814

Sweetie
Posted on November 24, 2015 by David M Willis

814 thoughts on “Sweetie”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “…do you want me to take you up on that offer, Mom? ’cause, DAMN his soul”

    *swoon!*

    “sorry, Mom, FUCK his soul”

    1. Nono

      I read that more of a ‘DAMN, that soul!’ like Joyce was gushing over how Ross’ soul was so fine.

      1. Fish Facade

        I thought the same thing. If his soul is as fine as his mustache…

        (it is not)

        1. Doctor_Who

          His mustache looks like one of those bat-shaped Count Chocula marshmallows.

        2. Slyfincleton

          Count Chocula is MUCH better than anything toedad can offer.

        3. Inkblot

          I’d bet money that we’re going to see a Joyce f-bomb in this book.

      2. podian

        DAT SOUL

        1. Ana Chronistic

          dat SOLE moar like?!?!?

        2. N0083rP00F

          I think it was a size 18

        3. Willoughby Chase

          like a dead plaice …

    2. Dana

      Kinky.

      1. Ana Chronistic

        also, why would I want to be in his shoes, they smell like forehead

        (get it???)

        ((…n/m))

        1. TheBloodsuckerProxy

          I get it!

  2. DarkoNeko

    Well, fuck.

    1. DarkoNeko

      How to give and crush hope in a dozen panels.

      1. Cow

        Cutie status: broken

        Actually, I guess this last month or so has been back-to-back Break the Cutie.

        1. John

          The entire comic has been pretty much continuous cutie-breaking.

        2. Emily

          At this point I don’t know what else Joyce has that could possibly get broken.

          Of course willis will find a way

        3. Clif

          I think Joyce is a long way from broken. Reeling, yes. Broken, no.

          There may be an echo of what Ross said in what Carol said, but what is meant by the words is not the same. Context matters. And Joyce knows it.

          What Carol is saying earlier is not that different than what I would say, that Ross’s actions are understandable from his point of view. Which makes his actions no less twisted. And he pointed a gun at her daughter and for that Carol would destroy him. Carol would die for her daughter and what isn’t being said is that she would kill to protect her as well.

        4. TOD

          Yeah, I think Joyce is just not currently in a head-space where she can accept hearing anything that sounds like it’s in Ross’ favour.

          I mean, I too can understand that he genuinely thought he was doing the right thing, out of love for his daughter and his own strict definition of how the world should ideally be. If I was in Joyce’s place right now though, I would not be at all ready or willing hear that or accept it, and perhaps never would be. Maybe in ten years or so she’ll be able to look back and understand why he did what he did (even if she doesn’t condone it), and possibly forgive him a little, or maybe she won’t. Right now though? No. Very no. Unfortunate move there Joyce’s mum, and an unfortunate choice of words given what Ross himself said earlier.

        5. nightsbridge

          Ten years from now, if she forgives him because he acted with ‘love,’ it would be wrong. If he asked to be forgiven for doing a horrible thing? Maybe. But what happened here today? The things he did? That is not love. That is not caring. That, even when understood, deserves no sympathy or forgiveness to the unrepentant. Why do we keep trying to excuse his shit? It’s indefensible by all metrics. He is the Worst Dad, he managed to cut ahead of Blaine for goodness sake

        6. David

          “out of love for his daughter”? He is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and it is very important to him not to make dents in the round hole in the process. And the square peg is Becky.

          She will fit into that hole or else. That’s not love.

        7. Jason

          Yeah, no. He wasn’t acting out of “love”. He was acting to preserve his own idea of what his family “should be”, regardless of his daughter’s feelings on the matter. He wasn’t trying to do something for HER- he was trying to do something for HIMSELF.

          As for Joyce’s mother, these words aren’t “unfortunate” (although the similarity to Ross’ early is). It’s really, really stupid. Joyce has just gone through a hugely traumatic event involving the life of both herself and her best friend being threatened- the correct response right now is absolutely not to force her to think about Ross, and doubly not to try to make his behaviour any less abhorrent. I know her mother probably isn’t thinking very well (and if she were would likely think these words should COMFORT her daughter), but the poor words aren’t just bad luck. They’re straight-up bad judgement.

        8. neeks

          @ Jason: agreed, especially considering Joyce was genuinely in danger for her life just for standing between Ross and his daughter, so if Joyce’s mom had been there, that would have been the perfect opportunity to see how her sympathy for a fellow parent (and, probably, similarly anti-gay sentiments) would stack up to her alleged willingness to die for her daughter.

          Sure, Mrs Brown, he loves (his ideal of how) his daughter (should be), but he was also basically not far from shooting your own daughter point blank. Still think he’s an alright chap?

        9. David

          @neeks: if you want to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs.

        10. de Combys

          That kind of insensitive behaviour is the exact reason I cut ties with my mom. It’s a horrible thing to be recieving from a parent, especially when you’re in a huge need of support. No contact is better than that kind of hypocritical concern associated with tremendously invalidating feedback.

        11. Pat

          See, that thing you described?

          First of all, it’s a lie.
          Secondly, if true, it doesn’t justify Ross’s behavior–it makes him
          all the more evil. A morally-acceptable response isn’t “At least he thought he was doing the right thing,” it’s “Holy bleeping swearwords, he thought that was the right thing!?”

        12. Shadow12000

          I have to respectfully disagree on one part: that Ross’ actions are understandable. He threatened his own daughter with a gun. The only thing to understand there is that he does not believe his daughter has a life of her own, but a life he owns for her to do as he wills.

          I may be a bit semantic, though. I “understand” why he did what he did, but the kind of understanding I feel that’s being said by Carol is the “empathizing” kind, not just the “knowledge” kind, and there is no way Ross’ thought process should garner any empathy.

        13. Annie

          Yeah, I think he’s displaying classic Narcissistic parent behaviors. To an extreme to be sure, but still very typical of Narcissists.

          If Ross has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, he wouldn’t see Becky as her own, very individual person. He wouldn’t see her as being capable of having aspirations, emotions, opinions or even thoughts of her own. At least not ones that differ from his.

          If he has NPD, he’s going to see Becky as an extension of himself. Every little thing she does reflects on him in his eyes. When she does express opinions, desires, aspirations that differ from what he expects of her– whether he’s expressed these expectations or not– he would fly in to a rage. Becky doing, saying, thinking or feeling anything that he doesn’t approve or expect of her he would take as a direct, intentional, malicious attack on his character, his parenting, and who he is as a person. It’s an affront and insult that cannot go unpunished and must be swiftly and ruthlessly dealt with in the eyes of a Narcissist.

          And *obviously* Ross doesn’t display a single one of these traits, so we surely can rule out Narcissism in Ross’ case. (/sarcasm)

        14. Falling Star

          Her virginity?

        15. Varorson

          Where there’s a Willis, there’s a way.

        16. Bob

          Her hymen?

        17. evilmidnightlurker

          GIGA CUTIE BREAKAAAAAAAH

          (row row fight the power)

        18. Big Box

          Didn’t spell it ‘powah’

          8/10

        19. evilmidnightlurker

          I didn’t think it would look right after “breakah.”

        20. Needfuldoer

          The worst missed opportunity…

          In the wuuuurrrlllllllld.

        21. Adept Arcanist

          I guess Willis has to make up for not killing people off in this verse by putting them through the ringer constantly instead.

        22. Opus the Poet

          And the wringer. Since you mentioned ringers, what’s the over/under on when Anti-Joyce appears?

        23. Falling Star

          If you check out TBWF, they’ve pretty much been doing that too.
          Just with more blood and death.

      2. Adam Smith

        YAH TEARING ME APAHT, WILLIS!

    2. Io

      :c Poor Joyce. She almost had comfort and then the fundie culture reared back up.

      To be perfectly fair though, Joycemom has probably gotten her news from others in their fundie community, so she’s getting a highly colored story about what actually happened, vs Joyce who has the truth of the matter.

      1. Io

        vs Dina who has the tooth of the matter.

        1. DarkoNeko

          Clever girl.

      2. anna

        Oh, you poor thing, you really don’t get it, do you?

        The truth of the matter – the objective truth, that we all saw go down – is that Ross was saving Becky from Satan. That’s how he saw it – that’s how Joyce’s mom sees it – that’s how Joyce would’ve seen it, prior to the events of this comic – that is the truth of the fundie world, and there is no part of recent events as seen from Joyce’s perspective, or ours, that can ever possibly contradict that truth.

        Saving souls from Satan is the top priority in that world, and in that world, if Ross had pointed the gun at Joyce’s face and fired, he still would’ve been saving souls from Satan and that makes everything all right.

        1. Agemegos

          If they can make you believe absurdities they can make you commit atrocities.

        2. David

          The road to heaven is paved with bad intentions.

        3. neeks

          And bodies, probably.

        4. Inspector Hound

          Well said.

          That’s probably the best summation of the whole sad situation. Not to mention all the other sad situations out there.

        5. Jtank

          That’s actually a subjective truth

        6. lejwocky

          He vas only following orders

        7. Nicknack Paddywack

          The funny thing (for some value of funny) is that fundamentalists who’d agree with you tend not to understand that this is also how ISIS and other religious terrorists see things.

          See also: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*C9MehvQnlg2swY_uNL9dcw.png

        8. Big Box

          The irony being that Ross trying to ‘save’ one soul in that manner would have resulted in him going straight to hell, because he would be violating the literal number one rule in the Bible: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’

          Its funny how often fundies forget about that one.

        9. Shadow12000

          That’s not irony, both Ross and Carol have both just said they’d die to save their children. They don’t just mean physically, they’re (stupidly) saying that they’d sacrifice their own souls to save their children’s from evil. They’re idiots because it doesn’t guarantee saving anything, even from a fundie point of view, and could psychologically fuck up the children in the head and damn them even more.

        10. Agemegos

          “Thou shalt not kill” is not the number one rule in the Bible. The number one rule in the Bible is to obey God.

          “Thou shalt not kill” is not even the first of the Ten Commandments. It’s Fifth (or Sixth, or Seventh, depending which tradition for numbering the commandments you follow. The First Commandment is to have no other gods before God (and, maybe, not to make graven images, though that might alternatively be [part of] the Second Commandment).

        11. David M Willis

          Plus it’s better translated “Thou shalt not murder.” There’s lots of God-ordained killing in the Old Testament. Seriously, God orders Joshua and the Israelites to genocide the entirety of Canaan. It’s cool to kill someone if God tells you to or the law demands it. Ross could easily think his actions follow under that.

        12. Shadow12000

          He pointed it at Becky, too, though. Even in the fundie world, killing one’s own child to “save” them is going too far. Not just in the obvious way, but you’d basically be delivering their soul to Satan early. He’s just a blind idiot.

      3. zoomer296

        I thought something like this might happen. I wonder how many fundamentalists are going to defend him. Maybe Willis left a clue, I’ll count all the strips with Ross in them, and multiply it by 666. BTW, what do you call it if you count all the dads in the MacIntyre family? A Toe-Tally

    3. Hijean

      Fuck? Not with ToeDad.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Perhaps with a baseball bat. Equipped with a molecule-disrupting power field.

        1. DinaWho

          WHO’RE YOU CALLING SMALL?!?

      2. billytea

        That would have to be one hell of a foot fetish.

      3. billytea

        “Fuck? Not with ToeDad.”

        That would have to be one hell of a foot fetish.

  3. AnvilPro

    Conflict Resolved! Conflict Resolved! Yaaay!

    1. Doctor_Who

      And no drama resulted from this ever!

      1. Dana

        What? Toedad’s car had a flat tire. Annoying.

        1. inqntrol

          And the back of the car was busted, but now it’s a wreck from the current events.

  4. Nono

    Mom of the year, that Carol.

    Hey, she had to do something to still be in the running against Sal’s and Ethan’s moms.

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      I’m not going to lie with this comment she probably ties with for #1 here.

      1. Yossarianduck

        With Ethan’s mom, right? I still get shivers thinking about her “You fuck her…” line.

    2. segnosaur

      I’ve always wondered whether Sal’s/Walky’s mom is really that bad.

      Sal did claim that she was treated differently because her mom was somehow racist; however, that may just be Sal’s interpretation of it. It could simply be because Walky excelled more when younger and thus got more attention. (And plus, Sal is a bit more independent and headstrong than Walky, which would make her get treated differently too.)

      I would definitely need to see more of the Walkerton family dynamics before I would be willing to condemn Sal’s mom.

      1. Rabid Rabbit

        The completely ignoring Sal just becaust Walky got a girlfriend was… telling. Not to mention the “Walky’s going to be a doctor, he just doesn’t know it yet.”

        There’s a faint moment in her favor in the flashback to the audition, in that she does at first make a vague effort to have both her children seen, but that doesn’t appear to have lasted long.

        Whether it’s racism, sexism, or just plain orneryness, she’s not really making herself look that great.

        1. Carriethedragon

          Yeah, I have to say, the complete lack of interest in Sal during Parents’ Weekend puts the nails in the coffin for me. I don’t get how anyone can claim that Mrs. Walkerton doesn’t treat her children differently. And Mr. Walkerton, at least, clearly recognizes what Walky once pronounced to Joyce: that Sal is blacker than him (i.e. coded as black due to her curly hair and other characteristics despite them having the same hue of skin as far as I can tell).

        2. Nono

          I haven’t really seen Mr. Walkerton to be that bad. He might just think Sal looks nicer with straight hair. I mean I think my dad looks terrible with curly hair, because he looks like he came from the ’70s.

        3. Julez

          There’s a whole lot of issues surrounding black women and their hair, where to be considered legitimate or to be taken seriously they have to do whatever they can to whiten their appearance. Preferences are usually informed by society, and in this case telling Sal that he preferred her straight hair is saying he preferred her looking less black.

        4. segnosaur

          I always assumed that his statement (about liking her hair straight) was more of a way to express acceptance for her personality. (i.e. Sal likes it straight, and he’s saying “I’m ok with what you like”.

        5. thejeff

          No, it really wasn’t.
          Even without the racial implications, which are very real, Sal showed up with a more natural hairdo and he says “Too bad. You look so pretty when it’s long and straight.” That’s not support and acceptance.
          Hell, I’m lousy at that kind of thing and I know damn well you don’t tell a girl who’s just changed her hair that you liked it better the other way.

          Beyond that, when you have the Word of God that there are racial issues involved in the relationship, it doesn’t really make much sense to wave away the in-world clues that point that way, even if there are other possibilities. Willis wrote that scene knowing full well the racial implications. He put it in there for a reason. It wasn’t to show Charles being supportive of Sal.

        6. RP

          You are trying to make the “it’s just a preference” argument but that doesn’t stop it from being racist.

        7. segnosaur

          I never claimed that Mrs. Walkerton didn’t treat her kids differently… In fact I’m sure she does. My claim is that there may be other reasons why they were treated differently other than racism.

        8. Leorale

          Sal has seen a whole lot more of her parents than we have!

          Anyway, even no matter the reason, Mrs. Walkerton is controlling, abrasive, and gives much more attention to Walky. Blech.

        9. QF

          And that was already true in the old continuity, anyway, so it stands to reason that it would remain so here.

          (Also, that “separating the twins at birth so the Aliens would go after Sal instead of both of them” is the more fantastical version of Sal’s Dumbingverse issues)

        10. showler

          She started treating them differently at far too young an age for it to be because of Sal’s behaviour. This is on Linda, not on Sal.

        11. Random832

          Not too young an age for it to be sexism though.

        12. Spencer

          The reason is racism because Sal, and then later Willis, said so.

          If Sal said “it’s because you were a boy” or “because you’re better at school” we’d all be nodding along with her. We need to accept that she’s right and stop demanding the single objective proof that Linda is a card carrying member of the klan.

        13. segnosaur

          Did Willis say so? I assume it would have been in one of the comments. (I don’t recall him mentioning it, but it is easy to overlook these things.)

          I guess the reason that some of us find it strange that it was racism (rather than sexism, or elitism, or any other -ism) is that Walky is her twin (with similar skin color) and gets fawned over. Claiming “You’re WHITER” as an excuse seems to make less sense than “You’re a girl” or “You were a bad kid”.

        14. Spencer

          The problem is that the people who say “well we don’t really know” are coming at this from a narrative where racism is something that needs to be empirically proven, which Willis helpfully provided us anyway when we were given a flashback of Walky remembering a time where their mom blatantly favoured him.

          I mean, I’m not trying to judge you or anything. I’m glad I wasn’t reading DoA in 2013 because I’d be there with the same “oh well we should wait and see” because the idea of racism being this subtle thing you sometimes aren’t aware of was something I didn’t want to accept.

          I mean, what exactly makes racial prejudice so much more outlandish than any other form?

        15. segnosaur

          Yes, Sal was pretty much ignored during Family weekend… However, as I pointed out, that could party be explained by Sal’s more headstrong and independent personality. Walky is more of a momma’s boy.

          Furthermore, remember that Sal did commit armed robbery. Granted, it was years ago, but something like that may leave a lot of lingering feelings.

          I’m not totally discounting the possibility that the Walkertons are bad parents… just that there are alternative explanations to why things happened the way they did.

        16. qman

          I agree, that one event wasn’t really enough to say one way or the other how things got to where they are. The cause and effect aren’t clear, they could be completely reversed. They didn’t spend a lot of attention on Sal, but Sal was also in a hurry to get in and out as fast as possible, just enough to make her presence known. They’ve clearly had a poor relationship for many years, so it’s hard to say what exactly started that and whether it was particularly egregious or just incidental.

        17. Sporky

          “momma’s boy” in the first paragraph keeps merging in my mind with “Furthermore” in the second and i read “Futurama’s boy”.

          Also, you’re wrong though. The REASON Sal has a more “headstrong and independent personality” is because she’s had to put up with this kinda racist crap since she was a kid.

          But is Sal’s mom as bad as Joyce’s mom? As of this strip, I’d say “probably no”. Walky balked at the idea that his parents could be racist because he thinks they aren’t terrible people, and Willis has specifically said he was going to have Blaine say something racist way back but decided against it because he didn’t want racism to be the purview of the cartoonishly evil.

          Basically Sal’s parents might kind of suck but also they probably would not say this kind of shit about Toedad in a million years and then follow it up with some good ol’ fashioned manipulative guilt tripping

        18. Leorale

          Careful, this is the realm of Occam’s Big Paisley Tie. ( http://www.shakesville.com/2013/08/occams-big-paisley-tie.html )

        19. merbrat

          Great article and title!

        20. Historyman68

          I thought you said Occam’s Brad Paisley Tie, which, hey, “Accidental Racist,” right?

        21. ischemgeek

          Yeah, but then think about why she committed armed robbery at 13. Kids generally don’t act out that bad without a reason. I’m pretty sure the Walky-as-golden-boy thing was well established long before Sal started committing crimes.

          Growing up, I got a reputation as a Problem Kid in school and at home from age 8 through about 16, and for a while, literally nothing I did was ever interpreted in a positive light. Every negative thing that happened around me was my fault, even if I was innocent and sometimes even if I wasn’t even in the room (one time I got suspended for something despite not even being in school that day. That was fun). Anything, no matter how trivial, was cracked down on with a shock and awe view of punishment. I could get slapped with detention just for asking to go to the office for my inhalers. Hell, yawning in class got me an in-school suspension once. Yawning. Not even loudly. Isolation room in school for a week. And, no, I hadn’t acted up at all – it was first period, which started at 8AM and I was just tired. Good things I achieved were viewed with suspicion, too: Did well on a test? Must’ve cheated, my next test was performed in an empty desk out in the hall. When I did well on that one, too, my teacher wanted to search me before my tests. Couldn’t just admit that the reason I was a bit of a brat in class was cuz I was bored with the material. Trying to protest unfairness just got people more convinced I was a problem kid: Complain the teacher was picking on me (and she was up to and including getting other kids to hit me because she couldn’t do it herself)? “I’m sure she had a good reason, honey,” or “and what did you do to deserve it?” (and in private, “She’s just making it up for attention.” And now that I’ve been backed up by classmates who were there, “You should have told us! If we’d known we never would have left you there!” even though I did tell them many times but yeah okay it’s my fault that they assume I’m a pathological liar even though I’m not yeah whatever). Thus I was caught a lot in a catch-22 where I was constantly being told I needed to pay more attention on tests and assignments (like Walky, I never really needed to study to get decent enough grades, but I was weird enough they took me to a kid shrink and apparently my IQ came back really high so anything short of perfect got me “not working to potential” notes and I was never allowed to genuinely have difficulty with something because apparently being smart means I am supposed to instantly grasp everything on the first pass and if I don’t I’m just being lazy) but when I did, they assumed I’d cheated or plagiarized and punished accordingly. Plus damn near everyone always assumed I was lying (which is hilarious because at the time my face-to-face social skills would have made Dina look like a social butterfly by comparison – I was very weird and socially awkward is what I’m saying) whenever I said anything. One time I was suspended from school for saying I’d lived in a foreign country for three years. I had. And when my folks found out, they did clear things up with the school but grounded me anyway because “obviously” I’d been lying a lot if the teacher didn’t believe me – I mean it when I say that if you’re seen as a problem kid, everything is interpreted as being your fault, even if you’re 100% in the right. Another time, some kids slammed my head in a ball crate in gym class. They got detention and I got an in-school suspension. For…? I don’t even know, they just told me I had in-school suspension and then doubled it when I asked why.

          When you’re stuck like that, where everything you do, no matter how minor, is examined and interpreted in the most negative possible light, eventually, you get to feel so penned in by people’s negative expectations and their confirmation biases that you just start acting out what they think of you. Cuz the feeling is if I’m going to get punished anyway, and they’re going to think I’m a piece of shit and treat me like one anyway, I may as well do something to deserve it. They think I’m lazy? Time to sleep through my first three periods, I hate mornings anyway. They think I’m at fault for bullying? Time to start enough fights that at least I know I deserve to have the entire grade hate me. Kids are gossiping that I’m an alcoholic even though I’ve never drunk to excess? Time to empty half a bottle of whisky tonight while my folks are out – if they’re going to spread it around that I’m hung over and get me hauled into the principal’s office, I may as well actually be hung over. That sort of thing. Now, mine never went as far as armed robbery, but I do get the feeling.

          Pretty sure that kind of damned if I do, damned if I don’t, so may as well earn the damnation thing is why Sal started robbing convenience stores. It’s why I started acting out. The headspace is, if everyone in the world thinks I do something to bring that treatment on myself, I may as well actually do something to bring it on myself. Not saying it’s particularly rational, but that’s how it goes, and then you get this nice feedback loop of people think kid is a problem kid -> people treat kid under assumption they’re always up to something -> kid feels persecuted -> kid gets frustrated and angry -> kid acts out -> people think kid is a problem kid.

          Frankly, right now, I think even if Sal earns straight As and Walky flunks out, their parents will probably blame Sal for Walky’s lack of work ethic. “You should have been looking after him and teaching him to study, he’s your brother and he needs you to take care of him!” type of guilt trip. Admittedly, some of that is projecting because that’s what happened to me when my sib flunked out – “You should’ve been watching over your kid sibling who is a legal adult and told you in no uncertain terms to go fuck yourself when you offered study help because it would get in the way of partying. If you’d been doing your job, we wouldn’t be in this mess!” Like, yeah, sure, I could totally have kidnapped my sibling and duct-taped them to a chair with only textbooks for entertainment until they were ready for exams. Completely my fault that my sibling, a legal adult who told me to fuck off when I offered study help back in mid-term season when they got their first bad grades back, refused to pull their socks up and study, mm-hmm. But that’s how it goes if you’re in a family with this golden child/problem child dichotomy – everything is the problem child’s fault, even if it’s not.

          There’s a big reason Sal wants to stay scarce from her folks: The less time she spends with them, the less time she gets her self-confidence and self-respect chewed up and spat out by her parents’ uncharitable notions of who she is and what she wants, the less time she gets blamed for stuff that is not her fault, and the less she feels she is constantly being judged and found wanting.

          If I’m right about this dynamic, even if their folks find out Sal is doing well in school, once they get over their surprise, there’s going to be a lot of back-handed compliments like, “Now, doesn’t it feel better to do something good than to [past negative action]?”

          Now, is racism part of why Sal grew up with the problem child label? There’s loads of studies that show that black kids are treated more harshly than white kids and assumed to be problem kids more than white kids, and that it gets worse the more black your appearance is coded – darker skin and darker, curlier hair = more likely to get the crap end of the preconceived notions stick. So, yeah, pretty sure racism had something to do with it. Is it the only reason? Probably not – there’s also plenty of studies that show that independence and leadership qualities (which Sal does have even if she doesn’t want them) are viewed negatively in girls – makes girls perceived as bossy, unruly and rude. So probably part sexism, too. Sal was born with a more adventurous and strong personality than people like to see in a girl, and when her personality is combined with her appearance, I’m pretty sure everyone around her was predisposed to assume she was up to no good as a kid.

          (admittedly, my own experiences growing up as a problem kid makes me bend over backwards to interpret problem kids’ actions charitably, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing because goodness knows problem kids don’t get enough charitable interpretations of their actions in their lives – plus, for me, what broke the cycle was someone who decided to interpret my actions charitably and to actually believe me when I say something, but that’s another story)

        22. de Combys

          I’ve decided that you’re my friend. We’ve got a lot in common!

          The reason, for me, is because I’m adopted. Perfect scapegoat. And, I mean, it makes the “real offspring” look bad that I perform better, so you need to sabotage that. And it offers good excuses : the shameful womb-bearer’s genes must be at cause. After all, she was crazy!

          Funny thing is, the mentality is so ingrained that now, at 27, working hard to get my life straight since I’m 19 and having been struck with multiple sclerosis at 23, they found a way to get into their heads that my disability might’ve been provoked by myself (“must be those drugs you took at 17”), and that my need of support is simply exaggerations on my part. I mean, my healthy cousins probably deserve a tiny bit of their fortune than me, after all they are raising legetimate families and oh so hardworking! Because, you know, not feeling my skin, partial paralysis of the left leg and severe sleep and concentration problems, well, it simply proves their point that I’m a whole heap of trouble, and really, I must simply be lazy to not be able to perform as well as my siblings. They knew it from the start!

          Cutting ties is the best option.

          I’m glad that we live in a respectably large city, enough that I can have social circles that are completely uninfluenced by all that.

        23. ischemgeek

          I haven’t cut ties yet because reasons, but I can totally understand why you might if you have parents like that and grew up the problem kid. It’s basically why I went to uni in a different province when I graduated HS – so I could develop a social network free of my parents’ and schools’ influence.

        24. Pat

          I tried that. Latched onto an extremely self-centered “friend” who I later realized was a looot like my mother.
          I tried standing up to her and she… retaliated. Dropped me, broke my social circle. I did not have the social skills to build a new one.

          Now I live with my mother again.

        25. Boxilar

          Damn. I thought I had it rough when my third grade teacher hated my guts and flunked me for no reason.

        26. Yet Another Laura H.

          It was an earth-shaking moment when someone told me— in my thirties— that sometimes teachers just didn’t like students, and would treat them unfairly because of it. I grew up with a genius I.Q. and massively awful ADHD, and thought I deserved everything.

          And, whipping out the tiny violin, I was the designated problem in my family for a very long time– two years after I left that home, my stepfather broke my three-year-old brother’s arm because he was acting too much like me.

          Sometimes grown-ups are unfair, and that seriously weirds me out, to this day. I mean, what’s the point of being a grown-up if you can’t be cool and froody to small humans?

        27. ischemgeek

          Yeah, I ran into that, too. I’m autistic, not ADHD (see also my mention of being socially inept and weird), but it comes with similar EF issues and I also have dysgraphia. The big thing for me is when people lie – it often doesn’t occur to me to lie about stuff (I’ll be more tactful if it’s a difficult truth than I used to be, or I’ll just not tell someone something if I don’t want them to know), so I often don’t register when other people are lying, even with obvious stuff like sarcasm. If I had a dollar for every time I responded to a sarcastic comment as if it was sincere, I’d be a rich woman.

          With regard to the realization about adults being unfair having an effect on you: When I got the dysgraphia and hypermobility diagnosis last year, and the autism diagnosis in college, I literally was sobbing in the office because holy crap, I really wasn’t “just being dramatic” all those years and these really are problems that I have and it really is harder for me than other people!

          Just. Validation that a problem is really real and not just you being [insert negative descriptor here] is helpful. I imagine your “Holy crap, it might not have been just me!” realization when you found out about teachers sometimes just not liking students was similar?

        28. Yet Another Laura H.

          Ran out of nesting, IschemGeek, but precisely!

        29. Gecko

          Thank you for sharing that. I was basically thinking this about Sal, but couldn’t phrase it well.

        30. ischemgeek

          NP. Sal isn’t my favorite character, but I do relate to her a lot.for reasons shared above, and I like her a lot as a character. My hope is that she is able to restrain her smugness whenever Walky’s grades blow up in his face. I’d LIKE for her to be the better person and offer to tutor him when it happens, but more realistically it’s probably going to fall to Dorothy to teach him study skills. That said, I don’t think Sal’s the sort to gloat. Tell him “welcome to my world,” maybe, but I don’t think she’d spend too long basking in schadenfreude. I think she’s a better person than me.

        31. mistrali

          I also don’t think she’d get much joy out of gloating. I can see her being angry, or being bitter or resigned, like “Do you get it now, Walky?”. But gloating just isn’t Sal’s style. She’s too cool-kid and independent for that.

        32. ischemgeek

          Ran out of nesting, but my thoughts exactly, mistrali.

          As I said, Sal’s a better person than me. I would not outwardly gloat, but I have been known to feel a bit more schadenfreude than I’m comfortable with. In that way I’m more like Sarah than Sal.

          (though I think Sal’s lack of gloating would have less to do with her cool-kid persona and more to do with the fact that she has a lot more empathy than she lets on – see also walking Joyce to where she was meeting people despite the fact that she really doesn’t like Joyce. Sal’s a nice person – nicer than Walky, certainly, even if Walky is more likeable).

        33. a4lbi

          Fuckin’ bravo.

          All of this.

        34. ischemgeek

          Full disclosure: I’m white, which probably had a LOT to do with me never getting arrested or sent to juvie for my problem kid acting out. Plus, I get why 15-year-old me was a royal asshole, but let’s be real: 15-year-old me was still a royal asshole. But people grow and change with time and life experience, and I don’t think I’m an asshole now. I certainly was as a teenager, but I grew up. It happens.

          But all of that ^^^ is why I’m really strongly in favor of Canada’s youth offender laws – even if I had gotten arrested and stuff like that, I would be able to rebuild my life as an adult. Even now, I can speak frankly and mentor teens who are themselves going through rough patches, and talk about my experiences without worry that my frankness in mentoring is going to come back to bite me. Our laws recognize that teenagers are not little adults and don’t have the same level of agency over their decisions. I honestly believe that it’s a good thing for someone to be given a clean slate when they hit adulthood – every young offender deserves a chance to start fresh, IMO.

        35. Kryss LaBryn

          Wow, that’s terrible. I’m really sorry that happened to you. 🙁

          What you say sounds very true to what we’ve seen of Sal and her interactions with with her parents, and their interactions with both her and Walky. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see that this is how it ends up playing out.

        36. RP

          I don’t see any good reason to think that Sal is an unreliable narrator about her own life. She has not been given to overreacting, misinterpretation, misunderstanding, or anything else that would make you think her version of events isn’t true or accurate.

        37. Jason

          At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what their motives are. We aren’t exploring them as characters. WHY doesn’t matter beyond what the characters we DO explore takes from it. The most important part is how the characters feel and what they believe to be “truth”. Not much else matters at all.

      2. Shiro

        I might be reading into this, but I very much doubt Willis would write a subplot where the moral is “the black woman was making too big a deal out of racism after all.”

        1. segnosaur

          Willis could probably write a subplot where he finds out the Walkertons are aliens descended from a sentient species of a ham sanwhich. And we would continue reading it and enjoying it. Because he’s that darn talented.

        2. Shiro

          Well, yes, he could do that. But the difference here is that your example is total unrealistic fantasy, while mine is something actual real-life people of color have to deal with, and I trust him not to prop up societal racism like that.

        3. Heather

          But writing that sort of thing (where a black woman is making a big deal out of something not even racist) would p much mean he’s more ignorant then he appears to be generally- and like, he may have made writing mistakes in the past even in shortpacked (and even in points I feel in dumbing of age) but I’d doubt he’d ever sink that low/fuck up that badly? It’s kind of like when so many people write things about false rape accusations (as if they are the common outcome) or say the child with the homophobic parent as simply over-reacting- a really bad idea overall. It punches down and shits on victims. Fiction does have an influence after all.

          Like irl, whenever people say someone is racist, a lot of people jump to the aid of the person accused of racism, saying the victim is just being either ‘over-sensitive’ or ‘lying’ or ‘doesn’t know what they’re talking about’. The accused bigot becomes the victim. Especially if the real victim of poor treatment is angry over it. Even though what might seem like one micro-aggression is really hundreds over the course of perhaps their entire lives and they are just sick of it. Like her parents might not be horribly aggressive towards Sal but… it’s uncomfortable, what they do- and after almost an entire life of such things it is a big deal.

          There’s even a point like with Walky where people think racists are just the kkk and that there aren’t well- levels to this sort of thing- and the small things are kind of the foundation for the larger ones. Or the fact everyone is kind of infected by this- because society. But racism comes in all flavours, and the fast majority of it displayed isn’t even conscious.

        4. GJT

          I can understand the point of view that you have to be careful writing this kind of topic, but to just suggest using it at all makes one “ignorant” completely is denying that it exists, which is ITSELF racist/sexist/whatever the relevant form of bigotry is. By saying that it is ignorant to write a story where a black woman falsely accuses someone of racism is suggesting that would never happen…the only reasonable reasoning for that being true is that either A) every non-black is constantly motivated by racism, therefore the accusation cannot possibly be wrong or B) no black would ever misinterpret something, so the accusation cannot possibly be wrong. Either way, it’s racist. The same basic logic applies to many other examples.

          That said, you definitely have to be careful not to give the impression that that is the rule, rather than the exception.

        5. savail

          exactly what gjt said. there are also people out there who have been so mistreated that they automatically assume every negative thing is because of racism or sexism or ageism or gender orientation. experienced this more times than i can count when i used to work retail, especially places where we had to card everyone in a group under 30. just had to remind myself that i did not know what their daily life was like and try not to be too upset. sorry for the lack of capitalization. seems the comments section does not like my phones shift key.

      3. Chubsius

        What we’ve seen of her so far wasn’t very good. During her visit she never spoke to Sal or even acknowledged her presence. And when asked later, she stated that she didn’t know where her daughter was, even though Sal had told her dad where she was going.

        Unfortunately for Sal, I don’t think her mom’s going to buck the trend.

    3. Freemage

      Seriously, Dumbing of Age’s sub-head should be: “Parents Are Awful”. Fathers are mostly coming out worse than mothers, but with, like, two exceptions (Dina’s and Dorothy’s), the parents range from the seriously annoying to the criminal.

  5. shadowcell

    hey, joyce’s mom came from the comments

    1. Doctor_Who

      That would mean she reads this comic. No way in hell.

      Also, I think she would avoid the comments section too. We are some salty motherfuckers.

    2. Rosicrucian

      And Willis wrote this, like, six months ago.

      He’s psychic.

      1. Molto1128

        All Hail Willis, the one and only Internet Pornlord Psychic Overlord of the World (and Internet Porn)!

        1. DarkoNeko

          psychic pornlord ?

      2. The Pink Bunny

        He’s not psychic. Just burdened with experience.

        1. QF

          As he said in the Patreon comments to this strip yesterday, he may have taken this conversation from ones he’s had with his mother.

          You know, his “you can’t watch He-Man because only Jesus has the power” mom?

        2. David

          It’s not even a competition. Where is the point in being a superhero if you can just get back from death after a few days? If you say “saving others”, big old Jesus saved the whole world, every sinner, from burning in the fires of hell in eternity.

          I mean, that’s kind of a “Topper meets Superman” scenario.

      3. Disloyal Subject

        Or the internet is comfortingly/terrifyingly predictable.

      4. Falling Star

        Nah, he just knows his audience.

    3. DarkoNeko

      Both parts of the conv did, really.

    4. Disloyal Subject

      That’s because it’s a valid perspective.
      The difference is that some of the characters from Joyce’s former community would use it to justify his actions. I hope Carol’s not among them. Others would probably, like those of us who raised that point in the comments, just see it as a tragedy that a desire to do ‘good’ would lead Ross to such despicable deeds.
      And like myself and some other commenters, they’ll keep clinging to that naive idealism until he opens his mouth in front of them and spews venom and hate towards his daughter, falling far short of the ideal of “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Even then, some will wonder whether his intentions started off pure and he became embittered by Becky’s stubborn refusal to submit to his ‘authority.’

      1. Clif

        And there’s an important difference between understanding and justifying. At this point I’m not willing to lump Joyce’s parents in with the truly terrible ones, tho they could certainly get there. At this point Joyce’s mother knows she was lied to about Becky and that’s not what she led with, rather concentrating on what’s truly important, that Joyce was unharmed.

        1. Liokae

          Sure, for about fifteen seconds. And then she moves on to what’s really, REALLY important- that the religiously motivated kidnapping and attempted murder isn’t all THAT bad.

  6. Fish Facade

    Gah, conflict. There was part of me what wanted to sympathize with Toedad before he went insane, and now that part of me wants to sympathize with Joyce’s mom.

    1. gkheyf

      “we’re not so different, he and i…”

      1. Boxilar

        “Yeah, I get the ‘we’re not so different’ speech a lot.” – Brock Samson.

        1. mister gray

          Yeeeaah, I don’t need another ‘we’re not so different’ speech. I get those a lot.- Brock Samson *

        2. Clif

          Hey, I get that speech a lot too. We really are the same.

        3. Boxilar

          Thank you. Been awhile since I’ve seen it.

    2. Smiling Cat

      She is trying to hold her worldview together under extreme circumstances. Some people have trouble with the first step: “Accept that some parts of your worldview are complete shit”.

      1. Silamy

        MOST people, heck, probably ALL people have problems with that. ’cause if SOME parts are, how do you know the whole thing isn’t?

        1. Smiling Cat

          I have antidepressants to prevent that. :p

        2. de Combys

          Is it bad that I lol’d at that?

          Cynical humor on my part. I have difficulties too. It’s not mockery.

        3. Smiling Cat

          I wrote it to be lol’d at. 🙂 Sometimes cynical humor is how you get through the day.

        4. Ana Chronistic

          I have decided to GO MAD!

        5. gkheyf

          We’Re AlL mAd HeRe!!! 8B

        6. Jonathan S.

          “Arthur was terribly pleased that for once the day was going so much according to plan. Only that morning he had decided to go mad, and here he was with a rabbit bone in his beard chasing a paisley sofa across the field of prehistoric Earth.”

        7. Falling Star

          For some indeterminate reason, this scene always made me cringe.
          But not nearly as much as being hit in the small of the back by a skyscraper in midair.

        8. JetstreamGW

          And, in fact, I do believe that’s what we’re about to experience with Joyce. She doesn’t do half measures.

          I’m sensing a crisis-of-faith arc.

        9. Boxilar

          Crisis, Hell, she’s been God Damming people. DoA Joyce could go full Agnostic on us, or at least Diest.

        10. qman

          I actually knew a guy that had this happen, used to be a hardcore bible thumper, had some really bad stuff happen in his life and shatter his worldview, got totally depressed and turned hardcore atheist.

          And I do mean hardcore, what I call “evangelical atheist.” You know the type. The person who, if they find out you have any sort of spiritual or religious affiliation at all, takes every waking moment to try to convince you that god can’t possibly exist. They don’t use particularly good arguments or sound evidence and treat it like their life goal to turn you atheist. Just like evangelists, only for atheism instead of Christianity. They didn’t arrive at atheism through knowledge, logic, and reason. They’re just angry at their god and religion and reject it to the extreme, and the same behaviors persist from their past. It’s actually quite sad.

        11. Gordon

          So basically what it sounds like you’re saying is that he traded his sense of moral superiority for a different flavor, and got a free sense of intellectual superiority(something I’m sure he was always convinced he had, only now he’s got a shiny gold certificate of authenticity) in like a Buy One, Get One kind of arrangement. Or like when you buy underwear and they give you a FREE EXTRA PAIR in the pack.

          Pretty sweet deal.

        12. ninja_jesus

          Hey, being angry at oneself’s god and religion isn’t an invalid reason to be an atheist. That was my starting point. Without getting personal, being angry at the god I believed in was what started me questioning religion as, and from anger came understanding. Yes, there was a bitterness left over, but over time, that faded too. It was all a process of understanding, and healing, and moving on, and that guy you’re talking about must be struggling a lot.

          Overall, I think it just comes down to whether or not someone is an asshole. That’s a universal dislike right there, no matter what your faith is.

        13. Boxilar

          Well, there’s the getting thoroughly passed of at ,God/religion atheistic conversion. Then there’s the “I really love these people. I enjoy the community. But unfortunately I’ve learned enough to realize what they believe does not mesh well with reality. And I cannot maintain the level of cognitive dissonance necessary to continue participating” atheistic conversion.

        14. Freemage

          I think part of it involves the branch of Christianity you’re leaving. Authoritarian, conservative churches seem far more commonly to produce rage-quits, while liberal churches are more likely to have members who slowly drift away. Since the drift-away usually leaves positive memories of the people in the church left behind, there’s usually a little more generosity of spirit to be had.

          If Joyce goes full-on atheist, I wouldn’t be surprised if she continues with her accidental barbs, the ones that Dorothy has been so forgiving of, but now directed at other theists.

        15. JetstreamGW

          Eh. I doubt it. One of Joyce’s purposes — from my observations anyway — is basically to exist as an example of a positive and extremely earnest religious person. One who can learn and grow and get over her crap.

          Y’know, the anti internet-religious-person.

        16. SDGlyph

          And part of the Fundamentalist worldview is that you have to accept ALL of it, or you lose it all. If God didn’t literally create the world in seven days, if there wasn’t a historical Adam and garden and flood, then something something you’ve rejected Christ and are still dead in your sins. You’re not allowed to question only SOME of it, or you’ll be accused of just cherry-picking the bits you like and leaving the ‘difficult’ parts. That way lies (shudder) relativism.

          Add to that Joyce’s general insecurity about belonging – the way she seeks out the tribal markers and tries to display all of them, like jumping straight from never-heard-of-it to wears-the-official-apparel-head-to-toe-superfan of D&MM, or her obsessive attempts to be ‘cool’ by superficially copying Sal. In her own words, she dressed that way so that ‘no-one could mistake her for someone who’s not a fan of D&MM’; similarly, she’s not cool until Sal gives her approval. It stems from the same tribal root: the way that Fundamentalism (or any similar structure) always comes with gatekeepers to police the boundaries of thought and behaviour, and label people as ‘in’ or ‘out’. Joyce has always been desperate to be ‘in’, and deathly afraid of being ‘cast out’.

        17. SDGlyph

          Gah, lost half the post when I deleted a bunch of stuff for being too personal/irrelevant.

          Reading this in concert with Willis’ tumblr post, it’s clear where the heart of the strip is, and I don’t want to call away from that. I had a slightly different reading at first though (which prompted the ramble above) around the crisis of faith that so many kids raised in a ‘Christian’ bubble go through when they encounter reality in their teens and have to confront the gulf between what they were taught and what they see; including seeing their community from the outside for the first time. (Ref Joyce liking ‘home’ less every time it shows up at college.)

          Often, the crisis isn’t about whether they believe, but whether they can separate the principles of their faith from the way it’s (ab)used to police group boundaries and entrench tribal groupthink. Many can’t, and end up throwing away the baby with the bathwater: the oft-mentioned evangelical-to-atheist pipeline that’s actually catalysed by the all-or-nothing nature of fundamentalist dogma. If you believe the only options are to be Dorothy or to be Mary, who’d choose to be Mary?

          Sorry, still rambling. Being a progressive Christian myself, I’d love to see Joyce be able to hold on to the core of the faith she loves while rejecting the toxic culture she grew up in. Sadly, knowing that she’s an autobio character and Willis is now an atheist, I don’t see me getting that wish in the long term. So all the while I’m cheering her growth, it’s kind of bittersweet too. 🙁

        18. Boxilar

          I blundered across this years ago on Christian talk radio. I was spinning through the dial when I heard an incredulous voice mention evolution, so I stopped and listened. The gist of the back and forth between the two hosts was if evolution was true, then the whole bible was just a made up story and none of what they did mattered. There was a sort of desperation to it that blew my mind. These guys were basically using a reverse pro atheism argument to validate fundamentalist.

        19. Freemage

          There’s a term for that–argument from consequence, I think? It’s a fallacy that basically says, “If X is true, bad thing Y must also be true, ergo X must be false.”–as if unpleasant things are never true.

        20. GDwarf

          Fundamentalists especially, I suspect, have trouble with it because many Fundamentalist leaders preach long and hard about how faith is 100% or 0%, either every single thing they’ve ever said is 100% true or it’s all a lie. Either Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs in the garden of Eden exactly 6000 years ago or the entirety of Christianity is false.

          When you teach like that there are two results: People either end up leaving when they find one thing that isn’t true and so conclude that the whole thing must be a lie, or they desperately shore up their entire, brittle, belief because they cannot accept a world in which it’s all false, so all of it must be true.

          Joyce’s mom is in the wrong, here, but it’s not exactly hard to feel sympathy for her: She either has to defend the man who pointed a gun at her daughter, or she, as she sees it, has to renounce everything she’s ever believed. “That was horrible, but he meant well and was just trying to help his daughter” could well seem like a valid compromise there, even though to anyone outside her community it will seem like a horrible thing to say.

    3. Boxilar

      My thing was that Willis kept throwing little heel face turn opportunities throughout the arc for Ross. Think that one moment in Kung Fu Panda where Tai Lung actually considers stopping his roaring rampage of revenge when Shifu tells him “I am proud of you..” Except Willis gives Ross five or six such moments, Not just one. Even in the last scene between Ross and Becky at the hospital, it’s like “Maybe this is…and, nope, he’s still a dick.”

      1. Anderhail

        Very true. I wonder how many occasions happened where Willis was tempted to let Ross take one of those as an out to his actions, even though he knew that the story wasn’t going there.

  7. inqntrol

    Goddamn Carol!

  8. jayax

    Could be better, could be worse.

  9. CaptainBatson

    Oh, Carol, you foolish lady

  10. Synnerman

    Come on Joyce…

    Release the beast.

    1. Falling Star

      “Dina GOOOOOOO!!!

  11. Stephen R. Bierce

    *would play The Purple One, but The Purple One would sue*

    1. Kelly

      Prince? Barney? The purple Teletubby?

      1. DarkoNeko

        …C’thulhu ?

        1. Tacos

          Beast Wars Megatron?

        2. Cephalo the Pod

          The One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater?

        3. inqntrol

          Who knows ,it could be anyone.

        4. Falling Star

          That purple monster from FHFIF?

    2. saltchocolate

      Play it anyway!

    3. Wack'd

      Kilgrave?

      1. saki

        Oh gods, do I now have to watch out for Jessica Jones spoilers here? Better hurry and finish watching it.

      2. Cerberus

        Binge watched that last night. Best depiction of abuse and PTSD I’ve ever seen in fiction.

        1. Lin

          Seconded. A friend asked me if I found it triggering (I have multiple-sourced PTSD) and I said that, for me, it was comforting to see someone living with PTSD. Not getting over it, not necessarily always dealing with it in a healthy way, but that you can be a person and be fucked up and still be a person. That’s really meaningful for me.

    4. ninja_jesus

      I was gonna post it, but then… yeah. It’s nowhere. Way to guarantee that you’ll fade into obscurity.

    5. Bicycle Bill

      In that case, play Meat Loaf’s “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” on the hacked Muzak.

    6. Deanatay

      *ignores ‘color commentary’, sneaks in, plays ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ on the hacked Muzak*

  12. Yotomoe

    Cool. First question was about Joyce’s well being. Good momming.

    1. Cerberus

      She cares. She just doesn’t realize how triggering and awful what she’s saying is.

      1. shivore

        I’m legitimately confused. What is so awful about putting yourself in the shoes of someone else and trying to see from their perspective, and appreciating their motives?

        Heck, for the exact same reason I have more respect for ISIS than Hitler. Hitler wanted to rule the world and have power. ISIS at least believes they’re doing the right thing. Does saying that make me a monster? I don’t see how. Saying that doesn’t mean I support ISIS, just as Joyce’s Mom doesn’t appear to be supporting what he did either.

        It’s the difference between her father doing what he did because he couldn’t stand her having independent thought, and doing what he did because he legitmately thought he was saving her from herself and helping his daughter. It’s the difference between him being a 10 monster and being an 8 or 9… still a monster but legitimately a little less of one. That is not an awful thing to say.

        1. Bryy

          1) Joyce’s mom is 100% agreeing with Russ’ actions. Read the comic again.

          2) …. you honestly do not understand what is wrong with agreeing with Russ/ISIS even on a base level?

        2. RP

          It is 100% awful to defend someone who pointed a gun in your child’s face to said child mere hours after it happened. Like, she shouldn’t be defending him ever to anyone but to insist that her own child think the man who nearly killed her isn’t “that bad” is completely disgusting.

    2. Pat

      If you can behave yourself for 10 seconds, everything else you do is automatically okay.

      1. Anderhail

        That sound like how all of my attempts at dieting ended. Shaka, when the walls fell.

  13. Fox

    Gorram whoever called this. Somehow I am less than surprised.

  14. Wublub

    Jesus Christ, Joyce’s mom, I didn’t think you would actually sympathize with the guy.

    1. Packy

      Oh, I knew she would. That’s why Joyce’s parents let her play with Becky: she was being raised right.

      It’s pretty much the reason why my wife doesn’t have any childhood friends: none of the available families were “good christians”.

    2. Smiling Cat

      Seriously?

      1. Clif

        Perhaps he hasn’t been reading the same comic.

    3. Io

      She’s probably sympathizing with the man because the version of the story she’s been told probably has a significantly smaller percentage of stalking, kidnapping, assault, and tons of verbal condemnation, not to mention she’s not privy to the personal affairs of Becky’s family’s home life. To her Toedad was a family friend and community member who made a big blunder.

      1. Silamy

        Wouldn’t that depend a bit on the news organization she got the story from?

        1. DarkoNeko

          Oh, right. She probably got it from Fox news.

        2. MichaelHaneline

          I wonder what percentage of “coverage” Fox news devoted to how much better this would’ve turned out if one of the students had a gun?

        3. DarkoNeko

          *winces*
          that hit a bit too close to home

      2. Smiling Cat

        She’s sympathizing with the man because he’s on her “side” of the war between religion and secularism. If he’s totally wrong, then maybe everything she believes is wrong.

        1. Cerberus

          This. He made a “dramatic brave action” against a “corrupt secular world” and fought for “goodness” and “family” against the “homosexual agenda”. To many in that community he’s a hero and a martyr in the same way that some in those communities praise murderers like Scott Roeder or Eric Rudolph.

          And the sad thing is that compared to her culture, she probably is one of the better ones because she at least realizes that things like threatening others with guns and kidnapping your child are wrong even if you are “fighting for the right things”.

          It’s just that that whole belief system is monstrous and dehumanizing and Joyce is not in a place where she can imagine that gay people and atheists are some demon-eyed non-entities rather than people.

          And sadly, she’s also no longer able to view “the love of family” as the universal good it was sold to be.

        2. Smiling Cat

          It’s a little bit more nuanced than that. Carol clearly acknowledged his actions as wrong, but not his motivations. The term she would probably use would be “he got carried away.”

        3. Deanatay

          She probably thinks that Ross trying to reprogram his daughter was the right thing to do, but crossed the line by threatening children with a gun.

      3. anna

        I can see how badly you want to believe that Joyce’s mom loves Joyce as much as she loves God. Such a shame that simply isn’t true.

        I mean, c’mon, we’re talking about a culture whose ruling book routinely depicts people sacrificing their children to god. You cannot possibly expect anyone with this belief system to prioritize their children over their god, because nothing can be allowed to come between them and their god – not even their own kids. Especially not their own kids.

        1. Smiling Cat

          Routinely? Wasn’t that, like, once, and then God said “Psych! Just trollin’ you bro.”

        2. NotPiffany

          That was more of a “WTF!? You were actually going to do it?! I DIDN’T THINK YOU WERE ACTUALLY GOING TO DO IT! PUT THAT KNIFE DOWN, YOU WEIRDO!

          Sure, Old Testament God is evil, but when he wanted kids dead, he did it himself. Or occasionally let his prophets summon bears.

        3. GDwarf

          Painting with a bit of a wide brush, there.

          Despite their name, most Christian Fundamentalists aren’t overly concerned with either fundamentals or what the Bible says. Oh, they can quote a handful of lines, and they have strong opinions about which translation is correct (KJV, generally) but they don’t let the Bible rule their lives so much as they let their culture do so. It’s a very authoritarian culture, where certain figures are allowed to shape their beliefs (usually pastors) provided that they don’t step outside the community norms. Those community norms are shaped by odd feedback loops and interactions and are just generally a mess, but have little to do with the Bible, generally. Heck, the Bible contains a ritual to induce abortion, something modern US right-wing Fundamentalists would see as abhorrent (though ones 60 years ago wouldn’t have cared).

          But let’s ignore that, the idea that one must accept everything in the Bible as a direct command is incoherent. The Bible contradicts itself and was written in other languages that don’t map perfectly to English. An easy example of how contradictory beliefs can be is found in the fact that there are hundreds of Christian denominations and sects out there, quite a few of whom barely agree on anything.

          I’d also question the assertion that most people can put adherence to an abstract idea wholly above love for others. Most people can do so some of the time, but very few people can live like that.

          I’m an atheist, but if Christianity really worked the way some non-believers claimed then there’s no possible way the world would be anything but a smoking crater right now.

  15. HelpIveFallen

    Little she knows that’s the worst thing she could have said there…

    1. TheBloodsuckerProxy

      Yeah, that has to be the last thing Joyce needs to hear right now.

      1. Io

        I mean, even a different wording would have been nice! But no, she had to say the exact same thing as the gun-toting madman.

        Family ought to live for each other, not die for each other. Esp not kill each other, ffs.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          “MoooOOOOM, only Jesus can die for me!!”

        2. DarkoNeko

          Ruth of all people shouldn’t say that <_<;

        3. Ana Chronistic

          It won’t be Ruth in a couple of weeks anyway =p

        4. Agemegos

          Ruth? “Ruthless” Ruth Lessik?

        5. DarkoNeko

          which is Ana’s current avatar, yes.

        6. Agemegos

          Ah! I see.

          We return you now to your scheduled programming.

        7. Clif

          Oh, come on. I just escaped.

        8. Deanatay

          After seeing what Becky does to closets? No reprogramming facility could hold her.

        9. Cerberus

          The exact wording during a moment where he had a gun pointed at her face. It’s not just a terrible phrasing, it’s a terrible phrasing that echoes what is probably going to play in her mind on flashback repeat as what she heard when she thought she was about to die.

  16. Just Here

    She apparently hasn’t listened to the voicemail yet. I figure we could sell tickets for that. Hell, I’ll make popcorn.

    1. DarkoNeko

      Oooh this is gonna be good.

    2. Cerberus

      Yup. There’s a second, less “pleasant” phone call on the horizon.

      1. StClair

        “Mom… Mom, I want you to hang up, and listen to voice mail, and call me back. Okay?”

        Followed by four panels of waiting for the phone to ring buzz again.
        It doesn’t.

    3. Falling Star

      I’ve got soda for everyone and cheese w/ crackers for the fancy types.

  17. vonniesaur

    Are you okay with this or not, Joyce’s mom? Pick a side.

    1. Riku

      She can’t. Sure to most of us this is pretty black and white (and for good reason) but take a moment to consider that pretty much her entire life has been like Joyce at the start of the comment. The fact that she knows what he did was wrong is better than I thought she would do.

      1. Silamy

        Has it, though? She went to IU also, I thought -wouldn’t that mean that she had SOME secular awareness?

        1. DarkoNeko

          some people tend to radicalize as their get older.
          It’s especially true for “born again” religious.

        2. Silamy

          Do we know what denomination of fundamentalist they are? Is it one of the newer sets -one that she had to choose because it wasn’t around when she was born/growing up, or is it an older one?

        3. Makkabee

          I had a college friend who was a Quaker-raised hippie type, and has since gone full fundie. He even became a creationist. I made fun of him for that, saying we shouldn’t teach just kids that French and Spanish evolved from Latin but instead present the alternate “Tower of Babel” theory that “big linguistics” is trying to suppress. He and I haven’t talked since then.

        4. Disloyal Subject

          Please tell me you recorded his reaction.

        5. Clif

          He did but big linguistics erased all copies of the resulting discussions, including his memory, explaining why he thinks they haven’t talked since.

        6. Makkabee

          “Please tell me you recorded his reaction.”

          The conversation was on his wall on FaceBook. He unfriended me immediately and I no longer have access to know whether or not he deleted it.

        7. Agemegos

          Heh! Nice argument.

        8. Nicknack Paddywack

          See also this fabulous T-shirt: http://controversy.amorphia-apparel.com/img450/multi.png

        9. James

          ..okay, I recognize all the “theories” presented there except the thing with the teapot between Mars and Earth. What?

        10. hof1991

          Russell’s teapot. Has to do with unfalsifiable claims.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

        11. thejeff

          Russell’s Teapot I assume.

        12. Deanatay

          ‘radicalize’ isn’t the word I’d use to describe moving towards fundamentalism – ‘radical’ denotes movement left, towards freedom and equality. I’d call this ‘reactionalizing’ – moving towards the extreme right, regressing into religion and tradition. Both are violent movements, if taken too far, but the ideals are much different.

        13. Boxilar

          I think any time you want to blow stuff up or kill people for your beliefs you’re probably a radical. I don’t really care if you’re left wing or right wing. You’re still an asshole.

        14. Deanatay

          Not arguing ‘asshole’, just ‘radical’.

        15. Lin

          Nope. “Radical” doesn’t denote moving left, it literally means “going to the root.” Anytime that a person’s politics demands major, foundational level political or social change, we are radicals. Now, my form of radicalism (prison abolition and redistribution of wealth and life chances, as well as opening borders) isn’t anything like ToeDad’s radicalism, but they are both radical political philsophies.

      2. Disloyal Subject

        Nothing is black and white, but these shades of gray are looking pretty dark to me.

  18. NinjaNick

    This is just creepy.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      I disagree.
      It is creepy and sad.

  19. Rani

    The moment you realize you can’t go home again.

    1. gkheyf

      welp, i guess that’s growing up!

      1. Yotomoe

        Not me. My mom’s cool.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          Mine, too!

          I can’t go home again b/c work won’t let me have leave >=(

        2. Leorale

          Mine also. She totally just visited me to ask how I was doing, and listened really well and had helpful feedback, and I’m 30.

          Let’s make a nice-moms club, and Joyce and Becky can come and get basically adopted.

        3. Falling Star

          I want to join, but I can’t 🙁

        4. Leorale

          You can get basically adopted, too! And Willis also. (I know that wouldn’t actually fill the void, I just wish I could instantly solve all the things.) 🙁

        5. Deanatay

          *Plays ‘Sixteen Tons’ on the hacked Muzak*

    2. a4lbi

      Yeah…

    3. Boxilar

      Love my Mom, and she’s always been supportive of me. But in 2005 I lost the job I’d had for ten years to downsizing. I joked that I could always move back in with her. She looked me dead in the eye with total seriousness and said, “No, you can’t.” Best thing she could have done for me since it got me off my ass and into a new job pretty quickly.

  20. Bagge

    God dammit Carol

  21. TheWrathabove

    I can’t wait till her mom listens to he message

  22. Riku

    Uuuuuuuugh well she’s not wrong

    I was going to post this paragraph about Toedad some time back about how while what he’s doing is terrible that I feel sorry for him in a sense because he’s basically a victim of brainwashing himself (probably) but ended up throwing that out the window in the page where he hit Becky.

    Like I get what she’s saying and at least she doesn’t agree with him but wording and timing and all that

    1. butting

      Uh, no, she’s in a deep hole of wrong and bailing out anything that’s even slightly not wrong to make room for more wrong.

      Yes, there’s a sense in which he’s brainwashed, but he chose that wash and rinse and repeat cycle, and he chose to inflict the expression of it on others with no consideration for their roles in his life other than how they can be used to validate his own choices.

      And Carol is validating that in turn by excusing him. The consequences of the violence he inflicted on others don’t matter because he thought he was doing the right thing? The consequences of the violence he inflicted on others don’t matter because he was worried about his daughter? She’s fully agreeing with him, and looking for validation of her own from Joyce of all people despite the face that Joyce has just been through gun trauma.

      (Wait: did the hospital seriously just roll her out the door without arranging for followup counselling care? Even with Sarah present? Or has that happened off-screen?) (and is Sarah still in the room, and hearing this?)

      The message Carol’s just given her is that Ross was fully entitled to attempt murder to enforce his control of his family, and that Carol’s lacking in the necessary self-reflective-abilities to rule that out of her own options for understanding her relationship with those she loves. That’s a truly shitty trip to lay on Joyce, and poor choices (badly-informed ones, much like Ross’s) at every turn.

      Hearing Becky’s description of how hard Joyce punched Ross would be a damn good thing for her right now.

      1. Boxilar

        I think the difference here is that Ross was willing to KILL. Carol is willing to die for Joyce. Most parents would throw themselves in front of danger for their children if they could. I think that’s what Carol means. The defending of Ross kind of ruins the sentiment, though.

        1. DinaWho

          At least to Joyce, those are going to be pretty hard to tell apart. I’m pretty sure Ross said those exact words at the fountain.

        2. Agemegos

          He did. Here’s the strip.

        3. DinaWho

          Thanks. I was pretty sure, but qualified my answer in case I misremembered.

        4. Nicknack Paddywack

          This is how my grandfather explained it to me: there’s a huge difference between ideas worth killing for, ideas worth dying for, and ideas worth living for. Never confuse the three.

      2. Cerberus

        Yeah, and that’s the mutualistic interplay that those like Joyce’s mom and Toedad have with each other. The “good” types sell the poison that argues that gayness is a sickness that needs to be cured, that family is the ultimate good and its preservation is worth dying for, that eternal punishment faces any who stray off the path and keeping one’s family in heaven is a parent’s primary role, and sells all sorts of narratives about sacrifice and violence and the evils of secularism and queerness.

        And then they act surprised when someone takes all that talk seriously and reacts accordingly. And they sugar coat that extremism by not fully denouncing it, decoupling it from their movement or checking their rhetoric. They instead weasel-word it like this where it’s a terrible tragedy of course, but well, that victim really had it coming and I mean they had some really noble ideals.

        And that social support both before and after a terrible terrorizing incident serves to embolden the one ready to commit said terrible incident. And ensures it or things only slightly less worse happen very frequently.

      3. Disloyal Subject

        Sympathizing with someone’s motives does not equate to condoning their actions.
        I really hope Carol doesn’t try to say anything Ross did was okay.

        1. Leorale

          It’s a really common problem: people want people to be good (especially people they know and/or relate to!), so they’ll do anything to wiggle out of the fact that some people have behaved incredibly hurtfully. A common mistake is to misdirect their attention to intent instead of action. Intent does not tend to excuse action or make actions palatable to the victim. Even if ToeDad meant extremely well, it doesn’t matter, his actions can never be OK, so it’s just distracting to focus on his intent.

        2. Agemegos

          People particularly want people like them to be good. Which is why they are so quick to blame mental illness when one of their homies turns out to be just another colossal arsehole.

      4. thejeff

        I am kind of surprised by the lack of reference to counseling or other support. That tends to get thrown at anyone even close to any event like this, much less those directly involved.
        At least those that hit the media. Maybe it doesn’t happen in the smaller scale cases.

        1. Jason

          It may have happened off-screen and Willis comes back to it?

        2. Leorale

          The hospital and/or cops should’ve had a social worker come around and offer them access to counseling. They ought to have a folder with outpatient info and follow-up numbers to call. But evidently, they didn’t do that. I guess sometimes those systems aren’t in place, and/or not everyone is good at their jobs.

          Even if they had offered counseling, though, Joyce and Becky wouldn’t quite understand the offer — their idea of counseling is probably their youth pastor, who is obviously not an appealing choice.

    2. Gangler

      … she’s pretty wrong.

    3. Pat

      She’s superhumanly wrong in a hundred ways.

      He was motivated by hate, not love. And thinking he was in the right is one of the things that makes him more evil, not justified.

  23. Jess

    Put about 4 drinks in my dad and this is kinda how the conversation goes at my house, too… :/

  24. Tnoy

    WELP.

  25. Natsu

    so close….and yet so far

    1. dmaxx

      She was down to 3 balls and 2 strikes but just missed the ball towards the strike zone for the third strike at the top of the ninth with a tied score, will we see another run by either team or was this the last chance? Only time will tell when the dust settles as this could go either way….

  26. cmd1095

    And now Joyce realizes just how messed up her upbringing is, how crazy her family is, and how she can never go back to that happy place where she didn’t know those things…

    I simultaneously am happy and feel bad for Joyce

    1. carl320

      The last panel… that is a face of realization.

    2. Yotomoe

      We’re all just a little brainwashed.

      1. DarkoNeko

        unfortunatly.
        But then, there are those who try to get better, and those who do not.

      2. wwwhhattt

        I believe ‘education’ is the technical term.

      3. Rheinman137

        I think I have heard of this “brain-washing” technique. Is it where you remove the top of the skull and pour cool water directly onto the brain?

    3. gkheyf

      if she wanted to rationalize it all away, she could try to convince herself that her mom is just too nice to hate the bad in others. but it looks like she’s already invested in facing up to the unfortunate truths in the world. some things just suck, joyce

  27. NerdHerder

    Aaaaand we just broke Joyce.

  28. newllend(henryvolt)

    Yep I called it both Becky and Joyce’s family are in a cult.

    1. DarkoNeko

      pfeh. A lot of the bible belt is in one, if you put it like that.

    2. Lapin

      If you call a rather scarily large population of the Christians in the U.S. a cult, than yes. These are the people we call “evangelicals/born-agains”, and yes, there are a lot of them, and they really do believe this.

      “Well, yeah, he brought a gun and forcibly kidnapped his adult daughter because she’s a lesbian, but it was out of love and wanting to save her” is not that far-fetched with these people. My mother briefly bought into this BS as a rebellion against her Catholic upbringing, and while it’s been over ten years, I still flinch every time someone starts talking about the Christian God out of fear that they are going to hurt me like those people did. (Am a girl, and very, very queer, and was already asking innocent questions at twelve that got me verbally abused to the point of me crying, and fearing my own sexuality)

      1. DarkoNeko

        this kind of small community religion things tend to radicalize, in part because they’re echo chambers. It’s true for communities without feedback at large.

      2. Cerberus

        It’s not even wholly unique to those religious groups. All it requires is a general culture of hate and prejudice.

        Also, hugs to Lapin for what you went through.

      3. StClair

        and fearing my own sexuality

        which was, of course, the point.
        with the follow-up, “just let someone else control you take that burden from you, and you’ll never have to feel this way again.”

        (apologies if the above, even in sarcasm, was triggery.)

      4. Falling Star

        SOMEONE GET SOME HUGS IN HERE STAT

    3. Disloyal Subject

      [kuhlt]

      noun
      1) a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies
      2) an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers
      3) the object of such devotion
      4) a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
      5) Sociology: a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols
      6) a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader
      7) the members of such a religion or sect
      8) any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific

      adjective
      9) of or relating to a cult
      10) of, for, or attracting a small group of devotees

    4. newllend(henryvolt)

      must take everything literal here apparently

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Well, yes; from a literal perspective, they’ve been in a cult all along.
        Now, by the literal definition a cult isn’t inherently bad, so it’s a little telling that we’ve come to use it the way we do. If someone’s ideas go unchallenged, they may get more and more extreme. If it’s a group of people? What was a fucked up philosophy becomes an exponentially fucked up philosophy.

      2. Deanatay

        You’ve BEEN to the comments section before, right, newliend?

  29. Rocketboy1313

    “I mean, assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping are not murder… Am I right?”

    1. Cerberus

      “And if a gut wound gets someone to renounce homosexuality, then was it really a bad thing when you really think about it?”

  30. JessWitt

    Just hang up, Joyce. It’s been a rough day, and tune Carol out.

  31. Cheshrin

    Carol no.

    Carol why.

    Carol stop.

    1. carl320

      Stahp!

      1. Falling Star

        CAROL
        Y U DO THIS

  32. Agemegos

    Ouch!

    Joyce’s mother isn’t to know what Becky’s Big Toe Daddy said while threatening a murder cum suicide-by-cop. And Joyce knows that. It’s still one hell of an echo.

    1. Agemegos

      For those following along at home, here’s the call-back.

  33. Pogo

    Just look at that face of realization.

  34. Raen

    Dat alt-text.

    I’ve been told that “bless your soul” is flyover for “FUCK YOU.” Performing the appropriate search-and-replace here makes her rant come off much differently.

    1. Stephen R. Bierce

      There is a comedienne whose act went into the habits of Southerners and how you can say all sorts of nasty things about people so long as you closed your thought with “bless their soul”.

      1. Tacos

        Ah yes. I’ve lived in the South and it is completely true. As long as you say, “Bless their soul.” or “Bless their heart.” you’ll get away with a lot of things.

        1. DarkoNeko

          That’s… good to know.

        2. Boxilar

          Where I live it’s “Well, bless your heart.”

        3. Gordon

          With my stepmother, “Bless her/his heart” usually follows or precedes all the most interesting gossip about a bunch of people I don’t know or care about in her church and/or work. Her mother does the same.

          Next time I’m home on a Sunday, I think I’ll going to take a count how many times they’ll do it in a conversation.

    2. Viktoria

      The basic idea is: Picture a cute tiny puppy going down stairs that are too tall for it. Now picture that puppy misstepping and landing at the bottom of the stairs in a pile of ears and tails. “Well, bless his heart” is then said, meaning “He failed utterly and embarrassingly, but at least he’s trying, the moron.” You can stretch that attitude to fit any insult you desire.

    3. dixiesaurer

      where where i grew up (n/w ga and n/e al) you would read this sort of like

      “what an idiot! he messed it up in the absolute dumbest possible way! ……but at least he thought he was doing the right thing”

      but idk about indiana so im not really sure whats being said here?

    4. thejeff

      It can be, but the context isn’t right here. In that sense, it usually goes along with saying something insulting or gossipy about the other person. Here it comes with excuses for him.

  35. Karin

    Hooray for parental love and all that Jazz, but I feel exactly how Joyce feels cause my parents would have said the same thing. This way of upbringing is so sickening after a while when their reasoning means threatening the lives of a large amount of people INCLUDING the person they came to “save”.

  36. Lia47

    He really thought this chapter title out goddammit

    >:’-(

  37. Nono

    I think Carol’s point that she tried to (very poorly) make is that at least Ross was doing what he did because he cared about Becky, rather than him doing it out of some blind hatred. Which… makes it better or something? I dunno, I don’t speak crazy.

    Also noticing that Joyce is still holding her phone with her bandaged right hand. Hee, she must have just answered it with her left then propped it into her right.

    1. DarkoNeko

      and now she seems to be gripping it really hard, which can’t be good for her injury.

    2. Io

      Ross didn’t do what he did out of caring about Becky. He did it to assert control over his life that has spiraled crazy out of his grasp. His wife is dead and his daughter is doing all kinds of stuff that is against his way of life, and they’re both out of his house.
      His actions had NOTHING to do with care or love, he was acting the part of the small scared insecure man that he is, using hatred and anger and action to cover it all up.
      People never do crazy fucked up shit because they care, they just end up pointing it at their loved ones because it’s easy.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Before the hospital scene, I would have argued. Now I agree.
        If I was that hard to convince he was rotten to the core, though, the rest of his community is probably never going to believe it, especially when the only people to argue otherwise are a lesbian, her best friend, and outsiders.

        I do disagree on the count of ‘people never do crazy fucked up shit because they care,’ but in the end it’s results that matter more than intentions, and a lot of people are the kind of pathetic slime that would rationalize anything to avoid shouldering responsibility for their actions. It’s the “never” that bothers me.

        1. Yet Another Laura H.

          I dunno. My deepest experience with such a religion as an adult said that people only ever got sick because members of their family were sinning. They called it “letting Satan in by the back door,” and haha, yes you are absolutely the first to observe that this sounds like a euphemism for anal sex and I am not at all made tired by that joke repeated ad nauseum. If one of your family got a cancer diagnosis, you had to make room in your schedule for an Inquisition

          So, yes, I don’t remember how Becky’s mom died, but it might very well be that in Ross’s head, Becky murdered her with her unrepentant sexuality. Ugh, and probably told Becky so in so many words

    3. Silamy

      Was he, though? I mean, there were times when it came across like that at first -that he was a father who just wanted the best for his daughter and was doing what he thought was right, but… he forced her out of a place where she was happy, stalked her at another one, threatened her and her friends, hit her girlfriend, pulled a gun on her, her best friend and a few other students, kidnapped her, hit her, tried to kill the person who came to help her… I know I’m missing a few things -and that’s all BEFORE he lost. That’s not love. That’s OBSESSION. Obsession with her, with whatever demon he thinks has her… he actively hurt her in every way possible. How do you call that love?

      1. Nono

        Eh, I’m just reasoning it from what Carol might be thinking and why she might be saying that. She doesn’t know what we do about Ross.

        1. Io

          We’re not shooting down what you said, ‘s more like what you said was a spring board for us to ramble off our own opinions <3

        2. John

          There were people in the comments who were saying exactly the same thing. After the gun came out.

          I still maintain that any time you find yourself pointing a gun at someone you profess to love, you really need to stop and have a good hard think about your course of action and/or your definition of “love”.

        3. anna

          But he was saving her from SATAN. Satan is, like, the greatest arch-villain that ever lived, and he doesn’t just take your body, he takes your immortal soul. What greater love can a man have, than standing up to an all-powerful arch-villain to try to save his daughter? I mean, shit, take the religious slant out of it and you’ve just described a half-dozen superhero origin stories…

          Most people realize while they are still very young that they cannot blame the broken vase or missing cookies on their invisible friend and get away with it, because while their invisible friend is real to them, they are not objectively real in the world we all share. Break that chain of realization, and a whole lot of internal logic breaks down with it.

        4. Disloyal Subject

          Yeah, we were. Because he was pretty evidently crazy.
          It’s a pity he wasn’t lucid enough to consider his definition of love… or if he was, he wasn’t willing to challenge the dogma that said he had to do what he was doing.

        5. Agemegos

          He’s not crazy. He believes in God and Satan and souls and sin and Heaven and Hell. He acts rationally on those beliefs. That’s not insane, it’s religious, with bad religion.

      2. Io

        None of it is love. Like I mentioned above, every bit of his behavior can be more sensibly be explained by an unhealthy need to exert control on a life that’s been rendered unrecognizable by outside events. Ross is an example of someone who failed to cope and has lashed out at the one’s closest to him, the ones who he feels confident will forgive him for any crazy stuff he’s done.

    4. Cerberus

      There’s actually a lot of culture surrounding the weird idea that terrible acts are somewhat mitigated if they are done out of “love”. It’s one of the reasons that things like sexual assault and domestic violence aren’t treated as seriously as other crimes. Because the abuser will often cling to arguments of “just loving too much” that gets people to start making excuses for their behavior. “Oh, I don’t much condone murder, but it’s really understandable that Frank would shoot his wife. After all, he loved her so much and couldn’t stand for her to leave him.”

      And it allows a lot of controlling, not very loving people to get away with their bullshit.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        I don’t understand how murdering one’s wife being understandable makes it any less contemptible.
        Know thy enemy.

        1. Cerberus

          It’s more that people are not understanding the right things about how crimes like that work and allows toxic ideas of love and family that reduces how seriously certain crimes are taken.

          Understanding how abuse works is not the problem, nor is people seeking to understand. It’s more the way people create a mitigating excuse for awful actions and then use that to justify treating the crime less seriously. If someone hurt someone out of “loving them too much” or “because they thought they were doing the right thing”, people tend to stop looking more deeply into things like why that “love” was expressed so controlling and harmfully.

      2. BenRG

        I rejected the ‘loved too much’ arguments years ago. It makes no logical or even emotional sense. I independently came to the realisation that possessiveness =/= love and that domestic violence is always about possessiveness.

  38. Silamy

    Well, shit. Poor Joyce!

  39. Larkle

    And thus Joyce tasted the bitter forbidden fruit and could not return to the ignorance of Eden.

    1. gkheyf

      and that’s when i realized…that the back of the wardrobe was made of wood and housed no narnia

      …that the rabbit hole was shallow and hid no wonderland

      …that the chalk door would not open to set me free

      1. Wack'd

        That no one’s got the chalk, the chalk to chalk-Chalk Zone.

    2. Nono

      Or the ignorance of Ethan.

  40. Yotomoe

    I mean yeah. The colonists also thought they were doing the right thing. And now there’s like no native Americans.

    1. DarkoNeko

      a lot of them were petty criminal, so I’m not quite sure they cared.

      1. DinaWho

        I don’t believe that was the case with the American colonies. Australia, on the other hand.
        But then, I also would not be surprised if that was something basic US History classes left out.

        1. Agemegos

          It is. England started transporting felons as a merciful alternative to hanging and burning about 1670, and it became a standard punishment in 1717 with the Transportation Act. The felons were place in indentures of servitude, and the indentures were sold to sea-captains to be sold to employers in the Americas. That’s how most of the people who went to the future US as indentured servants before 1776 got into indentures in the first place. The practice of selling an indenture on yourself to raise the funds to migrate did not become common until the 19th Century.

          The number of felons transported rose sharply in 1749–59, when the magistrates Henry and John Fielding ended the then prevailing lawlessness of London by deporting the criminal class en masse, prosecuting even trivial felonies (and there were some very minor felonies back then) and deporting everyone they could. There were also spikes after various rebellions in Scotland and Ireland, with traitors being deported to the Americas, but when the English government felt really spiteful (as at the Bloody Assizes after the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion in 1685) it sent them to the Caribbean instead, expecting them to die quickly working sugar-cane fields.

          Estimates of the total number of convicts transported to the Thirteen Colonies range from about 50,000 (perhaps overlooking Irish and Scottish rebels) to 200,000 (definitely including the rebels).

          Transportation to the Americas ended (obviously) in 1776, which led to the prisons filling up. Worn-out ships called “prison hulks” were moored in England’s harbors and those filled up. And so in 1787, as a consequence of American independence, the British despatched a penal colony to New South Wales, the first of a series in different parts of Australia.

          Transportation to Australia became uncommon in the 1860s and was abolished in 1868. A total of 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia over about 80 years.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Fascinating; thank you.

        3. Makkabee

          But indentures were a minor element of colonization during that period. In the early to mid-17th century when indentures were a much larger fraction of the colonial population purely economic indentures were much more common.

          And for the purpose of this discussion I think we should distinguish between political prisoners like the Jacobites shipped over after the ’45 and felons like thieves or arsonists.

        4. Roborat

          And now you know. (cue the rainbow).

          But seriously, that was very interesting information about an area of history that I was not clear on, thanks for that.

    2. Boxilar

      Nah, the colonists weren’t “doing the right thing”. They were engaged in straight up conquest. Which is the “right thing” for the empire you’re in the process of expanding. Kind of sucks for.everyone else, though.

      1. Makkabee

        They told themselves it was the right thing, though. Spreading civilization/Christianity/representative government. We see it as imperialism, they saw it as progress. Look at how westward expansion was depicted in American media as late as the 1960s.

        As for petty criminals, there were some, particularly in the 17th century, but except in early Georgia (initially established to rehabilitate debtors and to shield South Carolina from Spanish raids) most colonists came over for economic opportunity or religious reasons rather than as punishment for crime.

  41. Lapin

    That’s not an expression of love. That’s abuse.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      People confusing the two is alarmingly common.

  42. pendrake

    I would die to protect my children.

    I would >kill< to protect my children.

    But I also like to think I am smart/wise/good enough of a parent to not have to do either.

    I certainly have not had to.

    (…yet.)

    1. Cerberus

      That’s nothing. Toedad would kill his children to protect his children… wait…

    2. Disloyal Subject

      I’m pretty sure that means you’re doing it right.

    3. Liokae

      The biggest difference here is that Ross was willing to kill HIS CHILD to “protect” his child.

      1. Needfuldoer

        His child and anyone who gets in his way.

        He may have been hesitant to shoot Joyce at the fountain (in his worldview she was a pure innocent soul being tempted by the devil posessing Becky), but he was ready to straight-up murder Amber (who he didn’t know) without a second thought.

      2. Akiosama

        ’tis the problem with belief in the eternal soul – one can feel they can sacrifice life to protect it (whether it actually exists or not).

        Actually, this seems to be a problem on many fronts – belief/faith meaning that one can harass, step on others’ toes, injure, kill, etc. and be a ‘good person’ or ‘doing the right thing’. It’s BS, IMHO.

        “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” That should apply to everyone.

  43. rezby

    that’s some powerful useage of shadows over joyce’s expression in the last two panels. well-done. As she crashes, emotionally, so too does a dark shadow fall across her face.

    Obviously she’s literally changing her position relative to the light source (some standing corner lamp because the dorm-provided lights are completely abysmal), but its also metaphorical as well as literal.

    1. Pat

      Dorm-provided lights?
      I actually had “floor lamps” on the list of highly-recommended/mandatory items to bring for dorm life, because there weren’t any.

      Oddly, when I moved to the dorm with suites sharing half-baths, there was a ceiling light over the sink. But there was a partition between that and the bedroom part , and no lights there.

      1. rezby

        my dorms have a dinky little light thing over the doorway, but its incredibly dim to the point where floor lamps are a necessity here as well. At least the bathrooms and hallways are pretty well light (when half the lights aren’t arbitrarily turned off at the discretion of whoever is there that day, anytime between 6 pm to 3 am or just not at all. theoretically they should go into that “night mode” at a certain time every day, but they really don’t.)

  44. Cody

    Once again, this will not end well.

    I want to get off Mr. Willis’s wild ride

    1. MM

      You can’t. You’re trapped right along with the rest of us.

      1. Falling Star

        I’m having Neal Shusterman flashbacks.

    2. Disloyal Subject

      The ride never ends.

  45. Znayx

    Oh god. That bitter, lingering aftertaste when you realise that the once closest people to you are oh so similar to the one you hate the most…

    1. Znayx

      And that last line… damn, Joyce. That sucks, I’m really sorry for you.

      (take a deep breath and remind yourself that this is just a comic… nope, doesn’t help)

      1. Disloyal Subject

        Unfortunately, it’s not just a comic.
        This shit happens every day.

  46. Jason

    Ouch. That was like a punch to the gut- seeing how much her mother’s support means to her, only to see Joyce crushed that she’s actually just too close to being similar.
    Dammit but Joyce needs counselling.

  47. Rodimiss

    Oh no. Oh no.

    I really, really hope they just let it be and don’t take it up with the school to get Becky thrown out of the dorm. But y’know! They might! They’re just worried about their daughter! About her immortal soul and her sinning friend!

    I hope this gets back to Jocelyne, and that she reaches out to Joyce (maybe not coming out yet, but reaching out regardless), so that Joyce knows she’s still got someone in the family to count on. Does Jocelyne go to the same university as Joyce, again? I can’t remember.

    1. AgentKeen

      Jocelyne’s already graduated, I think.

      1. Silamy

        Yeah, but doesn’t she live with their folks? Reaching out to support Joyce (and, by extension, Becky) could come back to bite her HARD. Because if homosexuality is bad to them, what kind of sin do these people think it is to be transgendered?

        1. AgentKeen

          I don’t think she lives with her parents because it sounded like she’s at least somewhat out normally, and there’s no way she could ever be back in their hometown. Can’t risk people talking.

        2. Cerberus

          Knowing what that community thinks of trans people as well as the fact that most of society seems to think that being trans is some weird super level up version of being gay… yeah, Jocelyne is all types of fucked when she comes out, which might be why she’s stalled on addressing her dysphoria more directly and shirks away from arguments so she won’t say something she can’t take back.

          I can easily imagine her in the background of this conversation, grinding her teeth and silently telling herself not to get involved.

        3. Heather

          Maybe she will write something particularly scathing on her writing website in anger- it gains traction and popularity in ways previous writings haven’t… it gets found by her parents/home church and the truth comes out (/nightmare). God I’m not trans but I am queer but it is kind of a fear of mine if the ‘rents found out- even if I no longer live with them.

        4. Makkabee

          “Knowing what that community thinks of trans people ”

          That they’re “perverts” and letting transwomen use the girls’ potty is the “real war on women,” according to another ex-friend of mine.

    2. segnosaur

      I think Jocelyne did go to the same university, but is now working as a writer.

    3. Dara

      Jocelyn is a graduate of the university.

      And I really, really hope she reaches out to Joyce, too.

  48. FriendlyNeighborhoodDave

    God, this arc has been devastating. There was a wonderful half-second there where I thought maybe the Browns would be on the right side.

    1. DarkoNeko

      The high before the crash. It was pretty evil.

    2. Lapin

      Becky is still a lesbian and they are still evangelicals. They might not agree with his methods, but Joyce’s parents would subscribe to the same beliefs as Ross, and they…don’t think his way of thinking is wrong. They would have supported him taking Becky to a “facility” to “help her”.

      It scares the hell out of me what they would do to Joyce’s older sister.

    3. tim gueguen

      We don’t know how Mr. Brown will react yet.

      1. DarkoNeko

        We probably will soon(ish), seeing he’s in the previews.

        1. Heavensrun

          If by soonish you mean “months from now”

    4. Disloyal Subject

      Carol believes she is on the right side. She’s going to stick to her doctrine, because whatever the doctrine says is right is absolutely moral.

  49. CriticalQuit

    That face when the last shred of home fades from your grip and you realize the horror you came from

  50. dailybrad

    “Inside me a light was turned on, and then I was alive” popped into my head here. Joyce sees how bullshit things are.

    As the cool kids(maybe?) say nowadays, stay woke, Joyce.

  51. Mandy

    It was going so well and then.. nope.

  52. bluntily.honest

    Will Smith’s Parents Just Don’t Understand is at the height of its relevancy with this comic.

  53. Ash Ketchup

    *sigh*

    This is just unrealistic. Willis, why?

    1. DarkoNeko

      …well. no
      No, it’s not.

    2. Marie

      I presume you weren’t reading the comments for the last couple weeks? A lot of not-fundie types were having similar thoughts to JMom, and I mean that’s beside the fact that Joyce’s mom has seemed to be a bit more indoctrinated than her husband.

    3. Ben

      Keep in mind – Semi-autobiographical, with Joyce being the character most directly a result of his own life experiences. While there might not be many, there are people like that out there.

      1. AgentKeen

        Relevant tweet for tonight’s page
        https://twitter.com/damnyouwillis/status/669022221738856448

    4. AgentKeen

      I wish it was unrealistic.

    5. newllend(henryvolt)

      not gonna lie the last thing parent would actually say about a guy who end up going after kid would probably be “At least he thought he was doing the right thing,” that’s the most backwards way thinking for a parent especially a Christian parent I mean by that strand of logic of anyone’s actions can be justified whether it be good or bad to a way that I probably shouldn’t be punished for it.

      1. newllend(henryvolt)

        This is what I get for using my voice translaterecognition on my phone instead of texting for once.

      2. Cerberus

        Mm.

        I had at least two interactions with my family that went like a worse version of this. First was when I was telling most anyone in the family about my discrimination from my job for being trans. There wasn’t even the sympathy and “oh honey”, it was just “well, yeah, what would you expect them to do, I mean honestly?” and “you really were asking for it, I mean, you really should have known better than try and flaunt being super gay at work of all places” and “I mean, think about it from their perspective” and “why would you even want to come out in the first place, do you really need to be shoving that in people’s faces, that’s really inappropriate and stupid.” From literally every member of my family.

        Hell, my uncle even topped that when I told him about the time someone loudly mused about circling back and killing me for being trans and he didn’t even register a faux concern about how “awful” that was before haranguing me about how “dumb it is to be out and about on the streets like that and get all obsessed with your queer shit ” and how it would be expected that people would be shocked and violent to see a trans person throwing that kind of stuff in their faces.

        At least Joyce got the faux concern before the awful started.

        1. Derek

          As awful as Carol is, I don’t think Joyce got faux concern here, I’m willing to give Carol the benefit of the doubt that she was honestly worried for her daughter. It doesn’t cancel out the awful though

    6. Tomas

      Sarcasm? Poe? Or did you really not see all the comments over the past month saying the same “unrealistic” thing.

      1. DarkoNeko

        Not everyone reads comments, especially every day.

      2. Disloyal Subject

        Pretty sure it was semi-sarcastic bait just to see how many people would bite.

    7. Lord Stoneheart

      What part of it is unrealistic exactly?

    8. Sporky

      http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/133847635397/i-dont-talk-to-my-mom-anymore-whenever-we-had

      Lmao nice try asshole

      1. Disloyal Subject

        It’s things like this that make me really appreciate Carla’s worldview. Burn it all.
        But you know what they say about he who fights monsters. Violence won’t fix it, hugs for the victimized won’t fix it, compassion and tolerance haven’t fixed it yet…
        But humanity endures. We’ll keep trying.

      2. Leorale

        Ugh. I’m so sorry your mom is like that, Willis. -.-
        All your readers love you nicely, and wouldn’t die or not-die for you.
        Wishing you well. <3

      3. Bicycle Bill

        Remember one thing, Willis — you only get one mother, flawed though she may be, and you’re going to miss her when she’s gone.  Mine’s been gone for about three months now, and these next few days are going to really suck.  I may just crawl into bed Wednesday night, pull my head under the covers, and not come out again until sometime Saturday AM.

        1. Lia

          look I’m sorry for your loss and I’m sure your mom was great but you DO realize that telling people with abusive, manipulative parents “they’re still your parents! You need to love them no matter what!” is pretty much the worst thing you can do, right?

          I am not going to miss my abusive father when he croaks. He hasn’t been my father in a long, long time. The difference between people with flawed parents and people with abusive parents is that we made peace of being without them long ago.

        2. Willinwoods

          Sorry for your loss. Even though what you write might make sense to most people, I feel that you may be underestimating the potential toxicity of a parent-child relationship. You would have had to live through it to understand. My own mother was slightly abusive, and I still had (have) a lot of damage control to do. I spent most of my life grieving the loving woman she could have been, and had all but run out of grief by the time she actually passed. So, no — every mother is different, and there’s actually nothing to say that somebody will miss a person that kinda brought them into this world, just because … especially if most or all of the other interactions were abusive or toxic in nature.

        3. Jason

          Much as with Willis, I don’t talk to my mother any more. Mine was slightly less awful but also didn’t have religious brainwashing as an “excuse” for her awful. I have PTSD so severe that I will never recover as a result of her abuse. She literally hard wired fear into my brain. And she did all of this without ever being able to understand that she was a bad parent.

          My mother is such a horrendous, toxic influence. And I mourn, every time parenthood comes up, that I never had a mum. I had a female genetic contributor, but I never, ever had a parent who made my life better. I mourn that fact.
          When she passes, I strongly suspect I will feel relief. Because the abuse and damage can never start again.

          Everyone is different. Please, don’t assume that all people will be devastated by the loss of their parent. Everyone is different and they are entitled to their feelings, whatever they turn out being- and if it’s healthier for them to cut out their parents, please, respect their mental and emotional well-being. Cutting off an abusive parent is not easy- but it often is the healthiest thing to do.

        4. Clodia

          Not to dogpile, but it sounds like he misses his mom now. I know I miss my dad, the guy I remember from childhood before I figured out he was abusive. I’m not to the point where I have to cut him off, but it is easily possible to reach that point and still wish to have a healthy relationship with them. Even if it is impossible.

    9. anna

      What a glorious world you must live in, that the events of this comic seem unrealistic to you. May you continue to live in that blissful bubble, and never have occasion to realize first-hand how wrong you are.

    10. QF

      As unrealistic as his own mother, it seems.

    11. Disloyal Subject

      Here’s your reply.

    12. Heather

      In what universe is this unrealistic. I want to live in it.

  54. Van Jealous

    Why is panel #6 reminding me so of “The Manchurian Candidate”?…I feel like a game of cards….

    1. Cerberus

      “Toedad is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”

  55. Mona

    Well that is some strong nightmare material right there. Poor Joyce…

  56. Tomas

    The call is coming from in your house!

  57. newllend(henryvolt)

    “At least he was thought he’s doing the right thing.”

    well I guess that says a lot and I also guess if I get a gun then kill and injure a bunch of people and not feel sorry about it one bit gobbles still forgive me because I thought I was doing the right thing.

    you know who else probably thought he was doing right thing Hitler, no true story just ask Joyce’s Dad he probably knows.

    1. DarkoNeko

      Sir/Madam, you have just been awarded a Godwin point !

      Congrats.

      1. newllend(henryvolt)

        thank you, thank you, I will now take my leave. for the evening goodnight everyone.

        1. Boxilar

          Godwin violation, procedural error; Too many Hitlers on the field.

        2. StClair

          First down!

        3. Tenn

          “Too many Hitlers on the field.”

          Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler
          Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler
          Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler
          Stalin Stalin!

    2. Peduncle

      Here is the Hitler reference.

      1. DarkoNeko

        oh damn I forgot about that <_<;

    3. Disloyal Subject

      You could have just referenced the Crusades.
      …wait, do Bible Belt cults think religiously motivated invasions full of the utter barbarity that undisciplined armies tend towards were justified?

      1. DarkoNeko

        The way I see Bible Belt “independant denominations” is that they disagree with the mainstream cult and choose to follow a more stringent/”strict” version instead. That include taking some part of the bible literally rather than like allegories.
        This is pretty much how crap like creationism happens.

  58. Cass

    The bolding on “Bless his soul” makes me read it as a southerner’s “fuck that idiot” soul blessing, which made her twist towards douchehat sympathy even more twisty!

    Right now I think the “Right?” and the stammering are signs that she doesn’t really buy what she’s saying herself even as she tries to make what happened fit her worldview, but I could definitely be wrong about that.

    1. Marie

      I think so too (about ‘Bless’), if not in such an angry way as it can be used in the south, at least as a “that man did an awful thing- I hope he repents and gets to heaven because everyone should” way (meaning, it emphasizes that she thinks what he does is wrong, at the very minimum).

      And I’m not sure whether she’s trying to make Joyce agree or looking for reassurance about her worldview, I think it could go either way until we hear more.

  59. Lone Wolf

    So I guess the saying, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” isn’t very common in fundie communities? Or do they just assume it doesn’t apply to them because they genuinely believe that Jesus wants them to be this fucked up in the head?

    1. Marie

      Maybe in Mary’s (not that I don’t think it’s a good saying, but in a fundie community it sounds a lot, to me, like her “if evil wasn’t nice” bit). Expanding from that, I could see it being applied to Joyces (supporting atheists/lgbt folks/sinners) instead of Rosses (although hopefully at the very worst it would be applied to both).

    2. Kirby

      The road to hell is paved with good intentions… when you don’t agree with what the person did. Here, she’s sad that Joyce got caught up in it, but thinks that Ross had every right to do what he did and thinks that Becky probably should go to a camp to get “fixed”. This is probably, in her mind, something of a “right reasons, right intentions, wrong way to go about it.”

    3. Cerberus

      They don’t believe that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but rather that it is paved with good deeds. The particular sect that Joyce comes from views the ecumenical debate of faith versus deeds to be how the devil destroys faith. When one gets focused on good deeds after all, they are more prone to reject narrow belief structures about “evil sinners” and might try and see the good in everyone and thus are more at prey to the Antichrist and his rise to power and the bringing of the end of the world.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        There’s a scary kind of… I won’t call it sense or logic, but there’s an elegant coherence to that dogma. It’s horrifyingly easy to understand how someone could be locked into that mindset.

  60. shoeboxjeddy

    Wow thanks Mom. Let me just put myself in the shoes of the kidnapper who waved a loaded gun in my face. I’ll get right on that after I schedule 100 therapy appointments for the next week.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      Know thy enemy.
      Learn to think as they do, so you can anticipate and foil them.

      Oh, and get some friggin’ therapy, too. I wonder if Leslie will pull her aside before/after class and give her some contact information for that.

  61. Maple Amber

    I’m happy that she at least asked if Joyce was okay before going on about feeling bad for Toedad. Sigh.

    1. anna

      Yeah, it’s kind of stunning to see how many people absolutely don’t realize what a big deal that is, that Joyce’s mom should express concern at all rather than going straight to the has-the-lesbian-contaminated-my-godly-offspring stage.

    2. thejeff

      You’ll notice though that she doesn’t ask about Becky. Moves directly into apologetics for Ross. No concern for her daughter’s childhood best friend.

  62. Dean

    Joyce’s temptation to pull a Godwin’s Law in panel 4 must have been nigh-overwhelming.

  63. RashRaikou

    I really appreciate the caption – Defying Gravity was the song that played in my head when my parents cut me off for being trans too…

    1. Disloyal Subject

      I imagine Let it Go is gaining traction too now. Thank God for Idina Menzel’s voice.

  64. Sionyx

    Well, yes, he was worried about his daughter. But it wasn’t Becky Toedad was going after, it was His Daughter. What Ross wanted from His Daughter, Becky couldn’t give, and Ross wouldn’t bend. That ISN’T how love works.

    There’s a tiny, tiny part of me that wonders if Joyce’s mom rambles the same way I do when stressed and says what pops in to her head without the brain filtering it, but I rather doubt it. Poor Joyce.

    1. anna

      > What Ross wanted from His Daughter, Becky couldn’t give, and Ross wouldn’t bend. That ISN’T how love works.

      But it IS how love works in the Bible.

      To this lot, that is all that matters.

      1. DarkoNeko

        Not really. I mean, the skirt the passage that don’t go in their directions (like the tatoos or fabric parts, for example)

      2. Yet Another Laura H.

        So, um, yeah. Shall we set up a tree wherein those commenters who have a copy of Milgram’s Obedience to Authority lend it to those who have not read it? I feel the wiki summary will not do justice to how on-the-nose Ross and Carol are being.

  65. Shea

    That’s a pretty Wicked alt text.

    1. Akiosama

      Perhaps Joyce’s mom’s new nickname should be “Gravity”, given that Joyce is about to defy her, big time.

      1. Shea

        I just hope she’s happy, y’know?

  66. tim gueguen

    Just watch, Joycemom will deny that Ross pointed a gun at her, either when she listens to Joyce’s voice message, or Joyce lets her have it with both barrels during this call.

  67. Nonagon

    Is there a word that means “technically right, but being a dick about it”? I’ve been finding a lot of situations where such a word would apply lately.

    1. Liokae

      Well, “technically right” by itself usually covers it.

    2. Disloyal Subject

      Probably in German.

      1. DarkoNeko

        ha !

      2. SDGlyph

        Heh, there probably should be 🙂
        Others might simply think they have a Backpfeifengesicht…

  68. Eric

    1. Eric

      Have I mentioned how annoying tags are on this site?

      1. DarkoNeko

        that’s just plain old HTML, tho.

  69. IDontcarenomore

    Cant wait for Carole to read the msg. Maybe then she will get a clue to just exactly how this has affected Joyce. Nothing else is getting through.

    REALLY? I mean good GOD almighty, REALLY? The man kidnapped his daughter by gunpoint from the school campus and all she can say is “he was just worried about his daughter”????

    Is the woman that stupid? Or blind? I don’t understand, how far back behind the home teaching can you hide before you realize how screwed up this is?

    Yes, I knew people like this, had a family in the neighborhood. After a couple of conversations, I stayed away, far away.

    Joyce knows she can’t go home again. She knew back when she was trying to kick the shit out of Toedad. I’m sorry for her. We all go thru it to an extent I think, but not that harsh.

    I think Joyce may be going to come out of this just fine. Once she gets over the anger. May take awhile.

    1. Kirby

      Logic isn’t really a thing that comes up too much when these kinds of things are rationalized.

      I believe Willis was talking on Tumblr a few weeks ago about how he was allowed Halloween as a kid, but some of his younger siblings weren’t, and he was the most religious of them all growing up. It’s an instance of overthinking and bias overriding facts. Even when they’re right in front of you.

      1. DarkoNeko

        I think the idea was that the Mom radicalized over time. It was ok when The Author was a kid but it became not ok a few years after.

    2. Kamino Neko

      Listen to. Not read. It was a voicemail, not a text.

      Which, assuming Carol isn’t wholly assimilated (which, uh, seems unlikely), would be a point toward the goal of her understanding – or at the very least, letting it go for the good of her relationship with Joyce – hearing Joyce’s voice, which was certainly one that would brook no argument, might take some of the wind out of her sails.

      But, from what we’ve seen of Carol, this seems very unlikely.

  70. Retrikaethan

    whelp. this is what happens when you truly believe the shit you learned in your religious upbringing, if you had one. not everyone with religion on the brain is a nearly-psycopathic monster but the other people with religion on the brain can understand and empathize with their reasoning (assuming, yaknow, said reasoning is based in their religion), regardless of how insane it is. cuz, yaknow, that’s religion. being wrong on purpose. “god” doesn’t make the world this way, we do.

    1. Shade

      In this case, I don’t think Joyce’s mom’s words are religious in origins, more a parental thing. You could ask most any responsible parent, they will probably tell you something very similar: they would do just about anything to protect their children, up to and including dying if they thought it was necessary. Ross, according to what he believed, thought this was necessary.

      It doesn’t make it any less wrong, and most parents I know would not see Becky’s orientation as a threat to her. I believe the saying is “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”

      1. thejeff

        Absolutely religious in origin. The more common parental reaction would be something like “How could he do that to his own daughter!”
        Here the religious aspect pushes part of the blame on Becky for being an evil lesbian and making Ross go to such extremes to try to save her from herself.

        1. Leorale

          Nonreligious people do that part too, unfortunately. It’s because people deeply want to believe that the world is just, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. Except, then, that’s not how the world is, and so there are big problems about that!

          But we’re digressing. In this particular case, it’s religious in origin. Specifically, Joycemom’s religion.

        2. thejeff

          It’s a good thing the world isn’t just. Imagine knowing you deserved all the crap that happens to you.

        3. Leorale

          I’d like to think that fewer crappy things would happen!

    2. Silamy

      No. Bullshit. I was raised religious, and in my family, that meant being raised to believe that if your religion is hurting people; if you are hurting people just because of your religion -you’re doing it wrong. That we were put here on this earth to make it better, that the world is flawed and by pursuing knowledge and helping one another we can make tiny steps toward that ultimate goal. I may be agnostic now, but I’m still practicing, and still traditional. Because even if I DON’T believe in some sort of invisible sky-dude who gave us a bunch of convoluted laws, the moral of “love, learn, and help one another” seems like a decent general philosophy.

      1. Silamy

        I am sorry for the knee-jerk reaction. Just… my religious upbringing taught me to cherish and accept people, and for years people around me, upon finding out that I’m religious, would IMMEDIATELY start telling me I was prejudiced and needed to stop hating people and was morally bankrupt without ever listening to what I believe or why -just leaping to the conclusion that my unwillingness to automatically declare any faith “wrong” meant that I was a bad person.

        1. Disloyal Subject

          Knee-jerk or not, it needed to be said, and the passion you put into it helped illustrate the point very clearly.

      2. Jonathan S.

        “Sin lies in hurting others unnecessarily. All other ‘sins’ are invented nonsense.” – Robert A. Heinlein

        1. Silamy

          Not gonna argue that one. A person’s religion is between them and their god(s) and if they don’t have one, that’s STILL not something that’s relevant to anyone else. I don’t eat pork or shellfish for religious reasons. Doesn’t mean I think anyone else can’t or shouldn’t -regardless of whether or not they’re of my faith -or even from my community. Doesn’t mean I care if someone eats it in front of me. Because it’s personal, and it’s personal to another person whose life is none of my business unless they want it to be, and often not even then.

    3. Rukduk

      All depends on the brand of religion. Most normal modern (moderate and liberal) denominations of faith are firmly against this type of reasoning. It’s conservative and more “cultic” takes on religion that encourage the sort of thinking Joyce’s mom is partaking in. Which is a surprisingly large minority of American people of faith.

  71. Dana

    I was so hoping joyce looked surprised because Joycelyn saw the news first.
    “it’s joshua, Calling to make sure you’re okay. I want you to know I’m here if things go badly with mom and dad. When this has calms down I have something to talk to you about”

    1. Kateastrophe

      I really hope this leads to Jocelyne realizing she can start to talk to Joyce about some of these things. That not everyone in her family would ostracize her. Because I think Joyce is at her most rebellious and most receptive now, and the things she thought were true and right about her home and family are all turning out to be untrue. At least one of those could be really positive.

      She has a sister and she doesn’t even know it. I think Joyce would be the best little sister a woman could have.

  72. Victor Riley

    Okay, Joyce is either starting to actually think that Ross wasn’t bad, and is feeling an incredible wave of guilt… or she’s realizing that she can’t trust her own mother, because she’s making excuses for an abuser. My guess is “B”.

    1. dailybrad

      Absolutely, it is B. I think she is disgusted with what her mother is saying, and judging by the look of anger in the last panel, has probably lost a significant amount of respect for her.

  73. WikiDreamer

    And another foul mouthed Joyce in 5…4…3…2…
    Please, make it so Willis. Please make it so.

    1. Rukduk

      If there was ever a moment for Joyce to say “Well shit” this is the moment.

      1. Kirby

        For comedy, sure, but I don’t think it’s very in character for Joyce. I think, if she’s in the comic at all (if he doesn’t time skip, which he probably will), it’ll be four wordless panels as the crying starts to get worse.

  74. Snap

    Oh hey almost exact conversation I’ve had with my mom more than once, how’d you get here? Isn’t it fun how fundamentalists and hardcore Catholics can agree on some things, like using this kinda phrasing/argument, despite their differences? (Eurgh)

  75. Xain

    Willis proving sometimes a parents loves can sometime be just as toxic as there malicious intent. I’d say toe dad ended up being worse than Blaine because he did care in the worst way possible, because he did seem to worry about his daughters well bring while completely ignoring and shaming her being herself.

    1. Kateastrophe

      He loved the idea of his daughter. He didn’t (doesn’t, will probably never) love the real Becky.

  76. Kraken

    hashtag wrong mom

  77. Kateastrophe

    Man, I’m glad my parents were older when they had me. My very religious dad and I will never agree on certain things, but by the time I came out as queer, he’d already had to reconcile his beliefs to some pretty incompatible shit (his younger brother was openly gay in the middle of the AIDs crisis, my mom was a divorced woman with several children out of wedlock, his stepdaughter was a wiccan). I know he still worries about my soul (my mom told me that he was “devastated” when I came out, but he never let it show to me). But he had the sort of real life exposure Joyce is getting now. He figured out how to reconcile his love for his sinner daughter to his faith really quickly. He’s as supportive as I could possibly expect now.

    I’m just super glad I didn’t have Becky’s life.

  78. lordmazapan91

    And this is the beginning of a mom issue.

  79. Palamdrone

    Doing horrible thinks isn’t so bad if you think you’re doing the right thing. Its the thought that counts.

    1. Amias

      They are still horrible things. To be honest, I think threatening your daughter (and several students on a college campus) with a gun – that’s inexcusable. That’s the makings of a mass shooting, right there. The thought isn’t the only thing that counts.

      1. Boxilar

        Honestly, the only thing that kept it from being a mass shooting is that Ross is a Fudd and only brought a single shot rifle.

      2. anna

        He did it in the name of God, and that makes anything excusable.

        Seriously. Read the Bible. Count how many times people get killed in the name of God. See how the Bible glorifies such things. Killing in the name of God is literally built into every Abrahamic religion.

        Nowadays, we comfort ourselves by telling ourselves that those who kill in the name of God are extremists, practicing some unusual form of religion… in truth, they are merely taking the Bible literally.

        Scary, isn’t it?

        1. Disloyal Subject

          Scary? It really is.
          Bringing it up in ‘polite’ company tends to get one shunned, though.

        2. SDGlyph

          I really wish that people would stop believing the fundies who insist that their way of reading the Bible is the correct way and everyone else is ignoring the Plain Literal Truth Of Scripture. Seriously people, they’re wrong about basically everything else, what makes you think they’re hermeneutic experts?

    2. Lord Stoneheart

      I guess doing something horrible with intentions that you think are right is better than doing something equally horrible with malicious intent. But uh, the thought doesn’t count nearly as much as the actions do in this situation.

  80. podian

    Faces of an average DoA reader.

  81. Amias

    Alt text: “well if that’s love it comes at much too high a cost”

    Wicked was always meant to be an allegory for the outcasts of society. Such a good musical.

    Just leave it alone, Mrs. Brown.

  82. Palamdrone

    And when I say “I’d die for you”, I mean I’d kill everything you hold dear.

  83. Varius

    Wait. Joyce’s profile says she likes sparkly vampires. Isn’t that against her religion?

    1. Viktoria

      Twilight is an allegory for Christianity(specifically Mormonism but we can overlook that) where waiting until marriage is praised, abortion is condemned, girls listen to the men in their lives, and the elders are always right. It’s actually fairly accepted in many religious circles.

      1. SDGlyph

        And yet Harry Potter, which is all about love, sacrifice and relationship, is of the devil because it features witches and magic. Go figure.

        1. Jason

          Also women kicking butt and individuals persistently challenging authority, etc.

  84. Aislashu

    May Joyce’s mom never, EVER find out about Jocelyn. Never.

    1. Yossarianduck

      Comment/profile synergy!

      But seriously, the more I think about Joscelyn and the rest of her family, the sadder I get.

      Please please please, get out of there.

    2. DarkoNeko

      Oh, she definitly will. That’s the sorta stuff this comic’s for after all.

  85. Cerberus

    Panels 1-3:
    Aww, Joyce’s mom is full of genuine concern and love for her daughter, ignoring… (huh, come to think of it, this doesn’t fully seem to be responding to her message which means that there might be a considerably less loving message back her way in the future). But anyways, it’s what you want to see, despite the religious background, Joyce’s parents do love her and want to support her and aren’t so far gone as to align themselves behind Toedad’s heinous actions. And Joyce looks so happy to receive her parents love and respect. She’s melting away all her anger. It’s beautiful.

    Brain: And that’s it, we’re done, go to sleep. No more comic to read.

    Huh, weird, anyways, Panel 4:
    Oh. Oh fuck. No. Carol, that’s a cliff face. Carol, please step away from the edge. Joyce is starting to well up with tears. You are trodding into serious trigger territory here and need to remember that this was the man who used a gun on your daughter’s campus against her childhood friend and your own daughter. I don’t care what your interpretation of the Bible says, you need to live by the standards you promised her in Panels 1-3. Damn you.

    Brain: Woof, rough last panel, but at least it’s over, right?

    Nooo… so Panel 5:
    … nooooo. Joyce looks so sad and is so devastated and emotionally abandoned in a moment of such critical need. This could become a gapping wound between you Carol. I know you are just trying to weave a narrow road between condemning his actions and yanno, not actually condemning his actions, but you’re dropping off into no man’s land with this crap and just tap-dancing willy-nilly all over her fresh trauma wounds. You have no idea because it’s only over the phone just how triggered and horrified your daughter is right now over what you are saying and how fucked up your words are in the context of regular every day humanity.

    Brain: But at least it can’t get any worse. It just ends there. Everyone goes home. Pack it in people.

    … Panel 6:
    And the covenant of the close bond between daughter and mother is fragmented and shattered. On it’s own, it’s not the worst sentiment in the universe and there’s some small fragment of forgiveness for Carol in that she can’t see her daughter’s reactions and has no idea how triggering her words are and how toxic her attitudes on queerness are to not only this daughter, but the daughter she doesn’t know she has. But still. This is noticing the drink was spiked in verbal form. Just utter devastation and another level of pain she wasn’t at all prepared for.

    I mean, look at her face. There’s no way she’s not replaying this moment at the fountain over and over again with her mother’s face shifting in and out of Toedad’s:
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/troopers/
    And realizing without a shadow of a doubt that Toedad is how she was raised working as intended rather than a horrible Toe-shaped accident.

    It’s legitimately heartbreaking because Carol may never realize how much this moment will color, scar, and begin a slow drifting apart for her relationship with her daughter. And even more heartbreakingly, she may never even view it as something to notice, even if Joyce points it out later.

    1. Lord Stoneheart

      Excellent analysis as always. I just wanted to add that I’m almost positive that Carol didn’t get Joyce’s voicemail. Especially if they are calling cell to cell, considering how fast Carol responded right after the missed call.

      1. StClair

        Agreed on all points.

      2. JQuire

        I thought that at first, but then in panel 2 – it sounds like Carol didn’t believe what she was hearing on the news, but the voicemail confirmed it?

        But then, the flow of time in-comic is challenging to track….

    2. Kirby

      If the image of Joyce’s father showing up on campus is any indication (preview panels Willis posted to Tumblr), I get the feeling Joyce is about to stop, or at least avoid, taking her parents’ calls.

      And an excellent analysis indeed.

    3. Bagge

      Yeah, I wish I had listened to my brain and stopped ahead.

      Poor Joyce. It’s not a gun, no one is being pulled from school or kidnapped or put in a car crash, but the horror of her realization in the last panel is just too real.

  86. saki

    Aah… I knew the beginning of that conversation was too good to be true.

    1. saki

      Joyce will never be able to hear the words “I would die for you” without feeling a pain in her chest anymore.

      1. LiamKav

        It’s not a phrase that’s said too often, thankfully. I don’t even understand it as a loving sentiment. If my parents or wife ever said “I’d die for you”, I’d be really freaked out. It’s not a thing normal people say.

        1. saki

          True. But it is said in fictional settings though; movies, songs, books.

  87. Historyman68

    Trying to figure out if the alt text is from a song- if so, the next line must end with “embossed.”

    1. saki

      Actually, the line that came before was “Too long I’ve been afraid of loosing love, I guess I’ve lost”.
      The Defying Gravity is strong is this story line.

      1. DinaWho

        Which makes sense, given the title. 😀

        1. saki

          Indeed. ^^

    2. Linkara

      It’s the song “Defying Gravity” from Wicked.

  88. Professor Fate

    So, in essence, what Mom is saying is that in terms of Christianity, the end justifies the means. Or, to paraphrase Barry Goldwater: “Extremism in the defense of Christianity is no vice.” Man, that is one screwed up belief system.

  89. Allison

    Excellent use of Wicked lyrics, Willis. I approve.

  90. Mr. Random

    Honestly? Yeah. At least he thought he was helping his daughter. He legitamitely thought he was doing it all for her wellbeing.
    But.
    But.
    But.
    You know better. Based on what she says, yeah, she knows it’s wrong. And says that if she thought doing the same would save Joyce’s life, she’d do it.
    …
    …
    …
    A striking sentiment. To mean you’d do anything for family. But I can’t figure out why she’s saying this?
    Is she trying to comfort Joyce? By having her daughter picture her doing the same things for her?
    Honestly?
    I think the mom’s having a bit of a crisis too. Trying to hold on to her faith, distance herself from Toedad, recognize what he did was wrong, while thinking why he did it was right, all while trying to make sure her own daughter is okay and comforting her.

    As hard as it might be, she needs to take a minute. Collect herself and comfort Joyce like she was in the beginning of this strip.
    Which is probably impossible because that’d be asking a parent who loves their child to not talk to them after a horror show went on in front of them.
    .
    .
    .
    I guess what I’m saying here is. Don’t think of her as a bad mother. She is for a few reasons we saw back in the family weekend arc, but here?
    She seems to be a human being trying to piece together what her faith forced someone to do, her own principles, and her love for her daughter all in a few seconds of getting confirmation of everything.

    1. Z2

      I think she’s saying that she’d die for Joyce to DISTANCE herself from Ross. A sort of plea to not let Becky’s situation sour her on her own parents just because of their similar backgrounds.

      1. Gordon

        Given the passive aggressive prayer over Joyce’s friendship with Dorothy and “Making the right choices,” I highly doubt that she’s that self-aware.

    2. BenRG

      Ross took Joyce and Becky to Six Flags; that isn’t something that you’d let just anyone do. It’s obvious that Hank and Carol implicitly trusted him. So, they’re struggling to reconcile the good Christian man with the crazed gunman that the TV news is talking about. That’s tough and I can’t blame them for being confused and upset, especially given how this has dragged Joyce into its whirlpool of madness.

      That said, Carol has really failed at empathy here. It sounds a lot like she’s trying to justify Ross’s actions to Joyce and implying that she’d do the same thing. I don’t think that is her intention but it is the worst timing and the worst possible thing to say.

      It’s in Joyce’s nature to forgive and I think she’ll forgive her mother in time. However, there is going to be a long, dark, awful chilly period before then.

    3. Disloyal Subject

      Well put… but while faith may have driven Ross down the path he chose, he was still the one taking each step along it.

  91. tim gueguen

    Tonight’s comment thread made me listen to Manfred Mann’s “Don’t Kill It, Carol.”

  92. NF

    Oh no, poor Joyce.

  93. Z2

    I want to side with the mom here, since Toedad is her longtime friend and she’s clearly doing this because she doesn’t want to think the worst of anybody and doesn’t want Joyce to denounce the incident as Ross just being an evil man; but DAMN, woman, time and a place. Joyce is traumatized and at the height of emotion, and you don’t fix that by making points about the incident.

  94. AeroQC

    Uuuuuuhhhh! Dammit Mom!

  95. General Tekno

    So wait, is it Joyce or Becky who’s going to get fake melted in the third act?

    I hope she’s happy.

    (NO ONE MOURNS THE WICKED)

    1. saki

      Can’t say, but for sure Joyce’s parents will be mad that she not only helped Becky out, but freaking PUNCHED a guy. No good deed goes unpunished.

      1. DarkoNeko

        oh they’ll be pissed at the hospital bill, seeing it’s the US.

  96. Plasma Mongoose

    WWJCS?

    1. Disloyal Subject

      I’m thinking it’s time for a table flip.

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        Jack Chick would table-flip?
        ༼ ᕤ ºل͟º ༽ᕤ ︵┻━┻

      2. Carolyn

        Whenever I hear the phrase “What would Jesus do?” I keep in mind that flipping tables and chasing people with a whip is technically an option.

  97. Spidergirl

    Ah, yes, the realization that your mom’s not a perfect human being. I know that one well.
    Of course, for me, my realization is that my mother, who’d been my emotional rock for my entire life, is mentally ill and has a ton of abandonment issues stemming from her bio dad leaving her at the age of two, and yet in spite of (or perhaps because of) that, is still a wonderful person.
    I don’t think that’s the conclusion Joyce is coming to here.

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      Joyce is pretty late to that realization then, normally you realise that by the time you hit puberty if not sooner.

      1. Lord Stoneheart

        I think Joyce hit the realization that her mom wasn’t perfect back during the family weekend. This realization here goes a bit beyond that.

  98. Shanunu

    Are we just gonna see the entire lyrics of defying gravity in this arc

  99. syd

    Carol… you were doing quite well…

    And then … you weren’t

    1. Spidergirl

      I was expecting it and I’m still disappointed!

  100. MrSpkr

    Panel six is that look you get when you open up a care package from home and discover that the cookies are stale and there’s no money enclosed.

  101. Dave1135

    We all willingly got on this merry go round at the start, and enjoyed the ride. Now that Willis has taken the gloves off and cranked the speed to full tilt boogie, we’re all stuck and just have to hang on until the end. God help us, everyone. 🙂

  102. Ryan

    It could be worse. My friend’s mom once told her that her relationship with God was more important to her than her relationship with her family members, and she would sacrifice the latter for the sake of the former if she had to choose one or the other. I’m not really sure how common that sentiment is among Christians, but it struck me as a really hurtful thing to say.

    1. Petra

      Well, that’s the Old Testament Way! See the story of Abraham almost human sacrificing his son Issac for God just bc God told him to. God is SUPPOSED to be the most important relationship in your life, but it’s not like you’re not supposed to have strong relationships with actual human beings, too, and frankly, if God is all he’s cracked up to be, I think he’d forgive me if I focused on my family.

      1. Jenny Islander

        Or the lesson of that story is that Abraham, who had been unafraid to argue with God in the interests of love,* wussed out and failed this particular test. People have been arguing about that for millennia.

        Anyway, I predict that the next conversation with Joyce’s mom will involve her listing all the Right Things that Toedad has done (said the Right Prayer and put his daughter in the Right School and tithed the Right Amount and gone to church the Right Amount of Times Per Week and so forth) that prove that he couldn’t possibly have meant anything, you know, wrong, when he pointed a gun at his child.

        And if his name turns out to be Abe I may dance around the room like Snoopy.

        *God: “I’m going to fry that town because that town is full of scumbags.” (Not Teh Ghey, BTW: absolute scumbaggery toward their fellow human beings is the explicitly stated reason right in the Bible why the town got fried. It’s in Isaiah someplace.)

        Abraham: “I have family in that town! So if there are, um, 40 decent people there, would you not fry it?”

        God: “OK, OK, if I can find 40 decent people, I won’t fry it.”

        Abraham then argues God down to smaller and smaller numbers, like an auction in reverse.

        1. Agemegos

          His name is Ross, isn’t it?

          The thing with Abraham bargaining with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:23–33) ended with God sending in angels to remove the one righteous man (Lot) and three righteous women (his wife and daughters) to safety and then destroying the place(s).

          As for the nature of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, there are about seven different statements in different parts of the Bible: Genesis 19:4-5, Isaiah 1:10-17, Ezekiel 16:49-50, Jeremiah 23:14, Wisdom 19:13, 2 Peter 2:5-9, Jude 7. According to Isaiah and Ezekiel it was pride, wealth, laziness, and failure to take care of the poor and needy — Ezekiel throws in a garnish of “abomination”. The rest of the passages are about abomination, immorality, adultery, “going after strange flesh”, filthy conservation, ungodly living, lying, and failing to punish the unjust.

        2. Agemegos

          “Filthy conversation”, not “filthy conservation”. Sorry.

        3. DarkoNeko

          > “going after strange flesh”
          so, goats and other animals ?

      2. Ryan

        This was not covered in the children’s picture-book version of the bible, which is the only version I’ve ever read (when I was really young).

      3. Yet Another Laura H.

        Not just Old Testament. Look up Luke 14:26, which explicitly tells you to hate your family for Jesus.

  103. Just Me

    At first I thought, yes, see, she was worried. … then Joyce’s Mom had to blow it and revert back to the Stepford Mom persona.

  104. David

    If you love somebody, strangle her before she gets away.

  105. Bleu

    I really hope to god she says ‘So you were okay with the idea that he was going to SHOOT me and Becky?!’

    1. David

      Well, it would have been for their best, wouldn’t it? They’d have gotten into heaven before committing irredeemable sins.

  106. Bagge

    In general children wants their parent to LIVE for them, not DIE for them…

    1. Agemegos

      Yep. Dying for someone is dramatic, but very seldom useful. I’d rather have someone who would share their umbrella.

      1. David

        You cannot found a religion on “Brian who shared his umbrella for our sins”. Even though the right kind of umbrella might be pretty useful when you are about to get stoned.

        1. Agemegos

          Indeed not. And I’m happy with that.

  107. HiiroArana79

    Man, why doesn’t Joyce ever think of someone besides herself?!

  108. ninja_jesus

    My mother wasn’t this terrible. The worst she ever said was that she assumed that if I didn’t believe in God, then I wouldn’t care about/pray for her when she was on her death bed. 17-year-old me was fucked up by that, reduced me to tears and everything. At least she finally understood how fucked up her logic was.

    For Joyce’s mom, I can see this happening similarly, with more dramatic outcomes. Carol doesn’t mean to defend Ross’ actions; she’s acknowledging and sympathizing with the “passion” behind it. Even then, her perspective is misguided; Carol has no clue how controlling and destructive and selfish Ross’ motivations were, or even what they were to begin with. Or if she does know, she’s purposefully ignoring its negative ramifications on Becky and Joyce in favor of the “positive”.

    Either way, I don’t think Joyce likes her parents right now, and won’t for a while until the issue is talked out.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      Ouch. I’m sorry you had to hear that from your own mother.
      I’ve been lucky enough to only run across that mindset a handful of times in my life, so it wasn’t until reading a particular DoA strip that I even started to understand how people can think that way. It just seems like such a non-sequitur.

      1. ninja_jesus

        Yeah, my mom used to be a hardcore Catholic and still kind of is, but she became more open-minded the older I got. That being said, dure the time of this incident, I had recently renounced my faith and was kinda being a little shit about it, condescending attitude and all.

        1. Disloyal Subject

          Fuck. The ‘teenaged little shit’ stage is painful enough without religious differences, especially when parents assume they know one’s motives and drop guilt bombs like that.
          Incentive to avoid repeating the mistakes of our forbears, I guess.

    2. saki

      It’s not really surprising that Carol wouldn’t understand the controlling nature of Ross’s motivation. Their entire fundie bubble relies on control of each other. It’s how they keep it from bursting. I don’t think Carol will see anything wrong with Ross taking his daughter out of school and then trying to kidnap her. The only reason she has to condemn him is the gun part. That, and threatening her own daughter.

  109. BenRG

    Hearing her mother parrot Ross’s words and attitudes is exactly the last thing that Joyce needed to hear and I can’t help but be surprised that Carol would be stupid enough to do that. I mean, she is apparently aware of what Ross did and she actually wants to defend that to someone he threatened?

    Sometimes, I hate being right.

    Note on the art for this strip: At first, I thought that Joyce’s ‘phone has a wrist-strap. Then I realised I was looking at the front end of the surgical brace she has on her arm!

    1. Agemegos

      We don’t know what Carol knows. She is probably relying on a highly-politicised news source and the self-congratulatory chatter of her circle of co-religionists.

    2. saki

      There is no way Carol knows Ross said those words.
      My interpretation of her saying that is that she’s trying to distance herself from him, by insisting -she- would die for her daughter, as opposed to what he did to his, having no idea that that sentiment is what Ross used to justify his destructive and abusive behaviour.

  110. Petra

    God, poor Joyce.

    Dear Carol, there is more to being a mother than hypothetically dying for your child while ripping them up emotionally. I wouldn’t expect you to be over your homophobia right away. Joyce sure wasn’t, although she had a quick turnaround, and it took me a while to shed my mild religious homophobia, as well. The difference, Carol, is that you’re not even trying. You’re not seeing a daughter who defended her best friend, you’re not seeing a homeless teenager cast aside, all you’re seeing is rightousness. For the sake of all your kids, I hope you can get your head out of your ass.

    1. Yet Another Laura H.

      Speaking as a mom? If it came down to it, even if I Believed, for my daughter, I would renounce my views of this world and my chance at heaven if the alternative were putting her through the kind of hell that Joyce is going through. I think, at bottom, all mothers feel like this, it just gets subverted sometimes. For this very reason, Kohlberg said women are not capable of true morality. Well, if that’s “morality,” it comes at much too high a cost…

      1. Petra

        Ha, like fathers wouldn’t do the same? I suppose if a man wasn’t particularly involved with childrearing, that might be more of a distinction, but that’s such a weird philosophy from Kohlberg.

        I don’t have kids of my own, although I want to adopt some day. I’d go through a lot of pain for my siblings, though, or my parents.

        1. Yet Another Laura H.

          Oh, no, didn’t mean to say fathers wouldn’t! Just that Kohlberg says that men have the capacity to put principles over people, which is the highest morality in his book. Me, I am not sure, but I’m just alJill Schmill.

  111. A Scientist

    This was so promising at the start. Then everything rapidly fell apart.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

      1. hof1991

        Live on hope and you’ll die of starvation.

  112. Raibean

    Why do people think that intent changes the outcome

    1. Agemegos

      Because it’s an effectively manipulative tactic.

    2. SDGlyph

      Because it’s an effective way to insulate themselves from having to confront the idea that someone they like might be a bad person, and thus that they themselves might have unexamined character flaws.

      (* NB: Obviously intent doesn’t change the outcome, but I hold that it’s still relevant. After the harm itself is stopped – which should always be the first priority – I think it matters whether the person intended to cause harm.)

      1. MrZombieScordo

        I agree that intent can matter, but it is not relevant in this setting. He brought a gun. he intended to hurt or coerce people with deadly violence. a better way to phrase tho OP might be “Why do people think their reasoning matters in the face of the outcome?”

    3. Smiling Cat

      Intent can matter. People make mistakes. It happens.

      It’s irrelevant in this case anyway. Toedad didn’t want to save his daughter, he wanted to control her. To the point that her life was less important than surrendering that control. Everything he said about God and salvation? Just excuses to justify his actions to himself, even if he wouldn’t admit it. His intent was inherently malicious, in the way that spawns such pleasant terms as “honor killing” or “corrective rape” (google them if you want to feel despair).

      It’s the perceived intent, what other people are willing to believe was his reasonings, that people trip over. Joyce’s mother says it herself in the strip. She saw it on the news but didn’t want to believe it. Even hearing it from Joyce she doesn’t really want to believe it, looking for justifications to the point where she starts falling into the same trap.

      1. Jason

        Absolutely, totally agree, especially on your points about Toedad.

  113. Kuroneko

    It seems to me like Carol had no idea of what Toedad said to Becky – the whole “I’d die for you” thing I mean. That would have gotten to me too!

    1. David

      Well, that’s the problem, right? The problem is not that Carol is able to put herself in Ross’ shoes if she musters all the compassion she is capable of. The problem is that Ross’ shoes fit her like a glove.

      1. ninja_jesus

        “What’s she doing putting shoes on her hands?” is the real question.

    2. Bicycle Bill

      Shoes that fit like a glove are a real thing.

  114. Jhennaside

    I know that feel.

    My parents… yeah.

    I hate reading all the venom Joyce was getting before. I get it, she was being closed-minded and all, but this is a story about her becoming more than what she was taught, give her time. I also enjoy that Willis isn’t having her suddenly be perfect, she has made some mistakes along the way to figuring out how she feels about things and what she believes.

    It isn’t an easy road. I’m enjoying watching Joyce travel this path- even when it is cringe-worthy.

    Good job, Willis, on making the audience go from, “Ugh, Joyce!” to “Aw, Joyce…”

    1. Liokae

      Mn… I’ve never really been on the “Ugh, Joyce” ride. The main thing to notice with her is that every single time she’s been directly confronted with how the morals she was raised with actually affect real people… she’s accepted it, and changed her view, rather than trying to force reality into being what she was told.

      1. DarkoNeko

        Why did I just have an urge to go “unlike Mary”. Uh, why. What has this comic done to meeee

  115. Rex Vivat

    To be honest, this was more or less what I was hoping for. I mean, sure, it would have been better if the conversation was different after the first three panels, but not especially believable. This was the best possible response I actually dared to expect.

  116. cricricri13

    I think Joyce’s face on those 3 last pannels really tells EVERYTHING. Great job conveying emotion here.

  117. GhostWriterL

    I’d probably start flipping out if I had been through what Joyce has gone through and someone tried to justify what the person who threatened me did was all for “the right reasons”. They’d probably hear cursewords that haven’t been invented yet and hear what a smartphone sounds like being thrown against a concrete wall.

    Seriously, what a clueless thing to say, but I can’t say I expected much else from the character Carol. She never questions what she says before she says it because she’s a “good Christian” and thus never has to because “God totally makes sure everything -I- do is right because I’m such a good person and follow all his rules!”.

  118. AutobotDen

    Carol needs to stop talking. or be told to shut the fuck up. or both. Both is good.

    1. Marie

      Oh man what if Sarah grabbed the phone

      If it wasn’t for the comic two days ago I’d believe it.

  119. NoHeart6265

    Ughhhh. Goddammit Carol (I’m not apologizing)! While you certainly have a point here there is a time and a place to tell this to your daughter who, need I remind you (because it apparently hasn’t sunken in yet), has had her life threatened by a man whom she trusted. She had a gun pointed at her and her best friend be very nearly kidnapped all in the name of what said man believed was “doing the right thing”. Just wait until you see your daughter to talk about this. Give her some time, and then do this face to face for god’s sake!

  120. Beachfox

    This is just… Awful.
    It reminds me of my mother-in-law. And why only the step-mother-in-law is in our wills.

  121. chromacandi

    Protip: First thing you say to your daughter after she is held at gunpoint should not be to justify why it was okay for the man to hold her at gunpoint

  122. Kaziel

    That simultaneously both went better and worse than I expected. Hooray?

  123. SDGlyph

    Oh, Carol. God damnit, stop for a second and think about what you’re saying.

  124. Chronos

    Yeah, that’s about what I expected from her parents. The alt text is so fitting.

  125. Skizz

    Maybe this will inspire Joyce to do something actually positive, just to show her Mum. Like declaring a major rather than look for the next Christian husband. Look what it has taken for Joyce to respind like this. Can you really blame her mother for not having caught up?

    Mum asked about Joyce and wanted to come take care of her. First. Then retreated to hicktown Christian mum.

    1. Marie

      “FUDGE this, I’m being a scientist too, dammit!”

      [I maintain that just because she’s broken the swear dam doesn’t mean she’ll use the worser swears all the time]

      1. Skizz

        She will show those B-hole sugarheads!!

  126. MrZombieScordo

    Reading this I was like “Oh yay, her mom’s being aweso- oh crap, oh please stop talking. damn.”

  127. CianM1301

    Well, if that’s not an eye-opener to Joyce, I don’t know what is. The fact that her parents are siding with the man who PULLED A GUN ON THEIR DAUGHTER just to preserve their own beliefs goes to show what their priorities are.

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      Ya I mean like the fuck lady are you not even made right now?

  128. Kaos

    … “at least he was doing good.” fuck no. What he did. attempting to put her in a camp that could have drove her to insanity or worser. it is NOT good. You gotta to be a monster to send your OWN kids to these place!!
    these anti gay camps can’t be legal. can they?
    what NeXT? Anti handicap camps? grrr.
    I got a better idea.. let’s make an anti stupidity camp for these horrible parents,

    1. Marie

      Anti handicap camps were a thing, they were called asylums. Shit, someone in my middle school had cerebral palsy that put him in a wheelchair but otherwise didn’t much effect him, and doctors suggested he be institutionalized. In 1993, at the very earliest.

    2. Smiling Cat

      In the united states, “conversion therapy” is legally limited to “counseling, visualization, social skills training, psychoanalytic therapy, and spiritual interventions ” and has been since 1981. It is also outright illegal to use on minors in a few states.

      Of course that also means it is legal for minors in the vast majority of US states, and the psychological damage that can come with such psuedo-counseling is considerable. This is still a significant improvement over past practices. Before 1973 it was considered a valid “treatment” for homosexuality to drive an icepick into the brain.

      1. DarkoNeko

        not”spiritual interventions” sounds pretty scary.

        1. Smiling Cat

          without any direct experience, I have to assume it’s a lot of peer pressure and emotional blackmail.

      2. Kaos

        What? for real? damn. I may not be an Expert in Laws. but even i can see it leaves plently of room for loopholes in that law.
        So that law will be changed so it can’t be misused or is it unlikely? I am not an American but i don’t think these camps exists just in USA but in the entire World.

        1. Smiling Cat

          I’d say it will gradually change on a state by state basis. It is defined with sufficient ambiguity, however, that nailing down what you’re banning is difficult.

    3. BenRG

      They aren’t identified as such. They’re presented as self-help and spiritual development institutions. No-one ever mentions that the people are there against their will (in the vast majority of cases). Usually the owners/operators are too politically and socially well-connected on local and sometimes even state levels to touch so no-one dares challenge them anyway.

    4. SDGlyph

      Look up Exodus International for a prime example of how this worked. (Thankfully, the directors of Exodus eventually repented, shut down the ‘ministry’ and issued an official apology to the gay community for the harm they had caused.)

  129. Marie

    On the mentions of Jocelyn, she must be pretty freaked out. I mean, she has access to the news too, and her sister (and sister’s childhood friend) being in mortal danger plus knowing that someone from her parents’ town did this must both be super scary (probably primarily Joyce until she hears Joyce is okay, then mounting fear about the other part, because even if she knew they were awful extremists I doubt she saw that degree realized before).

    Also poor Jocelyn if her mom phones to tell her she called Joyce and Joyce is fine, and does any gossiping about it (or about Joyce’s message).

    But, one good thing: Jocelyn almost certainly has Joyce’s phone number herself.
    (side good thing: Ethan also has Jocelyn’s number, and may encourage her getting involved- hell, Jocelyn could feasibly fearfully contact him first because indirect contact is better than hearing Joyce’s phone ring and her not picking up after seeing this mess on the news)

  130. BenRG

    The reason I don’t like the phrase ‘I would die for you’ is the unspoken addition that seems to be added in far too many cases of ‘therefore you must do exactly what I day and accept my judgement in all cases’.

    1. JQuire

      “I would die for you”

      See also:
      “Because I’m your mother and I love you…”
      “I would sooner cut off my own finger than lose you…”
      “You’re like a part of my body…”

      Entry from The Thesaurus of Maternal Emotional Blackmail (2015 ed.)

    2. Petra

      Agreed. There’s nothing wrong with a parent being willing to die for their child if push comes to shove. There’s a lot wrong with a parent using this hypothetical to control their child.

  131. Jack Faire

    Oh hello mom? Oh you’re a psycho too? Good we won’t be speaking for awhile at all please get yourself counseling before you end up in the bell tower “saving souls” or whatever.

  132. Davecom3

    Seriously, if my mom or dad ever said that, I’d have responded something like, “You really think I’d want that? I don’t want your death on my conscience. You might live for me, but dying for me is straight out of the question. It’s not like in three days you’re going to rise from the dead.”

    1. Davecom3

      And if they said that somebody was doing something wrong simply because they felt it was right and told me to put myself in their shoes, I’d have told them that there would be no way I was in his shoes in the first place. My beliefs just totally conflict with that guy’s. You’re not going to say that at least a serial killer thought he was doing the right thing, so put yourself in a serial killer’s shoes.

    2. DarkoNeko

      it’s pretty easy to say “I’d have responded that” when you can calmly analyse the situation from outside.
      Being taken by surprise, first hand against that, fares less well.

    3. Agemegos

      I would just have been flabbergasted that either of them would say anything so stupid. What possible point is there in dying for me? I didn’t need them dead. Baking a cake for me or running an errand for me at least makes sense. Dying for me is like, I dunno, burning my house down for me or hitting me with a four-by-two for me. I didn’t want my parents dead: how would their dying have been a service?

  133. Pierre-Eric

    Of all the unrealistic things in the last few strips I think this is the most unrealistic one.

    Yeah my mom too would have died for me… and in the end she died and could not be a donor. I did get transplant a couple months later anyway though. So the “I’d die for you” part? Yeah, I totally get that.

    What I don’t get is how a mother could defend the asshole who waved a gun in her daughter’s face. My mom woulda dreamed about ripping him apart limbs from limbs And I totally get that too.

    1. BenRG

      Unfortunately, it isn’t. You’d be surprised how common it is for people to put community before family.

      People have this tendency to assume that, because a malefactor is a ‘good Christian man’, or some variant of that, it is completely impossible that he would do something so wrong. Therefore this has to be a terrible misunderstanding and that he or she wasn’t really in the wrong.

      The thing is that this sort of thing happens all the time. It’s a nasty human weakness we have to prefer to create improbable justifications for wrongdoing so that we don’t have to admit that we were wrong about someone or some culture or political movement all along.

      1. spiderfan14

        there’s been many studies showing that the Orthodox Judaism community in New York and London have been covering up a lot of sexual abuse, even having their lousy “courts” pretty much do a half assed job in investigating.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse_cases_in_Brooklyn%27s_Haredi_community

        http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/19/rabbis-absolute-power-how-sex-abuse-tore-apart-australias-orthodox-jewish-community

        http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/outcast-3

    2. Chubsius

      Unfortunately, very much realistic.

      https://twitter.com/damnyouwillis/status/669022221738856448

    3. jaymiechan

      So much more realistic than you think: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/missouri-townspeople-shun-sex-abuse-victim-as-a-liar-even-after-good-man-admits-to-raping-her/

    4. Will

      You do realize your mom is not everyone else’s mom, right? There’s not a single, universal mold from where every mother on the world is made. Mothers are people, too.

      Joyce’s mom is based on Willis’s mom, not on yours. Don’t try saying to him the things he (and dozen of other people who read this comic daily), has heard his whole life are “unrealistic”.

      Your mom sounds very much like mine. We’re the lucky ones, Pierre.

    5. SDGlyph

      Please, read this. Note the second tag.

    6. Jason

      A lot of commenters have basically said they agree with her point, but not with how and when she brought it up. So yeah. Definitely people who find this defensible… Somehow.

    7. Smiling Cat

      To be honest, I thought Joyce’s mom transitioning from justifying to emotional blackmail was a bit abrupt, from a storytelling standpoint.

      After reading Willis’ tumblr post, however, I just applaud him for being willing to tackle something so painfully personal in this public format.

  134. David

    That should teach Joyce not to use USB chargers of unknown provenance. Clearly Sarah’s cable was possessed.

    1. DarkoNeko

      the devil works in 5 volts DC.

      1. David

        The devil rather works in Washington DC depending on whom you ask.

        1. inqntrol

          He also worked quite a lot through others in the last century.If you know what I mean.

  135. DragonStryk72

    I’m really hoping we can see someone of faith that isn’t insane soon. I was raised catholic, and even went to Catholic school, church every sunday, the whole nine, and everything that man did, pretty much, was against what I was taught.

    The problem is a complete lack of parity. We’re literally only getting the 1% of people who’ve taken it to the farthest extreme (ironically, that sort of dogmatic religion is why Christ railed so hard against the pharisees), with absolutely no one sane or rational existing, even though Joyce has been regularly going to church since arrival.

    Half the job.of preachers and priests is to hear confessions and counsel folks, and it’s odd to me that one of them wouldn’t have been Joyce’s go to before this, at least when she first.found out about Becky.

    1. SDGlyph

      Really? Sierra goes to church with them on Sundays, and she seems pretty grounded. Becky and Joyce, despite being raised in a fundamentalist environment, are shedding it pretty quickly once they found out that it doesn’t reflect reality. Are you classing them as insane? Billie’s identified as Christian too, and the church scenes seem to have a good number of people in the background. There is Mary, of course, who so far serves as an example of what Joyce could have been if she were fundamentally mean-spirited rather than generous.

      In fact, as far as I can recall, we’ve seen only two families who fall into this 1% of ‘insane’ people of faith that we’re “literally only getting” – Becky’s and Joyce’s. Which, given that (a) these people really do exist and (b) the main story of DoA is about Joyce’s journey out of her fundie-homeschooled upbringing, seems pretty fair.

      Willis posted somewhere a listing of non-insane Christians who appear regularly in the comic, in response to this claim; I’ll link it if I can find it again.

      1. tim guegue

        Given that DoA is set in the United States you can assume most characters identify as Christian unless there’s evidence otherwise. Pew Research Center’s 2014 polling found 70.6% of Americans identified as Christian. Of course that ranges from hardcore Dominionists to people who haven’t been in a church in years, but they’re still all people who’d say they were some sort of Christian if asked.

        1. Jason

          Speaking as someone who is not American, not Christian, and one of only two none-Atheists in his social circle… That is weird. I had been meaning to ask Willis if it was really that common for so many college-aged people to identify as Christian, so… Question answered?

        2. Jason

          *to me. It is weird to me. I feel I really should clarify that.

        3. Marie

          The one where Billie says ‘of course I believe in God, who doesn’t? [Dorothy]. Weird.‘ is so super weird to me! That’s the sort of religiously apathetic but still constant thing that people my parent’s age have, but not college folks- after about age 12 everyone I know was either atheistic or at least somewhat practicing of something (most were atheistic, but those that weren’t had actively decided/acted on that).

          Like you I get that it’s a reality some places and probably makes sense at IU but it still reads just unnatural from here.

        4. tim gueguen

          Younger Americans are more likely to be non-believers of some sort than older people, and the number of non-believers is growing.

    2. Spencer

      Literally every religious character except for Toedad and now the Browns hasn’t shown this level of sheer assholitude. That’s a list that includes Joyce, Becky, Danny, Amber, Sierra, Billie, Agatha, Asma, and Jocelyne. Mary’s just kind of a jerkface but she’s basically harmless.

      And to be frank, if there’s anybody allowed to criticize the Christian institution, it’s somebody who lived it.

      1. Lord Stoneheart

        I’m always confused by the “Why aren’t there non-crazy religious people in the comic?” comments. The only openly atheist character is Dorothy. (And Walky I think? I might be forgetting some. But most of the main characters have some religion)

        1. tim guegue

          Given that Sal was sent off to some sort of Catholic boarding school it’s a reasonable guess the Walkers are Catholics. And Sal has so far gave no indication she had major problems with the people running the school, just with the whole idea of being pretty much dumped there for five years.

        2. tim guegue

          And the Walkertons too.

        3. Lord Stoneheart

          I think the Catholic school thing was because the Walkertons thought it would be strict and make Sal follow the rules better. Could have sworn I saw Willis post something with regards to the Walkertons religion but I’m probably mistaken.

          Walky himself seems to be atheist or agnostic. But this guess is just based on the types of insults he throws at Joyce. (Like saying she believes in an invisible sky wizard)

        4. JQuire

          So many catholic school churn out athiest, agnostic, jewish, muslim, buddist, etc alumni. Many of whom may not have qualms about most of the education (with the obvious exceptions of sex ed/mandatory religious education…)

          And many athiest, agnostic, jewish, muslim, etc. families near the big city turn to catholic schools because they happen to be the majority of well run and established private schools in an area with not great public schools.

          So not safe assumptions.

        5. JQuire

          *big city in my part of the world

        6. Marie

          My husband went to Catholic school (and as such is super not Catholic but good at trivia when I have Christian and Catholicism theory questions), and yeah this. There was a Catholic population (a lot of them exchange students from more Catholic places and countries), but a LOT of the school was rich kids from all over who were there because it was supposedly a good school.

      2. Commodore Jeep-Eep

        Mary is potentially shaping up to be a real problem, actually…

        1. Spencer

          Only to someone who totally has it coming.

          Unless she pulls a heel turn I don’t think Mary’s ever going to be worse than just a douchebag.

    3. Smiling Cat

      You see lots of people of faith not acting crazy. You don’t notice because they’re busy NOT ACTING CRAZY.

  136. KSClaw

    Thanks for ruining the moment, mom.

  137. Bosn C Otter

    I am amazed at how many of you are not getting this…

    Pop quiz fokes.
    Who would you rather live next store to your daughter, the child molester who loves little girls, or an atheist?

    You would think thats a no brainier, but your not thinking eternally. To fanatical (insert religion here) a child rapist may assault your child, may even kill her, but her soul would still be in tact.

    An Atheist can lead her away thereby damming her to an eternity of hell fire.
    There is an old Baptist saying, I would rather shotgun my child to her grave than have her lose her virginity in sin.

    This is why Beckys dad was so whacked out, all he could see is his daughter burning in hell. And this is why he would have had no issue shooting anyone. He felt God was on his side.

    The scary part is I could easily compare this to Isis.

    1. Li

      No, you can’t compare any of this to Daesh. ( https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/10/09/words-matter-isis-war-use-daesh/V85GYEuasEEJgrUun0dMUP/story.html ) Because the Daesh are not actually religious at all.

      You can compare it to any number of fanatical Christian cults though, we’ve got loads right here at home,

      1. Max

        1) ISIS is definitely a religious terrorist group. They don’t represent the majority of the umma, but they are religious.
        2) ISIS doesn’t give two shits what you call them. They will happily refer to themselves as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh. And they have. They refer to themselves as terrorists. They really don’t care what words you use.

        1. SDGlyph

          Religious in the same way as, say, the KKK.

      2. LiamKav

        I don’t think anything quite shows the problem with wet liberal thinking than the hand wringing over what to call ISIS. There are a million and one arguments we can have about how to deal with them, involving military action, not having military action, assisting the refugees fleeing from them, government policies to try and reduce racial tension in our countries, tabloid newspapers NOT running inflamatory front pages based on dodgy polls… but trying to change what everyone calls them is not one of them. WWE stopped calling itself the WWF over a decade ago and people are still getting that wrong. Calling them the Daesh just means you have to preface every conversation with “the Daesh… what you call ISIS”.

        (If the argument was for JUST saying “Isis” and not “Islamic State”, I could agree with that a bit more. But the horse has way way way bolted on trying to get people to call them something else at this point.)

  138. Falling Star

    My feelings aren’t so much mixed as thrown into a blender with gravel and ice.
    (kudos if you understand the reference)

  139. Just for kix

    Lessons of Life: If you ever had to choose between “doing the right thing” and “happiness of the ones you love”, most of the times you should choose the latter … most of the times.

  140. Sambo

    I’D SOONER BUYYYYYY DEFYYYYYYING GRAAAAVITY

  141. Plume

    …wait did she just try to justify the actions of a dude who literally pointed a gun at her daughter? Not cool Joyce’s mom, not cool at all.

    1. jepmz

      I think the mom didn’t get the voicemail yet? Still. It’s so disgusting

  142. Josh Spicer

    F-f-f-f-fuuuck thiiiis!

  143. Zababcd

    About what I expected.

  144. Leila

    I don’t know if Willis actually reads these comments, and I’m probably about to get buried in the landslide of comments anyway, but I’ll feel so much better if I say this: Joyce is my favorite character, has been since the It’s Walky days. And one of the reasons I adore her so much is that she has never given up her faith. The shittiest things in the universe can happen to her and her mantra is “I will not lose faith”. Despite my own lack of faith (atheist for years, agnostic now), I find It’s Walky Joyce to be inspiring. So, despite all of the Christian hate (and can I just say I differentiate between good people who have faith and crazy fundies like Ross who have dogma?), I want to put in a word for Joyce here: Stay strong, Joyce. Dogma has nothing to do with your faith. Other people can’t tell you what to believe. Your relationship with God is independent from what the community tells you it is.

    1. SDGlyph

      (like)

    2. ScarvesandCelery

      As a liberal christian (for want of a better term) who loves his faith but is incredibly uncomfortable with large parts of Christian culture, I second this. Unlike Joyce, I was raised by Christian parents who aren’t conservative fundamentalists, who don’t believe the Earth is 6000 years old, who don’t think it’s wrong be gay, and so on. As a result, I’ve never had the crisis of faith that Joyce has had, but as I’ve grown up, I have become increasingly aware of the messed up parts of the Church. So Joyce’s story is, in its own way, one that I really needed right now, and find incredibly affirming.

      1. Shazam

        My life has been similar, to the extent I thought stories about aggressive Christians were made up. Maybe it’s more common in the US but DoA has taught me that there are l really people this bad.

  145. samanthah619

    I was wondering when the wicked reference would happen. Thanks Alt-text!

  146. Luchucholo

    Oh Joyce. There´s so much to learn from dissapointment. To remark an alternative, Danny´s father choice of words works good: “Mom, I´m dissapoint.” Yes, it´s about time to desecrate that paternal podium in which we esteemed the opinions of our forebears. Run free, child.

  147. ScarvesandCelery

    Take it from a Christian – this stuff does happen. There are Christians who say and do these things. As Willis has said, Carol’s words are based on things his own mother has said: http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/133847635397/i-dont-talk-to-my-mom-anymore-whenever-we-had

    1. ischemgeek

      And not just in the Fundie community. My folks aren’t Fundamentalists, but they were/are big on the “I would die for you” / “Can take my gun from my cold, dead hands” / etc language. That kind of martyr talk goes just as well with Randian authoritarian “libertarianism” as it does with fundamentalist Christianity, and it’s my own rude awakening from that brand of hard-core right-wing conservatism which makes me relate strongly to Joyce.

      I’m not sure if it’s a conservative thing or if it’s an extremist thing, but yeah. The hard-core right wingers I grew up around would fall over themselves to proclaim their willingness to die or kill over pretty much anything, all puffed-out chests and macho bravado bullshit, and have been predicting ominously for the past since-I-was-a-kid that there’s “gonna be a Civil War over this in the next two years, you’ll see.” But in reality most of them are cowards who wouldn’t even protest a traffic ticket, let along fight to the death on some noble Last Stand or what the fuck ever. Not that I’d want them to.

      The fact is that my particular upbringing made me instantly skeptical and wary of anyone who proclaims a willingness to “fight and die” or just die for me. They’re 1, lying, and 2, trying to emotionally blackmail me for some reason. (See also why I am extremely wary and skeptical of people who use the phrase “It’s for their/your own good.” to describe forcing a choice on someone who doesn’t agree with it – because in my experience “for my own good” is actually for the speaker’s own convenience). Willis gets this on a level that only comes from experience, which is why he can write it so well.

  148. Black

    I think that Joyce’s mom isn’t quite the dogmatic idiot that Willis is trying to portray her as, but simply is so shocked by the events that she’s trying to find the logic in such crazy actions.

    There IS no logic that excuses Ross’s hateful and potentially murderous actions, and hopefully she’ll understand soon enough, just as Joyce does.

    1. Johnny Z

      The logic is easy. He was raised within a culture that has no tolerance for deviating from its structured norms and that points at everything outside itself to label it blasphemous and the work of the devil. To him, she wasn’t being her true self, she was being manipulated by the dark forces amassing to tear down his faith.

    2. lihtox

      I agree. Imagine if you had heard that a family friend had done something like this. Chances are you would find it unbelievable, and look for ways to rationalize it. This isn’t a fundamentalist response, it’s a human response. (But it’s also natural for Joyce to be disappointed in her mom for it.)

      What WOULD have been messed up is if Joyce’s mom had been angry at the police for locking him up, or scolded her daughter for interfering with a father’s prerogative.

      1. Marie

        Mm. Although I’m not impressed with her for saying it and am in fact pretty grossed out, J admit that it has to be hard to leap to ‘that man we knew forever was scum!’ (And, tbh, that would be pretty worrying even though it would be pretty true). This all is why I’m surprised people find it unrealistic. Shitty and reasoning that is uncommon many places, but not unrealistic in the moment.

        And although I didn’t think it was super likely I did consider your fucked up thing a possibility, which meant this was at least less terrible. Honestly, a lighter degree (‘but you shouldn’t have gotten involved!’) is still pretty possible.

    3. timemonkey

      It’s best not to say that Willis is wrong in how he’s portraying his characters. Especially considering he admitted on his tumblr he’s has this conversation with his own mother.

      1. Black

        Admittedly I wrote this before I saw his post, so yeah… She’s exactly as bad as she sounds…

    4. 3oranges

      Joyce’s mom is a fictitious character written by Willis. How is it possible for her to be anything other than what Willis intends? (See also Sal’s mom.)

  149. Discord_Inc

    They were so close to making a real emotional connections with Joyce, and then they blew it up with a toe missile.

  150. a snow ʍousɐ

    Well, it’s true he isn’t just a sadistic father who wants to crush his daughter, the way Blaine is. He did have reason, it’s just that his sense of reason has been severely warped by his fundamentalist (aka extremist) religious devotion.
    Religious fundamentalism is like a mass brainwashing that can easily lead to insanity. In a sense, it is his own decision to put perceived religious duty before his daughter’s safety and happiness, but he did have the intent of saving his daughter and giving her greater happiness in Heaven. The ends don’t always justify the means, however. Even if he intended to look out for his daughter’s well-being, bringing a gun was an awful thing to do.
    Still, it’s true his ultimate intentions were good. The thought that lesbianism was a curable state and that she would be better off on the “right path” is a product of his religion. The thought that the pros of bringing a gun would outweigh the cons is crazy, and he’s clearly very confused. But it’s his religion at ultimate fault. He needs some sort of evangelism detox program.
    So… Joyce’s mom has a point in the 4th and 5th stanzas, even if she reveals herself to be just as warped by religion in panel 6. It is probably not the best thing to say to a victim of his actions, though.

    1. a snow ʍousɐ

      Ross really needs to be put in a mental ward.

      1. Agemegos

        No. Psyciatric wards are places for treating the mentally ill, not places for confining and punishing the wicked. If you abuse them as prisons that is grossly unjust and dangerous to the mentally ill; it is also a waste of scarce and costly medical resources.

      2. Marie

        As well as what agemegos and altalemur said, conflating shitty ideology and meanness with mental illness absolutely perpetuates the idea that mentally ill people just need to be corrected.

    2. altalemur

      stop performing ableist rhetoric. for one, if he were insane, he’d be found not-guilty due to mental insanity. secondly, you cannot classify every violent, authoritarian mentality as insane, unless you are being philosophical about consciousness being a form of insanity. the constant rhetoric of the white terrorist being an “insane loner” is damaging to all of the actually insane people out there who are far more likely to be the victims of violence and authoritarian power. bottom line, Toeadad knew what he was doing, and in his entire religious and social structure, his actions were legitimized, as evidence by Carol supporting his actions, even partly. likely what Carol is saying is that she would support her husband performing similar actions should one of her children prove to be gay. Ross is not “insane.” he is exactly like you, me, Carol, Joe Senior, and any other sane person. that is what is SCARY about this story arc.

  151. Charles RB

    awkwarrrrdd…

  152. Corvin Carlton

    Damn You Willis

  153. RaeB

    DammitCarol.

  154. Dani Kelley

    That realization that your parents believe some really fucked up shit can be (metaphorically) soul-crushing.

  155. altalemur

    the last three panels gave me a feeling i don’t think i can ever wash off.

  156. BenRG

    Has anyone noticed that Joyce is crying in panels 3 and 4? Then, by panel 6, they’re gone? All that emotional release and happiness she had felt in hearing her mother’s voice had been seared away by the content of the message. That’s the break… the betrayal from which you can never go back.

    I’m pretty sure that Joyce’s father is going to be trying to put out fires on bridges as quickly as he can but I suspect Joyce’s trip home will not end well. Indeed, it might end with she and her mother not talking again for many years except in stilted formalities.

    Joyce is going to have to walk a long, hard and dark path of disillusionment and possibly a degree of self-destructive acting out before she finds here way back to happiness and balance.

    1. Marie

      I love that you used the phrase ’emotional release’ because the idea of her not getting release makes more sense to me than her just being disappointed (even if a profound amount), and fits in with a lot of Joyce themes.

  157. Benjy

    I hope Jocelyn comes to visit, and not their parents. Hearing her sister come out and reassure her over things might make Joyce feel better, that there’s someone in her family she can trust.

    1. Leila

      I don’t know. Joshua/Jocelyn’s visit might throw Joyce even more through a loop. “I don’t even know my own brother…sister… ARGH!”

      1. Benjy

        It’s just Jocelyn, even if the rest of the world doesn’t know it. But we, the readers, know her name.

        Ideally, in Benjy’s Perfect World, the conversation is more “ARGH, why didn’t you tell me I had a sister during all those years growing up where I was frustrated with being the only girl?!” but that’s probably not how it’s going to happen.

        But I’ll be happy with just the two of them talking it out, talking about Becky, how God loves them for just the way they are (furthering the evidence that Mr. Rogers was Jesus reincarnated), and how Joyce has one stable pillar in her family she can rely on if she needs to talk–her big sister.

    2. Kathleen

      The fact that Jocelyne has to be in the closet might only reinforce how damaging her parents’ beliefs can be in the people she loves.

  158. David

    “Oh sweetie, rest assured we won’t make the same mistakes as Ross, should you get infected with the gay. Everyone knows that the proper procedure is to have the corrective rape party visiting before the shotgun wedding.”

  159. Crumplepunch

    Well, this conversation has run the gamut.

    I’m not even sure what a gamut is but I can tell you it has been run.

  160. QD

    I mean Joyce’s parents are kind of awful but it’s still important to engage in that kind of thought process– we should empathize with monsters, not dehumanize them. The act of understanding someone’s motivations and treating them as not just a Thing Of Pure Evil should be the fundamental act of the progressive mind.

    1. thejeff

      But probably not 30 seconds into the conversation with your daughter who’s just been attacked by one. Before even asking about her best friend who was the target.

      1. QD

        Sure, wrong time. Inappropriate. But a lot of the comments here are like “HOW DARE SHE THINK OF THAT THING LIKE IT WAS A HUMAN BEING,” which is pretty awful.

    2. David

      Blaine, is that you? “I’ve just been robbed at gunpoint.” “I take it the mugger is ok?” There is a time for everything as the bible says.

  161. americanpandagirl

    Joyce: you go bless his soul mom, i already punch him and it to the ground.

  162. RavenRyy

    I think the bugger here for Joyce is that her mother has just proven Roz correct. The fact her mother thinks Toe-Dad was only misguided could be the straw that breaks the camels back.

    Well, I say that, but I dinnae think Joyce will break.

    She’s losing everything she believed in. That’s going tae lead tae a change in the lass.

    1. Bicycle Bill

      We can only hope that if Joyce’s mother clings to her idea that Toe-Dad was “misguided” — doing all the wrong things but for a ‘good’ purpose — she will eventually come to realize just what (or who) it was that had been guiding him in the first place and how far off-track it had led him.

  163. test

    5th panel – anyone else see a middle finger?

  164. AustKyzor

    Tune in next week when Joyce tries to defy gravity

    1. Elbow

      Defying parents > Defying gravity

  165. Galdan

    That awkward moment when you realize that small non-denominational church to belong to is a dangerous sect…

    “Maybe the Evangelical Lutheran Church isn’t so bad… or the Episcopalian Church, even…”

  166. Kheldan

    Alternate title for this edition of the comic:
    “The Great and Terrible Epiphany”

  167. Griffin

    you stole my line, Willis.

  168. Willoughby Chase

    I thought that Toedad was not about to die for Becky? He was more likely to kill her?

    1. Agemegos

      At one stange he implied that his intention was to force Becky into a state of grace and then kill her, allowing himself to be shot to death by state troopers to escape the consequences without suicide. Joyce’s mother has just repeated the exact words that he used to emphasise his resolve to go through with that plan.

      1. Agemegos

        That would be a stage rather than a stange.

        And the stage would be this strip.

  169. Tikitori

    This makes me think she didn’t actually hear Joyce’s message. Or just heard her voice on the machine and started to call right back.

  170. Decepticon357

    Yes, Joyce’s mom is a monster because she has sympathy for a seriously disturbed person, while every normal and good person thinks he should be killed or seriously mutilated, yes, she’s the sick one…

    “Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”
    ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

    1. Galdan

      You may have missed the part about Joyce telling her mom that Toedad aimed a gun at her face. Her mom doesn’t even know what happened, only that Toehead arrived to take his daughter away by force and aimed a gun at Joyce’s face. For all they know, he was planning a massacre.

      But hey, he did it to save Becky from lesbianism, so it’s okay.

      1. Galdan

        Also, her mom doesn’t argue that Joyce should pity him because he’s disturbed. She says “put yourself in his shoes”, which means that she thinks that he is justified to some degree.

      2. Decepticon357

        His methods and intentions are the parts that are wrong, those are warped beyond belief, but his motivations are for love of his daughter, That doesn’t excuse what he did, but it’s not impossible to have sympathy nonetheless.

        1. SDGlyph

          I can have sympathy, but I don’t agree with your premise that he was motivated by love for his daughter. At every point he stressed his authority, her defiance, his determination to see Becky return to the path he expected her to take. He threatened violence against her if she didn’t conform and against anyone else who tried to stop him. He didn’t try to talk to her, show concern, or beg her to come back; he only issued commands. He refused, point blank, to accept her as she was. There is no world in which that looks like love.

          Joyce’s mom didn’t ‘show sympathy for a seriously disturbed person’, she tried to minimise and make excuses for his actions. Which included pointing a gun at her daughter and his own. And she just told Joyce to ‘put herself in his shoes’ and that he ‘thought he was doing the right thing’.

        2. Decepticon357

          That is one way of looking at it, I respect your opinion.

          I dunno, I just find it odd that Willis would show several shots of Ross crying in order to invoke sympathy from us for no reason.

          Ross is a very messed up guy, in his ideals and in his methods of parenting, I can feel sorry for how messed up he is, doesn’t mean he isn’t a bastard that deserves whatever punishment he gets.

        3. thejeff

          I’ve got plenty of sympathy. His life and mind have been warped by his particular brand of religion. I’m sure his upbringing was horribly repressive. On the other hand, he’s an adult and has to own his actions. I’ve got far more sympathy for his victims, whether he thinks he’s acting out of love or not.

          And he’s not, not really. He’s acting out of a warped kind of love that doesn’t actually see the real person he thinks he loves, just the perfect little image of the daughter he wants. If the real daughter won’t live up to that image, he’ll force her to, even if it means killing her or dying himself while trying. That’s what he meant by “die for you” – “They’ll have to kill me to stop me from controlling you.”
          And that’s what Joyce hears her mother saying when she uses the same words Ross did.

    2. TARDIS With a Hat

      Because the only two options are “I WANT THIS PERSON TO DIE” and “trying to justify the person and sorta defend his action to a person WHO WAS HELD IN GUNPOINT BY THEM”? Condemning ToeDad’s actions doesn’t have to involve death or mutilation, just y’know, not start on a ramble of “at least he thought he was doing good, you’d do the same in his shoes, right?”

    3. thejeff

      She’s not a monster and he shouldn’t be killed or mutilated, though if that had been necessary to stop him, I wouldn’t have shed any tears except for the added trauma to Becky.
      Sympathy & empathy are important, good qualities. Understanding the evildoer is difficult and important.
      Condoning his motivations isn’t and Carol is perilously close to that – “He was just worried about his daughter”, as if being worried about your daughter being a lesbian should lead anywhere near kidnapping and assault.
      Even beyond that, even when you can sympathize and understand, you don’t bring it up in the first moments of talking to his traumatized victim. Who is your daughter, who is looking to you for understanding and support.

      As far as being a parent goes, right here in this moment, I wouldn’t even care if Toedad had the best reasons in the world – You comfort your daughter, you don’t try to get her to excuse her attacker. Maybe later. When she’s had a chance to heal and recover. Not now.

      1. Decepticon357

        Well yeah, I agree with you there, definitely too soon for her to even consider that, that’s a slight problem with daily comics, Ross was arrested days ago in our perspective, for Joyce it’s only a few hours.

        I’m just saying this is starting to look like Joyce is thinking of her mom the same way as Ross, and I seriously don’t want that to happen, and I think there is more then one way to interpret what Joyce’s mom meant.

        By the way, try to remember, being able to understand someone’s motivations is not the same thing as condoning their actions.

      2. SDGlyph

        There’s also a particularly ugly (evil) perversion of the principle of grace which sees the victim put under pressure to ‘forgive’ their attacker, while the attacker is quietly shielded from any actual consequences. It’s one part victim blaming, one part closing ranks, and tends to end with the ‘troublemaker’ silenced or put out of the community while everyone else gets to pretend they have no monsters in their closet. Carol is also perilously close to saying that, and I may have to red mist on her if that’s tomorrow’s strip.

    4. Agemegos

      Having the sympathy is one thing. Lecturing one of his victims about it is another.

  171. Mr Nexx

    “This is where Joyce goes berserk.”

  172. Charles

    People like this don’t like their children, they like what they want their children to be. They all believe in unconditional love on the condition you are exactly like them.

    1. Gordon

      No, the condition is that you be exactly like the way they believe themselves to be. Just being like them isn’t quite enough.

      “Be exactly like me, only without the flaws I have that are only obvious to me because you’re exhibiting them and I lack the self awareness to realize we are exactly the same because of things I have said and done to shape you in my image.”

  173. Bagge

    So I have spent so much time screaming abuse over Toedad and his gun and his wannabe hatecrimes and what a complete waste of a father he is, but when it comes to Carol I’m just sad.

    I don’t have that much to say today, and there are few things I am as thankful for as that. I don’t have the experience many of you are sharing, I have never had to face the betrayal Jocye’s experiences in the last panel.

    Sorry, Joyce. You deserved better. All of you real life Joyces did.

    1. Willinwoods

      Thank you, Bagge.

  174. Spencer

    I swear to God I’m not trying to Devil’s Advocate for Carol and it’s garbage of her to say this to her own daughter either way, but did she actually hear the message Joyce left her? Specifically the “he held a gun to my face” part.

    1. SDGlyph

      Seems likely; she seems to be responding directly to what Joyce said, especially in the second panel.

      1. Spencer

        Yeah, narrative convention dictates that she be responding to what Joyce said.

        Christ. I don’t even know what to say to that. I’m so sorry so many people here seem to be intimately familiar with this behaviour.

        1. Mr. Morningstar

          joyce is definantely having a bad time thats for sure

    2. segnosaur

      I’d say its 50-50 whether she heard the message.

      There were a couple of panels between Joyce leaving the message and her mom calling back, but nothing to indicate exactly how much time had passed. She could have listened to the message and called right back. Or, she could have noticed “Joyce called… I’ll call her back immediately” before she had a chance to get to her voice mail.

  175. Meamoi

    I remember being in a very similar place to Joyce years ago (fortunately, with a lot less gun waving and less parents sounding quite as creepy, although parents sounding creepy did happen.)

    At this point, at this point, (for me), realizing how much of “the truth” I was taught in Sunday Schools was brain-washy-washy. I began to wonder if it was the religion (which I was convinced had been horribly mangled by centuries), the book (was it inherently flawed), or both. At this point, I began to study the bible with an actual critical eye for a change.

    Interestingly, I had just had a philosophy class the day before where we talked about the Epimenides Paradox (origin 600 BCE). I was working my way through the bible at a pretty fact pace and read through Titus I (AD 200).

    To see what I went through, here’s what I did:
    Read up on the Epimenides Paradox.
    Then read Titus 1:12-13
    Then read Titus 1:1
    Then read 2 Timothy 3:16
    Then read Titus 1:12-13 again
    Then, for additional brainfuckery, read Revelation 21:8
    Then read Titus 1:12-13 again
    Then read 2 Timothy 3:16 one more time.
    Then re-read an article on the Epimenides Paradox.

    Then, then … I realized that the whole system is broken.

    1. Akiosama

      Religion is the opiate of the masses?

      1. SDGlyph

        Incidentally, this ^^ is comment #666 on the strip. #664 says hi – I was so close…

      2. Meamoi

        Having been there, I wouldn’t say that. An opiate is a drug, which means it’s something with a clear cause and a solution that is a slow working out. In my experience, religion is the exact opposite. There’s no clear cause, but the break is often clean and fast.

        I would say religion is more of a social whirlpool… you’re swimming, and it tugs lightly, then harder, then harder, until you’re sucked right in and drowning in it, and then at one moment you break free , get fresh air, then swim as hard as you can away. Or the social virus analogy, that kind of works too.

        Drugs have relapses, religion usually doesn’t. You often miss the people, but you don’t miss “the high”. Or at least I don’t.

        1. Akiosama

          Interesting thoughts on it. I’ll let Marx know. 😀

    2. Mr. Demiurge

      Eh. There’s a lot of things in the Bible that don’t make sense, but it isn’t that hard to get around this particular one. From a purely logical position, obviously, a Cretan who says ‘all Cretans are liars’ is creating a paradox. In practice, just because you call someone a liar doesn’t mean they lie ALL the time and about EVERYTHING, for no reason whatsoever.

      Unless they live in Zozo, of course.

      1. Meamoi

        @Mr. Demiurge
        Except you *can’t* get around that aspect in the bible’s case, not even with that spin on it. Because the bible specifically counters being able to take it in that context.

        For one, one rendition of it is “One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: ‘Cretans are always liars”

        The always ruins the way out. A liar is someone is is lying. By saying they’re always liars is saying they’re always lying.

        It’s further making it worse by it’s mentioning “A prophet of their own” referencing Epimenides, this alone takes it out of normal context because they’re quoting the classical paradox at this point. Normal conversational context no longer applies at this point because they’re quoting someone, and so in quoting it as the paradox the paradox becomes the context (especially since the classical paradox precedes it by more than half a millennium and even lasts to this day, there’s no excuse except for pure ignorance.)

        It further fails to fit the “in normal context” thing because it starts off with saying it’s the words of Paul in the context of of acting as one inspired by God, which, in context of the bible, is supposed to be the inerrant word of god, which leaves no room for the normal hyperbole. The paradox becomes the inerrant word of god.

        In short, it takes the normal Epimenides Paradox, and compounds the problems with it instead of easing up on them.

        The only way out of the Epimenides Paradox is if the speaker themselves is lying about their statement. Due to the biblical reinforcement, literally, the only logical solution is, the bible (and by extension, if the bible is fully divinely inspired, god) lies.

        1. SDGlyph

          The Bible isn’t the inerrant word of God. The early Christians didn’t treat it that way, Jews don’t treat their scripture that way, and for most of Christian history it wasn’t treated that way. The inerrancy claim is, to my mind, a relatively recent heresy that badly needs to die, but it’s unfortunately gained a lot of traction among moderate believers and onlookers alike.

          (I’m a practising Christian, for context for the above.)

      2. Spencer

        I’m giving you a +1 for the FF6 shout out alone.

  176. Mkvenner

    I don’t think ross actually cared about his daughter he cared about his pride.

    1. Crumplepunch

      I’m pretty sure Ross was a true believer. The threat of hell ruins lives on many levels, and few things show that better than the lengths to which some people will go to save loved ones from themselves.

  177. PokeyPuppy

    Okay. So thinking that his daughter being gay is a sin is the (nominal) REASON Ross acted that way. It explains it (in the loosest way).
    It doesn’t justify it.
    It doesn’t excuse it.
    It will never, never make this abusive behavior acceptable.
    Understanding the why (and yes, there is a lot of pride and ownership tied up in this, it certainly isn’t just “love” for Becky) is okay. Using the why to wave away his actions or any consequences is not okay.

  178. Deanatay

    Panel 2-3:”That’s AWFUL, Honey, I’m SO sorry.” Tears well in Joyce’s eyes.

    Panel 6: “I’d die for you, Joyce.” Tears get sucked right back in.

    1. SDGlyph

      Reading this strip in conjunction with Willis’ tumblr post about it adds some retrospective emotional heft to what seemed, at the time, like an odd thing for Ross to say.

  179. Akiosama

    No, Joyce, don’t let your mom ‘bring you down’.

    Ironically, despite the alt text, that last panel didn’t make me think “Wicked”, it made me think “Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves”. I’m not sure I think that song is as romantic as I did before reading this comic.

  180. Tailess

    the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right, Joyce’s mom?

  181. Cephalo the Pod

    Love for Becky? More like Level Of ViolencE HYUK HYUK HYUK HYUK OWW!!!
    Ugh.
    I’m coughing up blood.
    No. Wait.
    S’just ketchup.

  182. Bagge

    Aaaaaaaarrrrggghhhhh, that little “right?” in the fourth panel.

    “It wasn’t so bad to have a gun pointed in the face, right?”

    “Your best friend is not THAT traumatized by the whole kidnapping thing, right?”

    “You know you have to forgive him, right?”

    ….and on and on and on, so many horrible things Joyce can hear in that little “right?”

  183. wakeangel2001

    he wasn’t willing to die for his daughter, he was willing to kill for her, BIG difference. In fact even that’s giving him too much credit, he was willing to kill for the chance to change her into something she wasn’t to fit in with what he wanted her to be.

    1. Jen

      Yup. He wasn’t willing to kill for *her*. He was going to kill to keep his worldview the way he wanted it. He was killing for himself.

    2. thejeff

      He was willing to die. He was willing to have his brains splattered all over the street by the cops rather than let her be free.

  184. Senjiu

    If this is what love is all about, you can count me out.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUwF2dZyvpU

    1. TsunamiJane

      I was really expecting a Lion King reference there.

  185. Eric

    On yay! More crazy by people convinced that they are doing the right thing! Especially when the right thing is to impose their will on others!

    That never ends badly…

  186. RedNoBlue

    Happy thoughts, happy thoughts… aaand we’ve just been Willis’d.

  187. Dutchtica

    NOOOOOOOO Damn you Willis (hey wait, I only just got your Twitter name) WHY WOULD YOU JERK ME AROUND LIKE THIS

  188. Sam

    That went from ‘Yay, her mother is making her happy’ to ‘Fuck no’ very fast.

  189. Mojo

    Aww, and Mom was doing so well.

  190. Tenn

    *breathes a sigh of relief*

    *is suckerpunched in the gut*

    There was a preview panel of a kind of sheepish-looking Hank and an angry Joyce. When I saw it, I thought to myself: “In which Hank channels a disturbingly large number of commenters.”

    But I didn’t predict that Carol would beat him to it.

  191. Commodore Jeep-Eep

    People seriously didn’t see this coming? It is to laugh.

  192. Mr. Demiurge

    Oy. This comic makes me feel weird because sometime back I was likewise trying to engender a bit of empathy for Toedad. Not in the same words as mom, of course, but not just launching into fiery condemnation of him and everything he stands for either. I know this comic was written well before I ever made that reply, but it feels like a rebuttal in spirit.

    Simple truth is this: I’m an atheist and a secularist. I don’t like Toedad or what he represents and I’m absolutely 100% certain he belongs in jail. Unless he changes his mentality, which is really unlikely, he also doesn’t have any place in his daughter’s life.

    But I find it hard to hate the guy in the same way some here seem to. I was raised in an irreligious household, neither indoctrinated into belief nor told I shouldn’t believe, with my parents encouraging me to find my own way. As a teenager, when I started getting really strong opinions about secularism and the destructive nature of religion, I would have torn into the guy without remorse.

    But now I’m older and every time I get close to hating the guy, a voice pipes up in the back of my head.

    “My, aren’t you the lucky one, to have avoided a childhood of fundamentalist indoctrination and still feel a sense of righteous superiority over those who didn’t. You don’t know if you would have passed or failed this test. You never really had to take it. So what right do you have to stand in judgement over anyone who did?”

    And with that thought comes an attempt to get inside that mentality, to imagine myself thinking the way someone of that upbringing thinks. I start to empathize, in other words.

    But empathy does not, and should not, mean naivete. And sometimes people really do develop into something horrible and belong behind bars. I just, again, find it difficult to hate them.

    1. chris73

      In other words, there but the grace of god go I (sorry couldn’t resist it)

  193. Ruby Droplets

    I’ve realized just how good Willis is at breaking our hearts… People who pretend to care are easy. They never cared in the first place and you can blame them for it… but when people HONESTLY think they actually do care about you and what they’re doing is for your benefit even when it’s not… Nothing hurts worse then telling someone they cant be with you because they’re “help” is killing you on the inside…

    1. Meamoi

      If you really want to break your heart, read his related blog post. He based this comic off of his own experiences.

  194. Minder

    Just as an aside, I find it kind of weird that neither of Joyce’s parents would come down anyway after she’d been injured, especially considering the circumstances?

    1. Agemegos

      They probably don’t know that she’s been injured. She didn’t mention it in her voicemail message and this is the first she has spoken to them.

  195. SarcasticDom

    I feel like Joyce, and several people in the comments, are misinterpreting understanding and justifying. I may be wrong in thid, but hear me out.

    And no point does Joyce’s mum say she agrees with what Toedad did. She simply says she understands what he was doing; trying to protect his daughter. In fact she openly acknowledges he did the wrong thing. However as a parent she cam empathise with him, and can understand where he is coming from. And I too can understand.

    This makes good antagonists. We’re all the hero of our own story. Good antagonists have realistic motives and our compelling. That’s why i liked Toedad as an antagonist; his motives are understandable but not justified. You can see why he does it, and even pity him, but you can’t justify what he does which makes him the antagonist

    1. Galdan

      Willis has already said what this means: http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/133847635397/i-dont-talk-to-my-mom-anymore-whenever-we-had

      1. JackieM

        Thank you for posting this. I’m hoping more people read this to clear up a lot of the “but maybe she means x” around this post

      2. Decepticon357

        …Yikes……well so much for interpretation.

  196. Sock_v

    Hoist the other shoe and prepare to launch!

  197. JackieM

    I read your post on Tumblr about this page and I almost wish I hadn’t until I read this and the reactions to this page on my own. It’s so easy to forget how much of Joyce’s development is a reflection of your own. I hope against my own understanding of how the Internet functions that people will quickly see the harm in what Joyce’s mom said and maybe you don’t have to sympathize with every character (like toedad) even if you can understand how their minds work.
    Joyce’s fate has been drawn up for months, so it seems silly to wish her and you the best as you continue to unfold this narrative, but I’m excited to witness the journey.

  198. Willinwoods

    You know, I really (used to) like Ron Sexsmith’s God Loves Everyone, but right now … The first lines: “God loves everyone/like a mother loves her son …”
    Ouch.

  199. Foxhack

    I’m now convinced Joyce’s family isn’t really Christian and are actually part of one of those weird cults that claim they’re Christian but really aren’t.

    1. Foxhack

      (Note: I read Willis’ Tumblr post about it. Similar things have happened to me with some of my older relatives. It’s just the way she said the same thing Toedad did… it sounded brainwashy cult-like. I don’t mean to discredit, or disbelieve, the author’s life experience.)

      1. JackieM

        A lot of Christianity ends up sounding brainwashy and cult-like depending on where you live and what sects are around.

    2. Mr. Demiurge

      That’s a hard distinction to make without planting your foot in a big steaming pile of No True Scotsman.

      Not impossible, of course. If a religious organization worships a duck named Herbert and offers regular human sacrifices to him on the theory that if they don’t he will one day consume the entire universe within his terrible beak, then calls themselves a Christian church, it’s probably fair not to agree with them on it.

  200. Naoremonth

    This is the first comic where I’ve commented, simply because this one actually brought tears to my eyes.

    I feel like Joyce had so much hope when her mother first called back and was talking about how terrible it must have been, showing concern and being very caring –

    – and then that hope crashed into a miserable pile of shards when her mother sympathized with jerk-dad. As I said, it brought tears to my eyes. I haven’t experienced anything like that, but…

    Poor Joyce. I hope that some good things happen to her soon, along with the rest of the cast.

  201. Peduncle

    As of this writing, there are 744 comments for this episode. The first DoA strip to get more than 100 comments was Ruth hurls Billie — and seven of those were Mr. Willis’s.

  202. Ross Vernal

    There is no planet on which that is the right thing. Ever.

    Hang up, Joyce.

  203. Guairdean Beatha

    The foundation of Joyce’s world has just crumbled. It’s a good thing she gas friends with strong, dry shoulders. She’s going to need several to cry on.

  204. Guairdean Beatha

    Does anyone else get the feeling that Joyce’s Mom knew what Fundie was about to do and approved?

    1. Mr. Demiurge

      If by ‘what he was about to do’, you mean go grab his daughter and drag her back to be saved from the homosexual lifestyle, then I could see it.

      If by ‘what he was about to do’, you mean pull out a gun and start threatening Becky and Joyce on campus, then no.

      1. Guairdean Beatha

        I was talking about the kidnapping and eventual “deprogramming.”

    2. Smiling Cat

      She specifically stated her disapproval of his actions. It was his intent she approved of. She probably had an inkling that toedad would be going to look for Becky, but not what he intended to do to secure her.

      Her horribleness is more passive.

  205. Peduncle

    Sorry to be a librarian about this*, but just today I was going through ShortPacked! and found this episode with the current strip’s ALT text as the title. This song obviously means a lot to Mr. Willis.

    (In Shortpacked!, back up a few strips for touching episodes.)

    *not really — it’s my nature

  206. Mr. Morningstar

    yikes

    Mrs. Brown no

  207. Reynard-Miri

    If only more people understood the difference between dying for something and killing for something.

    1. Agemegos

      Indeed. You can only die for someone if they want you dead. You can only kill for someone if they want someone else dead. That’s why dying for other people is mostly garbage, and the rest of the time a synedoche.

      1. thejeff

        I think the intent is “willing to die to save someone”, generally in some overdone melodramatic fashion.
        Outside of fiction and really extreme circumstances, it’s mostly garbage. Living with them is harder.

  208. Peduncle

    Coming soon on Slipshine: Hank and Carol Brown!

    Hank, remind me. How was it we created all those kids?

  209. Cephalo the Pod

    I think I now know why Joyce’s DAD is the one to pick her up in the near future.

  210. zmm

    Is this when half the cast get part time jobs and all move out into some big house apartment thingy, sharing rooms and rent to escape from the stupidity?

  211. Doomprix

    gah! Joyces mom I demand you go to an alternate dimension and replace yourself with another better joyces mom!

  212. JustAnAtheist

    Holy S**t!

    The only other time I ever wrote a comment was when Joyce was being confronted by her parents in her dorm about being friends with Dorothy.

    Mr. Willis……Keep up the amazing everything.

  213. Rabid Rabbit

    Oh, sure, you say that, Carol. But, you know, evil-evil-lesbo there is the one who actually jumped in front of a loaded gun to save your daughter there. Loaded gun being held by that friend out yours, incidentally. Just sayin’.

  214. Griffinguy24

    “I would die for you!”
    “Sounds great! When can I pencil in your appointment?”

  215. rayrayravona

    Woah, Carol used G-d’s name in vain? Wouldn’t think she’d be cool with that.

  216. Nena

    Fundie parents are manipulative as hell.

  217. Peachkid4

    “I’d sooner buy defying gravity, kiss me gooooooooodbye I’m defying gravity!
    And you’ll never bring me dooooooown!”

    Am I the only one loving all the occasional references to Wicked in the hovertext? Cuz I am. I love them so much.

  218. heyman

    So all who call themselves Christians are like this!

  219. RP

    “At least he thought he was doing the right thing.”

    This is such a RIDICULOUS argument. Every villain that has ever existed has thought they were doing the right thing. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Whether they thought they were acting morally or were justified in doing something that would normally be wrong, they always think they’re right.

    You do not get brownie points for thinking that pointing a gun at your child and random bystanders is “right”.

  220. Church

    Joyce’s mom is me
    I am Joyce’s mom.

  221. flareonflare

    ughhhhh more feeeels whyyyyy

    i just got over hating beckys dad

    now i have to hate religion again too!
    why does joyce have to be a younger girl version of me

    STOP MAKING ME FEEL THINGS THAT HURT

  222. chromacandi

    and that was the last time we saw Joyce smile

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