264

Smaller
Posted on May 31, 2023 by David M Willis

264 thoughts on “Smaller”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    you MADE the room smaller from ALL THOSE BINS, CAROL

    /wondering whether the drawings would animate like a Plymptoon

    1. Ana Chronistic

      /remembering when I had a roommate I didn’t like and just put up all kind of gross art w/o saying anything

      /would post examples but Squee seems to have taken everything down (not that I’m terribly surprised) and I don’t remember what else I used

    2. Axel

      well, if Joyce just takes all her clothes out of the closet and uses them as a mattress topper…

      1. Laura

        …Then she’ll have many more excuses to do laundry!

        1. NGPZ

          Speaking of which, I really want to come up with a neat game idea involving Becky’s laundry pile (The Pile of Lesbos) but am drawing a blank. 🙁

          Any ideas Laura?

        2. Laura

          Maybe a game where you have to fold and sort and put away laundry before the pile grows?

        3. Psi baka onna

          How about an endless runner where you’re trying to out run the massive expansion of the pile before it engulfs everything?

        4. HueSatLight

          To be pedantic for a second, I think those are her clean clothes. If it were a pile of dirty clothes, there would be new top items. If they’re clean, she takes stuff out of the middle to wear. Or she doesn’t take anything out of it currently. My roommate had a pile of clean clothes he used to soften his landing when he disembarked from the top bunk. How about an artillery game, where you first launch articles of clothing, trying to get them into a pile where you think the person will land when they jump out of the bunk.

        5. NGPZ

          Inspiration has struck!!! IT HAS STRUCK!!!

          Thank you and our lord and savior SpongeBob SquarePants! ???

        6. Axel

          that’s an added bonus

      2. Steelbright

        I remember storing all my blankets like that when i didn’t have enough space for them anywhere else… Was pretty cozy, Joyce could do worse

    3. Mark

      Eh, six bins, three fairly small, and evidently much of it will go to the recycle slot. I’m guessing one, two bins will survive the first winnowing. The final keeper set will, by volume, be mostly stuffed animals who will live on the bed, except one that looks adorable on the windowsill (to Sarah’s disgust).

  2. Stephen Bierce

    *–pulled into Nazareth and feelin’ about half past dead”…

  3. Paradoxius

    Joyce should watch Evangelion. I bet it would, at this specific moment, have some kind of permanent impact on her psyche.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I’d pay money for that Patreon. Also, Joyce’s confusion.

      “Science and Christianity to make…robots? What?”

      1. Jamie

        Yes, please.

      2. Doctor_Who

        Things I would pay to witness Joyce’s reaction to.

        1) Evangelion
        2) Twin Peaks
        3) The Good Place

        1. Rose by Any Other Name

          4) Xenogears and Xenosaga trilogy.

        2. anonymsly

          I think Joyce would genuinely appreciate The Good Place.

        3. Dara

          I think The Good Place would honestly be good for Joyce right now. I really do.

        4. anonymsly

          Frankly, me too. I can see her actually looking up and reading a lot of the books referenced in it, and even if she didn’t I feel like it would at least help/comfort her in her own now-god-free-but-still-intensely-Joyce philosophy.

        5. TulipKitten

          Holy shit. It took me reading this to realize, but Chidi is incredibly autism-coded.

        6. Doctor_Who

          I read someone’s analysis that argued all of the main characters on that show were somewhere on the spectrum, including Michael and Janet. Like, obviously Tahani is very social and outgoing, but that’s because celebrity culture is her “dinosaurs”, and she was raised by narcissists who trained her to be able to socialize, but she can’t do anything else.

          Not sure if I buy it, or if someone is just trying to diagnose “sitcom quirkiness”.

        7. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          What about Dogma?

        8. Freemage

          Eh, she never was Catholic, and that movie is all about Catholic dogma (don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic, I just think she’d have a more visceral reaction to Red State).

        9. 0kami

          She might also genuinely enjoy Trigun.

      3. UrsulaDavina

        Science and Abrahamic mysticism alot elements of Kabalah in Eveigelion even the homoerotism and sexual intercourse

        1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          I know we have Adam and Lilith in Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE), but was there mention of Eve?

        2. AbacusWizard

          Eve-angelion

        3. Heatth

          Eve is Eva in Latim. In other words, the robots are Eve. They are made from Adam too.

    2. UrsulaDavina

      With elements of Kabalah mixed in

    3. Angel

      or that st. young man anime with jesus and buddha lol

    4. ZerglingOne

      Is there a single moment where watching that show doesn’t alter your psyche permanently?

      1. Clif

        Evangelion didn’t alter my psyche permanently until the ending.

        1. Inahc

          I watched it for the first time last year, and… well, I’m still not quite sure what the fuck I saw.

  4. RassilonTDavros

    Oh SHIT Carol has breached the dorm room, I repeat Carol has breached the dorm room, this is not a drill

  5. Loki

    What is Joyce hiding? Is it the pill?

    1. Loki

      Ugh. No. Not that avatar.

      1. DailyBrad

        How does one change their avatar, anyhow? Not that I mind Leslie by any stretch, but for future reference when it changes next.

        1. drs

          Change the capitalization of your username, I think. Login system doesn’t care but the gravatar system does.

        2. Cholma

          Yep. “DailyBrad” is different than “dailybrad” or “DaIlYbRaD” to Gravatar

        3. Thag Simmons

          I don’t think it is?

        4. Thag Simmons

          Yeah it’s not, it’s only tied to email. Changing username does nothing.

        5. Cholma

          Oops. I just saw that you said “username”. I think it’s actual the capitalization of the email you use. I will try that now by capitalizing “C” in my email:

        6. Cholma

          Well crap. I was *sure* it was email. Although, my avatar is one I uploaded, so I don’t get the “avatar roulette” so I can’t test it.

        7. Cholma

          Heh. Really wish we had a 5-15 minute edit/delete option!

        8. Needfuldoer

          Yeah, I don’t think you get to play Gravatar roulette anymore if you have a custom one set.

        9. Thag Simmons

          You can turn it off on the gravatar website in the menu you use to pick a new avatar, if you wanted to test it.

        10. Thag Simmons

          Each email has an avatar assigned, but it’s case sensitive so it counts alternative capitalizations as different emails and assigns a different avatar.

          You could also assign a specific gravatar to your email across all sites that use the system.

    2. DailyBrad

      Yep, her birth control pills.

      1. Axel

        And in like, the most recognizable container possible. Though if it was a plain box of blister packs or something her mom would probably grab it and read it anyway.

        1. Angel

          i’m surprised it wasn’t already in a drawer unless she just took it that morning and swent out versus putting it away, or maybe it’s easier to take everyday/be reminded if it’s on your desk to see right away

        2. Shade

          Yeah, some people suffer from out of sight out of mind with things like that.

        3. Needfuldoer

          Under ordinary circumstances, nobody who could stumble across it would care.

      2. Bogeywoman

        And here I was wondering why she was hiding the smoke detector ?

    3. Devin

      Yes, her birth control.

      1. NGPZ

        Yeah, the oh so Unholy Gate to Evil. ?

    4. NGPZ

      Yeah, the oh so Unholy Gate to Evil. ?

      1. NGPZ

        dammit just when i thought my comment was eaten

        1. Stanistani

          It works as a chant too.

    5. TulipKitten

      But you gotta admit, it’s kind of funny you got Joe with that comment. “Her birth control?”

    6. Furie

      Nope, it’s the thermostat. She doesn’t want her mom to know she likes to be hot for Joe now.

      And I’ve just realised that Joe is going to have to meet her parents at some point. If it’s Halloween and he’s literally dressed as the devil they’ll see him as, I’m all in.

      1. cain

        Hank would probably think Joe’s alright, as long as he hasn’t had any substantial interactions with Joe prior to this winter.

  6. Leorale

    It took me a sec to figure out that Joyce is looking at her birth control pills, so that’s what the round thing is, in case you were wondering.

    1. TheLurkerAbove

      I had no idea they came in a round case like that, every time I’ve seen them it’s in a blister packaging with the days labelled on it.

      1. brionl

        I think that’s the original packaging? Anyway when movies from the 70’s wanted to imply somebody was on the pill, that was the packaging they showed.

        1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          I *think* some of that may be from when you were supposed to stop taking pills for 5 days instead of having 5 dummy pills, so you had a wheel with five empty slots to help you keep track.

          But never having taken birth control pills, I may be full of it here.

      2. Bittersweet

        Ortho-(Tri?)Cyclen comes in the round case and is typically the very first birth control most places will prescribe a girl, particularly on college campuses. It was the first one they gave me back in 2012 when I got on it for similar reasons to Joyce.

        It ALSO severely worsens depression if you have it. Like, most estrogen BC can, but at the time that it was prescribed to me nobody knew that for certain. Ortho-Cyclen ended my college career before it began. So if you have a history of severe depression, they may just hop straight to prescribing the Progestin Only pills nowadays even if they’re slightly less effective as BC.

    2. Tawdry Quirks

      It’s a package from a manufacturer of several popular name brand pill formulations, Ortho-McNeil (i.e. Ortho Novum, Ortho Cyclen). And yes, these were the second generation formulations that came out in the 70s, and are still considered the gold standard today. I can’t remember if the 70s were the first blister packs for BC, but I know that the earliest formulations from the 50s came in bottles. (And the 50s packaging is probably where that bullshit trope about swapping pills with baby aspirin came from…why did that trope persist for decades after they started putting the pill in blister packs and tampering would be very, very noticeable?)

      I never had packaging like that, but some school health centers and Planned Parenthood at least used to get the name brand at low cost.

    3. wwwhhattt

      My first thought was of a compass that pointed towards Joe. I have no idea howcthat was supposed to make sense

  7. Nono

    I know it’s not what the strip is going for, but I also get a lot of ‘parents of trans kids wistfully reminiscing about the child’s deadname era.’

    ‘Oh remember when you wore that pretty pink dress? So beautiful!’ ‘Oh hey this is when you won that wrestling competition in high school!’ or something.

    1. DailyBrad

      I mean, that’s also not super far off the mark, either. There is a ton of overlap, being around someone who remembers you for who they felt you were then, and not always being able to reconcile it with who you are now, or have perhaps always have been, depending on the situation.

    2. Angel

      i imagine jocelyne would never be coming out to her mom in that case

      and i’m sure if joyce declared atheism or even being agnostic as a teen she would’ve been sent off to some christian reeducation camp

      but yeah it may have been liek 10+ years for us of chara development but in universe joyce went from a hardcore religious girl to an atheist in like, a year and a half, i’m sure that’d be surprising to a lot of parents even the ones that are more supportive/neutral when it comes to their kids having a religion

      1. k

        In universe, it’s only been a semester and a couple weeks. That’s even less time.

        1. Needfuldoer

          DoA started around the last week of August, then we skipped from late October to the middle of January.

        2. Bryy

          For those of us needing a recap.

      2. GholaHalleck

        Religious doctrine is the reason for her divorce.

        Ergo, Joyce is the Good Girl Who Still Loves Jesus Just As Much As She Does.

        She is still 100% convinced that Joyce is going to back her in the Divorce, and this is her heavy handed reminder that “You Love Jesus, Thus You Love Me, And Not Your Apostate Father.”

        The “Or Else” is implied but looking more and more non-imagined.

    3. EmTaya

      Oof, yeah

    4. cain

      Speaking as someone who is both trans and ex-Christian, yeah, there are lots of parallels.

  8. Serendipity

    Experiencing so much second hand dread here, ow

  9. Dara

    Monkey Master in the background looks like he wants to give Carol a good ol’ thonk on the head

    I approve, Monkey Master

    1. Devin

      In this moment we are all Monkey Master.

    2. Needfuldoer

      And one for Jenny and the wimp.

  10. BBCC

    Hope ya have fun sorting through that Joyce.

    Godspeed, kiddo, if you’ll pardon the choice of words.

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      I am expecting this to be a breakdown of their relationship. It feels like Carol is here for more than just to deliver bins; whether that it is being here to burn the bridge between herself and her daughter. It could also be to find out whose side Joyce is on, or to blame Joyce for the divorce.

      What else could go wrong?

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        This was supposed to be not a reply; I guess I screwed up and clicked reply without meaning to.

      2. Angel

        well there is her selling the house “for the church” which is why she came in the first place but i imagine it would create a bigger riff if carol’s like “it’s god’s will” “becky’s dad tried to kill me and a group of my friends” kinda thing; if becky had been killed off along with mike i’m sure it would’ve been twisted into something to fit the narrative

        1. Bryy

          She basically already did say it was God’s Will that Ross did what he did, and she blamed his death on atheism.

        2. Mark

          Always interesting to see how the thing one approves is God’s Will but the consequences which one disapproves are not.

        3. Twitcher

          When did she blame his death on atheism? I’ve been looking for that strip and can’t find it.

      3. justin8448

        I suspect Joyce (and the audience) will soon find out that Carol sold the house and gave the money to the support her church. And she expects Joyce to be fine with that.

        And that will be Joyce’s breaking point.

        1. thejeff

          To “support the church”, by covering the lawsuit/bail money.

      4. TerribleTransit

        I’m expecting a breakdown of their relationship, but not intentionally on Carol’s part. This reads to me like a combination of trying to curl favor with Joyce so she sides against Hank in the divorce (as if it’s a contest she can win), and trying to bring Joyce back into the fold/ensuring she stays in the fold of the church depending on how much she suspects Joyce has turned away from it. She’s likely going to push too hard and end up driving Joyce further away by accident, or lash out if Joyce pushes back too hard, but her *intention* with this trip is to solidify their relationship, not to burn bridges.

        1. cain

          Manipulation may not be an intentional way to destroy a relationship, but being manipulated is usually a good enough reason to end it.

    2. Masumi

      Might become liberating to throw all of that old stuff out.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Much easier said than done, when it’s tied up in so many complex emotions and so much baggage.

        1. Masumi

          That’s exactly why though – that baggage is already in her head, so having a physical representation to work through it might be immensely helpful.

    3. Amós Batista

      God speed hahsh
      I wonder who have the idea to get God and Speed together in a word

      1. eh, whatever

        For such questions, go to Wiktionary, in this case here: they were put together when “speed” meant “make [you] succeed”…

      2. Sombrero

        Hey, God created the world in seven days. Pretty fast if you ask me.

        1. Mark

          Six; He created naptime on the seventh.

        2. Masumi

          Naptime is a crucial part of the world!

  11. Axel

    Carol’s gonna try to make her bed or something isn’t she? At least Ruth’s like one door down right now

    1. Axel

      at first glance I thought the pills were on the bed, not the desk. “gonna to try and look at her schoolwork,” then

      1. thejeff

        Oh, I thought so too, mostly because it looked she was pulling the sheet over them. Now I’ve got no idea what she’s covering them with.

        1. pig

          It looks to me like she’s covering them with her jacket she was taking off in the first panel.

    2. TerribleTransit

      100%. Those aren’t Joyce’s pills anymore, they’re Chekhov’s.

      1. Clif

        Sometimes Willis leaves Chekhov’s shoes dangling for suspense, but then they don’t drop when you expect, only to finally drop much further down the road.

        Sal and Amber both invited to Joyce’s party. Lesbian Suicide pact. Ryan seeking revenge. The Yale acceptance letter. Probably Asher’s grandfather.

      2. Axel

        I’ve settled on “Carol’s gonna try and tidy up Joyce’s jacket.”

        Especially because of that very early strip where Joyce tells Jennifer not to sleep in her clothes because it makes them ratty, I can see a “you know better than to leave your coat in a pile like that”

        1. Axel

          actually what if Carol gets away fine, and Joyce relaxes, then her dad shows up (too late) to warn her about Carol and sees them?

          I don’t think he’d do much about it, but it would be an emotional rollercoaster for Joyce so that means the possibility is on the table.

          (and then Carol shows back up because she saw Hank on her way out and everything is horrible, or something)

  12. UrsulaDavina

    Dammit Joyce Carol is like a Vampire now that you let her in she can unleash her powers time to get a stake and by stake I mean Ruth who might have a stake or at least a hockey stick

    1. Angel

      i mean, i wouldn’t have expected her to suddenly block her mom from getting back into the building after carrying in the bins but ruth apparently can do enough with just her bare hands lol

    2. Jaime

      I feel like a LOT of unethical religious people are basically Energy Vampyres. Sorry for getting political, but just look at what’s going on in Florida right now and the *expletive deleted* Ron Santis (sp?) is saying! And the general direction the GOP is taking…it’s EXHAUSTING. And yes, I know they are using religion as a tool and a crutch to help them further their hateful agenda and destroy people’s lives (Just for perspective, I am Queer (pansexual), my cis male partner is sort-of Queer (questioning), his biological child is Queer and non-binary, and that child’s sibling is Trans. Partner and I live in the Northeast in a VERY open-minded city and the other two people I mentioned live in a state that has implemented some very dangerous laws that may hurt them both.). I know I can be very naive, but sometimes I JUST DON’T GET IT. You are uncomfortable with Trans people? DON’T BE TRANS! And no one is forcing you to be friends with Trans people if you’re really that Transphobic! You don’t like same-sex marriage? DON’T GET MARRIED TO SOMEONE OF YOUR SAME SEX! You don’t like someone else’s religion? Well, stay with your own religion and NO ONE is forcing you to convert to theirs!

      I just HATE HATE HATE when people decide that they need to “police” other people’s identities and how they live. (Disclaimer: If someone is HURTING other people, obviously that is NOT OKAY. But that is not what I am talking about here.). I’m sorry for ranting so much but I’m very worried right now. I do feel like the energy to rebel and fight back is being “sucked” out of me by all these never-ending attacks. ?

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Well one part is you probably think peoples’ lives belong to them, as opposed to belonging to me or a God I talk about who is coincidentally just like me.

        I mean, people doing things that make themselves happy rather than existing to enhance the lives of the *important* people! Where would that lead?

        1. Jaime

          You are exactly right. When my sisters and I were growing up mom always emphasized that we could do whatever we wanted in our lives and that she was sure we would all do good things (That has turned out to be true: I teach at an urban college that offers afforable education to people of all identities, including undocumented US residents (and I’m an activist to the best of my disabled ability), my middle sister teaches prospective K-12 teachers, and my youngest sister works in the court system to make sure that everyone is treated as fairly as possible. This all happened because of choices WE made, not because of any kind of “god-centered determinism.”. ?

      2. UrsulaDavina

        I think the GOP cares more about “trolling the libs” more these days then anything else it seems they are willing to burn everything down around them as long as it hurts their enemy even though it hurts them too.ie DeSantis policy will likely hurt the states long term economic growth yet if he thinks it will make progressives angry he is willing to do it.
        I mean this has been the path of the GOP since the 60s I start with the nomination Goldwater that’s when you started to see the conservative rural south vote for a GOP cannidate (just Arizonia Alabama S.Carolina Georgia Mississippi and Louisana).

        1. Jaime

          I agree. A great example of this is the fact that Disney (and I have OPINIONS about the Disney monopoly but that is an attack on liberals) BUT the Disney corporation is LITERALLY the largest employer in Florida. DeSantis is willing to tank his state’s ENTIRE ECONOMY for f***-up supposedly ideological reasons, which basically boil down to, IMHO, THAT HE WANTS TO MAKE ALL THE MONEY AND CONTROL ALL THE THINGS.

          *crying forever*

          I was not born when Goldwater got the nomination (prophetic name, right?) but I’ve learned about the MESS that was Reaganomics (sp?) and the trickle-down theory, which has been disproven by pretty much EVERYONE. But it feels like we’re back there right now, with a horrible side-order of racism, sexism, Transphobia, elitism, xenophobia, and pretty much any kind of discrimination you can imagine.

          I don’t know what to do and how to fight this. ?

        2. Taffy

          Historically, tyrannical invading armies (Like people I “disagree with” politically) were treated as such and the people had a few choices, none very pleasant. Legally, I’m not allowed to advocate for fighting back physically (there’s your first sign we’re in that situation), so if you wanna fight it you might have to wait until The Uprising to avoid sticking out and getting taken off the board early. It’s fuckin’ scary.

  13. Angel

    joyce shoudl give them to carla so she can sneak into mary’s room and post it all over her room lol (tho idk if mary would see it as a positive thing or not lol)

  14. DailyBrad

    That’s a lot to process for Joyce. I will say, it’s conscientious of her, at least, to remember all three. Very Joyce.

    1. Angel

      hyperfixating on a religion must make it harder for someone to undo the brainwashing for those who didn’t go through the same things joyce did (no disrespect on the religious ppl who aren’t zealots, faith can be a comforting thing but it shouldn’t be your whole personality)

      1. Jason

        Well. For one thing Joyce found other hyperfixations. For another, when the hyperfixation bubble bursts, it can be painful and a great sense of loss but also major burnout on something that once brought joy.

    2. Bryy

      She’s also reiterating what Ross said to her about her being the “Best Christ Child on the Commune”.

  15. Sirksome

    Ah, what a sweet mother/daughter moment. Yep.

  16. Jaime

    I’m getting serious “Carrie” vibes here. This situation is kind of terrifying to me, especially because I have been lucky enough to have never experienced it. My mom is Moravian and I was baptized the same (a German branch of Protestantism, VERY women-centered and about as close to goddess worship as you get in Christianity) but I was basically raised as a secular humanist and exposed to MANY different world religions.

    Mom wasn’t super happy when I became openly goth and into heavy metal (I’m still into heavy metal but now that I’m a college professor my style is kind of “professional goth,” which involves a lot of “stylish” black clothing and gothic accessories but not black lipstick and tons of black eye makeup anymore) but she never tried to keep me from expressing myself or tried to censor that self-expression. Every once in a while I have nightmares in which my mom tells me that she doesn’t approve of me at all (I’m also Queer) and that she can’t love me anymore because of who I am (please know that I am also out to her and mom has never been ANYTHING but supportive!). This strip reminds me of those nightmares.

    BTW, although I identify as a dark pagan, I also believe that Jesus was a prophet who basically just wanted people to treat each other decently and take care of each other. IMHO, he was basically a socialist! I would rather that Christians focused on and emulated THAT than the “Passion.”

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      **reads**
      **has a personal realization**

      … I think I may have be “professional goth”… all my coats are black, as is most of my professional clothing. What isn’t is a dark jewel tone that pairs well with black.

      I never had the patience to be a proper goth back in college (I like eye shadow, but eyeliner gives me the shivers), but I’ve been dressing like the above for all of my adult life.

      1. Jaime

        Cool! I hope you don’t mind some shopping recommendations. H&M (especially online) has some really neat “goth-adjacent” clothing and periodically has some VERY gothic collexions. (I used to have a black tunic with inverted crosses that I bought from them.). However, they also have a LOT of black clothing in their “basic” collexion, including some very cute dresses and leggings and pants.

        I’m also kind of embarrassed to admit that I order a LOT of stuff from Hot Topic. (And yes, I KNOW, they are SO 2000ish mall culture!). But their website doesn’t totally suck. I’ve bought many dresses from there that I wear to work frequently. For example, I have one grey short-sleeved dress with a black collar. I wear it over stretchy black flared pants (that I bought from H&M). BUT the pattern on the dress is images from “Snow White.”. I’ve also got a very flattering 1950s style flared black dress that I wear with some of my Alchemy Gothic (google it if you don’t know what I mean!) necklaces.

        I still do “gothic lite” makeup for work. I personally recommend Lancome. I know it’s very pricey (I usually ask for new Lancome makeup for my birthday and for the winter holidays) but they really have the best eyeshadow and mascara. I often do the “smokey eye” thing, with winged eyeliner. I used to wear deep red lipstick all the time (both Chanel and Lancome are great for this, but again, EXPENSIVE) but since pandemic I’m wearing masks all the time so I don’t do lipstick much anymore.

        I also recommend searching for CowCow dresses on Amazon. They have ALL styles of dresses with almost endless patterns, including very gothy ones! I like the “skater dress with pockets” best; it’s long enough to hit just above the knee and IT HAS POCKETS. I own a bunch of them (I learned about them from Jen of Cake Wrecks) and the one I wore most recently is red and covered in a great skull pattern.

        Goth is undead! ?

      2. Jaime

        And my KN-95 masks are black! ?

    2. Sajuuk-Khar

      Not to do a discourse in the comments, I hate when that happens, but I think the part in Acts where the Apostles are all “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” would suggest your opinion is in good company.

      Paul probably would be horrified, but screw Paul. He’s Christianity’s Boba Fett, he doesn’t count.

      1. Jaime

        Ah, so you’ve also read “The Communist Manifesto!”. ?

        I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about the state of…just about everything…in the U.S. (That is where I live so that is what I know best.). I was part of Occupy Wall Street and, unfortunately, I see the division between the 99% and the 1% growing ever deeper. *coughTrumpcough*

        I would LOVE to live in a place where people are given what they need and not required to do more than what they are able to do. In the U.S. we’ve actually gotten to a point where people who are working full-time are encouraged to have “side-hustles” to make more money. I try not to fall into the click-bait trap, but I have read articles about how someone who has somehow saved (for example) $500,000 feels insecure about retiring. (I will NEVER be able to save $500,000. I have NO IDEA how anyone can unless they have inherited wealth.).

        I am perfectly happy with socialism, which, IMHO, is essentially the modern interpretation of what Marx was saying. For example, because I have a public sector job, and because I have GREAT insurance (which I pay for, but not NEARLY as much as I would if I was paying out of pocket), my insurance paid for over $100,000 of medical care I desperately needed in 2022. That was according to my need. BUT the only reason I have that level of insurance is because of my job. And, in a capitalist system, anyone who can’t afford to pay – or doesn’t have a “good enough” job to get good insurance – has a bill beyond their ability to pay and which may ruin their life.

        And yes, I agree that Paul was a butt! ?

  17. nobodybasically

    So since protestants don’t do the whole hanging-crucifix-on-the-wall thing, would this be the type of thing their church/churches frowned upon as some sort of idolatry?

    1. HueSatLight

      no.

    2. Straximus

      Most wouldn’t, but some of the more legalistic branches or members might.

    3. Dante

      What I’ve heard is (there’s so many flavors of protestantism istg) that some don’t at all, and some keep the cross but without the Jesus in it.

      1. Needfuldoer

        That was an important difference to her when we attended that Catholic (?) service with Jacob.

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/crucifix/

        1. Rotunda

          Episcopalian.

        2. Needfuldoer

          Thank you.

        3. nobodybasically

          Huh, the line “If your cross has a Jesus on it it means you’re celebrating his death” makes it especially weird that she covered her walls in pictures of the crucifixion.

        4. Sajuuk-Khar

          See, the thing is that line about how “if Christ is on the cross, you’re celebrating his death” is a Protestant mainline belief…but it’s one that the Evangelicalists, through their absolute mastery of conspiracy theories, have twisted until it’s just a tool they can use to be anti-Catholic. (Which is partly how they repackage old antisemitic conspiracy theories for public consumption.)

          Which is how you get the delightful Evsngelicalist double standard where it’s great to depict the death of Christ and think about the death of Christ and constantly talk about His death, just so long as you don’t put it on anything symbolically load-bearing, like a cross necklace.

          (It’s also how a religion that has Jesus say “hoarding wealth is evil and rich people are the actual worst” like 86 separate times can have a “prosperity gospel”)

      2. Mark

        Oh, yes, we have empty crosses everywhere. (Seriously.) That image gets shoved into every aspect of life.

    4. dinajoyce

      Most protestants don’t particularly mind a crucifix, but the ones who do only object if Jesus is depicted on the cross. Too close to worshipping a statue. Most protestant churches have some sort of cross and it’s generally considered fine to have some as decorations in your house or on a necklace or whatever.

      1. Zero

        That’s what a crucifix is.

      2. HueSatLight

        The “why we don’t have a crucifix, just a cross” explanations vary a lot more than just “idolatry”. I was mainline protestant, and the reason I was told I’m pretty sure is the correct one: tradition.
        Joyce was told the crucifix represents his death and the empty cross represents the resurrection. We did use some of that symbology, the altar cross had cloth draped across it for lent or easter week.

    5. Sajuuk-Khar

      Carol’s Evangelicalism is, technically, Protestant.

      Evangelicalist opinions vary because it’s a shifting matrix of death cults various, erm, congregations, but the majority opinion last I checked is that enjoying scenes of the Crucifixion is fine unless you include it on jewelry or recognize Mary at all, then it’s idolatry and causes the Lord a hernia.

      1. deliverything

        A little off topic, maybe, but the many varieties of Christianity made a significant contribution to clearing away some of my lingering doubts from being raised Christian. After all, if that religion — which includes a number of tales of God directly communicating with worshippers — actually were true, a little divine messaging should quickly resolve any confusion about what the precise truth actually is.

        1. Sajuuk-Khar

          I mean, as a (leftist, probably lapsed in official church eyes) Catholic, I…don’t know what to tell you. Every religion has sects, and a lot of the time the core sectarian differences are incredibly stupid! It’s just Christianity got a really early start on dumb sectarianism (oh my Lord the pre-Nicene schisms) and it never stopped doing it, basically, and then later down the line racists got involved.

        2. deliverything

          I didn’t mean to imply it was an exclusively Christian issue — that’s just the religion I was raised in and am most familiar with. Of course, it tends to get worse when influential people find ways to benefit from changing things; de-emphasise stuff like “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” enough, and you can end up with prosperity theology and megachurches, or at least John’s new car: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/trendy/

        3. Sajuuk-Khar

          Oh no I had forgotten what a garbage motherfucker John was! Augh! What a Carolspawn!!

          And it’s cool, it’s cool. As much as I like JC and Mary and all, I find it pretty hard to deny that Christianity has the most sectarian problems by volume, and a lot of them are just incredibly ridiculous or specific, and like you said, it gets opened up for really nasty insidious fundie cult churches (like Carol’s), and the f u c k i n g lie of “prosperity gospel” that John is showing his whole ass with.

          (Prosperity theology makes me want to scream HERESY like a Warhammer 40k guy. I would say so does the hideous evil bigotry and misogyny, but my sect has got to work on that ourselves, that’s just A Sin and Evil that my whole faith is complicit in ?.)

    6. Amós Batista

      It’s funny. Over here, traditional baptist rejects any picture that’s not abstract, or with a cross there
      You can make a full chaotic drawing, have to put crosses in the middle.

  18. Doopyboop

    Seeing Joyce hiding her birth control pills takes me back to my roommate Freshman year. She had birth control pills, and she had ultra religious parents and one time in our room I overheard a conversation between her and her mom, who was ‘concerned’ about her daughter’s birth control pills, especially since the daughter was still on their health insurance. She kept trying to insist that maybe she didn’t really need them, but my roomie was pretty insistent on keeping them and promised they were only for periods.

    …of course, I wound up getting sex-iled once when her BF visited so clearly they weren’t just to manage her period, but I wasn’t gonna snitch. It’s a shame when people have to hide something so normal from their parents, though.

    1. Angel

      it sucks that it’s so stigmatized, because there would be plenty of teens (and even the girls who get it at 8-9) who’d love to start birth control just to stop dealing with periods as opposed to sticking through it through menopause (and depending on how heavy the symptoms are of that, there’d also be medicine to manage that too i imagine)

      but it feels like it’d be more of a ‘community scandal’ for some christian teen/young adult to get pregnant out of wedlock than just being on birth control to prevent a pregnancy (though given that hank and carol have like 4-5 kids i imagine carol never got on birthcontrol either so i imagine she won’t react well if she did find out)

  19. Kyrik Michalowski

    I am expecting this to be a breakdown of their relationship. It feels like Carol is here for more than just to deliver bins; whether that it is being here to burn the bridge between herself and her daughter. It could also be to find out whose side Joyce is on, or to blame Joyce for the divorce.

    What else could go wrong?

    1. Bryy

      It’s completely to validate her own bias. She’s just waiting.

      1. Needfuldoer

        No matter what she finds, it will be evidence that she’s “right” and therefore validated in her eyes.

  20. Dara

    Also Joyce reminds me of Daria in that last frame which is… really about where I’d be in her situation xD

  21. HueSatLight

    An Appian Way number of crosses.

    1. Bryy

      I understood and appreciated that reference.

  22. Moon

    oof but having a laff thinking about how carol would react to various “secular cartoons”. did i hallucinate this or Joyce state at some point she wasnt allowed to watch SpongeBob (assumedly because they thought sponebob and patrick seemed kinda gay)

    1. Angel

      looking up the religion, ‘secular’ can also be ‘neutral’, while there are some games and stuff that have an ‘anti god/church’ stance, most don’t care/bring it up at all (tho it would be cool to see religion being portrayed positively through charas without it being ‘preachy’), but i imagine there’s way more non-religious cartoons than religious ones, the ‘christian anime’ memes/scerenshots are amusing tho

      i remember back in the day one classmate i knew in 6th grade wasn’t even allowed to be pokemon but if anything i would’ve thought more parents would take the anti animal fighting stance versus anything religious lol

      1. Moon

        that’s true, however it often seems when fundies like carol say “secular (noun)” they really mean “blasphemous (noun)”. or at least it does in this case when the first thing she says after seeing secular stuff is “you USED to cover your walls with your drawings on the crucifixion” ? though she could just be being nostalgic, too.
        anyway i hope she somehow catches a glimpse of the owl house and it gives her a heart attack

        1. Moon

          I also knew kids who werent allowed to watch or play anything involving magic, evolution, monsters, demons, or what could be kind of sort of percieved as gay or feminist if you squint. my parents sort of did that too despite not even being very devout themselves. i think it was more they were afraid of being judged by other parents who were insane

      2. deliverything

        As far as positive portrayals of religion in fiction (especially English-language fiction) go, there are a few problems:
        First: a story treating a religion as true then has to deal with the question of why the relevant divine beings don’t simply handle everything (assuming this isn’t one of the few stories in which they’re actually involved); answering this question is usually an uninteresting digression, so it’s easier for all involved to just avoid mentioning religion entirely.

        Christianity is particularly difficult in this regard, as the deity in question is specifically mentioned as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, and so would know what the problem is and how to solve it, be entirely capable of doing so, and be unwilling to let the innocent suffer needlessly; even in lower stakes situations, merely passing some advice along could be massively useful (and that pesky omniscience means it’ll inevitably be GOOD advice, quickly taking most of tension out of the story). It’s like Superman making everyone else in the Justice League redundant, only without the options of kryptonite or the possibility of God being busy elsewhere (because, of course, He’s omnipresent too).

        Meanwhile, trying to portray a non-Abrahamic religion as true is likely to alienate a large portion of the potential audience; Christianity specifically regards this as a Bad Thing, while athiests may already be fed up of proselytism in real life and not want it in their fiction too. All of this isn’t such a problem for a negative portrayal. In particular, flawed deities can be good antagonists and/or final bosses.

        Second: the non-Abrahamic religions best known to most anglophones are the Greek and Norse ones, and you can’t be faithful to the canon there without at least some of the deities being portrayed negatively. Zeus, in particular, is to blame for a significant portion of the mishaps in Greek mythology.

        Third: including a real-world religion that most of the audience is unfamiliar with will usually require either providing a lot of explanation, which is likely to bog the story down and be uninteresting to most people, or risk leaving many people lost and confused. A simplistic fictional religion can work, as the details can be scarce and shaped to fit the story, but it frequently won’t be worth the trouble.

        1. Mark

          Then there is the other problem: the people zealous enough to plow through those problems seem to know nothing about how to create a character, how to tell a story, or how to draw.

        2. thejeff

          It’s not that hard to do positive portrayals of religion in fiction. There are centuries of tradition for doing so. Just use religious characters and portray them positively. You don’t need to have God as an actual character.

          It can be tricky to do it to appeal broadly without turning off too much of the audience by not giving enough details or giving the wrong ones.

      3. NGPZ

        Yeah that’s the thing about a CULT, they don’t want you to do anything not having to do with them, reducing appeal or even instilling fear of the outside world, tearing down your independent personality and rebuilding you into a machine that identifies as their PROPERTY. ?

  23. Puppeteer Nessus

    Sarah, Ruth or Carla should come in and make things bright

  24. Justnobodyfqwl

    I know I WILL get crucified for saying this but I think genuinely one of my favorite recurring traits about Carol is that she IS drawn exactly so you know where Joyce gets her body shape from. If I could include images, pretend I have the meme here of “Heartbreaking: Worst Mother You Know Is Dummy Thick”.

    1. Sajuuk-Khar

      …Dammit, you’re out of line, but you’re right

      1. Justnobodyfqwl

        LOOK at that first panel!! Do you know how hard it is being a milf lover with this comic when so many of the moms are Carol or Carol-like in personality? One of the only non-fascist personality traits of hers is “fucks to survive”.

        I’ve been reading Willis comics since I was 13 and STILL love Stacy tho. She’s the MVP (Mom who’s Very Plush)

    2. Angel

      makes me wonder if we’ll see some kinda decades past flash back of young hank and carol, because i imagine unless you get super into working out or having ‘work done’ it’d be hard to not be ‘dummy thick’ after giving birth to 3+ children

      1. Needfuldoer

        There was a bonus strip with Hank and Carol in college a few years ago. She looked like Joyce with dot eyes and her chin.

    3. Thag Simmons

      All the parents in these comics are very well designed, you can absolutely see the family connection in all of them.

  25. Rose by Any Other Name

    Ah yes. This brings up some memories.
    Primarily is when my wife and I bought our own house, and my parents showed up shortly thereafter with some old furniture we’d asked for and about 30 totes of old crap from my childhood that we most certainly had NOT asked for.

    Secondarily, I recently cleaned out one of those pieces of furniture due to needing the space for a new china cabinet (to fill with figurines) and discovered in it a whole tote worth of my old drawings from childhood. I kept about a folder full and dumped the rest in the recycle bin.

    I’m guessing that’s where several of those boxes are going…

    1. dinajoyce

      When we moved close enough to home for my parents to bring stuff, I got several totes that contained my SIBLINGS’ stuff, under the guise that it was “probably mine.” I texted the siblings and it went right to Goodwill

    2. Vanessa

      I eagerly look forward to my own grown children buying houses so I can dump on them every single bit of junk they shoved in my crawl space. But I am keeping the folders of drawings and schoolwork, lol. I already tossed all the school projects like the cut-away model of the earth and the scale model of a medieval town. After taking photos!

      But poor Joyce. Her mother is showing either end-of-rope desperation or epic thoughtlessness in thinking a college student wants or has a place for childhood mementos.

      1. Big Z

        My kid and I have been pre-culling her artwork as we store it in the attic, precisely to avoid having dozens of boxes to dump on her in ten or fifteen years. Every year we pull out an older box and decide what’s worth keeping.

        1. Rose by Any Other Name

          That’s what we do with our kids. They get to keep a scant few pieces of artwork – the rest are photographed (since digital takes up no space) and then put in the recycling.

    3. Laura

      I’ve done the same, but I do certainly regret ditching my old artwork … and some of my mother’s old artwork … now. Wish I had it back.

      1. Laura

        High school drawings. Back when I could draw and paint, before I messed up my hands. I miss that gift.

    4. Needfuldoer

      When I rented my first place, I took the vast majority of my stuff. After I bought my own place, I brought the last car-load over. Now I only have a couple big things there, because they have a shed and I don’t.

      My sister still has a van-load of clothes and toys there, even though she has her own house now. But that stuff is less of an issue than mine was, for some reason.

    5. Plain Marie

      What is it about parents off-loading on young adults? I distinctly remember, as a young adult, finally clearing and neatening my living space after much effort, and my mother arrived with 5 large boxes of my supposed “stuff” and leaves it in the middle of the room. The worst was a whole box of greeting cards they received when I had been born. That kind of stuff. I about cried. Why??? I could have been content to have never know about those random things. So demoralizing. Parental baggage.

      1. Mark

        Speaking as parent of someone who moved out and left a room-full of stuff: we love you, but we want that space for our stuff now.

        1. Taffy

          Then call ahead and ask first. It’s exactly that easy.

        2. Mark

          Or do what we’re doing: just wait until he spontaneously carts it all away.

    6. Mark

      Think of it as an opportunity to be certain that that stuff is destroyed.

  26. Warcodered

    Almost got enough of those boxes to make an improvised desk.

  27. Carms

    TIME FOR A BURNING!
    Not specifically cos of the atheism, just like. fun way to get rid of Old Stuff. I burnt a bunch of my school notebooks. after I cut all the good doodles out of them.

    1. Laura

      Fun! A celebratory bonfire, even!

    2. Mollyscribbles

      I wondered if I was the only one who salvaged old doodles from their notes. I retained nothing from junior high math beyond a lingering hatred for the teacher but I did a damn good job on shading some of those doodles.

  28. Axel

    Trying to get information for your medical history from your parents without tipping them off is a mood.

    1. Angel

      …i wonder if any of joyce’s other family members are ND, since there’s been some cases of it ‘running in the family’, i know it’s harder to diagnose in younger girls because of socialization and all that, though joyce being ‘enthusiastic’ about religion probably wouldn’t be seen as odd in a religious family, if she ended up being non verbal or fixating on something else , hopefully her parents would’ve had her checked out properly rather than sending her to a strict religious school like sal

      1. TulipKitten

        Probably her dad. I know her mom is a dead ringer for “obsessive about religion”, but I haven’t seen anything else, and lots of bigots are obsessed with using religion as a moral pedestal. And don’t get me started on the homo/transphobes who get obsessed with that and aren’t diagnosed with a disorder.

        Her and her dad are really close. Typically autistic family members are closer to other autistic family members. He has often missed very obvious social cues like the “bear with tits” moment, and where Sarah was like PLEASE CHANGE THE SUBJECT, and then Amber’s dad getting shot came up and she would rather have switched to that.

  29. Sajuuk-Khar

    Y’know, I get that it’s the moment of the Passion and all, the transfiguration and martyrdom of Christ, but Carol, most people would consider it a good thing that their child is no longer decorating their room with brutal execution scenes

    Most Christians, even

  30. HueSatLight

    lol the 2 empty two-liters of sprite.

    1. Sajuuk-Khar

      LMAO good catch

      When Joyce says she will do something she MEANS it

  31. Bryy

    I’m just so fucking amazed that Carol doesn’t even register the incredible trauma that she put her own child through.

    I know that conversation is *inevitably* coming this arc, but still.

    1. Angel

      even the directly abusive parents who physically assaulted their kids never acknowledge it either unfortunately

    2. Mollyscribbles

      Her reasoning: She was doing what she thought was best and made sure her daughter knew that. What’s there to discuss?

      1. Bryy

        Makes me wonder if Joyce was there for the court case where Hank went over everything Carol had done.

  32. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    “By the way I scanned all your artwork and and submitted it to that new Christian AI Art project.”

    1. morhek

      joyceface.gif

  33. sakamism

    Many good Christians have fallen prey to the temptation of secular cartoons

    1. Angel

      i’m sure some christians even become animators

      tho in cases like butch hartman? i think the religious aspects of his personality tanked any future stuff

      1. General Tekno

        And Veggie Tales is a thing, too.

        1. Taffy

          VeggieTales is the only openly-Christian media I genuinely liked as a kid. I’ll watch it right now, the music and writing are actually fantastic. Never really got into the “God and Jesus” part of the stories, but the characters themselves were always entertaining.

        2. Mark

          +1 Veggie Tales

  34. Bin

    “…insistent on all the details, you were”
    “Yes I was Master Yoda”
    “Do not fall to the dark side Joyce.”

  35. Net-Zero Joeyce Shipper (no engine, slowly following the current)

    Lovely weather for a campfire

    1. NGPZ

      You mean because it’s almost June? ?

      Or is this another earthling reference lost on me? ?

      1. Mark

        Old drawings that you really don’t want to remember, make good kindling.

        1. NGPZ

          Ah, fantastic for roasting hotdogs and marshmallows! ?

  36. AbacusWizard

    “Every time I come back to one of these dorm rooms, they’re always smaller than I remember.”

    *checks depiction of dorm room in first couple of strips*

    Yup.

    1. Masumi

      I guess the rooms also feel smaller when they have Carol in them.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Stacking up plastic storage bins doesn’t help either.

        *Glares at stacks of plastic storage bins across the room*

    2. HueSatLight

      It just looks bigger because Hank is a lego minifigure.

  37. Alongcameaspider

    It occurs to me that someone should give Becky a heads up that Carol is around, either to try to avoid her or mentally prepare to deal with her

    1. Dr. T

      Meh, Becky seems to be pretty good at cheerfully return sass whenever Carol emits bile in her direction.

      1. thejeff

        She’s always had time to put her “wacky Becky” armor. To be fair, she rarely takes off her wacky Becky armor.

  38. Dr. T

    I’m quite certain this is simply manipulation from Carol. She did not like Joyce being at IU and wanted her to be pulled out and enrolled in a Christian college instead, so I imagine this is just an attempt to kickstart that conversation. After all, she could have put all of this stuff in storage, especially since there is no way Joyce’s dorm room has space for it all.

    1. Mark

      Uh, we can see that she does have space for six bins. It’s a temporary minor inconvenience. Unkind, but not a disaster.

  39. Tarkara

    They’ll be in a bin all right

  40. Needfuldoer

    Just wait until Carol discovers the drawings she makes now!

    1. Mark

      How do I make an enormous grin in this medium?

      1. StClair

        traditionally, it’s something like ^____________^

  41. Dev

    Well, Joyce, you can make those bins lighter as soon as your mum’s gone!

  42. bejouled

    Me before checking the comic: Screw Ruth and Becky’s conversation, I need to see what’s happening with Joyce and her mom!

    Me now: oh no, not like that

  43. Amelie Wikström

    We’ve used AI to look beyond the border of Joyce’s drawing and discovered the whole world is covered in crosses.

    (Sorry.)

  44. LIGHTWEIGHT BAYBEE

    it all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling doooowwwwwnnn

  45. GUIGUI

    *this alt-text*
    OH HELL! I can’t believe it’s only clicking inside of my mind NOW! not the comic itself, but the author. I know Evangelion has been part of his pop-culture since basically around the moment of its release in the US market, but my mind always presumed that it was simply because he was part of the target demographic when it came out. It’s simply normal that anyone at that time and at their point in their life was into anime when it came out.

    But this alt-text made me realise that it basically came out at a key point of Willis’s personal and, for lack of better word, “spiritual” growth and now I really wonder if it had a more significant impact on him than just being this “anime that revolutionised japan animation” and this dweeb thing anime fans just won’t let stop meming about.

    Then again, the people who worked at Gainax basically admitted that they just picked on Christian mythology because it would seem “exotic” to the Japanese audience and didn’t really care about any further being, so maybe I am blowing this out of proportion and all Willis did was nitpicking the biblical inconsistencies…

    1. Allison Branford

      I think Evangelion was so popular internationally, because the Christian mythology resonated with western audiences. Evangelion definitely had an impact on my spiritual upbringing.

    2. DailyBrad

      Given Hideki Anno, the Christian imagery also probably ties into his love of Ultraman to no small degree.

    3. Big Z

      There’s an argument that seeing Gainax mine Christian Mythology for content in the EXACT same way that western stories mine other cultures and religions was itself kind of an eye-opener for a lot of folks, myself included.

      Especially the part where, no matter how much you thought you knew about your particular religion’s history, you were probably looking up SOMETHING from Evangelion because it pulled in from EVERYWHERE in Judeo-Christian myths.

      (discussion of the mythological basis of Evangelion is the only place where I think the term “Judeo-Christian” has any merit. =P)

      1. General Tekno

        It’s one of the things I love about Eva – it’s doing what we do to everybody else’s cultural history routinely.

  46. Sombrero

    Is Carol in the last panel trying the Gendo pose?

  47. Amós Batista

    I wonder if Carol KNOWS Joyce is neuro divergent.
    Carol is talking about how Joyce is on such details, like she already have a clue.

    I don’t know what could be worse: if Carol think Joyce is not ND, or she KNOWS. And if she knew about that, I wonder how much she abused from her condition, for religious or any another reason.

    1. TulipKitten

      Yours only showed up after I posted.

      Quick education moment! Most people don’t see “autism”. Even when most of us say “I have Assburgers”. A lot of people would say stuff like “you don’t look like you have that”. Which is part of the reason ableism is so insidious among autistic people. Because every little “quirk” is usually seen as a reason to ostracize.

      In deeply religious communities, people like Joyce typically don’t follow the regular social development milestones. Or any community really. But nobody really thinks “autism”. They think “Here’s the weirdo who knows several Bible verses on hand and can quote the Bible verbatim”. Religion was probably considered a semi socially acceptable outlet for Joyce.

      The thing is, if NT people have a name to autism, they’re less likely to be 100% shitty about it. They’re still a little shitty, like they will condescend you and infantilize you, etc… But they will at least not be likely to call you a weirdo to your face.

    2. TulipKitten

      But in all likelihood, she probably dismissed any concerns about her autism by basically just saying, “This is just how Joyce is, there’s nothing wrong with her, how dare you insinuate that???” while simultaneously making it known to Joyce that her autistic traits (WHICH TOTALLY AREN’T AUTISTIC TRAITS BECAUSE WE DON’T BELIEVE THAT IN THIS HOUSE) were socially unacceptable. And maybe even being like “well I did that as a kid and grew up fine!”

    3. Aslan

      I would be surprised if Carol had a savvy-enough understanding of autism to recognize it in Joyce

  48. TulipKitten

    Something I don’t think ANYONE caught because I searched the comments… Joyce is mentally going through the list of autism symptoms here. Carol is one of the people who knew her the best as a kid, besides Becky and her dad.

    Most of the time as a kid, my “special interests” (PC term) were called “fixations” or “obsessions”.

    Obviously Joyce isn’t gonna come out to her mom or anything, but I don’t think anyone has looked at this comic through those lens, which is interesting because it’s right there.

    1. MK15

      There were a couple of comments above this. That being said, at least for us fellow autists (which seems to be a lot of us reading or at least commenting on this comic) that point may just seem obvious.
      *shrug*

  49. Aslan

    Shocking: local woman stunned that adult daughter has hobbies and interests beyond religion

  50. Hof1991

    Partly, this is a rescue mission for Carol. To restore her daughter to the right path. You know, the one that has brought Carol to her present. Alone and isolated from even her children. Carol won’t admit to bring wrong about anything. There’s so much certainty in her faith that it deforms the word faith.
    Mary is Carol’s true daughter. I hate to mention her name because it might summon her.

    Some who think they aren’t lost are still wandering.

    1. NGPZ

      It seems that it is always easier for the individual in the present moment to double down on what they already know, than it is to accept that what they were taught growing up were lies.

      But yeah. Perhaps Carol will adopt Mary.

  51. smolgrlboi

    Has this webcomic already referenced The Mountain Goats? I feel like it’s thematically similar to a lot of their music. Someone show Joyce MG in-universe, they really helped me when I was leaving my faith.

  52. Amós Batista

    Joyce’s drawing of crosses spread in wall.
    Carol clearly in Gendo’s instance (thanks, @Sombrero.
    The End of Evangelion reference in alt.

    That made me remember this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEOIiSeP5D8
    (Warning: Evangelion huge spoiler).

    1. Amós Batista

      TW: NSFW

  53. Raen

    I wonder if Joyce might come to a new understanding of the story of Jesus and the thieves? Sort of like Pasolini’s Matthew.

  54. BlackScarabFilmZ

    “Always insistent on *all* the details, you were.”

    Train him not. Take him with you, but train him not!

    Just me getting Yodaspeak vibes from that line?

  55. Liliet

    Ah yes, the infamous “interview the parents” stage of ?autistic? self-discovery, except the parent in question sucks.

  56. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

    Dependent Personality Disorder tendencies and authoritarian parenting do NOT mix well, OR end well for anybody……..And I’ve got only an inkling at best of experience with those. Joyce is hardly a privileged young lady.

  57. Derek

    the comments conversation about birth control pill packages made me curious about its history and why myself and other people here consider the circular dispenser as the old fashioned one
    I found an interesting article!
    https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/repackaging-the-pill/

    This article lightly touches on a related and terrible topic: how a lot of gynecological research was done on women of colour, many of them of the global South and most often without their consent or knowledge. If you want to get more informed and are prepared to learn about something harrowing and depressing, look up the Dalkon Shield IUD.

  58. The Jighole Man

    so, she’s trying to mom-force her daughter into being religious again?

    1. TerribleTransit

      She doesn’t know her daughter isn’t still religious yet. So it’s more trying to mom-force her into staying religious, unless she has reason to suspect the truth.

  59. Oatmeal Pie

    I’ve been curious about Carol’s past religious background and I wonder if we’ll get any background on that.

    Presumably she’s a boomer, so her parents would’ve been Greatest Generation—whose religious tendencies from what I’ve seen seem to be “devout in the sense of going to church every Sunday but not talking about your beliefs much otherwise.” In which case, Carol could’ve gotten into the out-there evangelical stuff as a teen/young adult. Converts tend to be more enthusiastic about their chosen religion than “cradle” followers.

    I don’t know; Joyce’s dynamic with her parents has me thinking about my own, though my mom is nowhere near as terrible as Carol is. They both got into the “Jesus movement” when they were teenagers, which sprang up sort of in response to the fairly staid form of Christianity their parents followed. It’s seemed to me like that whole movement morphed into all kinds of stuff over the years, from sort of a counterculture hippie thing to all the wacky nondenominational mega church stuff there is now. So much of it was such a mindfuck, especially back in the 90s—I didn’t realize how much so until I was away from it for a bit. I have to wonder if, deep down, Carol is flailing around in confusion as much as Joyce is but just can’t allow herself to admit it.

    1. Alongcameaspider

      It’s worth noting that Jocelyne implied that she was more normal about things in the past, my guess is she was radicalized by people like Rush Limbaugh around the time the Tea Party was a thing (or the orange cheeto president depending on where the sliding timeline puts us today)

      1. Oatmeal Pie

        That’s a good point; getting radicalized by RW media is a pretty common refrain with evangelicals of that generation.

        When I’ve been unpacking my childhood experiences with it, I’ve kind of been theorizing that there’s something in that whole milieu that lends itself to radicalization, or if it was just something in the water back in the 90s or something.

        Like, the church we went to when I was a kid was bog-standard mainline Protestant, at least on paper, and there didn’t seem to be anything really crazy coming from the pulpit, but in amongst the individuals in the congregation (okay, actually it seemed to be mostly the moms) there was this weird one-upsmanship over who could be the most into the whole thing. Sending the kids to private school isn’t enough when Mrs X is homeschooling hers. Keeping the kids away from Harry Potter books isn’t enough, Mrs Y threw out all her Halloween decorations. Oh, your daughter just got into “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”? Well *mine* just burned all her Michael Bolton CDs after she read this article in Brio. —-and it just goes on from there. The actual pastor didn’t say anything about any of this, nor was it some kind of church policy—it just sort of happened.

        And then you add to the mix this whole push for having a revival type of atmosphere—the notion that if you aren’t constantly On Fire For The Lord and doing really difficult things for Him, you’re doing it wrong. Again, not necessarily something directly from a church elder of some sort, but just spread around by peer pressure.

        I have to wonder if those problems are because of the sort of structureless nature of some of these churches, since they don’t have a bishop or a council to tamp down some of the nonsense.

    2. thejeff

      It’s also a little bit awkward when the shifting timescale and autobiographical nature of the comic come into play.
      Carol be radicalized in the Tea Party era makes sense today, but wouldn’t have made sense at all when the comic started, since that was roughly when the comic began and we know she was already there.

      And she’s based on Willis’s mom and his experiences back in the 80s and 90s, so whenever the current Carol was radicalized, she’s drawing on a much earlier wave of Christian radicalization. Willis is some 25 years older than Joyce and his mom is probably about the same amount older than Carol, give or take a few years. The culty Christian types have been around a long time.

  60. Felian

    Every now and then i realize how messed up it is that christians subject their kids to a book full of abuse and violence and brutality. How is it not worrying to them when their young child draws a brutal execution obsessively, while other kids draw unicorns and cars???

  61. Dakhran

    That hover text seriously made me laugh out loud.

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