618

Scanner
Posted on November 12, 2021 by David M Willis
END OF STORYLINE

618 thoughts on “Scanner”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Mistake #1: Panel 1

    =C

    1. Ana Chronistic

      I kinda like scanning if only bc phone photos are terrible and also digital drawing requires me to be cemented to one place bc I don’t own a tablet monitor

      (I tried my iPad, the styluses are too thick)

    2. Tan

      I count no less than 3 mistakes in panel #1

      1. Clif

        Brother and reject. What’s the third?

        1. Agemegos

          Deadname.

        2. ktbear

          You can’t really be blamed for using a dead name if the person in question has never told you. Id call it more ignorance than a mistake.

        3. Deathjavu

          I think mistakes from ignorance still count as mistakes, sadly. I think they might be the most common type.

        4. Needfuldoer

          Evidently, Jocelyne’s still closeted to her family. Joyce literally has no idea she’s got a big sister. I don’t think it’s fair to fault her for referring to her older sibling by the only identity she knows for them.

        5. Ed Callahan

          Agreed.

        6. maarvarq

          Hear hear.

        7. deathjavu

          Mistakes don’t need blame or fault? That’s kind of my point.

        8. a/snow/mous/e

          how about “errors” instead of mistakes

        9. a/snow/mous/e

          since isn’t a “mistake” inherently an error of judgment?

        10. a/snow/mous/e

          uh-oh reply fail sorry

        11. Agemegos

          Tan didn’t blame anyone. Just asserted that something in the panel is not correct.

        12. Ana Chronistic

          Sadly for our hopes for Jocelyne, a dead name isn’t until it’s no longer used by the named. I’d suppose it’s more like a decaying name ?

        13. King Daniel

          A zombie name?

        14. Heavensrun

          Secret identity?

        15. Taellosse

          I think, under that analogy, it’s the mask? Since the secret identity is supposed to be the “real” person underneath the mask?

      2. Clif

        Actually, there is a mistake below panel 1. This can’t be the end of the storyline. We don’t know where Liz spends the night.

        Well, she does say she should be with her friends. Maybe they’re a taxi ride away. But she certainly won’t be spending the night with Sal if it ends here.

        1. thejeff

          We might well see her in the morning.

  2. Doctor_Who

    So judging by Joyce’s contact name for Jocelyn, and her use of the name Joshua, it seems that she is still unaware she has a big sister (other than Sarah).

    Not that I’m surprised, I’m just glad for confirmation that it’s not one of the events that happened during the time skip, so hopefully we get to witness it.

    1. Thag Simmons

      Yeah, the reason the Joyce’s parents splitting and Mike dying over the timeskip made sense was because we saw clear setup for both immediately before the timeskip began.

      Joss coming out would have been a little out of nowhere.

      1. King Daniel

        Counterpoint: we didn’t get any setup for Amber/Walky breaking up or the Ruth/Jennifer breakup (with Ruth now drinking again!), yet both happened.

        1. Thag Simmons

          There was setup there, but you’re right that it wasn’t nearly as apparent, and we left both those couples at the big optimistic garbage roof get together

    2. Keulen

      I doubt Jocelyne has come out to any members of her family yet.

      1. Ana Chronistic

        only to Miss Sasaki

  3. King Daniel

    Alright, NOW can we dislike Joyce for ignoring Jocelyne????

    1. King Daniel

      #probablyfacetious

      1. Reltzik

        Nah. If we weren’t already going to dislike Joyce for how she treated Becky, we’re not going to dislike her for sending someone to voice mail while she was in the middle of doing something she was excited about.

        1. butts

          …are we… not gonna dislike Joyce for how she treated Becky?

        2. a/snow/mous/e

          we’re gonna be mad at her for that yeah

          and dislike her rigidity of thinking–why must everyone double down on things they did/said without thinking!! aaaaaaaaa

        3. Sol

          something something it’s not called smarting of age etcetc

        4. Mturtle7

          Personally, I’m not mad at her, just disappointed.

          …wait, that’s like, practically the definition of condescending. Let me put it another way:

          I think the way she treated Becky just now was stupid, insensitive, and weak, but I also trust that she her conscience is resilient enough to EVENTUALLY catch up with the stupid “awww yeah let’s be ultimate rebels forever because it’s fun” side of her brain. I’m betting within a week of in-comic time, she’ll realize what a jerk she’s been, and at least try to apologize in some way. So getting mad at her feels like a waste of time right now, but man she is going to be REALLY insufferable for a while.

        5. Wendy

          Yeah, I still love Joyce myself, but she’s being pretty bad right about now. I also trust that she’s going to come around and realize where she’s screwing up. I’m thinking it might even end up being Jocelyne – when Joyce finally lets her get in contact – who helps her realize that.

        6. Clif

          When did being disappointed in someone get to be the definition of condescending? Your expectations, reactions and feelings are your expectations, reactions and feelings. You get to be disappointed in someone if you want to be.

          This doesn’t force you to tell someone that you’re disappointed in them, but if you do, I think it’s possible to communicate what you wish had happened without being condescending.

          he said condescendingly.

        7. KiaStirling

          I think it’s specifically the “I’m not angry I’m just disappointed” phrase is considered condescending.

        8. Agemegos

          It’s not being disappointed that is condescending. What’s condescending is to tell someone that you are disappointed in them as though that were a reason that they ought to smarten up and meet your expectations.

          Dorothy and Sarah aren’t Joyce’s parents, teachers, therapists, or sportsball coaches. She is under no reasonable obligation of meeting expectations; they have no authority to make her change. Their disappointment in Joyce entitles them to shut up and stuff it.

        9. Reltzik

          We may well might. I’m just saying that IF that wasn’t enough to tip the balance, then ignoring this call isn’t going to be what makes the difference. And if it WAS, then ignoring this call still isn’t going to be what makes the difference.

        10. Clif

          Well, as almost always I could be wrong, but the impatient way Joyce reacts leads me to believe that this is one of a series of calls from her favorite sibling that she’s ignored. The least she could do is answer with a “could I call you back later, kind of busy.” When someone calls repeatedly, it’s usually important (to them, if not to you).

        11. Victor

          Why would we do that? Joyce is right.

          Ok, so maybe it’s a bit impolite to tell mentally ill people about their condition, but that doesn’t change the fact that religion is a mental illness.

        12. Spencer

          I don’t know what’s motivating this, I’m just gonna say it’s gonna cause a lot of shouting, and also calling it “mental illness” is extremely ableist.

        13. Andrusi

          Your avatar is astonishingly appropriate.

        14. Clif

          I dunno about shouting, but a belief, even an incorrect belief, is not a mental illness. A mental illness might or might not cause you to have odd beliefs and act on them, but humans are quite capable of having beliefs outside mainstream thought without being mentally ill.

          So no, a given religion may be wrong, it might be harmful, it might even encourage actions that help lead to mental illness. But, in itself, it is not a mental illness. It’s not even the same category of thing.

        15. Tenty

          Religion isn’t a mental illness in and of itself, though I will admit that it does tend to alter thought processes in a way that distinctly resembles mental illness. The difference is that religion teaches people to feel superior about being wrong and lacking evidence while mental illness screws with the flow of critical thinking such that reaching a “reasonable” conclusion becomes rather difficult.

          One differentiating example, religion might teach someone that pixies like to borrow things but will usually return them so if that person loses a thing “oh it’s just the pixies” and they won’t look for it because they believe that it isn’t there to find and will either turn up later or not at all on the pixie’s whims. A mental illness on the other hand will, rather than feeding data through a messed-up filter, screw with the data at various points along the process. Hallucinations about pixies tell you that they’re real, and who are you going to believe these strangers or your own eyes and ears? Then the memories about where you left stuff get deleted, so you can’t find it. Clearly the pixies are messing with you.

          I feel like I did a bad job with the example, so I’ll try rephrasing things. Both religion and mental illness distort a person’s view of the world, but religion does it through providing a single astoundingly distorted lens while mental illness will mess with the entire flow of information, potentially editing things that already made it through a well-calibrated lens.

        16. Agemegos

          Religion is not a mental illness, nor a symptom of mental illness. Most people profess a religious belief or affiliation, including most people who are perfectly normal and healthy.

        17. Taellosse

          I am not now, nor have I ever been, a believer in any religious doctrine or faith. But that doesn’t make me sane while my Catholic cousin, or Born-again uncle are mentally ill. That’s not how mental illness works or what it means.

          We don’t know each other, so I have no idea why you’ve got that chip on your shoulder, but you might want to work through whatever it is before you invest too much effort in calling 93% of the human race crazy.

        18. Imogen

          Christian Atheist Alert. Beep beep.

        19. Imogen

          “Remember that not every religion is Christianity and you may not actually be speaking from an informed perspective” Elite Atheist Challenge

  4. Thag Simmons

    And all the people predicting a Jocelyne appearance in Sister, Christian manage to be the best kind of correct

    1. King Daniel

      “Technically”!

      1. Clif

        Of course.

    2. Regalli

      Well-played, Willis. Well-played.

      And also, DAMN YOU.

    3. Reltzik

      …. she hasn’t appeared, she didn’t have an off-panel voice line, she isn’t even ta-…

      … wait, how does that merit a tag?

      1. King Daniel

        There’s a photo of her on Joyce’s knife, and photos have always merited tags.

        1. Jamie

          I scrolled up to find the knife before I realized what you meant.

        2. Lieutenant Dan

          I still don’t follow. Phones are called knives now?
          Google only showed me some outdoors-y type phone cases.

        3. Owlmirror

          Since this was personally embarrassing to me, I remember it. Back when it was shown that Ryan had been stalking Dorothy, in the last panel, he has, in his right hand, a thing.

          And many people, myself unfortunately included, thought that the thing was a phone (I thought he had been using it to track Dorothy’s phone), and wrote comments using that assumption.

          In the next strip, the thing is shown to be a folding knife, that Ryan opens and locks and brandishes at Dorothy and Amber.

          And King Daniel, who wrote the comment that you’re responding to, is doing his very best to make sure that those of us who erred NEVER EVER FORGET IT.

          *sob*

        4. Delicious Taffy

          In my defense…..! Nope, got nothin’

        5. King Daniel

          You can’t use a phone to defend yourself?

        6. Thag Simmons

          You call that a knife? This is a knife!

        7. Andrew Weil

          well played

      2. Thag Simmons

        As mentioned, the best kind of correct.

    4. Needfuldoer

      Requisition us some applause.

  5. Yotomoe

    She’s gonna unlearn that she’s got a brother named Joshua in the non too distant future so she’s got a point.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Next Sunday, AD?

      (Sorry, I can’t resist. You should see me whenever someone mentions a Thunderdome.)

      1. The Wellerman

        I don’t get it.

        1. Yotomoe

          Me neither to be honest.

        2. Doctor_Who

          “In the not too distant future, next Sunday AD” is the opening line to the original Mystery Science Theater 300 theme song.

          And the Thunderdome bit refers to this.

        3. Thag Simmons

          It’s an MST3K reference</

      2. Jeff K!

        Ugh. Can’t we all just get beyond Thunderdome?

        1. Doctor_Who

          YAY!!!

        2. Wizard

          The way things are going, I think maybe we do need another hero.

        3. Deanatay

          Whatever. I just need to know the way home, ok?

        4. Chris Phoenix

          No, we can’t all get beyond Thunderdome.

          …only one leaves.

        5. Andy

          That’s patently untrue, though, since 3 men entered and all left the last time it was used.

        6. GeekRyuu

          Just listen to what all the children say, y’know?

      3. Needfuldoer

        She’ll make the best of things with the help of her robot friends.

      4. Rose by Any Other Name

        …
        “… there was a guy named Joel, not to different from you or me.
        He worked at Gismonic Institute, just another face in a red jumpsuit
        He did a good job cleaning up the place –
        But his bosses didn’t like him so they shot him into space!”

        (done from memory, so forgive any slight errors)
        (and yes I’m a Joel era fan – shut up)

        1. Plain Marie

          Yesss, Joel!

        2. Plain Marie

          Noooo, Liz!

        3. Rose by Any Other Name

          Welp…

          “We’re sending him cheesy movies
          the worst we can find.
          La la la
          He’ll have to sit and watch them all
          while we monitor his mind.
          Now keep in mind Joel can’t control
          when the movies begin or end.
          La la la.
          Because he used those special parts
          to make his robot friends.”

  6. Reltzik

    …

    … yeah, Dorothy needs to have a sitdown with Joyce and explain to her the difference between being right on the facts and right on how you act based on those facts.

    1. Doctor_Who

      I think this is one that Becky and Dorothy should team up on.

      Becky, naturally, will treat it like one of those stories where the hero and villain must join forces despite their mutual disdain, to defeat a greater evil. And of course will return to hating each other immediately afterward.

      Dorothy, naturally, will bring healthy snacks to the intervention.

    2. adam Black

      That’s going to be hard, as Dorothy first reaction (when busting into a private conversation )

      and learning Joyce was now an atheist , was to be patronizing condescending and shaming .

      1. Lumino

        Dorothy wasn’t patronizing Joyce for being an atheist, she was disappointed in her for being condescending towards OTHERS.

        When you screw up, your friends are the ones who call you out on it.

        1. Rocket Relm

          It’s a good thing that, at any point, Dorothy has shown Joyce (or us the readers) this fact, right?

          The original thing Dorothy expressed her disappointment in had nothing to do with Joyce condescending towards other people. It only became about that afterwards because of the argument and Joyce having to reframe it and defend it in her head once everyone became spontaneously hostile towards her for having negative thoughts about her former religion.

          I don’t think it was Willis’ *intent* to make Dorothy come off this way, but it’s definitely what the character winds up becoming, and the best possible interpretation is that Dorothy is uncharacteristically shellshocked into having very little to say and no idea how to resolve the situation, given she doesn’t make any attempt to.

        2. thejeff

          Wait, where are you getting this from? Admittedly, Dorothy doesn’t clearly explain at first, but she gets Joyce’s attention, gestures to Becky, then after Becky stalks off, says she’s disappointed. As I read it, she’s focused all along on how Joyce’s words affected Becky, not just being hostile because she had negative thoughts about her former religion. To me, she seems consistent throughout, not changing after the argument.

          We can of course argue about whether that’s justified and that’s been done here at great length, but I don’t see this take on Dorothy at all.

        3. Spencer

          She cyberstalked Joyce with Becky to get on her case for being a School Misser.

          Then her advice was “do it because be better.”

          And then she just shuts up when Joyce comes back.

          I’m with Rocket. Much like Becky acting in a way she never had a reason not to and there being some consequence, Dorothy is running with her “Joyce is a silly little girl who needs to be handheld into real life” script in a complex situation she doesn’t understand, because that script has always worked so far.

        4. Z

          Dorothy is an atheist, so there is also likely quite a bit of insult that Joyce thinks this is how atheists act. It’s much easier to forgive someone of a different belief system being an asshole over their beliefs – Dorothy watching someone using atheism to be a bully and asshole is personal.

        5. Spencer

          That’s probably what Dorothy’s thinking since she’s the kind of nob who’d be more concerned about optics than why someone would be mad growing up in a death cult that led to her almost getting shot in the face.

        6. Clif

          Dorothy has always been more concerned with effective outcomes than optics. Go back to when she was trying for Ruth’s job.

        7. Spencer

          Where she decided she was right for it and proved completely unable to connect with her dorm the way Roz did?

          Because I know it was also to hide Becky, but it also showed how malleable she can be.

        8. thejeff

          Yeah, I know what you think, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with what Rocket said or what I asked, so I don’t know why you’re replying to me.

        9. Spencer

          That she’s a condescending ass more concerned with moral purity and optics.

          Sorry I thought that was what we were talking about

        10. Clif

          Spence, I have to say, I don’t recognize Dorothy in that description.

        11. thejeff

          For someone who gets bent out of shape when someone misunderstands you, you’re really bad at reading what other people are saying.

        12. Spencer

          Just so we’re clear, I don’t like going “nah that isn’t what I meant” to the same three or four people, which includes you, doing it all the time, that means misreading a post of yours in between like 20 others you’ve got going, well that’s a faux pas.

          Cheers fam, have a good one

        13. Spencer

          Be nice if, like, a single one of them could ask “yo Joyce, everything okay? I was not expecting this but it’s clearly coming from a dark place.”

          Like.

          Be real cool if she did.

        14. Suzi

          Easier to do that when they aren’t actively being a jerk to literally everyone who normally is there for them.

          Let’s not act like Joyce is without fault in this. She is pushing everyone away at every turn. Which is understandable, but it’s not their job to accept assholery and then reach out.

        15. Spencer

          Joyce is being such a terrible jerk to:

          Becky, her oldest friend she just had the worst possible fight with, and this was their first fight ever.

          Dorothy, only spoke to lecture Joyce, nothing when she came back. Extremely helpful Dorothy was there to make sure Joyce knew she was disappointed in her for being a School Misser.

          Sarah, who saw her come back to their dorm happy about her new job, so she told Joyce she deserved to get fired for her hubris and it would get Sarah off, and then she told Joyce she needs to go back to being the person everyone around her repeatedly mocked, and is now framing the entire conflict as something Joyce needs to apologize for.

          I don’t even know what fault we’re ascribing to Joyce, if “lashing out at your death cult and not having the words to properly enunciate how severely it fucked you up in front of your best friend who’s only here because she stalked you over facebook” is a failure on her part.

          Like.

          Maybe, actually, it’s okay to be angry at your idiot friends when they tell you to smile for their convenience. Maybe Joyce would not be like this, right now, if Becky hadn’t dragged her into a fight to justify beliefs she doesn’t even understand yet, and then Sarah hadn’t kept hammering at it three times now.

      2. Madock345

        Private conversation or not, doesn’t matter. The way Joyce was speaking was terrible, and would be terrible if she was with the whole cast, or literally alone. She is becoming toxic, and her friends are right to call her out on that.

        1. Huehuetotl

          She expects both of those people to have an interest in reconverting her. And that’s a conversation she’s not ready to have. And while Becky’s grievance right now is the contradictory “don’t lie to me”/”what you said insulted me”, she *has* done church-police on Joyce multiple times.

          Who she needs to talk to is someone who’s going to affirm her irreligion and frustration, but also remind her that people still matter and (how to walk those tightropes). And that probably would be Jocelyn.

        2. Huehuetotl

          not a reply… it posted in the wrong spot

        3. Ed Callahan

          There’s no one in the main cast who would have any interest in reconverting Joyce to religion of any denomination. There’s a couple of classic atheists such as Dina and Dorothy but most are pretty indifferent to questions of faith. Lucy does practice but her doctrines are pretty generalized and non-judgmental.

        4. Huehuetotl

          When Becky first came out (and everyone was happy for her) Joyce found interpretations of doctrine that let her support Becky – and Becky scolded her for it. When Joyce was comforting Becky in her grief just recently, Becky took the opportunity to do inquisition. Becky has been through the same training Joyce has, in youth group / sunday school. For proselytizing and repressing doubts.
          Maybe she wouldn’t, but Joyce has had good reasons not to want to talk about her doubts and atheism with Becky.

        5. Spencer

          Also Joyce got mad about it one time (at Dina’s birthday) so Becky told her she was going through a stupid phase that she needed to get over and it wasn’t real because Joyce was only rebelling against her parents for 30 seconds now.

          Becky did this walking into a room so Joyce could tell her not to fuck Dina like Becky wants to but doesn’t want to.

        6. Z

          I disagree that it would be terrible literally alone. Most people occasionally have thoughts they know aren’t appropriate, and finding a private place to air them and get them out of your system can help. Like screaming into a pillow or going at a punching bag to get out the ugliest emotions so you can calm down and handle it from a healthy place.

        7. Agemegos

          Every religion trash-talks rival religions and atheism. All the preachers preach that most people, including me, are so dashed wicked that we deserve the infinite punishments that their just and loving gods are going to condemn me to. I’d rather be called stupid.

        8. C.T. Phipps

          You need to meet better preachers.

        9. Agemegos

          Or stop noticing implications. I can work out what it means when someone says the I need to be saved.

        10. Agemegos

          * that

        11. JBento

          The basis of christianity is literally that Jesus is the son of the one true god and that he is the only path to salvation. Fuck off.

        12. JBento

          (due to how my gravatar is positioned, I should probably clarify that’s meant for Phipps, not Agemegos)

        13. C.T. Phipps

          There’s also many churches who believe Jesus died for everyone and thus the whole idea that you must be Christian or burn in Hell is not actually a fundamental tenet, right?

        14. JBento

          If there are, I’ve never heard of them. What many churches believe is that Jesus death meant a clean slate for everyone, but you still have that slate that you need to fill with being a good little god-obeyer.

        15. Huehuetotl

          Even the most ecumenical and friendly churches have one group that they exclude, so that they can find common ground with all the other people who believe in God.

          Even the no-hell versions of Christianity require some version of believing in God. When the nice pope said atheists could go to heaven, the second part of that statement was if they stopped being atheists. That’s the other shoe to drop for “died for everyone”.

        16. JBento

          @huehuetotl: there are no nice popes. Certainly not the current one. Did you mean “the pope who, unlike his predecessor, is actually aware of what PR is and doesn’t look like Palpatine”?

        17. Agemegos

          “I am the Way and the Truth and the Light, sayeth the Lord. Nobody comes to the Father but through me.”

        18. Agemegos

          So why did I need Jesus to die for me?

          Without I would have deserved and suffered infinite punishment otherwise Jesus dying would in no way have been for me. The very assertion that I needed Jesus to die for me is an affirmation that either God is monstrously unjust or that I deserve to go to Hell for eternity. Don’t be surprised if I resent it.

        19. Spencer

          It’s weird how your definition of religion is “everything good about it is true, everything bad is an aberration that doesn’t count.”

        20. JBento

          I mean, this is every religious person’s stance. Becky pretty much spells it out. There’s the “important parts” which by an amazing coincidence are everything Becky likes, and the ones that “were never the important parts”, i.e., everything that Becky thinks is badwrongfun.

      3. RacingTurtle

        Dorothy is the only person involved in this situation I’m actually mad at. Joyce, Liz, and Becky behaved…imperfectly, I’ll call it. Sarah and Joe are trying their best. But Dorothy’s comment came off so condescending that I literally yelled at my screen.

        1. heliska

          Agreed. It’s easy to be super tolerant and never say anything bad about religion when you’re a lifelong atheist and you’re never gonna be the one having an existential crisis because you’re feeling like religion ruined your life. Dorothy patronizing Joyce for that felt pretty hypocritical.

    3. Needfuldoer

      She has to learn that one can be correct but also not right.

    4. Steelbright

      Oh, the difference between being right on the facts and how you act about it…that’s a GREAT way of putting it. I’ve gotta remember this.

  7. Yotomoe

    Oh yeah Joyce is really doing her best to become my least favorite character in the comic. Like she’s really putting in an effort.

    1. Clif

      Yotomoe likes Ryan better than Joyce, pass it on.

      Okay, being silly, but there are really a ton of characters more unlikable than Joyce is ever likely to be on a bad day. I don’t really get all this criticism of Dorothy and Joyce and Sarah and even Becky when they are acting in character and the character is likeable.

      I say this as someone who got really peaved with Danny, not because of things he couldn’t possibly know, but because his defining characteristic has always been his loyalty, and then he was suddenly willing to throw Amazigirl under the bus after a single conversation with Sal.

      1. milu

        You know what, its really refreshing to read someone just say they find Joyce, and Becky, and Dorothy, and Sarah all likeable.

        Like seriously I’ve been feeling like there has something wrong with me that i’m still fond of all of them.

        1. milu

          I mean, I get that the conversations that are sparked off by the comic are going in intense personal directions a lot of the time, but look at these characters. Come on. No one is being that awful. They have strong personalities. They may overreact. Misunderstandings are sad, but they’re a part of life. analyzing them through an ethical lens is not always helpful. The main thing that helps, besides being fundamentally decent and well-meaning as they all are, is self-awareness, and that comes mostly from lived experience. these are baby adults. They’re all, like, doing their best and I love them for it.

  8. not someone else

    Did she always have this level of self-confidence? Was it just less noticeable when she was using it to be kind to people?

    1. Agemegos

      It was just so noticeable when she was using it to lecture others on their sexual immorality.

    2. Thag Simmons

      She’s never been shy, I’ll say that.

    3. Sam

      Joyce was incredibly certain she was correct most of the time before about certain things, particularly around religion and its concepts. And yes, it is less noticeable to some extent because she used it for kindness at least some of the time. But she did also shout at Joe for being basically a lust beast in her eyes early on as well.

      1. not someone else

        That’s fair! I forgot those bits.

      2. thejeff

        Though that was mostly very early on. She’d become an awful lot less certain about those things over time. See particularly her introduction to Booster: “I have questions and concerns, but I also remember I am usually wrong …”

        How she’s treating her atheism now is reminiscent of how she treated her Christianity early on, which probably why it’s irritating people – despite the actual beliefs being far less damaging.

    4. Rainhat

      She’s not that kind.

  9. Sirksome

    I get confused sometime. Joshua is actually Jocelyne right? I’m so used to referring to her by Jocelyne I don’t remember what her work name is.

    1. alongcameaspider

      Correct, this strip seems to confirm that her coming out to Joyce didn’t happen during the time skip

      1. DailyBrad

        Yeah, even with Joyce’s current pissy attitude, I don’t anticipate she’d misgender/deadname Joss on purpose.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Yeah. Jonathan’s the brother we’ve seen, the elusive one is Jordan.

      1. Sirksome

        It’s weird because everytime I see “Joshua’ I remember that one of Joyce’s brother’s is awful and the other we’ve never seen, so I just assume it’s one of them before realizing Joyce doesn’t know Jocelyne’s identity.

        1. Jamie

          John: oldest, a missionary who needs a fancy car to drive from Indiana to India
          Jordan: called a “black sheep”, mentioned as the “Jordan situation”
          Jocelyn: “toes the party line”
          Joyce: needs more big sisters in her life

        2. Fist_of_Life

          To be fair, actually driving from Indiana to India sounds like the sort of thing you would need a really fancy car to do.

        3. Clif

          A fair point.

        4. Roborat

          Or at least able to float.

        5. Keulen

          I still hope we’ll eventually learn what the “Jordan situation” was.

        6. khn0

          same here, Sirksome, same here.

        7. zee

          John is the evil one, Jordan either for disowned or went no contact so it’ll never be him

      2. Wraithy2773

        …can I just say how annoyed I am that Carol and Hank decided, for no apparent reason, to name their kids Joyce, Joshua, Jonathan, and Jordan.

        Look, if you’re going for a theme like that, that’s only okay if you’re joining them! Why aren’t your names James and Janet, damn it!

        1. JBento

          James and Janet aren’t biblical names.

        2. Agemegos

          “James” is a Biblical name. “Joyce” isn’t.

        3. JBento

          Huh, so it is. It’s completely different in Portuguese.

        4. Agemegos

          Tiago and Joyce?

        5. JBento

          Yeah, it’s Tiago.

        6. David M Willis

          James is literally a name of one of the disciples, one of Jesus’ brothers, a book of the Bible…

        7. Daniel

          One of the disciples?

          James the Lesser cries a single, lonely, lesser tear.

        8. David M Willis

          James the Lesser is the brother of Jesus, which I listed second!

        9. Agemegos

          At least three: James the brother of Jesus, James the son of Zebedee, and James theson of Alphaeus. James the Less might be a fourth.

        10. JBento

          In Portuguese, it’s Tiago, which… has nothing to do with James.

        11. Suzi

          Wait, are the other names the same and they just changed James to Tiago?

        12. a/snow/mous/e

          Doesn’t James come from Iacobus? It’s easier to see how that would become Tiago.

        13. JBento

          The rest of the names are pretty much a direct translation, yes. I have no idea where Tiago would come from, seeing Jacó is RIGHT THERE, and is much closer to the original.

        14. Delicious Taffy

          I know a family with like five siblings who all have names starting with the same letter, like that. Their parents, as far as I know, don’t have that letter in their names. It’s really annoying to force a theme on that many kids if you’re not gonna stick to it yourself.

        15. Roborat

          I knew a family like that. Both parents, all three kids, and all three dogs had names that started with J.

        16. Azhrei Vep

          I’ll take this up a step: I, my aunt, my three uncles, my mother, my maternal grandfather, his father, and his father before him all not only have the same first letter of their first name … we all have the same three initials.

        17. Azhrei Vep

          Also 3/4 of us were born in November. Lotta valentine babies, I guess.

        18. Andrusi

          The kids all have Jo names. They’d have to be Joseph and like… Joanne or something.

    3. Lanie

      Yeah, Joshua was the name Jocelyn was given at birth. Jocelyn is still not out as a trans-woman with her family, and so Joyce still refers to Jocelyn as Joshua and her brother. It’s hinted that Jocelyn may be more out in her personal life, but the extent is not explicitly confirmed, to the best of my knowledge at least.

      1. Regalli

        She is definitely out in at least part of her writing life – the reveal came when she gave Ethan her website name and it showed her actual name. But I think there are at least some she writes under her deadname for, because the Brown parents have been aware of at least a few websites she freelances for. We don’t know offhand about friends, but the fact that she DID give Ethan that information suggests he’s not the first person she ever told. If only because that’s a whole lot of trust to impart for the first time on your little sister’s first boyfriend who she’s been seeing for like, a week.

        1. Thag Simmons

          She may also be credited as J.J Brown, but yes, probably out to her own social circle

  10. BBCC

    What a mess.

    Joyce, answer your sister right now, young lady.

    1. BBCC

      Okay, grav roulette. Let’s see what you got for me tonight.

      1. BBCC

        Ah. I see. Well played.

        1. King Daniel

          Twice in a row, huh?

        2. Thag Simmons

          I don’t think I’ve ever seen the roulette return more than three in a row.

        3. King Daniel

          I think I might’ve once seen a four-times-in-a-row occasion, but my memory could be faulty.

        4. Clif

          I thought I had a full set after finally getting Becky, but on review I don’t have Lucy, Jacob or Booster.

  11. Yotomoe

    I miss having a scanner. I draw a lot of stuff on paper that looks terrible when I take pictures of it. I draw on the brown nugget sauce paper we use at Wendy’s sometimes 😛

    1. Sirksome

      I can never get anything lined up right in a scanner. It always comes out crooked. Which is a shame since I still draw better traditionally than digitally.

      1. Yotomoe

        I’m way better drawing digitally than traditionally but y’know…easier to just doodle on paper when you’re at work or something.

        1. The Wellerman

          HOLY CRAP please show us one of your nugget SAUCE drawings!

          They must be like MASTERPIECES! ?

        2. Yotomoe

          You’d be disappointed.
          https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519897341113794566/892110679920738374/image0.jpg

          Here’s one I found of my girl Angie.

        3. The Wellerman

          Honestly she looks SAUCIER than Wendy herself on that wrapper!

          Have you ever done anything like that for Clara or Miasma? Like at work or something?

        4. The Wellerman

          Sorry I’m being a nuisance with these questions…

          I just really enjoy the quirkiness of your art.

        5. Geneseepaws

          How, in any way, is that in any way disappointing? In any way? That’s a great drawing, our current semester’s instructor has us use paper just like this (only gray, not brown). It takes charcoal better than regular paper.

        6. RacingTurtle

          That’s some good nugget sauce paper art

        7. Sunny

          Well, I am not disappointed. It’s both sexy and spooky.

        8. RowenMorland

          I think if you wrapped a table tip in a nugget-napkin-sketch I’d keep both.

    2. RowenMorland

      Reminds me a bit of when Explodingdog started being pictures of sketches on scrap card and it looked awesome.

  12. Exarch

    I’m actually surprised still at how critical rather than supportive Sarah’s been about Joyce (Dorothy too). I think that they should be there for Becky, too, but Joyce needs people to listen and talk things through with her, not to tell her what to do and how disappointed they are

    1. MrSmith

      Yes this, Joyce is not a child

      1. Lumino

        Eh, the jury is still out on that one. Joyce’s mindset is still VERY childish. It’s still “The way I see things is the objective truth, and everybody else is wrong.”

        Her becoming an atheist hasn’t changed the core parts of her personality, and I think that’s part of the problem. Sarah and Dorothy wanted Joyce to accept that she COULD be wrong, and Joyce thinks this is what that is. She’s admitting that she was wrong in the past, but NOW she’s completely right and it’s totally different.

        Except it’s not different at all. Joyce’s entire world view is based on the belief that she cannot be wrong, and when that is challenged it all falls apart.

        1. The Wellerman

          I think there’s a word for that.

          I could be wrong, but I think it’s called “naive realism”.

        2. StClair

          This, unfortunately. 🙁

        3. Spencer

          Nah.

          The first ten years of the comic was Joyce unlearning so hard she unlearned her terrible and worthless belief in her fundie death cult upbringing. Joyce got it in her head she was a monkey when Joe let her flail and scream and panic about it enough that reassurance she could find her own meaning and also headpats let her deal with it.

          Joyce is doubling down on angry righteousness because she was dragged into an argument to defend a newfound worldview that barely exists because all she knows is that everything is wrong. Being right is just about all she’s got.

        4. milu

          hm! you make a good point. i think she doesn’t even understand why Sarah is like that, because hey, she’s an atheist now, surely that’s what Sarah always hoped for her, right? so why is she still talking to her like she’s a silly child?

        5. heliska

          That’s an interesting take. She has some growing-up to do. Realizing her parents could be wrong crushed her, but she has yet to find out everyone, including her, can and will be wrong, and that “truth” isn’t as easy a thing as she thought.

    2. Regina phalange

      Sarah isn’t telling Joyce she’s disappointed in her. (The only suggestion of that is implying that she needs to be “forgiven,” but she’s very clearly using the royal “we” and referring to Becky.) She’s just giving her advice—note the “I think…” preface instead of “You should…” Joyce definitely needs someone to talk to who will listen to her, but that doesn’t mean she DOESN’T need someone to say “hey, maybe you should do something about repairing the relationship that I know means a lot to you before it’s changed forever.”

      1. LetPeopleVent

        The royal “we” refers to “me and God”

    3. Jamie

      Since when has Sarah ever been supportive?

      1. Agemegos

        When she beat piss and pickhandles out of Ryan with her baseball bat.

        1. zee

          When she comforted Joyce about her parents impending divorce with her own experience

        2. Spencer

          And hugged her after she got home from her folks’.

          Whereupon Becky and Dina rolled in, made it a group hug, and Dina started yucking it up at Sarah, which I think motivates a lot of her problems: it’s not just that it’s hard to do reach out like this, it’s that it sometimes has consequences.

  13. Rakeesh

    Man, the ‘you’re dealing with shit’ curve gets applied very unevenly. It’s apparently really important that Joyce goes hat in hand and ask for forgiveness. So important that peeps feel the need to bring it up in unrelated conversation. I’d be irritated, too.

    Particularly since Joyce’s original offense was literally bad think, because nothing she said was intended for an eavesdropper’s ears.

    1. MrSmith

      But but but Becky feels bad

      1. Spencer

        I love engaging with fiction where my investment is entirely dependent on which character is being more Problematic.

        I eagerly anticipate the resolution of over a decade of Joyce getting her teeth kicked in by her death cult to be that Joyce herself needs to learn to stop kicking up suh a fuss about it.

    2. Lanie

      Look, nothing she said at the time was intended for an eavesdropping ear, but how she handled the hurt feelings of her friend was despicable. There’s a difference between being rightly angry at someone for eavesdropping and telling them so, and how Joyce basically told Becky she was an idiot for retaining her faith. You don’t get to hurt people without blame just because you’re a hurt person yourself. Joyce can think and feel whatever she wants, but she doesn’t earn a pass to be mean.

      1. Rakeesh

        ‘Despicable’? Isn’t that a little harsh? Consider this: Becky thinks some very critical things of Joyce for ‘failing’ to keep her faith, too. Becky may no longer believe in hell, but she still retains a fundamentalist’s smug certainty-not unlike Joyce.

        It’s just that Becky’s certainty takes the shape of ‘obviously the solution is to prune and cherry pick and set aside all of the many, many toxic beliefs we were raised in and keep the good stuff and how can you not see that and how your not seeing that hurts *me*, Joyce?’

        They’re both hurting, but for whatever reason-I suspect it’s because Joyce was ‘mean’-her friends’ ‘comfort’ is to assert a parental role of disapproval. Continuously, it seems.

        1. Nono

          The difference is that they’re both mad about the fight for different reasons.

          Joyce is mad because she thinks she’s right and that Becky should also agree with her.

          Becky is mad because Joyce said things that hurt her, I think Joyce insulting her faith (and kinda mocking the party they had for her mom) hurt more than Joyce being an atheist; she has no problem with Dina or Dorothy’s beliefs (not really).

          Sarah and Dorothy are trying to get Joyce to solve why Becky’s hurting (you said things that hurt her), but Joyce is taking that to mean ‘You should apologize for being right to keep the peace’.

        2. Rocket Relm

          The thing is that Becky’s actually had some quiet Atheist Phobia going on, it just never comes to the forefront of everything. Given the current storyline I’m actually starting to wonder if that wasn’t intentional on Willis’ part. Especially because it’s looking from an authorial standpoint, Willis intends for Becky to have no issues with Dina’s lack of faith which is very much not supported by the comic itself.

          Going by stuff in the comic, Becky very much does have a problem with their atheism. For Dorothy it’s a bedrock of the rivalry and her angry nature towards the woman. For Dina it’s more complicated, because the two have not (and maybe never will) have an earnest talk about what they believe in.

          For Dina’s part, Becky’s discarded the Against Dinosaurs parts, and she couldn’t care less about the rest. Becky’s too anti-confrontational to start up a discussion with Dina, and just recently we’ve had strong evidence that Becky hasn’t had a conversation with Dina about faith, and has absolutely no fucking clue what her girlfriend believes about it.

          Specifically, https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/05-as-long-as-its-free/dvr-2/ , where Becky says “An’ Dina, who’s probably very upset at this bein’ real!”. For Becky to believe that Dina, upon discovering paradise as Becky imagines it, in heaven eternally with her girlfriend, would be *mad*, is frankly her projecting her own issues on how she’d feel if she turned out to be wrong about the religion bits.

        3. Nono

          Atheism has never been an issue between Becky and Dorothy aside from like, one joke Becky made. Their rivalry had always been about Becky’s possessiveness over Joyce.

        4. Rocket Relm

          Becky’s first reaction to hearing about Dorothy has been “wow, even I’m only into cooters”, and yes that’s the only direct joke. A lot of the atheist phobia is derived from her other comments and attitudes not directly at Dorothy, and about her strong investment in her religion in general (and frankly it’s been a minor theme hinted at rather than a major point anywhere). But why is Becky so dang possessive here? Because some lanky looking, atheist, busybody bookworm hussy is monopolizing her girl friend.

          Obviously there’s multiple facets (like the horning in on her friend territory, Becky not finding Dorothy attractive, Dorothy chronically being nice and not engaging with it which makes Becky go to further and further lengths to establish the ‘rivalry’), and also obviously this doesn’t mean she *hates* Dorothy as a person. It’s just understandable that all her negative emotions towards Dorothy come out as Wacky Becky Rivalry.

        5. Needfuldoer

          I bet Becky genuinely feels threatened and a little envious Joyce and Dorothy’s friendship. Remember, Joyce seemingly slips down the Kinsey scale in proportion to her proximity to Dorothy, and I bet Becky’s still carrying a torch for her.

          Wacky Becky is Hide the Pain Becky, her facade for dissociating from unpleasant realities.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/05-as-long-as-its-free/darntootin/

        6. Needfuldoer

          But in Becky’s world, Dina can be an atheist because that’s what she’s always been. Joyce is dropping the faith they share, and this does not compute.

        7. thejeff

          Not just that it doesn’t compute, but it also takes away a big thing they share – which ties into well hidden insecurities.

          Not helped by Joyce hiding it from her and seeming to laugh about it behind her back, which only feeds those insecurities and probably makes her wonder what else Joyce might be hiding and laughing about. Mind you, it’s perfectly understandable that Joyce was hiding it from her, but it’s also perfectly understandable that she’s bothered by it.

          She would likely have had problems if Joyce come to her with it, but those would have been easier to get over than this.

        8. John Smith

          +1

        9. The Wellerman

          Re: Becky’s certainty, Joyce doesn’t really know how to do that kind of cherry picking, and the way I think she’s working through it is that she’s just rejecting religion in its entirety to mentally and physically distance herself from her group as much as possible to avoid falling back into her old habits of automatic compliance and automatically defending their ideology, so she can actually distinguish her self apart from her indoctrination.

          TL;DR. It’s like the mental equivalent of going to a place with less light pollution so she could more clearly see the light of the star, the solar system, the galaxy that is her self.

        10. Z

          Yes she’s critical of the fact that JOYCE IS LOOKING DOWN ON HER. She is critical of the fact that JOYCE HAS BEEN LYING TO HER. SHes critical of the fact that JOYCE IS STILL KIND OF AN ASSHOLE ABOUT BECKY’S GIRLFRIEND.

          We don’t know how any of this would have gone if Joyce had gone to Becky and said “hey…. Actually… I don’t believe in god anymore”. We’ll never know.

          Becky is dating an atheist. For all her antagonism of Dorothy, it’s based solely on jealousy of Joyce’s blatant crush on her. There’s been no indications that Becky has a problem with atheists.

        11. Rocket Relm

          Let’s examine these complaints.

          “Joyce is looking down on her”
          This is the only one with some merit, and even that one only started flaring up after the big argument.

          “Joyce has been lying to her”
          Why is Becky entitled to all of Joyce’s private thoughts? Especially the ones Joyce actively does not want her to see?

          “Joyce is an asshole about Dina”
          Based on one comment about Joyce processing that she has the same thoughts as Dina, I really don’t think there’s much evidence for this one at all.

          And we do know how it would have gone, because Joyce *tried* beginning to open up on the subject, then Becky acted like Joyce was being an impudent child and Joyce clammed up.

      2. not someone else

        I’m wondering what Sarah actually knows about what Joyce said on the stairs and if so, whether it was Becky or Joyce or who told her.

    3. MisterJinKC

      Intention doesn’t matter, how she reacted and continues to behave does. She has not shown an ounce of concern for the soul wrenching pain she caused Becky or anyone else. She is just behaving like atheist Mary at this point. She was the only person from Becky’s pre-college life left ALIVE and rather than admit she was being two faced and lying to Becky she insulted Becky’s girlfriend and is refusing to admit she was wrong in ANY way. The problem with Joyce isn’t “bad think” because she was loudly saying it in a room of people who were mutual friends of hers and Becky’s with the door open. Joyce is acting like a piece of shit, period. It doesn’t matter why she’s acting that way, she still is. What she’s gone through explains her behavior, but in no way excuses it.

      1. Rocket Relm

        I’mma need you to demonstrate some way worse shit to me if you actually want to say “Joyce is acting just like an atheist Mary”, because I would be rather shocked if we ever get to Joyce acting in the outright evil ways Mary has at some points.

        1. Ed Callahan

          It’s possible Joyce’s story arc might involve some excursions into the upper atmosphere of Marydom. I wonder if Willis has thought about a Joyce/Mary interaction. If Mary at some point goes for gleeful contempt, our next chapter might be about Sarah trying to get her roommate off the aggravated battery charge.

        2. Spencer

          There is something in the air telling me that Willis isn’t going to make Joyce a Mary, considering they started hating Mary as early as, like, 1999.

      2. Spencer

        soul wrenching pain

        I love y’all so much.

      3. thejeff

        Yeah, that’s a hell of a take.

        She’s acting like an atheist version of early Christian Joyce – who was always very different than Mary. Joyce is working through her shit and she’s being a jerk about it, but she’s nowhere near Mary’s league.

      4. Keulen

        I’m gonna go ahead and say intention does matter. There’s a big difference between hurting someone without intending to and hurting someone deliberately because you like hurting people.

      5. Ludaire

        Becky heard Joyce say one mean thing. Joyce has been lied to and emotionally abused by various religious people her entire life and Becky recently repeated the exact same “the problem isn’t religion; it’s you” blame shifting that’s standard fair for that emotional abuse.

        If all of this were about a boyfriend who stuck a gun in Joyce’s face, kidnapped Becky, lied to her her whole life, etc. people would be furious with Becky for defending the guy and being upset that Joyce called anyone who liked him an idiot. But because it’s religion at fault, people are falling back to the same social standard that religion can’t do any wrong and any criticism of it not dressed up in platitudes is mean and wrong and despicable.

        Joyce has gone to bat for Becky over and over and over at great personal risk. Right now, she’s hurt, confused, lashing out, and overcompensating for it all. She’s been handling things poorly, but she’s not despicable. The fact that people so easily forget forget all she’s done and been through just because she’s now an “angry atheist” both in comic and out has been the most upsetting thing about this whole arc.

        1. anonymsly

          This! Add to that, Becky has had to have her arm twisted (very gently) by Dorothy before she’d put up even a little emotional support for Joyce going through stuff. And it was about glasses. Joyce has been in Becky’s corner constantly and loudly, but Becky’s been preeeeetty absent from Joyce’s in my view.

    4. Devin

      Pretty sure the door was wide open. The whole eavesdropping thing holds a lot less water when there isn’t really much privacy to speak of.

      And it was still talking a heavy hand of trash about a group that definitely included her friend, behind her back. Not intended to be heard doesn’t change that fact.

      1. Clif

        If you expect that you can be overheard, you don’t turn white as a sheet on being overheard. There was clearly an expectation of privacy.

        1. Devin

          If the door was wide open, it wasn’t a very reasonable expectation. Poor decisions were very clearly made.

      2. Spencer

        Y’know Becky and Dorothy were there because they cyberstalked Joyce through Liz’s facebook, right?

        1. Devin

          And they arrived at an open door. It makes a difference. I also don’t much care about the “cyberstalking” thing. Information posted publicly on the internet is comparable to a public message board.

    5. Agemegos

      It’s very noticeable that Sarah and Jacob, Dorothy and Walky drew little criticism for mocking Joyce’s YEC beliefs (which are fringe and few readers share), whereas Joyce cops flak for mocking belief in the existence, benevolence, and care of an omnipotent God (which are mainstream and many readers share).

  14. Yotomoe

    Y’know both Joyce AND Sarah should have a talk with their sisters right now.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Yes absolutely. However, Joyce doesn’t even know she has one yet.

      Sarah doesn’t know hers is still in the building. If Liz shows up in the next chapter, we’ll see some fallout from Joe allegedly taking advantage of her.

      1. thejeff

        So what did happen with Liz? She’d said earlier she’d have to wait til tomorrow for another ride, so where’s she spending the night? Can’t really imagine her vanishing without a little more resolution.

  15. The Wellerman

    Well Joyce has done lots of wrong recently, she kind of has a point in that last panel.

    Implying that she especially needs forgiveness and allowances like that kind of comes from the same place where they made fun of her for being the “weird naive Christian girl”.

    I could be wrong, but I think at least past of this seems like the comeuppance for her piers making fun of her for so long.

    1. The Wellerman

      And I can’t spell today…. why.

    2. MisterJinKC

      Sarah is gently telling her she is wrong and trying to get her to understand that without being combative. At the rate Joyce is going she is going to need a lot of forgiveness.

      1. Spencer

        Woulda been sweet if Sarah tried “gently telling” a few hours ago instead of telling her she deserved to lose her job because hubris makes Sarah get off.

      2. Reaver

        Pity she didnt try to be gentle earlier and instead snarked at her saying she didnt deserve to win because Hubrus.

  16. King Daniel

    Now let’s see about tonight’s round o’ roulette for me…

    1. King Daniel

      Wait, I tried this combo yesterday

      1. King Daniel

        Just a couple more tonight.

        1. King Daniel

          I think we have a (phone) winner!

        2. The Wellerman

          Wait, are the avatars still changing like an ancient frickin maze or something? Or do you have yet to get the one you’re after?

        3. Regalli

          Changing the capitalization in your email rerolls the grav roulette, but you should really only do so a couple times a night because the site will sometimes see you changing the capitalization too many times and mistake it for some kind of spam technique and plunk you in the moderation queue for a bit. Happened to at least one commenter who had to permanently change their tagname, IIRC. At least for a while.

        4. woobie

          It happened to me recently. If it happens, wait a day to comment.

        5. Clif

          My experience is that if you make your usual comments, not talking about it, you can change it up each time.

          Always assuming your regular comments aren’t spam.

        6. Needfuldoer

          I bet the spam filter gets tripped by making multiple short comments in rapid succession, not necessarily by the capitalization. I changed it for every comment for a couple days, and it never stuck me back in the moderation queue.

        7. King Daniel

          Asher was the one I was after for my main (succeeded in rolling that one a few days ago now), but I didn’t exactly feel Walky as my phone grav so I went looking for a new combination for that. The search is over now, though. 😛

    2. Lanie

      Thank you for reminding me to play!

      1. Lanie

        Oof, nevermind. It’s like the month of characters that drive me nuts.

        1. King Daniel

          Truth is…the game was rigged from the start.

        2. Thag Simmons

          Genuinely the best opening in games, maybe in any media.

        3. Regalli

          That sounds SO OMINOUS with an Asher grav, just gotta say.

  17. alongcameaspider

    Joyce needs someone to sit down and explain exactly what’s wrong with her attitude here rather then just talking down to her

    Joyce is right here Sarah is coming off as very condescending

    1. TemporalShrew

      Yeah, this is where I’m at. Joyce is still fairly insecure in her beliefs, and she’s clearly conflating the demands to apologize for her behavior regarding those beliefs with a demand to apologize for the beliefs themselves. Just repeating to her ad nauseam that she needs to apologize and she should feel bad isn’t going to do anything until someone actually attempts to have a proper conversation (read: not an argument) with her about it.

      I mean, part of that is on her, because she’s also guilty of overcompensating for her lack of self-assurance by presenting a belligerent confidence in her new worldview, of course. So it’s really got to cut both ways, I guess.

      1. Nono

        I think they’re trying to appeal to her friendship with Becky to get her to resolve the fight (and given the way that Joyce is tunnel-visioning on her comic, it’s clear that she’s not as unaffected by the argument as she’s pretending to be).

        The problem is that right now, Joyce is reducing her friendship with Becky to their views on religion – ‘I don’t have to apologize since I’m right, we can be friends again when she accepts that I’m right’.

    2. Agemegos

      Someone to sit down and explain exactly what’s wrong with her attitude here would also be condescending. It would be better for Joyce to have a series of discussions of general principles of right and wrong, being and nothingness, knowledge and opinion that started from the presumption that nothing should be taken on authority, but everything required to stand up to evidence and reason.

      Something like, I don’t know, a traditional undergraduate bull session.

      1. thejeff

        But that would likely just leave her more convinced that she’s right about atheism and that Christianity is silly and mockable and therefore she’s done nothing wrong and doesn’t need forgiveness.
        She doesn’t need anything about standing up to evidence and reason here, but about social interaction. Lessons she gradually learned while she still believed, but is having trouble flipping around.

        1. Spencer

          What do you think, specifically, changed Joyce’s tune from “I don’t know what these words mean and it scares me” to “haha in your face, God is dumb!”

        2. Agemegos

          Yes, and that would be fine. But she’s not going to be able to build or choose a better approach to social interaction until she settles on standard for judging approaches to social interaction. She is done with accepting authority on the grounds of vigorous assertion, and neither Dorothy nor Sarah nor anyone else will succeed by commanding her to mend her manners. She has to be persuaded into being more considerate and less abrasive by evidence and rational argument, not by bossy nagging.

        3. Spencer

          Oh huh, I didn’t even think of that.

          “Joyce, I know you’re better than this, this is way more disappointing than you skipping class.” “We’ll forgive you every time.”

          jfc, Sarah and Dorothy are being her friggin’ parents. At least Becky’s, like, hating Joyce for the things she’s doing instead of trying to drag her into Being Better.

        4. Hrodvitnir

          Yeah, see I agree in general, but I also feel like it’s been a matter of hours – Joyce is nowhere near ready for a real discussion. I think Sarah’s comment is fine, because it sounds to me like “I can tell you’re not ready to talk about this, but for when you freak out about it later, I want you to remember that I will forgive you even if you get worse for a while.”

        5. Spencer

          Okay yeah but that’s the problem.

          Joyce doesn’t need to be forgiven, someone needs to hear her out for five seconds to help her square herself.

          Sarah not only did not do that, she welcomed Joyce back to her dorm after getting the comic job by telling her she didn’t deserve it and should have lost it to suffer for her hubris, and then told her she needed to go back to the way she was.

          That’s deliberately antagonistic, this is merely condescending where Joyce’s anger at Sarah right now is something that Sarah fostered herself.

          Like, instead of “we’ll forgive you”, how about “do you want to talk about what happened?”

          ‘Cause I know which one’s more empathetic.

    3. Sam

      I honestly think Sarah mirroring Joyce’s words back at her, is Sarah TRYING to connect to her and failing. These were words Joyce used to convince Sarah to tell her the truth when there was a concern that revealing her actual plot would damage things between them. It let her know it was okay to be vulnerable and tell the truth and Joyce wouldn’t rake her over the coals for it.

      And I think that context is important because Sarah is basically saying ‘if there is something going on behind this, if you are lashing out or acting out and there is a reason behind it, we’ll understand and we won’t attack you for it’.

      And Joyce would KNOW that. But she’s purposefully rebuffing her with ‘Nothing is wrong with me, I’m right, and it is condescending to suggest something is wrong with me because I’m right.’

      1. Jamie

        This.

      2. Needfuldoer

        Yup.

        It took some digging to find (since Joyce and Sarah are in so many comic strips together), but here’s the Joyce line Sarah’s adapting:

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/operate/

        1. Nicoleandmaggie

          Reading the comments on that one praising Joyce’s words is pretty funny in retrospect. Well played, Willis.

      3. Spencer

        Sarah already knows the reason. Sarah was the first person to know the reason, even.

        And, y’know, Sarah has already attacked her for it. So has Dorothy. Becky too but it’s understandable in her case, it’s a shock, and also she and Joyce were codependent loons.

  18. RassilonTDavros

    Okay I take back every good thing I said about Joyce in this arc, she’s denying us more Jocelyne, therefore she is the worst

    …jokes aside, Jocelyne calling right now does not bode well. I get the distinct feeling that this call is super important and that Joyce is going to regret ignoring her here.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Becky called Jocelyne after the fight, and after their conversation she is now trying to see if Joyce is okay. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something else. I’m worried that the Carol may have hit the fan.

    1. alongcameaspider

      “Carol may have hit the fan”

      Becky wouldn’t be petty enough to tell Carol about Joyce’s atheism, would she?

      1. Thag Simmons

        Not a chance.

        I think they mean that Carol might be starting shit with Jocelyne.

        1. Regalli

          Yeah, if Carol finds out Jocelyne’s trans, Joss has every reason to be worried for her safety as a result.

        2. Clif

          You would think someone would text Joyce after she doesn’t answer her phone.

        3. hekaton

          yeah what kind of ghoul *calls* people in the year of our lord Current Era Comic Time and wouldn’t text; esp a presumably at least somewhat tech savvy second-youngest sibling like Jocelyne?

        4. khn0

          Well I think someone majoring in english would at recognize that to give texte the proper impulse, convey the proper tone, tell the tale of feelings, you at least need a few chapter, which have, in the year of our fictional lord Current Era Comic Time, not really a chance to get read: in time, in order. So unless you agree with characters of Huxley’s Marina di Vezza that people never reads the full page of books (and that selfindulgence is align in general with the general emotional mood, what is not in Huxley), speaking through the phone may be something an english major would favour over “red are rose, violets are blue, mom is mad, I miss you”

        5. Needfuldoer

          The way I see it, a phone call is higher priority than a text, which is higher priority than an email.

          Phone call: “I need your attention right now.”
          Text message / IM: “Get back to me ASAP.”
          Email: “Reply when you can.”

          Then again I’m a “geriatric millennial” who remembers a world before text messaging was ubiquitous.

        6. thejeff

          OTOH, if the phone call doesn’t get an answer a text can convey the message and is much more likely to be at least glanced at.

          People might ignore a phone call because they’re busy with something else and don’t want to take time out to talk right then, but they’ll still see the text notification

        7. Regalli

          All of this, but as far as we know this is only the first call anyway as opposed to the multiple attempts of Hank/from Hank’s phone when Ross was bailed out. (Said multiple attempts at calling without texting also make sense to avoid something the other could definitely find, since we know Carol made a call from Hank’s phone to justify her actions to Joyce at least once, and imply much more urgency than one call and then text. Of course, the power of avoidant anxiety is that even constant calls can fail to pierce the ‘if I ignore it it will eventually stop,’ but it did at least get Joyce’s friends to recognize the urgency.)

        8. khn0

          @thejeff some of us ignore texts. Some of us can’t writer a text that is less than 8735 signs.

          + the youth today (almost wrote “youssouf today”, but a 2005 fastcore from Caen that was way too obscure) , don’t they leave voice messages rather than texts anyway?

        9. zee

          Maybe she will it’s only been like 5 seconds

      2. JBento

        Not unless Becky’s IQ suddenly dropped like eleventy billion points. Carol loathes Becky. If Becky told Carol Joyce’s gone atheist, my money’s on Carol immediately blaming Becky for it.

    2. Agemegos

      Q: What happened when Carol walked backwards into a fan?

      A: Dis-assed her!

    3. Needfuldoer

      The church got together for some kind of dark incantation, now Zombie Toedead (or Toeundead) is shambling his way to IU to grab Becky.

      They have three days to prepare.

      1. JBento

        Count Toecula? If he gets his fangs on you, he sucks all the joy out of life. Crucifixes actually empower him, but you can keep him at bay with a physical science or history textbook, but only if that textbook is not approved in Texas.

    4. Ludaire

      Yeah, it’s sad she’s not talking to Jocelyn. I’d love to see someone being sincerely concerned for Joyce and what she’s going through and trying to offer support. So far, the closest she’s gotten to that is Joe, who isn’t the greatest person for this. An argument could be made for Liz, but Liz is a pretty terrible option considering the fact that Liz seems to be even earlier in the process of escaping faith than Joyce is. Becky was too busy being angry about Joyce saying a few mean words and blaming Joyce for everything that’s happened with their religion, while Dorothy and Sarah are patronizing and seem more worried about Joyce getting back to being nice, friendly Joyce rather than being sincerely concerned for their friend.

      1. JBento

        You probably wouldn’t get that out of THIS conversation with Jocelyne, because Joss doesn’t know and Joyce wouldn’t be likely to tell her, afraid it would leak out to her parents.

        1. Regalli

          It’s not impossible Becky told Jocelyne, who accepts her as New Little Sister and may have kept a line of communication open separate from Joyce. Not a given by any means, but very possible. But it’s also possible something Big is happening and Joyce is going to miss key knowledge.

        2. JBento

          I think Joss DID give her number to Becky way back when, but I don’t think enough time has passed for that sort of call to have taken place, considering that, from what we know, Becky actually went to class.

          Of course, the Browns are currently in such a state of disarray that who the fuck even knows what’s going on in fundietown these days. For all we know, Jordan’s coming to visit for the inevitable divorce all-guns-blazing-which-of-us-are-you-siding-with showdown.

  19. Kravis

    Oh, shit!

    The Joyce has become self-aware!

  20. StClair

    Joyce was all anxious and uncertain and unhappy, doubting and questioning everything, but now she’s found firm bedrock again, she can go back to being RIGHT and confident and judging people about whether they’re on board with the obvious Truth. Such a relief!

    1. Needfuldoer

      And she’ll be over in the corner, distracting herself with and working out her inner conflicts via working on her comic when they’re ready to recognize how right she is.

  21. DailyBrad

    I do think that, yeah, Joyce has every right to feel patronized, but she’s also being a pissbaby, so, swings and roundabouts.

    1. alongcameaspider

      Literally nobody is coming out looking good in this particular plotline

      1. Thag Simmons

        Sal, I guess.

        1. alongcameaspider

          I was referring more to the “argument with Becky” part of the story but I could have been more specific

        2. Thag Simmons

          Figured as much.

          Also debated saying Ethan, because that is a really good look for him.

        3. khn0

          can’t help but get a feeling of Napalm Death’s Barney going such an emo-cut during the NWOBHM general phase.

      2. JBento

        Joe is coming out looking pretty good.

  22. Endplanets

    Its good to hear Sarah talk about forgiveness. Being able to forgive people for their future actions is important.

  23. Ereb

    “We will always forgive you”,
    sounds pretty weird coming from Sarah. Is it a quote? Is this something Joyce had said to her before?

    1. alongcameaspider

      It’s definitely something I remember Joyce saying but I dont recall if it was specifically to Sarah or not

      1. Nono

        It was to Sarah yeah, it was about when Sarah told Joyce, never mind, don’t break Jacob and Raidah up.

        To which Sarah just mentioned that Joyce was so sweetly passive aggressive, like a mom.

      2. Rocket Relm

        Yeah, the context is interesting and kind of fitting in some ways, though it really only works for mistakes people know are mistakes. When the other person disagrees it’s not going to work out. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it outright condescending, especially when Sarah says it in that tone, but I can kind of see how Joyce might interpret it that way.

        Especially because Sarah and Becky (and a smidge of Dorothy apathy) have been jackasses to her during this storyline, but that’s its own issue I don’t expect to see addressed.

      3. Ereb

        That’s really interesting, thanks! It does make more sense that way. Sarah clearly doesn’t have much experience with getting involved in other affairs like this. So maybe that’s why she parrots back what Joyce said to her, and what Sarah appreciated about Joyce’s good-naturedness in a moment when Sarah knew herself was wrong

      4. Kitschensyngk

        I remember she said it in the back of a van one time.

    2. JoeCovenant

      Totally with you on that.
      Read today strip thinking “Have I missed something”???

    3. Needfuldoer

      Yes, Sarah’s echoing pre-timeskip Joyce.

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/operate/

  24. Kirtro

    Funny that Ethan recently brought up Beast Wars

    Cause I have some words for Joyce I normally find reserved for Rattrap…. 9_9

  25. Tenzhi

    Did anyone else first read that as “big busty Friday night” and do a double-take? No? Just me? I’ll show myself out…

    1. PirateTawnee

      Oh thank goodness I wasn’t the only one.

  26. MugiwaraNoPancakes

    It really ain’t Joyce’s responsibility to go find and talk to Becky since Becky’s the one who has a problem with Joyce. She overheard something she wasn’t meant to hear, took offense to it, and then refused to have a conversation with Joyce when she tried to hash things out. I really don’t think Dorothy and Sarah are helping by hoisting their expectations onto Joyce about who they think she should be in this situation.

    1. woobie

      I was going to disagree with your first sentence, then I read the rest.
      I agree.

    2. Andy

      I don’t think Joyce tried to hash things out. I think she tried to smooth things over with a non-apology, which Becky didn’t want to let stand. Becky also pushed Joyce into saying that Joyce thinks Becky is stupid for having faith, so that’s definitely something where they both need to apologize. The fact remains, though, that regardless of whether or not Becky was meant to hear, she did and she was hurt by words that were inherently hurtful and were intended to be hurtful. To me, that’s the sort of thing where you either apologize or you tell your friend that you don’t want to be friends anymore.

      Now, are Sarah and Dorothy helping? Maybe not. But I’m not convinced they’re hoisting expectations of who Joyce should be. I think they see Joyce being truly out of character. She’s been at odds with people and their beliefs before, but she’s never really been casually disdainful of them. Between that and the way she’s seemed unstable and was lashing out earlier, I can understand why they’re worried and trying to tell her, in a somewhat clumsy and ill-worded way, that they’re still there for her.

      1. Spencer

        Nah, it was an actual apology. She is in fact sorry that she hurt Becky and not the part where she hates her stupid bullshit death cult that sucked.

        I know the character going “sorry you got caught” usually means the apology is insincere, but actually sometimes fiction lies to us! You can actually be sorry even if the person hearing it doesn’t care, and then you don’t actually have to keep apologizing!

        1. Andy

          To start, I don’t think she was apologizing for Becky being hurt. I really do think she threw “I’m sorry! I’m really really sorry!” out as a way to soothe Becky without actually apologizing for anything. As I’ve said before, she wasn’t sincere, and just as importantly, she didn’t jump on the opening Becky gave her by saying “you’re sorry you got caught.” If she was sorry she hurt Becky, she’d had agreed with that. Joyce’s silence indicates that she did not mean that and she wasn’t expecting Becky to see through her.

          Second, I don’t think Joyce actually consciously cares that Becky is hurt. She cares that her friendship with Becky was damaged. She cares that she didn’t win their argument. She doesn’t care that Becky was hurt for believing stupid things, and since she can’t separate okay bits and pieces from the bits of her religuon that are not okay, she thinks that Becky believes stupid things. Which makes her apology even more worthless.

          If Joyce doesn’t want to make amends with Becky, that’s her choice. If Joyce didn’t want to apologize at all, that’s also her choice. But she cannot give an insincere apology and expect that to paper over the cracks in their relationship.

        2. Spencer

          She said she was sorry, Becky said she wasn’t. I don’t know why she would continue when Becky just made it clear that she thinks Joyce is presently lying.

          since she can’t separate okay bits and pieces from the bits of her religuon that are not okay, she thinks that Becky believes stupid things. Which makes her apology even more worthless.

          Joyce thinks Becky believes in stupid things like a 6000 year old Earth yeah.

          That was kind of the point of the entire argument. Joyce thinks Becky had facts, Becky thought Joyce had faith. They were not having the same conversation, which is why Becky said that Joyce’s religious beliefs were based in lording her superiority over someone else, but I guess that’s not mean because Joyce got angry instead of crying and sulking away.

          I can’t even with the idea that Joyce would not consciously care Becky, someone she defied every single aspect of her life multiple times to protect, she sheltered her in her room at risk of expulsion and was kidnapped and nearly shot in the face, was hurt by her, but sure okay I guess.

          I get the feeling we’re gonna ignore the part where Joyce says Becky isn’t dumb and she’ll figure it like Joyce did because Joyce views it as a set of inerrant facts and I think I’m just doomed for the rest of my life to say ‘inerrant facts’ as much as possible.

        3. Andy

          I’mma start with Joyce not caring, because that’s a thing I thought about clarifying previously and decided it wasn’t important, when it clearly is. Right now, Joyce is in a very difficult headspace. She’s extremely mad at her church. She’s mad at her mother, as well as at her father. Those things have caused her to hate her faith, which is something she’d based her entire life around. She’s mad that Becky hasn’t let go of that same faith that, as Joyce sees it, has hurt Becky over and over again. That anger spilled over and caused her to hurt her friend. I don’t care if her friend wasn’t expected to be there, I don’t care if Joyce was correct in anything she said. She hurt her friend, the same friend that she’s endured such pain and sacrificed so much for, as you pointed out. And she cannot reconcile those two things right now. She cannot back down and allow herself to care that she hurt Becky, because that means admitting that maybe Becky isn’t wrong to have faith, and if Becky isn’t wrong to have faith, maybe Joyce isn’t wrong to hate her own faith and by extension the church and her parents. She has to be right about faith being stupid and those who have it being stupid to the point that she cannot let herself care that she hurt her oldest friend. Does she still care? Yes, very much so, but she is repressing it because she thinks that’s the only way she can cope with it at the moment. And that’s why I say she doesn’t consciously care: because it’s not something she’s allowing into her conscious mind, even though she still feels it. It’s rather like when people arguing with their significant other and they say hurtful things. They still love that person, and in the back of their mind they’re absolutely sick at how much they’re hurting them, but they’re so hyped up and angry and have such a need to be right that at that moment they are not allowing themselves to care.

          I also think Joyce expecting Becky to come around is part of this. If she was less angry at her church, her faith, and Becky for not completely denouncing both, I think she’d be able to recognize that there’s nothing inherently wrong with having faith. Before losing faith, she came around to accept that Ethan and Joe are Jewish, that Dorothy is atheist, and that Jacob is a very different flavor of Christianity from her. There’s no reason she won’t be able to disagree with people on matters of faith while accepting that they disagree again, but she has to shed her anger towards faith first. Note that I’m not saying she has to shed her anger at her church or her parents; that anger is very correct and justified. She can even be angry at herself for allowing her faith to blind her and at the belief she held specifically. She cannot be angry that others still have faith, and that is the anger she has to move past.

          I don’t know how much of what Becky said was meant to be mean and how much was her actually reacting to Joyce apparently insulting Dina. I suspect there was more than a bit that was meant to hurt, similar to the significant other fight I alluded to earlier. I also suspect that Joyce did have some of her faith built around being better than others, and she did allow herself to feel superior to them based on that. There’s been many comments made about how Joyce’s atheism is essentially her faith with a negative sign tacked on, and I think that applies here as well. The superiority she displayed when mocking Christians with Liz isn’t really new. It just has a new target. In that case, Becky could’ve chosen a better time to call Joyce out (and certainly should have done so prior to Joyce’s loss of faith, because that shit ain’t cool), but we cannot reduce what she said simply to being mean.

          Now for the apology. The actual exchange was as follows: “[Liz] didn’t hurt me.” “Becky, I’m sorry! I’m really sorry. I really, really am!” “Sorry I heard you.” And then a silent beat panel. Later, Sarah asks Joyce:

        4. Spencer

          Joyce never had faith. She does not think anyone else had faith, she thinks herself and everyone like her (including Becky) had blind obedience to blatant falsehoods like the Earth being 6000 years old.

          Her friend is hurt because she cyberstalked Joyce because she had a friend over without telling her and eavesdropped on a conversation only tangentially had anything to do with her.

          I know Becky said it in a cool badass way in the last panel, but Joyce’s faith was never about superiority because she never had faith to begin with, she had rules she was told were right. I’m not superior to you if I’m better at math.

          I’m not arguing the ‘sorry’ shit anymore. If Becky saying Joyce isn’t really sorry is all you need, then gucci.

        5. Andy

          I think that if you and I cannot agree even on something so fundamental as whether Joyce had faith or not, it may be best for both of us to leave this discussion alone with each other. To be quite frank (though I prefer to be quite Andy), I think there’s rather a lot you and I will never agree on. I respect your opinion, and the comments on Joyce’s faith clarify where it’s coming from a lot better, but I think this whole line of conversation is one of those things.

        6. Andy

          My apologies; I hit submit early by mistake. As I was saying…

          Sarah later said to Joyce, “… You aren’t actually sorry about what Becky heard you say, are you. Did you actually try to apologize?” Once again, we get a silent beat panel and then Joyce goes into doubling down on being right. These together indicate to me that the apology was not sincere. First, because the wording seems like she’s trying too hard to sound sincere. Apologies tend to sound faker the more you repeat them and say how very very sorry you are, and she’s saying she’s really really sorry, she really is. Second, because she doesn’t say what she’s sorry for at any point. I’ve said this multiple times, but I would have much more respect for Joyce here if she said why she was sorry. There’s a few things she could be sorry for: hurting Becky, allowing Becky to hear her, saying hurtful things, losing her faith. Not all of them require an apology, but the number of possibilities means she needs to qualify it. The fact that she didn’t leads me to believe she wasn’t actually sorry for any of it. She may regret that Becky heard her and was hurt, but she feels no remorse for it and feels she was in the right for it. Third, the fact that she doesn’t correct Becky or Sarah and just doubles down on being right in each case. If she’s making a real apology as an inroads to making amends, regardless of the necessity of it, clarifying it states what part she feels she needs to make amends for. That’s where they start hashing things out. A vague blanket “I’m sorry” like she offered isn’t intended to open that sort of dialogue; it’s meant to say “Look, let’s just pretend everything’s okay and move on.” Fourth is the fact that she gave up,which ties in to several things above and shows she wasn’t sincere. This is a caveat to what I said earlier about saying how sorry you are sounding fake. There are times it’s appropriate and necessary to respond when someone challenges your apology, and when it needs to be clarified or expanded on is one of those times. That doesn’t mean repeating how sorry you are, which is often focused on yourself, but rather talking about what you have remorse for and how you were in the wrong. “Yes, I’m sorry you heard me. I was venting and I should’ve ensured there was no one around that I could’ve insulted” or ” Yes, I wasn’t expecting you to be there, and I wish you didn’t hear that” is light years more sincere than “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry. I really, really am!” Fifth and finally, I’ve touched on it before, but doubling down, even when not tied to her not correcting Becky or Sarah or to her not clarifying her apology, is a MAJOR indication that she’s not sorry. You cannot feel that you’re in the right about everything that just happened and offer a sincere apology. At best, it’s a balm to quiet the other person; at worst it’s an indication that you intend to continue doing the same thing. Both she and Becky know and understand this: they were raised Christian, and every Christian church I’ve ever seen preaches that true repentance includes trying to avoid the actions you are repenting. Doubling down is the complete opposite of that.

        7. Spencer

          Joyce isn’t sorry now because Becky directly stated that Joyce failed at being a Christian.

    3. Keulen

      I agree with you on this.

  27. Nono

    You know I never really noticed it before, but Joyce has a bit of an laser-obsessive streak, huh?

    In the Walkyverse it was just Danny, but here we’ve had her tunnel focusing on Sal, Dorothy, Dexter/Monkey Master and now her comic.

    1. Chris Phoenix

      Joyce is an author-insert, right? How many webcomic artists have a buffer measured in months?

      I mean, maybe it’s just professionalism…

    2. Needfuldoer

      I’m not going to say Joyce has OCD, but she does exhibit some obsessive-compulsive habits (like her picky eating and going all-in on the latest shiny thing to catch her fancy).

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Also a hallmark of the autism, which I believe has previously been touched on in the comments. She seems to have <somethin' goin’ on, but how much of it is just from how she was raised?

        1. Regalli

          Per Willis: If you figure out how much of it’s from upbringing, let HIM know and ‘yeah so I put some aspects of myself in Joyce and Dina for all to see and that led to some interesting discoveries about myself when people started commenting on those traits.’ (To my knowledge, he’s never discussed a specific diagnosis publicly, and may not have ever gotten a formal on-paper one given what a pain it is to do so as an adult. Not actually our business either way. But they definitely seem to have come to the conclusion they’re probably some stripe of neurodivergent, too.)

      2. The Wellerman

        Yeah, I myself has always been with the “traits not labels” approach when it comes to character quirkiness that I enjoy in works like this.

        For instance, Rick from Rick and Morty seems to display that kind of obsessiveness with whatever captures his interest too.

        I can only hope that Joyce doesn’t become more like him……

  28. Bicycle Bill

    Two questions – Joyce had five brothers in the Walkyverse, but only three now in the Dumbiverse.  Has Willis ever explained why two of the brothers got the “Chuck Cunningham” treatment?

    Second question – what IS Joyce’s oldest brother’s name?  In the strip “Undeclared”, when the family was visiting and we first met Joshua/Jocelyne, the oldest brother was called ‘Jonathan’ … but in the strips in the 2016 story arc which culminates in Becky ‘breaking into’ her old house to retrieve documents and so on, he is continually referred to only as ‘John’ (and is also listed only as ‘John’ in the Walkypedia).

    1. King Daniel

      In the Walkyverse-rerun commentaries, Willis’s said that they guess Hank and/or Carol probably weren’t in the mood on the two “otherwise-important” nights. From a Doylist perspective, it’s mainly because Willis wanted Hank and Carol to not be quite as old in the Dumbiverse as they were in the Walkyverse.

      1. Thag Simmons

        It’s also less characters to deal with.

        1. King Daniel

          Considering Willis’s hit the point where they’re now occasionally creating wholly-original characters with no Walkyverse counterparts (Mindy and Anna come to mind) and Joyce’s family rarely appears as it is, I’m not so sure that was nearly as much a concern. 😛

    2. Regalli

      Second question: John as short for Jonathan, is my assumption, the way Joyce sometimes calls her sister ‘Josh’ rather than the full deadname. Some people are legally named John and that’s it, but there’s also plenty of people whose legal name is the long form but exclusively go by the short form.

      King Daniel goes into the first question. Also, three siblings is plenty. The other two weren’t characters in the Walkyverse (hell, neither were the three we have here,) and so I could also see it being an attempt to limit the Brown siblings to a number that can reasonably all be characters and not background filler. Jordan’s a deliberate enigma, but one whose mystery serves a purpose and will likely get payoff down the line. Meanwhile, John and Jocelyne are both actual characters, with reasons why John didn’t appear for family weekend (he was busy) and why Joyce hasn’t talked to him since the post-Toedad weekend (he was an asshole to her and may well have sided with Carol post-second kidnapping.)

      1. Agemegos

        I’m used to “Jon” being short for “Jonathan”, while “John” is a different name with an independent etymology.

        1. thejeff

          It often is, but I don’t think it’s a strict rule.

  29. Vukodlak

    Hey Joyce Linda called she wants her crown for queen B*** of the universe back.

    1. Jamie

      Nah, Joyce hasn’t gotten that bad yet. She’s merely terrible at a college-kid level. She has yet to rise to the heights of being a DoA parent.

  30. anonymsly

    My first reaction was, no lie, ‘who the heck is Joshua?’ And then I remembered that’s Jocelyne’s dead name. Not sure how I feel about forgetting.

    1. woobie

      Don’t beat yourself up.
      I was recently on a union council Zoom, and the vice chair accidentally called a long time but recently re-pronouned colleague and friend ‘she’ instead of ‘they’ (and he was already having trouble with a contentious meeting). One person posted in the chat that he had made a mistake, and soon moved to all caps about it- but if you don’t have a chat window open, all you see is a number at the bottom of the window.
      as soon as the VC realized his mistake he apologized, claimed habit, and was forgiven.
      Accidents should be fine. Intentional a-holery is not.

    2. Spencer

      Hey its cool, Joyce and everyone else will forget it soon enough.

  31. Sirksome

    Okay so I’m a bit confused here. Joyce has Jocelyne marked as big brother #2 but I kind of assumed Jocelyne is the second youngest of the four Brown children so wouldn’t that make her big brother #3? Is Jocelyne actually older than another Brown brother? Is she older than John or Jordan? Or is this just Joyce’s personal ranking of brothers in which case Jocelyne isn’t her favorite?

    1. Catullus

      IIRC, Jocelyne is older than Jordan

      1. Sirksome

        So Jordan is even closer in age to Joyce and possibly also attending college and we’ve still never seen him? He must be the most boring and not at all relevant member of the Brown house. Behind even the dog apparently.

        1. alongcameaspider

          He’s apparently completely estranged from the family for a currently unknown reason

          I recall seeing speculation that a break with religion might be a reason so if he somehow finds out about Joyce’s current issues he might show up soon

        2. Heather

          I’ve sometimes pondered if it’s something which seems ridiculously petty but super serious in the fundamentalist community like being a catholic or even just a flavour of Protestant they don’t like.

          Hell I’ll say it: he became an Eastern Orthodox priest. Why not.

        3. King Daniel

          Jordan’s the most mysterious member of the Brown family. We’ve only ever seen his face in the Walkyverse.

          (In the Dumbiverse it’s been implied that he’s estranged from Carol and possibly Hank, though the reason why is anyone’s guess.)

        4. Thag Simmons

          Joyce doesn’t even know what the dude does for a living

        5. Regalli

          Per Hank and Carol’s fight, it’s clear SOMETHING happened between them and Jordan, which Hank clearly regrets and Carol thinks they should have been even more restrictive with (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/squeezing-2/). Context being what it is, and Joyce not knowing much at all about her next-closest sibling in age (she’s not ALLOWED to know what Jordan does for a living, even,) it definitely suggests Jordan’s at least low-contact with the family if not no contact at all.

          Now, whether that extends to Jocelyne, who is very much in the closet for her own safety and has therefore been hiding a lot of things about her life from their parents, is anyone’s guess. Probably depends heavily on what prompted the falling out and what their sibling relationship was like beforehand.

        6. anonymsly

          I always thought that Jordan was next in age after John, with Jocelyne being the third child. Depending on the exact length of time of Jordan’s estrangement, he’s not big brother anything in Joyce’s phone. She has two big brothers in her phone: John #1 and Jocelyne #2.

        7. Norah

          No, there’s some mystery there—Carol and possibly Hank disapprove of Jordan, or of what he’s doing with his life.

        8. Geneseepaws

          Apostasy is a real problem in the world, now, and has been true for God’s people for generations. I suspect these three crises will either foment or ferment into something “Tres Dramatique,” for Joyce. It’s gonna come crashin’ all down around her pointy li’l head, curt and shortly. C’est la vie!

    2. Thag Simmons

      Yeah I think Jocelyne was the second child

    3. Regalli

      Yeah, the timeline on Jordan confuses me greatly. I think the relative ages are such that Jocelyne was a later teen and Jordan a 13-14-year-old when Joyce was like, maybe 5ish? (We’ve seen some indication there on Patreon, once, but no concrete ages for anyone, just guidelines.) But that still means that whatever blowout occurred with Jordan should have occurred in the time Joyce can actually remember, at least somewhat. The older Joyce is when it occurs, it just gets harder to imagine she wouldn’t have caught at least a little information, suggesting Jordan may have become estranged… worryingly young, potentially Becky’s age or younger.

      (That also puts a fairly big age gap between Jordan and Joyce relative to the other three, John apparently being only a few years older than Jocelyne, but eh, that happens sometimes.)

      1. Heather

        It really all kind of depends. Maybe he even went to boarding school a la Sal (only not a catholic one obviously). Or had to go live with a more religious relative because of a mysterious incident or he actually had a rebellious phase as a teen unlike the two older siblings from what we can gather (at most Jocelyn argued for trick or treating for Joyce and picked her battles… maybe Jordan simply didn’t or wasn’t as savvy as her). There’s ways Joyce’s parents could have kept a divide up if determined enough. And like looking back on my own childhood it’s almost wild how fucking oblivious I was to some things especially at Primary school age. Like even by average kid standards I was… well not very observant. Book smart but somehow unspeakably dim. I have to wonder how much of it was part of my upbringing or just the fact I was an in a time when internet access wasn’t really a thing in most households. (Like I remember having internet in secondary school time but before then…) and like Joyce was homeschooled with groups. With kids outside of Becky who were trained not to question things. Joyce until now wouldn’t have much a reference for how the Jordan situation is not really normal and even now she has other things in her mind no doubt.

        1. Regalli

          Religious boarding school strikes me as a bit unlikely given the Browns are explicitly non-denominational Protestants (because they changed congregations a lot when Joyce was a kid.) Possible, but unlikely – I don’t think there are many schools of that particular evangelical strain and style out there below college level, because generally those parents end up homeschooling their kids to ensure they’re learning the PROPER lessons. We know John as oldest went to public school, from the fight between Hank and Carol that included ‘we squeezed too hard and ended up with Jordan’/‘we should have squeezed harder.’ Jocelyne clearly went to a public, secular university, but seems to have witnessed the Fox News radicalization – I think if she went to public school in the early years, she was homeschooled by the end of high school. Jordan going to college has never come up, suggesting that he either didn’t go to begin with or the estrangement was before then. (Because if their last kid went to IU and then stopped talking to them, I don’t think Hank would be as willing to let Joyce go and Carol would have brought it up. If their last kid went to, say, Anderson and then stopped talking to them, I think Hank would have brought it up more directly during the fight but I can much more easily see it not coming up.)

          There are definitely ways for Joyce not to have known what was going on at the time, but she doesn’t seem to remember him much at all, which is telling – definitely suggests he wasn’t around much. Given what we know of the relative ages, Joyce was probably 9-10ish when Jordan was 18-19, so while she was definitely of the age to not recognize how weird this was if it occurred when he was about Joyce’s age now, I still think she’d have SOME memory of the conflict there if it was going on near her, and thus what might have prompted it. Plenty of ways for it to go on away from the youngest, too, but… it’s weird.

      2. thejeff

        Yeah, I really can’t figure the Brown kid ages. I’d thought that John was much older than any of the others, but maybe not. Jocelyne doesn’t read as a decade or more older than Joyce to me, but maybe she is? She’d kind of have to be for her to be older than Jordan and Joyce to still be too young to know what happened when Jordan left – unless Jordan actually ran away as a young teen or something, which is even worse than we’ve been led to think.

        1. Spencer

          IIRC the Browns in the Walkyverse had Johnathan out of wedlock, got married real quick, and then set about pumping five other kids out.

          I think Joyce said Hank was 60, sooooo maybe they had John when Hank and Carol were in their mid/late 20s, they struggled a bit before financially settling, and then had Jocelyne, Jordan and Joyce. I think Jocelyne is supposed to be 23-24ish, which might put Jordan at about 21.

        2. Regalli

          I suspect there was an age order retcon between the Patreon strip where Jocelyne learns she’s going to have a baby sister and the one where we see the sweet Wonder Woman costume, because it is SO weird and hard to tell. (The in-universe explanation, I guess, would be that the first comic was during Carol’s pregnancy with Jordan, but Jocelyne definitely felt like she was the closest in age to Joyce for a while there, too.)

          Given the Halloween Patreon strip, my best guess is:
          Joyce – 18-19, obviously. This is canon. In the Halloween Patreon strip, could not really say ‘Trick or Treat!’ but was old enough to go trick-or-treating with an older teen sibling, so I’m guessing she was 5-6ish at that point. (Maybe the Brown kids had a shared speech impediment as young-but-not-toddlers kids?)

          Jordan – In the Patreon strip, he was definitely old enough to think trick or treating was beneath him. That would put him in, I think, between 11 and 13? (I could also see that being ‘give or take a year’ on top of THAT, but let’s try and give a narrow range.) So 6-8 years older than Joyce is my best guess, making him 24-27 now, depending on where in that range he is.

          Jocelyne: Yeah there’s really no way I can see her not being a decade older than Joyce given that Patreon strip. Was probably around 16 then; is in her late twenties or maybe just turned thirty now. Three to maybe five years older than Jordan?

          John: Went to public school and turned okay ‘but that was twenty years ago now.’ I’m guessing mid-thirties, then, if not closer to forty if he was conceived before Hank and Carol got married and that got fixed REALLY quick. Somewhere between 10 and 20 years older than Joyce, most likely. (Unusual, but it does happen, especially if either the oldest or youngest or both were unplanned.)

        3. thejeff

          She also really doesn’t look 5-6ish in that strip to me, which is probably throwing me off. She’s only a little shorter than Jordan.

        4. Regalli

          I admittedly didn’t go back to check that one specifically, but I’d buy that. That strip just raises SO many questions for Joyce not to have any real knowledge or feelings about Jordan’s estrangement, so I also assume he’s significantly enough older that Jordan didn’t really want to bond with the new baby and that never really changed as Joyce got older and could do things. But we don’t know.

          Seriously Jordan, what the fuck. Who are you. What is your deal. Give us answers, you enigma.

        5. Ed Callahan

          My wife is 19 years younger than her oldest sibling.

        6. Twitcher

          My Dad has a couple of uncles who are young enough to be his brothers. Can’t figure that out for the life of me.

        7. Regalli

          My dad’s 22 years older than his youngest. Definitely happens. The issue is less the age difference between Joyce and John, more the age difference between Joyce, Jordan, and Jocelyne, and how that affects their respective dynamics.

        8. Regalli

          * Youngest sibling.

    4. Needfuldoer

      There’s a bonus strip that flashes back to when Carol was pregnant with Joyce. John appears to be a teenager, and Jocelyne is a small child speaking full sentences with R-s replaced with W-s (think Elmer Fudd or Homestar Runner).

      I think Jordan only appears in a Halloween bonus strip. He’s wearing a Transformers costume with a full mask so we don’t see his face, but I think the premise was Jocelyne taking the two of them trick-or-treating.

      1. thejeff

        And that strip’s weird because Joyce only seems a little shorter than the others, but she’s talking like a small child.

        But if Jocelyne is only a small child when Joyce was born and Jordan is younger than her, then how can Jordan have been old enough to leave while Joyce was still young enough not to know/understand the conflict?

        1. Spencer

          I don’t think Joyce has been indicated to not know? All that’s ever been said is that he’s “too Jordan” to visit, and then Joyce overheard Hank and Carol talking about pulling Joyce out of college where Hank says they squeezed Jordan to hard, and Carol thinks they didn’t squeeze hard enough.

        2. anonymsly

          Joyce gas also said that she doesn’t know what Jordan does for a living, because her parents have always said she’ll find out when she’s older.

  32. alongcameaspider

    You know it might be worth it for Joyce to talk to Jocelyne regardless of her current personal issues just because Jocelyne is a writer and might have advice regarding Joyce’s comic

    Now that I think about it has it been made clear exactly what kind of writer Jocelyne is?

    1. woobie

      An underpublished/ underpaid one.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Freelance. Has a blog.

      1. Jamie

        It’s sorta interesting that Joyce knows Jocelyne has a blog but has apparently never been given the URL to it.

        1. thejeff

          I suspect that Jocelyne writes under her deadname as well. It might be understandable, if a bit weird, that Joyce hadn’t seen her blog or anything else she wrote, but it’s much less so that her parents wouldn’t be wanting to see what she’s been doing. Whether to check up on her or just because parents generally take at least some interest in their kid’s careers.

          I’d guess she gets most of what little income she has through that name, while Jocelyne is for more personal, less profitable writing.

  33. darkryuu

    It DOES sound condescending but former? Last semester? Joyce would have guilt about hurting people, especially Becky. And the fact that actions she was involved in has led to the separation of her parents, that’s probably some guilt she feels toward her sibling. Sarah probably just thinks this is bravado to cover Joyce’s suffering and a safety mask to not face the people she feels won’t accept her now.

    1. Spencer

      IIRC Joyce isn’t too willing to talk to her dad at the moment, I am assuming, because the divorce shook her up and she’s not entirely separated from him from her mom (who, y’know, bailed Ross and felt nothing). She might not feel comfortable seeing any of them at the moment, especially since Jocelyne put on airs of being the favourite so no one would ever question her. Even if Joyce knows better, she might be too fragile to open up to her.

      Which, let’s get some Always Had A Big Sister hugs to make that better!

    2. Alex

      It’s weird that Sarah just threw out the forgiveness line instead of trying to talk to her about what the actual problem is. She just gave the vague “this is worse” statement which doesn’t clarify anything.

  34. newlland(Henryvolt)

    For fucks sake Joyce, you remember the last time a relative tried to reach out to you and you just put them on hold for days on end? How that warning could have saved you some trouble down the line?….OK you know what fuck it, now should be a good time for Joshua to come out to Joyce why not?

  35. Juanoku

    STOP IT
    STOP REGRESSING YOUR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
    IT’S THE THIRD CHARACTER THIS BOOK

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Billifer, Joyke, and……Root-th?

  36. woobie

    who remember connecting/ using SCSI scanners?

    1. StClair

      *raises hand*

    2. Segnosaur

      I used to have an old parallel port scanner.

      Unfortunately no computers today have such a connection.

      1. Geneseepaws

        You can get a parallel port-to-USB adapter, question:is the drivers? Will they agree to “le Work?”

    3. Needfuldoer

      Yup. I even have one that looks like an oversized computer mouse that you roll across the thing you want to scan. It scans 4” wide strips you have to stitch together with the included software. The jig it went into to help keep the strips straight and parallel is long gone, though.

      The weirdest scanner I’ve ever seen is the ThunderScan. You took the ribbon and print head out of a dot matrix printer and stuck this thing in its place. The printer then scanned it back and forth across the page like a fax machine. It was dog slow, but super cheap for the time compared to real flatbed scanners.

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xRidlMHgCn8

      1. Agemegos

        A friend of mine had one. Used it to scan his art for illustrations in the RPG he published in 1987.

  37. AGV

    I think this conversation would be a tad bit more effective if she was told what it is exactly that she’s doing wrong

    Although Joyce seems determined to isolate herself

  38. JessWitt

    Jocelyne storyline incoming? I’ve been wondering forever when she will finally come out to Joyce.

    1. King Daniel

      Anyway, here’s a question I’m actually surprised no one’s asked yet – is Joyce’s new device a sensitive scanner?

      1. Reltzik

        Given that she’s a D&MM fan, SS has been confirmed as part of Dumbingverse D&MM canon, and Joyce gets to name the device on her network? Yes, it is Sensitive Scanner.

    2. Rocket Relm

      I really hope so, or at least that we get it soon. I’m just super glad it didn’t happen off panel.

      1. JessWitt

        Yeah it is too significant – plus it would be a disservice to Jocelyne – if it was off-panel.

  39. Agemegos

    I wonder whether Ethan ever got in touch with Jocelyn as she invited him to do during family visit week: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/writer/

  40. TheLurkerAbove

    Wow, Joyce is really going through the insufferable atheist phase.

    It’s kinda like the atheist version of the born-again christian.

  41. Francoinblanco

    Omg when Joyce was in God team everyone was much more tactfull about her viewpoints. Now she is Hollywood atheist so no First Amendment Defend her now. And now Joyce have to ask for forgivness Sarah and Dorothy, what we?? Or this is their Stop Being Stereotypical to Joyce?

    1. JBento

      “christians get cut all the slack” is so accurate to reality that it’s the whole reason the Satanic Temple was invented.

    2. Spencer

      She was prettier when she smiled.

      1. JBento

        Does she realise how angry she sounds?

        Just listen to yourself, Joyce. You sound so angry. So bitter.

        Joyce, you need to settle down.

        …

        HAHAHAHAHA, holy shit, he actually even says “I don’t like what my little sister’s become.”, it’s the mirror to end all mirrors.

        1. Spencer

          No it’s fine.

          John’s evil.

          That means being mad is good and pure and wholesome.

          Unlike clashing with a friend.

          Then it’s about who is the most Problematic.

  42. Barf Ninjason

    Huh, do a lot of “apostate” Christians go on to reflexively reject one of the best things about Christianity, the radical forgiveness? Kind of a shame, that. The rain falls on the just and unjust alike, Joyce!

    1. A Red Balloon

      I dunno. Radical forgiveness is kind of a double-edged sword.

      Having went to and been bullied in a religious school myself, when people get used to an environment where they don’t need to earn forgiveness, a lot of them learn to take it for granted.

      The other students who bullied me and lied to others and all kinds of jackassery never sought forgiveness from me or anyone they wronged, knowing they’d always be given mandatory forgiveness every week.

      That’s not to say that religion is bad or anything. It’s just that I guess, atheist or Christian, sometimes bad people are just bad people, no matter what. And they’ll always go out of their way to obey the letter of whatever rules there are, but never their spirit.

      Be it my antagonists’ baptisms or Joyce’s new atheism, radical zealous politics, conversion or deconversion, coming from either direction, it just seems like a cardboard cutout of actual personal change and character growth, you know?

      1. Barf Ninjason

        Hm. Weird. I woulda thought the obvious takeaway from “forgive us our trespasses,” etc. would be to extend that grace to others, knowing how hard it is to let go of grudges and what a gift it is when people do so for you. But I can see the dark side you’re talking about, especially when it’s Yahweh doing the forgiving. My other favorite part of Christianity is “whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me.”

        1. Robert Thompson

          So a major part of Methodist dogma (I can’t speak with much authority about others, I didn’t spend decades immersed in them) is that forgiveness is important, and should be granted readily but only to those who are repentant. We had a whole module in Sunday School centered around understanding what it means to truly repent, and a bit part of it required understanding the hurt you caused, owning it, and actively taking action to do better. A lot of Methodism focuses around deeds speaking louder than words, but that both are important. By the lessons they taught, assuming forgiveness or getting your forgiveness from God and not the person you harmed is false, and you can’t earnestly seek forgiveness from God until you’ve already repented and sought forgiveness from those you’ve wronged. That said, I did find it interesting that there is the caveat that if you ARE earnestly repentant, you can receive forgiveness from God even if the person you wronged doesn’t forgive you. I always took that as an out for if the other person holds a grudge and can’t forgive you, it doesn’t prevent your own absolution, but only if you make an honest go of it (since God will know what’s in your heart and all that).

    2. Agemegos

      A lot of Christianities, such as the one Joyce is escaping from, are a bit weak on the radical forgiveness and a bit strong on the harsh judgmental bullshit that you supposedly have to be forgiven for.

    3. Jamie

      Most American Christianities have it set up so that the only person you actually need forgiveness from, ever, is God.

      Frankly, most Christianities in America are designed to scare people off, these days. It’s a sunk cost kind of thing.

    4. JBento

      Radical forgiveness is actually incredibly bad, and is routinely used by abusers to continue abusing.

      1. thejeff

        Yeah. It can be a good thing, when the repentance is sincere, but it’s too often wielded as a weapon to demand that victims accept performative apologies, and go back to be abused again.

      2. Barf Ninjason

        I suppose it could be misused in that way. Fine, yeah, don’t forgive people while they’ve still got the knife behind their back. But it seems to me that more destructive (by volume of nothing else) is the petty nursing of every last grudge in a hopeless attempt to get the exact right amount of revenge.

        “For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them.”

        -Catherynne Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

        1. JBento

          That’s not what Joyce is doing, though. She’s not spending her time going “that damn Becky, I’ll get her back SOMEDAY, MWAHAHAH”. She said “fuck it, I’m gonna go focus on my comic, a thing that brings me joy” to the whole thing, which is the exact opposite of “petty nursing of every last grudge”.

          If anything, it’s everyone else that’s holding on to it. And yet, somehow, your comment wasn’t about how Becky needed to forgive Joyce. And yet, SOMEHOW*, I’m not surprised at that.

          *j/k, I’m fully aware of what the somehow is

        2. Barf Ninjason

          Well, my comment was about forgiveness in the abstract, and I wasn’t really thinking about Joyce or Becky needing to forgive each other, just sad that Joyce would reject what is to me the most psychologically helpful aspect of Christianity.

  43. Sam

    Honestly it makes me a bit sad to see Joyce rebuffing Sarah’s mirrored words to her. Because it was Joyce’s way of saying it was safe to tell her the truth. She wasn’t going to bite your head off if you’d done something wrong or messed up or acted out and had a reason for it. She’d forgive you if you gave her the chance to by explaining what was actually going on.

    I don’t think right now Joyce is really set on listening though. To anyone. She doesn’t want to hear that she is wrong or that she is handling things unkindly and she doesn’t want to open up about how deep the scars run. She’s currently happy on her pedestal as a brain genius where she is right. She’s probably not going to be ready to listen until self-made consequences come knocking on her door.

    1. Rocket Relm

      The main issue is that it *isn’t* safe for Joyce to talk to Becky or Sarah or maybe even Dorothy about her loss of faith. Given the way Becky reacted to Joyce even hinting at it, and Dorothy and Sarah’s reaction to the first instance of it coming out from being bottled up, she’s got good reason to be wary.

      Remember that Sarah’s response when Joyce came back, knowing nothing about what was actually said in the attempted apology, was basically “Wow, you didn’t even try to apologize, huh?”, and then started to actively wish ill on Joyce to her face. It’s sad because I do think this is a genuine attempt for Sarah to convey empathy, but at this point any such appeal is going to need to start with an apology on her own end.

      1. Sam

        Part of the problem is also how Joyce is talking about it. She is RIGHT so she is FINE. I’m not sure if Joyce is even clear that this is lashing out or if she genuinely believes right now that because she is right, it doesn’t matter if she calls Becky an idiot and leaves her to stew on it. But it makes it hard to parse what the ‘right’ way to approach this even is with Joyce presenting all as fine.

        I still expect the only thing that will get through to her is self-made consequences though. If she was open to listening, it wouldn’t matter if how Sarah conveyed herself was clumsy – Joyce would know it is an attempt to reach out and understand, not an attack.

        1. Regalli

          Yep. I doubt Joyce herself has thought through what she thinks of believers other than herself for believing at all until Liz showed up today. Come to that, I doubt Liz did, either. But they then proceeded to get themselves worked up into a tizzy, and while they both clearly need space to sort through some religious trauma, that space should REALLY include someone with the training to let them feel angry and lash out at their faith for hurting them (in a safe, confidential environment – Joyce shouldn’t actively be a jerk to Becky but also Becky doesn’t need to hear Joyce’s unfiltered trauma reactions,) but then push back on whether they actually think anyone who believes is necessarily less intelligent than anyone who doesn’t, for example. Just, help them away from the real Dickweed Atheist stuff while validating their feelings about what they specifically went through.

  44. Holly

    I don’t miss scanning either, an nor does the pile of archive work staring at me from just over there :-/

  45. Orangey

    Honestly, I would be annoyed if my friend’s reaction to something shitty I did would be constantly patronising. Dorothy outright told Joyce how disappointed she was in her as if Joyce is a child and now Sarah is pushing Joyce to ask for forgiveness, what friends talk like this? Of course Joyce is going to push back. Do I think what Joyce did was great? No. Do I get where she is coming from? Yes. Do I think they should actually TALK about Joyce’s new state of atheism and actually try to understand where she is coming from, instead of ignoring that and going straight to shaming her for some shitty stuff she said? Yeah. To me, Joyce just needed to vent and I’m not even surprised she couldn’t feel like she could do that with Dorothy and Sarah if this is how condescending they are

    1. MrSmith

      Yes exactly this.

      “We will always forgive you”

      Forgive what exactly?

      Telling people to fuck off and manipulating Joyce to try to take Jacob from Raidah or not actually asking whats happening with Joyce and just assuming she knows like Sarah?

      Constantly changing the parameters of the relationship with Walky knowing full well he had no idea of what was happening like Dorothy did?

    2. The Wellerman

      Yeah I’m totally with you on all this.

      Just explicitly telling her that she needs allowances and extra forgiveness like that comes from the same place they made fun of her for a long, LONG time.

      Her friends all openly and unapologetically poked fun at her for being the “naive weirdo Christian girl” and nobody could have stopped them.

      But now they have to face the direct consequences of it all, coming back to bite them after all this time.

  46. Ob

    Panel 1: How do you answer a call when the only button on the screen is for rejecting it? 😛

    1. JBento

      My phone is like 100 years old, but I think these days you… swipe the picture? In one direction or another? I dunno.

  47. Needfuldoer

    *Stares at pile of paperwork in the “TO BE SCANNED” box*

    I should get one of those auto-feed scanners instead of just the flatbed I got at the thrift store years ago…

  48. Amós Batista

    that’s a smaller kind of scanner in her hand, or Joyce’s height is 7ft and half.

  49. june gloom

    And once again people are acting like Joyce is the Worst Person Ever and leaving judgmental comment after judgmental comment about how she needs to be reined in, in increasingly condescending ways.

    We’re watching Joyce go through a personal crisis (and, let’s be real, rampant depression) where her attempt to sort through the raw emotional pain of having her identity shattered resulted in a damaged friendship. She’s doubling down because this whole situation has taught her that (thanks to Becky’s refusal to respect boundaries) there is no safe place to vent her anger at a belief system and culture that lied to her her whole life and then betrayed her, so what’s the use pretending? And none of the other characters are interested in unpacking why she’s doing this extremely out-of-character thing, only that the sweet, innocent girl is doing something out of character and that Must Be Stopped. It reminds me all too much of how the adults in my life continued to treat me like a child well into my twenties. I turn 39 next month and some family members and friends of my parents still see me as my mom’s little boy (nevermind that I’m not little or a boy.) There’s a reason I moved 2300 miles away.

    The last time this came up I got a couple of replies that basically accused me of condoning her behavior. I do not. This isn’t about “condoning,” because Joyce is expressing her pain in an unhealthy way; but regardless of how disruptive Joyce may be, the condescending way other people — commentariat included — have reacted to it is, quite frankly, garbage.

    At this point I’m just waiting for Joe to come to the rescue. He’s the only person who won’t bullshit her.

    1. The Wellerman

      First of all, I cosign ALL of this!

      Second of all, I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that and move so far away just to get away from it!

      Third of all, Joyce’s situation is unfair, and even ironic. Much like the god which she used to believe in, most of her friends up and bereaved her of any pre-approved “good” choices whatsoever, making her fail each and any way, and then punished HER for the consequences.

      The world might not be a fair place, but that’s no excuse for her friends to act unfair to her.

    2. Jamie

      I’d disagree. I don’t think that she’s hit depression yet. Depression isn’t characterized by actively seeking out new friendships or actively seeking out a new outlet to pursue your passion in.

      Depression comes when those things fail to actually bring fulfillment. You’re like, a month early for that armchair diagnosis.

      And Joe is a terrible solution. If you want wish-fulfillment, call for Jacob.

      1. june gloom

        It’s that early phase where she’s still trying to cling to stuff in a desperate attempt at rebuilding her identity. It’s going to spiral quite soon.

        1. Jamie

          Ah. Exhibiting symptoms opposite of a diagnosis are a fantastic way to meet the criteria for a diagnosis. Cool.

          I was gonna just ignore the rampant hypocrisy of your post and the martyr complex you’ve got going on, but I do draw the line at blatant misinformation about a real problem people go through.

    3. Spencer

      The fact of the matter is that some folks just don’t get it, which, hey, that is how it works sometimes. I know I’m right, the world can catch up to me.

      It’s impossible for me to dissociate from the fact that this is a scenario where Joyce’s dearest friends are being inconvenienced by her trauma response because it disrupts a status of quo of polite civility where Joyce can suffer and be angry, even at someone who’s caused her pain, but she can’t verbalize it in any way because Joyce has been accommodating enough that throwing garbage at her means she’ll clean it up with a smile.

      I can rationally understand that “explains it, doesn’t excuse it” is the Nike slogan (ie: a fundamentally worthless expression) of a more complex and understandable thought process like “I can’t make myself constantly available in the face of your angry lashing out, once the dust has settled some I will be there to talk this through”, that anger is a valid response but it’s something you can only really weather for someone else in a way that doesn’t come at a huge toll to yourself and once things have calmed down then you can provide empathy and support, because the alternative is believing a bunch of grown-ass adults think you’re supposed to dump your friends if their trauma responses kick up enough of a fuss, and jeepers does that strike me as the most fucked up shit.

    4. -

      I’ve seen several of this kind of comment, with which I’m by no means claiming to disagree, but keep wondering: what IS the way to deal with Joyce now, then? Just ignore either her prickly behaviour or Joyce herself? Dodge the issue every time it arises in conversation? Pat her on the back and pretend she’s not acting rather strangely? Genuinely interested, because most people- and these are idiot college students- lack the deftness to deal with situations like this, it seems.

      1. Spencer

        The straightest answer would be asking her how she’s feeling, in a setting where the recipient feels comfortable dealing with her. Sarah tried reaching this endpoint, but she’s a cynical asshole so it was expressed as terribly as it was.

        Ideally making it clear they aren’t here to be right or wrong, and also establishing that they aren’t going to yell or get yelled at, they just want Joyce to be able to say what’s on her mind.

        1. Needfuldoer

          I think that’s the medicine Joyce needs: a safe, judgement-free opportunity to actually be honest about what’s going on. Right now she only feels safe lashing out.

        2. Spencer

          Friendship ended with Dorothy

          Now Dina and Joe are my best friends

      2. june gloom

        Spencer is right. Instead of calling Joyce out, they should call Joyce in. And if some folk here don’t understand the difference, that is probably something they should learn.

        Joyce needs someone who won’t bullshit her or condescend to her (so not Sarah, and not Dorothy either, unfortunately) to talk to on an open, honest level about what she’s dealing with. She thought she had a safe place to explore that with Liz, a relative stranger, until Becky invaded her privacy.

  50. ninja_jesus

    I get it Joyce. Being the bitter atheist after getting your religious beliefs rocked feels great in the moment, but trust me in that it’s self-destructive in the long run. Hopefully you’ll get someone or something to mellow you out a bit, and you’ll be able to reflect on your actions and repair some bridges before it’s too late.

  51. Rabisch

    Scanners are great. Nice to see that Joyce has already bought one and is happy to start using it, also because she has a lot of work to do. But Joyce not responding to Jocelyn is a bad move. Maybe she had to tell her something important.

  52. Spencer

    I’m with Joyce in panel 5, quel surprise.

    (for reference, here’s what Sarah’s calling back to)

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/operate/

    What Joyce is hearing, and, really, what Sarah is actually doing, is treating forgiveness as “fall in line.” Sarah tried antagonizing Joyce already by telling her she doesn’t deserve her job and the punishment for hubris would be really funny, and then followed that up by telling her she needed to go back to who she was because Sarah appreciated her more while also making friends by laughing about how everything Joyce thought was innately dumb and one day she’d snap and suck a billion dicks.

    She tried the stick, so she’s going for the carrot. Sarah doesn’t really know what she’s forgiving Joyce for, she just wants this to go away. At least partially because it’s a jarring change and it’s not like Joyce herself is happy, but, y’know, that’s when Big Sis needs to step up to the plate even if she’s “bad with people.” So far, though, all she can process it as “Joyce is causing problems, Joyce is angry, Joyce is at fault, Joyce is not smiling like she’s supposed to. I need my Joyce back.”

    And as for the original line for when Joyce said it, like, it’s kinda fucked up too. It sure sounds nice, forgiveness is nice, but what does it mean to forgive anything? Sarah pointed Joyce at Jacob like a guided missile and now she knew. That’s… I mean, that’s dehumanizing, that’s weird, it’s only not Sarah’s fault for what went down because Joyce now knew and the ultimately went for it on her own time without Sarah pushing for it.

    And, y’know, when Sarah actually tries to apologize for it, Joyce doesn’t let her.

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/sniping/

    It kinda speaks to me on a couple levels. One is that Joyce forgave Sarah because Sarah is her Big Sis who is Bad With People, and thus Joyce is fine accommodating her. Sarah means well and she stumbles, but deep down she cares and Joyce will always be assured of that. The other is that Joyce herself doesn’t really let herself process that Sarah has done wrong by her and doesn’t think it’s necessary. It just happened, there’s nothing to talk about, it was wrong and let us never speak of it again.

    Is it really forgiveness if you don’t treat the act you’re forgiving as meaningfully wrong? Are you forgiving your friend if you think they’re so incapable of causing you harm that you skip straight to forgiveness, that what they do has no real meaning because you like them and thus there’s no point in reflecting on the wrong they committed? If I hurt my friend, does failing them not matter, that I did wrong by them and made them feel that wrong, if they decide it doesn’t matter? Are they right to?

    I think it sounds altruistic, I think Joyce meant it that way too, but the idea of forgiving everything doesn’t sound like compassion, it sounds like being unable to hold your friends accountable in the name of keeping a status quo of polite civility going on.

    1. Jamie

      Aha. “operate”. I couldn’t find that strip; thanks.

    2. Robert Thompson

      There’s a really important difference here, and I think it’s highlighting that Sarah has no idea how to fix this and is throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

      When Joyce said “I’ll always forgive you” Sarah had just been found out to have done a shitty thing, but it was probably pretty clear to read from their interaction that she was trying to say something by way of apology to Joyce, so what Joyce said was probably intended as a sort of “walk to first” akin to that trope where someone says something non-apologetic but out-of-character instead of apologizing and the other character just says “apology accepted” and they all move on (and now I’m reminded how much of Joyce’s socialization was achieved through cartoons).

      Joyce isn’t in the middle of struggling to apologize to anyone in this scene, so going there feels like less of a “walk to first” and more of a “little league coach shoving you to the plate even though you don’t want to.” It’s also important to note that while Sarah did a reeeeeally shitty thing and barely apologized, Joyce’s words indicated she forgave her right away. Joyce already TRIED apologizing to Becky and that just wend horribly, so I feel like those words would seem demonstrably false to her in this moment.

      That said, we’re seeing Sarah cycle through everything she can think of other than direct engagement with the drama to try to fix this, and I’m looking forward to when she finally realizes that talking around this mess is only going to let it fester.

      1. thejeff

        Also in that case, I’m not sure exactly what Joyce thought was shitty or needed forgiving about what Sarah did, since she continued with the going after Jacob part.

        1. Spencer

          The part where Sarah was pointing her at Jacob without her knowledge.

          Like, it was a deliberate plan, Joyce forgave it, and then Sarah tried to apologize for it. She did in fact take advantage of Joyce there, and having been confronted by it made her apologize before Joyce stopped her.

          It’s been yonks and I’m not up for an archive dive, but I viewed Joyce and Jacob’s interactions afterwards as “Joyce is massively horny for him, but also wants to be his friend and isn’t deliberately trying to split him up” until Harrison shows up and she does make the choice on impulse and the reason that choice was so devastating to Jacob is because he realized he liked her back and wasn’t that into Raidah.

        2. thejeff

          She is still very clearly actively aiming for Jacob after that. The whole lunch scene where Raidah shows up and then Dorothy calls her on it afterwards is after that scene with Sarah.
          Dorothy talks to her about it and then Walky jokes about her just being horny for Jacob and it’s after that she decides to give up on trying to break them up and claim Jacob as her True Love, before falling back into it when Harrison shows up.

          So I mean, I guess it’s that Sarah tricked her into doing what she wanted to do anyways and at that point was going to keep on doing? That’s actually not really a big betrayal in her mind. Easy to forgive. More serious for Sarah by then, since she’d figured out the whole thing wasn’t cool.

        3. Spencer

          Depends if it’s intent or just good chemistry. It’s pointed out by Joyce that Jacob has never told Harrison about Raidah, and the subtext is that Joyce is more in line with who he wants, but obviously that can’t happen because he only saw it after Joyce’s stunt.

          Or: Joyce’s mistake was made in the immediate moment instead of planned out.

          Regardless, I don’t know why you’re framing this as some kind of Forgiveness Olympic when Joyce’s behaviour afterwards isn’t really important to how Joyce immediately let it go even when Sarah tried to apologize, unless right there in her dorm Joyce had already went “yeah I’m gonna break them up for me” and that’s why she forgave it, which doesn’t seem relevant to the callback it’s getting here.

        4. thejeff

          I’m not “framing this as some kind of Forgiveness Olympic”. This bit of conversation just started me thinking about exactly what Joyce was talking about forgiving there and realizing it might not actually be as much as it seemed at first glance.

          And yes, Joyce was clearly already on the “I’m going after Jacob for myself” train then.

        5. Spencer

          Aight then.

          I sure as hell didn’t read it like that.

        6. Thag Simmons

          She absolutely was

        7. Spencer

          My memories from then felt a lot more like it was impulsive as hell, but nah you’re right, I double checked.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/whaddya/

          Like however you want to define “it’s not stealing if we’re meant to be”, that’s more intent than I’m giving credit.

          Dorothy kinda treats it casually here compared to previously, like “you were horny” sounds a lot different than “you’re trying to crowbar off her boyfriend.”

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/kneecapped/

          Soooo it’s sure as hell not as black and white like I’m putting it, I could conceivably believe she was thinking about it like she thinks of Walky and Billie being destined to be together, but yeah it was clearly something she was wanting to happen.

        8. Spencer

          Bringing this back to the post that started this, well, Joyce is still right about it being condescending then, just not for moral reasons like “forgiving Sarah super quicklike” but “putting it aside because she wanted to do it for herself.”

          Which is probably its own can of worms.

        9. thejeff

          The part with Harrison was definitely impulsive – though also later tied to the “without God, it doesn’t matter what I do” idea.

          I suspect the big difference in Dorothy’s treatment of it is that in the first she was trying to persuade her to stop, while in the second it was over and she’s trying to convince Joyce she hasn’t “ruined everything forever”.

  53. Spencer

    I dunno why everyone’s so mad at Joyce for thinking Becky’s an idiot.

    Becky is an idiot. Only an idiot would believe the Earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaurs were put on the ark.

    1. A Red Balloon

      not that i don’t enjoy the occasional spot of sarcasm tea,

      But seriously, where’d you get that avatar? Looks fishy.

      1. Spencer

        Nah, Joyce said it herself. Becky, the Earth is 6000 years old. Dinosaurs were not on the ark. Becky just believes the same total nonsense Joyce did, and all of Joyce’s friends were happy mocking her for that.

        1. A Red Balloon

          I’ll be honest with you, I shamefully came to your sarcasm tea party just to ask for the SAUCE of your fish avatar.

          I mean SOURCE.

          I mean SAUCE!

        2. winter

          Becky was accepting scientific evidence and evolutionary theory months back (six years back our time), when Joyce was still neck deep in denial.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/originalsin/

        3. Spencer

          Nope.

          Obviously Becky lied about believing what Dina told her, since she still holds onto beliefs like the sky sea that let humans live to 900 and carbon dating being tricked by time dilation caused by the Fall.

          She is an idiot, after all. They cling to nonsense real hard.

        4. CJ

          Like for most normal Christians, for Becky, science and belief are not at odds with each other because they are not competing for the same space.

        5. Spencer

          That makes no sense. Why would Becky, an idiot, think true things alongside her belief in predator animals eating fruit before the introduction of death to the world?

        6. Lena

          Science and faith are not at odds though? Some great scientists have been strongly faithful Christians, heck, the Big Bang theory was formulated by a Catholic priest.

        7. Spencer

          Well of course.

          But Becky, being a big stupid idiot, will choose what she’s been told every time. Like, it’s pretty easy to know the Earth isn’t 6000 years old by this point.

        8. Agemegos

          Nowadays, now that many of the faithful have learned to retreat from their old certainties as science advances, yes, to some extent, excepting of course Young Earth creationists.

          In the time of Giordano Bruno, when faith still had a bit of confidence in itself? Not so much.

        9. thejeff

          Even then, many scientists were faithful Christians. Which doesn’t mean that various churches wouldn’t persecute them anyways.

        10. Phyrexian_Rogue

          Are you really surprised that someone who was taught ridiculous things to be true for her whole life thinks that those ridiculous things are true? Becky isn’t clinging to nonsense, she’s just never been taught otherwise. Now that she is, she’s more than happy to learn actual history instead. As she already told Joyce, those parts aren’t the important parts of her belief anyway. The situation is a lot more nuanced than you seem to give it credit for. There’s a whole spectrum of beliefs, from (for example) ‘every grain of sand is exactly as described in the bible’ to ‘Everything science discovered is true, God did all of that’.

          Also note that people aren’t (just) mad because of what Joyce thinks about Becky/Christians. Her beliefs aren’t the main problem, her actions are. She’s free to think all Christians are idiots, but she probably should be less of a preachy insulting bongo about it. You can think someone’s beliefs are idiotic and still be respectful/friendly towards them. For examples, look at many of the interactions between Christian Joyce and her atheist friends.

        11. Spencer

          You can think someone’s beliefs are idiotic and still be respectful/friendly towards them. For examples, look at many of the interactions between Christian Joyce and her atheist friends.

          Joyce thought her friends would burn in Hell for all eternity for the sins they were choosing to commit in defiance of God and dated a gay dude to make him straight while getting mad at Dorothy whenever she implied she had any sexual inclinations.

        12. Agemegos

          What’s more, she thought the god who would inflict those punishments was just, which implies that her friends deserved condign and never-ending punishment.

        13. Spencer

          Yeah like Becky.

          It’s weird that she has faith in a God that’ll send her to Hell for being alive.

        14. Agemegos

          But she doesn’t! She has faith in a god who answers [her] lesbian prayers. If the Bible doesn’t contain the cherries she wants to pick on that subject she is willing to supply them from her own invention.

        15. Phyrexian_Rogue

          Hence why I said ‘many’, not ‘all’. Obviously there were plenty of frictions and unhealthy interactions between christian joyce and her friends too (heck, half the comic is about that and overcoming those, right?). And yet they did (eventually) manage to be good friends regardless. That’s the part I was trying to refer to. Past Joyce did (eventually) learn to coexist with people of different beliefs without constantly trying to fight them, whereas current Joyce seems to be incapable of that.

          To clarify, I’m not trying to argue that christian joyce is/was a shining example of how one/she should think (especially in her earlier days). I merely meant the (later, more reasonable) Joyce as an example of how she could (eventually) interact peacefully with people of different beliefs. A lesson she sadly seems to have forgotten (for now).

        16. Spencer

          Joyce did not interact peacefully with other beliefs.

          Every single good thing Joyce has ever done has been in defiance of what she was taught.

          She was there every time for the people she loved, they can pull a teensy bit of emotional weight for her now that she is doing something as wildly unethical as being kinda mean to Sarah, someone who Joyce has emotionally provided for on a constant basis, when Sarah deliberately antagonizes her.

      2. Jamie

        Google Image Search shows a bunch of hits with fairly similar things. This looks the most right and most likely to me: https://www.maxpixel.net/Catch-Fish-Fishing-Angling-Food-Fishing-rod-99073 But I’m sure they stole it from somewhere else too, so, meh.

    2. Rainhat

      But she doesn’t.

      1. Spencer

        Um, yes?

        Joyce made it pretty clear.

    3. Agemegos

      But Becky doesn’t believe that. That was the part of doctrine that appealed to Joyce, but Becky never cared about that bit and dropped it without a qualm shorting after meeting Dina.

      The part of doctrine that mattered to Becky was that the ultimate authority was on her side against her father.

      1. Spencer

        It’s a real shame Becky’s been so indoctrinated (and an idiot) that she can’t stop herself from believing things her jackass father made her think.

        1. Agemegos

          Becky’s okay. She’s hanging her own cherries on the tree of babble to pick later. She just makes up the Christianity she wants.

    4. C.T. Phipps

      You misinterpreted what Becky said. Becky is not a biblical literalist.

      Joyce is.

      1. Spencer

        gasp

        Are you trying to say that the things Becky thinks Joyce was calling her an idiot over are, in fact, not actually what Becky believes???

        That’s balderdash, completely hogwash! For that to be true would imply that Joyce and Becky had totally different understandings of their religious beliefs and the entire fight they had was rooted in believing the other had the exact same understanding they did, with no margin for error!

        Oh my stars and garters, does this also mean that Joyce’s anger and vitriol towards her fundie death cult upbringing actually have nothing to do with Becky’s actual and existing faith in God at all, she just thinks it does because she had blind obedience in rules as opposed to faith and Joyce doesn’t have the ability to parse through religious beliefs as anything other than clinging to inerrant facts because an authority figure told her they were real, whereas Becky found faith in God through his miracles after Joyce and co. repeatedly saved her life, driving Joyce to assume Becky must obviously be foolishly clinging to things she knows aren’t real, much like Becky treating Joyce’s loss of faith as a personal failure on the latter’s part?!?!

        This is heavy. This is huge. This will rock the world. If all of this is real, and even though it stares me in the face like the eye of the storm I find myself holding onto those old lies, it would mean that the truth all along is that Joyce grew up in a death cult, was told to believe stupid bullshit, and now that she’s thrown away her death cult’s stupid bullshit she has no idea what any of it means anymore and thought every other Christian was made to process their beliefs as rigid indoctrination into nonsense she could only justify in the face of mockery by clinging to it even harder.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Nah, that’s too nuanced. It can’t be as simple as Joyce and Becky learning the other isn’t the person they assumed they were this whole time.

          You mean Joyce thinks Becky took every word of their teachings like she did?

          And Becky thinks Joyce can separate and compartmentalize what she feels and what she was taught, like Becky herself can?

          Preposterous.

        2. thejeff

          Which of course makes it perfectly fine. Becky doesn’t actually believe the stuff about the sky sea and creationism, so it’s okay for someone who thinks that’s what Christians believe (because that’s what she used to believe) to call her stupid for believing it.
          Leaving aside that the first part Becky overheard was actually something she does believe – the part about the magic wizard who loves her.

        3. Spencer

          Yep.

          We made it extremely clear that it’s fine to think Joyce is stupid for being a Young Earth Creationist. She was, in fact, repeatedly mocked for it and she would make silly angry Joyce faces except that one time she cried because of Walky so Dorothy slapped him and made him go apologize.

          That one time.

          Joe said as much himself when they became bio lab partners. Her glasses made her look smart, and she did not look smart previously because she thinks the Earth is 6000 year old.

      2. Spencer

        wait Phipps how the fuck are you the one who took the bait? You were there when I pulled this on Patreon.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          I think your response was good enough it deserved to be shared.

    5. Needfuldoer

      Guys I think Spencer’s latest Gravatar is trying to tell us something.

      1. Spencer

        It was either this or a Yu-Gi-Oh trap card but I thought it’d be funnier if I was upfront, but subtle enough for plausible deniability until I zoomed it out.

      2. Needfuldoer

        (For future reference, because it will change again at some point, Spencer’s Gravatar as of these comments is a fish looking at a hook hanging from a fishing line.)

  54. Rainhat

    I was going to say it exactly the opposite direction- if someone’s being a full blown pain in the ass, they can’t demand the bemefit of the doubt like they’re a kid going through a phase.

    1. A Red Balloon

      On one hand yes. But at the same time, it’s worth looking at the fact that when she actually WAS a kid, she never had any room for growth and development like that, and now she has to cram it all into a short order.

      In her former toxic group, between her comfort zone and overload, there was but a razor-thin borderland where growth and development was barely possible. Step outside the predesignated “comfort” zone in a group like that, and you’re the enemy.

      Looking beyond her immediate situation, Joyce, like all other students, must be prepared for the world she must face after college. The playing field is not level, and life isn’t always fair. Given she’s gonna be among those making the biggest jump, she’s gonna have to prepare the fastest and the hardest.

      Making up for all that stagnation during a childhood where she was supposed to be able to go through these phases at an even pace, especially in just a few short years, is no easy task. Of course there’s gonna be lots, and I mean LOTS of intense growing pains, and something tells me the collateral damage has only just started.

    2. Spencer

      Weird flex to call “anger from a trauma response, exacerbated by being pulled into an argument by your friend who just stalked you, then your big sis has twice rubbed it in before attempting some non-compassion” being a pain in the ass but okay.

  55. DarkoNeko

    wow did just… tell sarah to shut the f up

    1. Spencer

      “Sarah. Quiet the heck up.” is the Joyce equivalent of that one anime moment where the character stops using only 10% of their power.

    2. Spencer

      “Sarah. Quiet the heck up.” – Joyce Brown, declaring her plans for world domination in front of the crumbled remains of the United Nations headquarters.

      (It’s an It’s Walky! reboot except Joyce is the Head Alien)

  56. Heather

    Damn Sarah really can’t let Joyce have a single moment can she. I’m honestly getting a bit concerned at how… idk Sarah seems to be rushing this. Like honestly Becky herself would probably want a day or two to herself too anyway? Even if Joyce was in her eyes 100% wrong/unsympathetic it’s just… baffling and unhelpful to rush such things. All too fast forgiveness without proper processing of feelings isn’t really forgiveness at all anyway.

    Like I’m wondering how long it’s going to be like this. I know it’s still all the same day but will this become a long running gag eventually? (Given the pace of the comic). Like tomorrow morning for them will be all:

    ‘Ugh the showers were cold today’

    ‘Just as cold as your HEART is for not apologising to Becky!’

  57. Amelie Wikström

    Would you rather be right or have any friends in your life? A question I struggled with in Mass Effect. But it turns out, in real life paragon points don’t even do anything. Treating your friends with any amount of kindness might, though.

    1. Spencer

      Okay I do know what you’re getting at, like I do know you are making a real point with actual and legitimate commentary, nothing of what I am about to say is directed at you, specifically.

      I’m just saying Mass Effect has an optional level where you can watch a mother shoot herself in the head so she is not forced to kill her daughter (who is a space vampire), you can actually just stand there and watch it happen, and then you can shoot her daughter yourself. Nobody in your squad complains about this.

      Mass Effect was like, the least morally complicated game Bioware’s ever made. Even more than KOTOR whose morality was Good and Evil.

    2. Agemegos

      I could not respect and would not want a friend who liked me only for being wrong.

      1. Amelie Wikström

        How about a friend who demands that you agree without question that everything you believe in is stupid and wrong? Would you like them to teach you the error of your ways so you can be a better person, if that’s the only condition they’d want to be friends with you?

        And remember, this isn’t a question of using your eyes and hands and brains to examine the world around you to see what it looks like, like your girlfriend is teaching you about, but a question of the dogmatic belief in God’s non-existence.

  58. Segnosaur

    I just noticed… Sarah’s head scarf is back. Used to be a pretty constant fashion accessory in the first term. I do not think we have seen it this term until the past couple. Of strips.

  59. Spencer

    It’s gonna be deeply, viscerally funny to me when Becky breaks Dina’s heart* because Dina’s not saying she’s horny enough for her, and then when we’re all just gonna go “I cannot believe Becky is so shitty! Her intent is not an excuse! She made Dina sad! She is directly stating her fully formed belief that Dina is Broken and Weird, unlike Becky herself!”

    *Please don’t actually do this. I don’t think I could survive a sad Dina, especially while I’m re-reading It’s Walky.

    1. Sombrero

      Dina’s heart can be hurt, but never be broken. Dina will break Becky’s heart by siding with Joyce (after some time, Dina is too clever to take Joyce’s change at face value).

      By the way, your new grav is so cool!!

      1. Spencer

        Thanks. I used to write large amounts of bait.

        I do actually think Dina’s going to be helpful to Joyce right now. Becky was eager to learn, and Joyce isn’t, except she’s not trying to unlearn anything like Becky was, she’s got nothing left and needs to build it anew.

        And I think the fact that Dina doesn’t have much prior history for what Joyce is supposed to be, the Joyce she knew was a moron she viscerally hated, is gonna be helpful.

        1. Rose Red

          I’m really really REALLY excited to see what happens when Dina finds out that Joyce has started to reject magical thinking.

          (I’m less excited to see Becky’s reaction to Dina’s reaction to Joyce starting to reject magical thinking, but also that’s because I think Becky’s not going to be happy with how her girlfriend acts about Joyce’s behavior during the fight. But also that’s probably me projecting myself and what I’d do onto Dina since she’s the cast member I identify with most; she’s probably not going to react the way I would.)

        2. woobie

          So that was YOU posting bait threads!

        3. Spencer

          That I was able to carry it for that long is either really funny or a crushing realization that no one reads all my dumb eight million word essays on why Joe and Joyce are going to kiss or whatever.

          Which in itself is pretty funny, tbh

  60. Buli-Buli

    It still surprises me how many people in the comments section think it is okay to shit-talk someone behind their back. Especially someone who trusts you and is close to you.

    Like, I get it. I’ve had immediate family vent about something specific to me. But that was always alone, in a locked, moving car, on the move, with repeated clarification it will never ever be repeated.

    *sigh*
    Joyce has every right to want to vent about her recently broken Faith. And she can do it in as insulting a manner she pleases.
    But, having the “right” to do something doesn’t make it “right” to do it. And however “healthy” it was for Joyce (debatable) doesn’t mean Joyce doesn’t or shouldn’t have to deal with the consequences.

    As an aside for all the People who are in the “Joyce shouldn’t apologize for the truth camp”. I once had what I assume was food poisoning because I puked once then felt 100% better. Puking was the best option for me. If I had puked all over someone’s legs or shoes. I would owe that person an honest apology (and probably money for new clothes) even if I hadn’t known they were in the way.

    Joyce didn’t apologize for insulting Becky’s Faith and implicitly calling her an indiot for having it.
    She apologized for being caught saying it.
    And when given the explicit opportunity to tell Becky she DOES NOT think Becky’s an idiot…
    Joyce dodged the question.

    …I guess, having thought through it as I typed all this out…
    The question isn’t whether or not Becky deserves an apology from her friend Joyce.
    The question is whether or not Joyce still considers Becky a friend. Or whether Joyce wants/considers the fight to be a falling out with finality.
    If Becky is a friend, then Sarah is right to be guilt-tripping Joyce about all this. Because Joyce is being a shitty friend and confidant.
    If Becky is an ex-friend, then Sarah is wrong because she shouldn’t try and interfer with Joyce’s relationships to that extent.

    1. june gloom

      Because everyone is mature and rational about having their identity, belief system, and way of life completely shattered, especially at age 18/19.

      Your moving car analogy doesn’t hold water. Nobody could invade your privacy there. Becky did what she always does, and this is the result.

      For what it’s worth, I don’t think their friendship can survive this, nor should it. Becky feels betrayed by Joyce; Joyce feels betrayed by her whole fucking religion, Becky included. Neither of them is obligated to hold space for the other.

      1. Buli-Buli

        “Your moving car analogy doesn’t hold water. Nobody could invade your privacy there.”

        1. It is not an analogy. It is something my immediate family literally does.
        2. Yeah. Duh. That’s why we hold those rare conversations there.

      2. thejeff

        I like the idea that she wasn’t mature and rational about it and therefore she’s completely justified and shouldn’t apologize to friends she’s hurt.
        Yes, Joyce screwed up because her life’s a mess and she needed to vent about it. It’s perfectly understandable and may even be necessary for her. She’s still hurting her friends and that’s something she’s going to have to deal with.
        That’s why Buli-Buli’s puking analogy works. It wasn’t really their fault, they needed to do it and it helped them, but they still would need to make up for it.

        And Becky “invaded her privacy” by, [checks notes], looking for her friend in an open room down the hall and around the corner for their rooms. Such a horrible thing to do.

        1. Spencer

          By cyberstalking. Don’t forget the cyberstalking. You forgot the cyberstalking.

          On the grounds of learning Joyce had a friend over and didn’t tell her, so Becky had to show her who Joyce’s Cool Christian Friend is and Dorothy had to go see why Joyce was being a School Misser.

          After Dorothy told her she was being wildly over possessive and Becky thought it was extremely funny and cool to go be her flawed human self who does what she wants with no regards for the consequence.

        2. Spencer

          Also “friend” singular. Dorothy and Sarah don’t get to be hurt like this the way Becky is.

          And, y’know, it might be worth mentioning that Becky totally said to Joyce that her faith (that Joyce never had) was based in self-superiority. That’s actually doing the same thing to Joyce what we’re insisting Joyce has done to Becky.

          It is almost as if these two have no idea what the other is thinking!

        3. june gloom

          I’m so tired of the bad-faith reading that goes on in this comment section. Stop arguing against stuff I didn’t actually say.

        4. thejeff

          @june gloom:If that’s a reference to me – what did you mean then?
          It’s not clear to me why you said “Because everyone is mature and rational about having their identity, belief system, and way of life completely shattered, especially at age 18/19.” if it wasn’t supposed to excuse her.

          I think most people here agree that it’s understandable why she did it – she’s not being mature and rational about having her identity, belief system and way of life shattered. That makes sense.

          But we can understand what she’s going through and still not decide that puts her completely in the right in this situation. Or to use Buli-buli’s phrasing, we can understand why she’s being a shitty friend and even sympathize, but still think she’s being a shitty friend.

    2. Spencer

      Joyce angrily tore into her death cult for the first time in her life, in a private room where the only reason it became a problem is that Becky and Dorothy cyberstalked her, and then she had her first fight with her best friend in her life on the worst topic possible, and now Sarah’s been giving her shit and framing it as compassion. All the while Joyce doesn’t even really have, because to call them beliefs would imply Joyce has a foundation of newfound facts and ideas to ascribe to without her death cult upbringing telling her exactly what was correct, what was moral, and who she had to be, as opposed to a gaping void of nothing where the only thing she’s figured out is that she’s a monkey, and then Becky and Sarah have pushed it far enough that being right is all she’s got.

      It’s baffling to me that the only so many of y’all want to focus on is Joyce being a Problematic Atheist.

      1. Spencer

        i swear to god, there are little gnomes who just steal words out from my texts when i dont look

        1. C.T. Phipps

          So in your opinion it’s okay to badmouth your friends in private when they can’t hear you.

        2. Spencer

          Is it badmouthing them when:

          – They’re an infinitesimally small part of your horrible death cult upbringing, actually the only good part of it, really, and didn’t cause the horrible resentments you are currently feeling, ergo they were probably the last thing on your mind when you started talking about how stupid it is to believe that God loved you and that he let you be attacked, nearly shot, and kidnapped to teach you a lesson.

          – You’re badmouthing them (again, as part of a Great Big Thing larger than Becky) for something they don’t actually believe, but because of your death cult upbringing you don’t really understand that, and Becky finding something beautiful and worthy of pride in her upbringing such as unending faith in God’s miracles then leads her to tell Joyce she only ever had faith (that Joyce never actually had) because she wanted to lord herself above everyone else.

          You’re an author, for Christ’s sake. You know how words work, you know what subtext means.

        3. Mr D

          I have friends and I have family, and many a times they act like idiots or assholes and I vent about it with other people, just like they do about me. Keeping everything to yourself is not healthy because it will fester and rot. I’d rather talk to them after I’ve had the chance to talk with someone unrelated to the problem because it frees up headspace for me to process.

        4. woobie

          I say yes. Little annoyances can be put up with and vented later to someone else trusted.
          Larger issues should be brought up. In a normal tone of voice.

      2. june gloom

        I think it’s a bunch of things. One is that Christianization of society runs a lot deeper than anyone really understands — we all like to dunk on Those Atheists as being “just as” bad as puritanical evangelicals, but there also seems a broader overall tendency to treat atheism, especially vocal atheism, as childish, or even racist/ableist.

        There’s also the matter of a decade+ trend, especially in more “fannish” parts of the internet, of people treating any interpersonal conflict — a perfectly normal, common thing — as necessarily toxic/abusive/relationship-ending, and any display of anger.

        1. Spencer

          I mean yeah it doesn’t get said enough but you’d have to be a total dumbass to think an teenage atheist is capable of causing even the slightest percent of harm as their supposed equivalent.

          It’s almost like it’s cultural indoctrination from those in power to reframe societal ills as an equal conflict that would be solved immediately if both sides could get along!

        2. Spencer

          There’s also the matter of a decade+ trend, especially in more “fannish” parts of the internet, of people treating any interpersonal conflict — a perfectly normal, common thing — as necessarily toxic/abusive/relationship-ending, and any display of anger.

          Okay I skipped this part but Jesus it is the worst.

          I don’t know what turned fiction, particularly serialized, ongoing fiction, into a race to find the one true meaning of the story, and the true meaning is finding whoever is morally correct in the immediate moment and that person is the one who isn’t yelling.

    3. alongcameaspider

      I dont think it’s okay

      I also don’t think that’s what was happening

      I think Becky didn’t even enter her thought process at all until Becky showed up and decided Joyce was talking about Becky

      1. thejeff

        By the not entirely unreasonable process of hearing Joyce make fun of something that Becky believes and until that moment thought Joyce did too. I do agree that Joyce wasn’t thinking about Becky, but what she was mocking clearly covered Becky and when Becky asked, she doubled down on it.

        1. Spencer

          Because Becky said Joyce wasn’t really sorry, and then asked her if she thought she was an idiot.

          And like everyone treated Joyce, Joyce told her that the Earth isn’t 6000 years old.

          Like here let me try it this way: According to Joyce, Becky thinks all that dumb YEC bullshit. Becky is an idiot, but Joyce has been polite about it and not saying anything. When the Faith-Off ends, Joyce stomps away saying that Becky isn’t dumb and she’ll figure it out the way Joyce figured out that 2 + 2 = 4 and not 5.

          Because you’re framing this like Joyce went “no Becky, it’s okay that you’re stupid I’ll help you I’m enlightened now” and not “Becky, 2 + 2 is 4. Stop saying it’s 5.”

          Like, what is Joyce’s opinion on Christianity outside of the view shaped by her death cult? Does she even know?

  61. JediMB

    I am become sadness.

    1. JBento

      Depresser of worlds?

  62. JBento

    Willis, nobody misses scanning. Scanning sucks.

    Also, I see Sarah is trying to pull a pope. Fuck you, Sarah, get better role models.

  63. Vulcanodon

    Well the last time Joyce ignored urgent messages from a family member it worked out fine and there weren’t any problems

    1. Vulcanodon

      (Also I am super-excited for Jocelyn story that may be arriving)

    2. alongcameaspider

      I mean do we know it’s urgent? Can’t Jocelyne just want to talk to her sister for reasons that don’t involve some sort of drama

      1. Spencer

        Oh yeah, I thought this was Jocelyne’s second call for some reason.

        Ooh I hope it’s her coming out to Joyce.

        1. woobie

          Over the phone?

        2. Spencer

          To meet in person!

          With Jordan there too!

      2. Vulcanodon

        Joyce seems exasperated by the message, as if it is one of many.

  64. Blatt

    *shoving the entire main cast and their problems out of the way* JOCELYN

    1. Spencer

      *pounds fists on table*

      JOCELYNE!! JOCELYNE!!

  65. Bagge

    Same energy
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/cord-2/

  66. Julez

    Dangit, Joyce, you talk to your sister!

    1. Spencer

      ikr

      Every ounce of sympathy I had is just gone. We could have seen Jocelyne!

  67. zee

    TALK TO YOUR SISTER DAMN IT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR JOCELYNE CONTENT

  68. JBento

    We’ve finally found one thing to unite the commentariat, it seems. EVERYONE wants more Jocelyne.

    1. misanthropope

      and if you listen you can hear willis cackling.

      1. JBento

        So, today’s a day that ends in y?

    2. MrSmith

      Well…the more characters added the less time others get so…not everyone…

      1. seregiel

        There are characters that can have less time.

  69. Spencer

    Oh yeah, I was suddenly reminded.

    Sarah and Jacob are bad friends and we need to hate them forever and hold them accountable, since they never apologized to Joyce or admitted that they got to know each other using her as a conversation piece.

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/drives/

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/therepressions/

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/joycestories/

    Man, lookit these two assholes. Talking about how dumb believers are (when your definition of belief is a slim and exact one where everyone had inerrant facts of reality that you repeatedly had hammered into you were objectively correct) when your best friend is a believer is bad enough, but talking about how Joyce, specifically, by name, is a big dumb idiot believing things only big dumb idiots believe in?

    Man, Jacob totally had it coming when Joyce pretended to be his girlfriend. What a shitty friend. Even though they talked about Joyce so Sarah would open up, intent is no excuse for being so cruel.

    1. JBento

      Jacob was LITERALLY the dude who pulled the “other religions are still worshipping MY god, they’re just doing it in a weird way” stunt.

      1. Spencer

        I took that more as “yeah there’s one God, but all faiths are a valid expression of belief in him.”

        1. JBento

          I mean, he specifically says that the other forms of worship are still about Jesus.

        2. thejeff

          That’s how “one God, but all faiths are a valid expression of belief in him” works if you believe Jesus is God.

          Like, I get that some people find this really offensive, but I don’t really see what the alternative is. If you actually believe in an omnipotent creator god, how do you accept “Oh yeah your omnipotent creator god is also real and completely different. There are many of them.”

          It’s called monotheism for a reason. You can either consider other religions to be worshipping the same god in a different ways or to be worshipping false gods. There aren’t other alternatives.

        3. thejeff

          Or am I missing some subtlety that somehow reconciles things?

        4. JBento

          If you are, you’re not the only one, because I can’t think of a third lane either.

        5. Agemegos

          Which is a very rude thing to say to a Muslim, for example.

        6. JBento

          Unrelated to the convo, but I wanted to say that while looking for the strip in question I ran into THIS gem, where we finally find Mary NOT crossing a line while at the same time showing negative self-awareness.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/justify/

    2. alongcameaspider

      Man looking through the comments back then they were far kinder to Sarah explicitly mocking Joyce behind her back then today’s comment section is to Joyce for mocking something that happens to catch Becky as splash damage

      1. Big Z

        Probably because Sarah was ALWAYS cantankerous, and Joyce went kinda abruptly from being sweet and kind all the time to just leaning straight into the “angry atheist” tropes.

        It’s jarring as hell, even if those of us who went through it ourselves can kinda recognize that it lasts a couple of days for many of us and it’s still been what, a day tops?

        1. Spencer

          This isn’t meant to be pointed commentary at you, specifically, but more the really loathsome idea that someone being an asshole all the time is easier than a sociable and pleasant person suddenly acting the same way for a spell.

          I actually hate it down to my guts. It’s how we convince ourselves the Mikes and Sarahs of the world are totally good and kind and worth putting up with.

      2. Buli-Buli

        Making fun of Joyce was a shitty thing for Sarah to do. And I was disappointed in her and Jacob when it happened. The difference is Joyce didn’t catch them in the act.

        In that context, (where nobody has been hurt, just distespected without their knowledge) an apology can be considered being honest and clearing the air and/or as all about your own guilt. It can also be just a way to start shit because now you have to explain WHY you are apologizing. Which just creates the situation the apology is supposed to be solving.

        I would say the best solution is the one Sarah took where she stopped and refused to start again.

        Now if Joyce had gone on to confide in Sarah about Jacob mocking her or feeling like people were mocking her behind her back then that could be an opening for an admission of guilt and an apology, but that’s getting a bit far into theoreticals.

        1. Spencer

          Just so we’re clear, it’s fine to deliberately talk shit about someone as long as you don’t get caught, but Becky stalking Joyce and listening to a conversation she’s only tangentially associated with, where Joyce is processing complex feelings for the first time and expressing her anger at the institutions and authorities that made her believe bullshit that nearly killed her three times, that’s bad because Becky heard it.

        2. JBento

          If this is the case, then it follows that the one at fault for Becky being hurt… is Becky.

        3. Alex

          The concept of getting away with something can make for an interesting moral dilemma. If you don’t get caught, obviously there is less harm all around. But your actions were still the same.

        4. june gloom

          This seems to be the genuine argument that people are making around all this, yes.

    3. Amós Batista

      great find, Spencer, you can rest your case

  70. James

    You know, I’m actually a bit peeved at Sarah here. That honestly is a really goddamn condescending thing to say, it indicates that she not only doesn’t understand what Joyce is thinking, or what her motivations are, or what she’s actually saying – but that she is actively not interested in figuring any of those things out, and is instead set on her assumptions.

    Which is perfectly in keeping with her character, to be fair, and doesn’t make her a bad person, but she is playing this whole situation about as badly as someone could.

    I really feel for Joyce here.

    1. Icalasari

      It at the same time does make me feel better overall though. She’s concerned in the wrong way, but it shows all the lashing out was confusion and love

    2. Alex

      Unsurprisingly, Sarah means well but is handling this poorly.

  71. nicoleandmaggie

    END OF STORYLINE?!??!!!??

    Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    What did Joe say? What’s going to happen next? Aieeee!!!!

    Is this where we say, “Damn you Willis”?

    1. JBento

      Do we ever not say it?

      1. Andy

        I think we were happy for about 5 seconds when Danny and Sal kissed.

        Then we started worrying about Danny Danning it up.

        1. JBento

          So we alternate between Damning Willis and worrying about the upcoming moment when we Damn Willis.

          Such are the torments of the commentariat.

        2. Andy

          A strange game. The only way to win is not to play

  72. Icalasari

    Now I feel better about the reactions to Joyce. This is genuine concern, not just expecting her to be a certain way. Guess the group needed some time to react to the shock?

    1. Icalasari

      Note: I don’t think Joyce is wrong per se, and neither is Becky. Only thing Joyce has to apologize for was lashing out at Becky, and Becky needs to apologize for stuff too, but first needs to get to a stable spot. I also do see Sarah being condescending here

      But it’s not the condescending from before – This is more of a concern from the wrong direction, missing key points

  73. rose

    I am suddenly extremely worried about WHY Jocelyne is calling Joyce. The last time we saw her she was conflicted about Joyce admitting that she wants to be someone people can trust, after saying they should chat sometime. She wants to come out to her. But I’m REAL WORRIED we’re gonna get a cutaway to her in some TROUBLE

    1. Vulcanodon

      Yes – anything from family troubles to violence could be in play. I want to see her safe and happy and is the right strip for that?

  74. Spencer

    Regarding matters of faith, I do want to make a read in Becky:

    She processed belief like Joyce does and only found faith what’s important when she joint the cast.

    It’s a hard call to make as the only thing we know about Becky prior to the start is that she was Joyce’s cool rebel exemplar. She believed all the YEC stuff, we know that, but I’m wondering now if she only challenged that once Joyce, the only part of her life that hadn’t betrayed her, fought their entire world to keep her safe.

    Because suddenly Becky saw something good came out if it. The authority was wrong and Joyce was right, and nothing was immutable anymore if her authority was wrong. Things could be questioned at her leisure and boom, here comes her cute dino girlfriend laying down done sweet science facts.

    In a way, that could be why Joyce turning atheist hurt her so much. Joyce saving her was the ultimate turning point: God was real and answered lesbian prayers, and now Joyce is affirming that miracle that has shaped Becky’s worldview and makes her happy was, in the immediate moment, a lie. Joyce only did it because she’s convinced she was a better person than her congregation

    1. ninja_jesus

      I don’t think that Becky ever truly believed in YEC or even God the same way that Joyce did. To me it seemed like Becky believed in the spirit of the faith rather than in the literal Biblical text, whereas every Biblical passage was super important for Joyce to memorize and be able to quote off the top of her head. And I think that we can pin down when Becky had her own doubts prior to interacting with Joyce at college; the death of her mom was definitely a starting point.

      1. Spencer

        She definitely thought the YEC stuff, that was what Dina helped her unlearn.

        It’s really a question as to whether it was always unimportant, or if it only became unimportant once Joyce saved her life.

  75. Ludaire

    It’s becoming more and more clear that Joyce is far less certain than her words and attitude indicate. It’s funny how many people both in comic and out are interpreting her overcompensation and lashing out as sincere certainty. You can really clearly tell who has and hasn’t been through this kind of thing by the level of empathy given to Joyce. So many people just can’t see past “Joyce said mean words” to the person underneath who is quite frankly working through far more emotional turmoil than she’s caused Becky.

    1. Icalasari

      Yeah, been in Joyce’s corner for a while. She’s uncertain and freaked out. She’s overcorrecting. One I’m most disappointed in is Dorothy because she refused to see that Joyce is suffering hard and was the atheist Joyce admired. Losing that potential support was not what Joyce needed

      1. nicoleandmaggie

        Even though Dorothy is probably the most well-adjusted main character in the comic strip (except maybe Lucy) right now, she’s still at *most* 19 years old. Cut her some slack! She’s not a trained therapist. She’s a college student. And she lives with Becky who has also been hurt, not with Joyce.

        This idea that competent women have to be 100% perfect all the time and fix everyone immediately (while still also not interfering too much) is probably part of why we ended up with President Trump. Dorothy should be allowed to have the same reaction that Sarah had with the same amount of blow-back. I mean, Sarah’s a year older, but that’s not *that* much of a difference in whether or not she’s allowed to be disappointed.

        1. Alex

          I did expect better from her though. Based on what we already know I thought she would be more patient.

        2. V

          Personally, it’s not Dorothy making mistakes I have a problem with. It’s that she’s hardly ever framed as making mistakes in this comic. I’m pretty sure we’re still supposed to think Dorothy is 100% in the right!

        3. Spencer

          I’ve also had this complaint about Dorothy but less in, like, Dorothy telling me who was right in the Yugoslav wars and more that Dorothy’s not really a grey character, so she’s right about things that are pretty simple. Be honest about your emotions, work hard, Joyce needs glasses, Becky’s not trying to be a jerk she’s just shaken up and I should let her know I care.

          But this is the first time Dorothy’s ever tried to nanny Joyce in a situation that wasn’t immediately clear cut. Dorothy rolls on in, declares Joyce even more disappointing than being a School Misser, and then tells her to go after Becky to make it right because Dorothy knows she’s “better than this.”

          Dorothy really has no idea what’s going on. I’m not entirely convinced she thinks Joyce was actually telling the truth and was just pretending to be an atheist to Liz, and even then all she really concerned herself with was Joyce doing something that Dorothy thinks is wrong and not, like, Joyce herself, so between that, the Yale acceptance letter she’s been hiding, and that pushing Walky towards Liz didn’t solve anything for her own frustrations, I think we’re going to start getting into Dorothy’s head going forward. I don’t think she’ll be as clear-cut as she used to be, where she was a straight man foil to more extroverted characters like Walky and Joyce.

    2. woobie

      That was a main purpose of Liz, I think, to mirror nuJoyce a bit.

  76. Amós Batista

    This storyline took so long to finish, and still got so fast because we got a lot of history here. Joyce be discovered by Becky, Liz, Ethan and now, Jocelyne…

  77. Stifyn Baker

    It’s always been my personal experience that if other people’s forgiveness feels condescending, that’s a pretty good indicator that I’m NOT in the right.

    1. Alex

      I’m struggling to understand what you mean by this.

      1. seregiel

        I think they mean that if it feels condescending, then they feel anyone in their position would have thought it apparent, in which case it goes from being less of an opinion and more of a matter of fact that forgiveness is needed…

        That said, I’ve found the opposite. If forgiveness feels condescending, then there tends to be some S-tier level manipulation going on and something isn’t adding up. Either in my head or the dynamic at large.

  78. Deadjolras

    I like Jocelyne’s icon!

    1. Amós Batista

      Yes, me too. Willis thought in everything…

  79. Amtelope

    I’m not sure I like anyone in this cast since the time skip, with the weird exception of Joe (and Dina, but I’m increasingly feeling like she and Becky are a terrible train wreck waiting to happen). I realize drama comes from characters behaving badly, but it would be nice to see someone demonstrate some likeable behavior, just about anytime now.

    1. alongcameaspider

      Sal seems to be doing alright post timeskip but I’m not sure how long that’ll last

    2. Sol

      You know, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’m still interested in seeing where things go, but… I dunno, something about DoA since the timeskip feels like it’s lacking.

      1. seregiel

        It’s their souls. They were crushed when life hit them at 2000 miles per hour and they have not been put back together yet. Something about needing to find some elves to be reforged like Anduril…

  80. Plaaaa

    Shouldn’t the tag be for anti-Joyce?

    1. Spencer

      There’s probably some symbolism to be found in Joyce’s clone who you could convincingly argue was more the real Joyce than Joyce herself, getting murdered because Joyce couldn’t accept the truth about herself.

  81. Victor Riley

    She doesn’t seem to have realized that it’s not about whether you’re “right” or “wrong”… it’s whether you’ve been a “bongo”.

    (I intentionally wrote “bongo”, the auto-correct didn’t have to do that… because everyone here would understand)

    1. Spencer

      damn hoss you sure put a lot of effort into letting us know you were calling joyce a gendered slur, which got filtered out because of that one time roz got all uppity at joyce for being a fundamentalist and so many people called her that it’s been permanently removed

      (She was also dating Ethan to make him straight at the time, as in she was actually doing the thing that was morally abhorrent, but Roz didn’t know that)

      1. Nobonesforever

        There’s been a surprising amount of misogynist language being used about Joyce lately real sad stuff

      2. Rose Red

        … I’ve only started hanging out in the comments recently, so I wasn’t around when that happened, and I don’t use that word myself so I’d have never known it was a filter unless someone told me.

        This means the comments about Joyce during the most recent storyline were a lot more mean than I thought. Wow. People are… not always nice here.

        1. Nobonesforever

          Yeah people have been straight up acing in really really concerning ways about Joyce. Really hate how much the word bongo and it’s cyphers have been getting thrown around

  82. Romanticide

    Maybe I get into panic mode extremely easily, but I cannot help but to feel Jocelyne is trying to warn Joyce of MORTAL PERIL INCOMING. D:

  83. Andy

    Something I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention is that it’s pretty lucky for Joyce that she has to scan the comics and not print them. Scanners are annoying, but nothing will make you lose faith in a loving god (not that she needs to again) like a printer that doesn’t want to play nice.

    1. seregiel

      Except for my scanner which I now believe is haunted ad spiteful and intentionally doesn’t save the scans correctly even after I preview them and say okay… and WHY DOESNT IT LOVE ME!?!

  84. Derek

    what in the [bleep] does Joyce have to be forgiven for?? She’s working out her faith, her morals and her life choices after coming to grips with the fact that she was raised in an incredibly manipulative and toxic environment, one that would rather see her dead than see her “stray from the path”

    Joyce being angry and snarky is very much her finding out who she REALLY is, without the programming. Is she supposed to apologize for that? Is she suppose to mask who she is in front of the people who allegedly are her close and dear friends? If they are only disappointed in Joyce because she’s GROWING, then they are straight up bad friends.

    Joyce was acting badly when she was planning on stealing Jacob from Raidah, and when she lied about being Jacob’s girlfriend. That was bad, THAT she should feel shame for, and apologize for. This? I don’t think she should feel bad about this

    1. Spencer

      I don’t actually know what Joyce is being such a jerk about either.

      She’s being an “edgy atheist”, except I think growing up in a fundamentalist death cult that ropes you into two separate car chases means you’re actually allowed to paint at least one statue of Jesus like the Joker and no one’s allowed to stop you.

      (this is a lovably cheeky way of saying that feelings matter more than not being problematic to the most powerful religion in America when you personally suffer from its worst excesses)

      She called Becky an idiot, except she did not call Becky an idiot at all because the things Joyce thinks you’re stupid for believing are things Becky does not believe in the slightest, and Joyce does not get this in much the same way Becky did not understand Joyce’s perspective that the fire-breathing dinosaurs on the ark were as factual as God himself. What Joyce did was Not Say No, except you got folks acting like their familiarity with that dialogue exchange in other media means it’s playing out the same here, and then Joyce said Becky was smart and would figure out the truth because Joyce processed the teachings of her death cult as objective facts that have now been proven wrong.

      Joyce is being horrible to her friends, except the only one she’s dealt with is Sarah who has three times now deliberately antagonized her to get her to fall back in line. Sarah told her she wasn’t really sorry, Sarah told her she deserved to lose her job to suffer from her hubris and that she needs to go back to being a smiley kewpie doll who made life better for everyone while they laughed behind her back, and Sarah, having exhausted the barbed comments, now just says she’ll forgive Joyce for being angry after Sarah repeatedly insults her and tells her it’s for her own good. Dorothy sure helped too, having tracked her down for being a School Misser and kicked up the “I know you’re better than this” lecture (and I didn’t even realize that was a call back).

      I don’t actually know what’s hard to read into about this, I certainly don’t know how “Joyce probably has complex feels about her fundie death cult” and “Joyce has a fight with a friend” turned her into a problematic atheist shitty friend who’s hurting everyone and it’s inexcusable, I don’t think Dumbing of Age spent 11 whole years building up to this so it could sell out super hard where it turns out Joyce just needed to stop being so problematic to Christianity, but maybe I can see this because I am a beautiful genius.

      Perhaps the most beautiful genius of all.

      (;beautiful genius’ is code for tryhard fanboy high on his own cool supply)

    2. RedCat

      She was acting like a jackass.

      1. Derek

        was she though? I think we have different baselines of jackass.
        I think Joyce was being SILLY and lying to Liz to look cool and tough, and while this isn’t necessarily a good thing, 99% of the time this is harmless and lets Joyce vent through her more negative emotions.

        Joyce approached jackass when she fought with Becky and doubled down, but Sarah was not a witness to this. So what is Sarah willing to forgive Joyce for?

  85. crow

    Go off, Joyce!

  86. Rani

    Jesus fucking Christ have her relatives never heard of texting?

    1. Rocket Relm

      In some ways it might be better to not have a ‘paper trail’ of what you say, and people rarely record conversations, but texts are inherently recorded.

      Generally though, yeah, this 100% should be a text if it’s vital.

  87. VolticEXE

    I feel Joyce for what she’s going through right now, breaking through to become an Atheist & rebel often leads you to become an asshat to many people & you never recognize it until later, doubly worse here since her sheltered upbringing never let her mature as a person, so college is giving her a crash course, emphasis on the crash.
    Hopefully her good nature catches up with her soon, bc she’s gonna be insufferable for a WHILE.

  88. Nobonesforever

    I wonder when we will have another 500+ comment section again? What will be the next big debate? Who knows? I don’t!!

    1. Nobonesforever

      Oh fuck ok this is the perfect grav capitalizing my email like this forever until the next reset

  89. Emily

    It’s kind of wild to me that Dorothy or someone hasn’t explained to Joyce how it doesn’t matter if you’re right when you’re hurting people you love.

    It’s even more wild to me that Joyce doesn’t understand this herself, considering her previous behaviour, but I get that Joyce has gone through a monumental mental shift.

    I guess splitting herself ideologically/mentally from her religion has also cut off any emotions related to the matter, even when it overlaps with relationships she cherishes. Plus, plot conflicts lol.

Leave a Reply to Sol Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.