other churches. It reinforces fundamentalist claims to be the “true Christianity”.

    1. Spencer

      I think it’s less “picking and choosing makes you a hypocrite” and more “we all should get to pick and choose and thus, by that definition, what we pick and choose is equally valid even when it contradicts another’s picking and choosing.”

      Good Christian Woman goes “UGH, THE GAYS” on facebook and gets told off with a “you sucked way too much dick back in high school to be saying that.” Sucking dick is good, actually! It’s only a problem now when Picking & Choosing becomes a cudgel to beat someone else (because we’re picking and choosing someone else’s human right to exist without culturally sanctioned oppression).

      Sexual purity was one of the important parts to Becky, and now it is slowly going to be chipped away into an unimportant part. That’s good! Becky wants sex and should healthily process it, it’s only “a problem” in that it was something Becky is allowing herself at her leisure now that she decided to go for it.

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        Yeah, see, as noted above, what you’re describing is not ‘liberal religion’. Concepts like homophobia and sexual purity are not parts of liberal religions in the first place.

        What you’re describing in that second paragraph is a conservative adult who was more liberal or rebellious in their youth and did things they now look down upon. Nothing about that is ‘liberal’.

        As for your third paragraph, you are describing someone who was raised conservative and is now slowly breaking away from that. Again, nothing liberal there.

        1. Spencer

          I will say that the starting post of this is ‘liberal religious folks’ and not ‘the existence of liberal religion as a whole,’ since it’s about this one character with a history of picking and choosing what’s important now picking and choosing.

          Moreover, I’m responding to a post whose second paragraph is about the reinforcement of right wing fundamentalism as truer, adding my own thoughts on the idea of “picking and choosing” as well as doing so in a system where one kind of person gets to pick and choose things like someone else’s human rights.

          Like it’s not all about whether there are religions that are inherently more liberal about personal freedoms. It doesn’t actually matter to me that homophobia and sexual purity aren’t “part of liberal religions” because there’s one religion I have to worry about who’s capable of keeping those concepts in Joe Suburban’s mind for as long as he wants.

      2. thejeff

        This makes no sense and doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what I posted.

        1. Spencer

          This part.

          It reinforces fundamentalist claims to be the “true Christianity”.

          I wrote that because I don’t think this has anything to do with the starting post you were responding to, because they’re talking about how this one person is freely picking and choosing what matters and how it has to be treated with intimate respect even though it’s something she decided as of yesterday evening.

        2. thejeff

          Except they started with: So… this illustrates what I’ve said about how liberal religious folks annoy me. and ended with
          Liberal religion always just feels like “my opinions, but backed by god” in a way that fundies at least pretend isn’t true.

          Using Becky, who isn’t part of any liberal religion to bash liberal religion.

        3. Spencer

          I mean I won’t directly speak for the poster themself but they mentioned Becky in the same breath as ‘liberal religious folks,’ and I do think Becky would call herself liberal now if only because she certainly did not used to; when she first arrived at IU she referred to it as “super liberal” in the context of being able to proudly shout as loud as she wanted, and she was obviously opposed to Robin on a moral level.

          “Liberal religion” is also something harder to quantify that I’ve already messed up today, but a religious person can be liberal (socially, politically) and also be part of a religion that, on a cultural macro level, exists as a tool of right-wing authoritarianism.

          And also there’s the actual meat and potatoes of their post, which is about the phenomenon of picking and choosing which parts count, like Becky is here.

        4. thejeff

          Yeah, I guess that almost makes sense if you read “liberal religious folks” as specifically a subset of people raised in conservative evangelical circles who are breaking away to more liberal ideas but not abandoning religion, and not people with actual liberal religious backgrounds. It would be stupid to talk that way and expect to be understood.

          And yes, arguably Becky is “picking and choosing” which parts count, but that’s because she’s coming out of that cultish background and doesn’t have a grounding in any other Christian tradition. She can’t just make up a coherent faith out of whole cloth on the spur of the moment. It’s the implication that all liberal religious folks do this picking and choosing that I object to, because it’s not true and because it’s the conservative evangelical framing of liberal Christians.
          Becky is not a stand in for liberal Christians here, but the OP was using her as one.

  45. Red Comet

    Oh my god ❤

  46. Keulen

    Nice to see Becky is sticking to her plan of keeping it a secret.

  47. Reaver

    Oh there was nothing straight about this lmao

  48. Suet

    This year’s Kickstarter is brought to you by… this strip of origin. No called “title”, though. Willis, you damn sly fox.

    *casually hums “I Just Had Sex” by The Lonely Island

  49. Blue

    Becky was almost subtle there for a second. I admit the twist in this one surprised me in a good way.

    1. Emily

      Me too! Made me smile

  50. Plaaaa

    I didn’t know they were into scat play.

  51. zee

    God i love this woman

  52. Tunasammich

    Oh wow, Becky is me here I cannot keep anything a secret lmao

  53. John Smith

    Huh. Did Willis straight-up delete my comment? Guess the religious talk is not allowed anymore.

    1. Yumi

      I would have liked some clarification on what you meant, since it seemed like a lot of people were assigning views to you, but for what that comment chain became, I could see why Willis would just want to wash their hands of it.

    2. David M Willis

      less about you, more about pruning the branch that led to folks breaking the Rules of Engagement for like six or seven page-scrolls deep

      1. thejeff

        Sorry about that. I try to refrain, but sometimes fail my Will save.

      2. The Wellerman

        Huh. Looks like I missed one hell of a shit storm. ?

        I guess I was too busy designing a superhero for a commission! ?

  54. Kendra

    This was 100% me after lol

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