726

Too
Posted on October 12, 2021 by David M Willis

726 thoughts on “Too”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Becky breaking out the TRUTH STICKS

    1. King Daniel

      Joyce doesn’t want Becky to sell her truth sticks

      1. Andy

        Joyce wants to go home and rethink her life.

        1. Clif

          Boy that Becky. Complaining that Dina doesn’t lie to her or make fun of her behind her back. You’d think Becky would tell Dina that to her face.

    2. Ana Chronistic

      actually, “yeah you’re right” saves a LOT of time in the adult world, MUCH more than “NO WAY UR RONG AN I’LL PROVE IT”

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        actually, “yeah you’re right” saves a LOT of time in the adult world

        This would save so many lives right now.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          Are the people refusing to admit they’re wrong and literally dying from it really worth saving? They obviously don’t value their own lives (much less the lives of the people they’re harming along the way), so why should we?

        2. Delicious Taffy

          (if we’re not talking about COVID-deniers, I apologise for the outburst.)

        3. A Red Balloon

          Hey Delicious!

          What happened to your purple Regalli costume? I was kinda liking it….

        4. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Oh absolutely, but they’re not just killing themselves, they’re taking others down with them and creating a broad exposure front for new variations to attack the vaccinated.

          Ideally, with everyone(ish) vaccinated, the virus would have the fewest viable hosts to spread and would get bottled up like the Battle of Thermopylae. Instead, the battle is raging all over the world, but for no good reason at all, in the midst of a globally enlarged Battle of the Somme, USA has opted to have their own civil-war scale battle with the virus as well. ? With a front *this* broadly exposed, it’s no wonder variants are popping up. It’s even killing some fully vaccinated folks. They did their part. So since we won’t put down the anti-vax crowd, our only option is to work on convincing them or take away their right to say no, since their liberty currently *is* meaning our death.

        5. Delicious Taffy

          It’s true. I was maybe too broad in my initial post. Their victims are absolutely deserving of pity and mourning, because they didn’t sign up for that.

        6. Decidedly Orthogonal

          No no. I totally understand your position. I feel that way too. I’m just trying to think bigger, and I know you are too by your considered response.

          How fucked up things are though, that I can reasonably take an anti-, anti-, anti-vaxxer stance, and defend it and make it sound reasonable? Like seriously, what timeline branches were fried, to make _this_ our universe?

        7. Rainhat

          [Insert Dickens quote about “surplus population” here.]

        8. Clif

          Surplus population is Solient Green. – Charles Dickens

        9. eh, whatever

          Soylent

        10. Clif

          eh, whatever

          (thanks)

        11. Moonie

          1 – intrinsic value of life
          2 – they could realize later they were wrong
          3 – for this children, elderly, and sick family

          That all being said, if a hospital gets to capacity, I do think they should go to the back of the line…

        12. zee

          Because they’re dragging other innocent people down with them by infecting others, including those who actually can’t get vaccinated

        13. fridge_logic

          Their idiocy has killed other people too though. Fewer now that most people can get the vaccine. But some can’t and even the vaccinated are still put at risk by Covid driven Hospital congestion. In areas where Hospitals are overbooked people with Cancer have been getting turned away from treatment. :/

          We are all in this together. Much as we might like to ignore it.

        14. Tired of It

          It would at least save other people’s lives. Vaccines don’t work (or work as well) on people with immunosuppressing conditions. I got the Pfizer vaccine, but my body’s antibody response to it was less than half of typical people’s.

          People with weak immune systems have a 1/10 chance of dying from breakthrough infections. That number would be different if everyone was vaccinated.

        15. Pickman

          But they are not just dying. They are killing.

        16. Yotomoe

          I wish “agree to disagree” could be more common too. There’s times were I’ll concede but I also don’t think I’m wrong. I haven’t been convinced I just don’t wanna fight anymore.

        17. A Red Balloon

          In retrospect, humans shouldn’t feel too bad about not doing it more often.

          I mean, nine billion piles of proteins and lipids and nuclei resulting from billions of years of happy accidents can only do so many things right.

        18. Clif

          The trouble with people criticizing adult “NO WAY – UR RONG AN I’LL PROVE IT” is there is no way to prove them wrong without proving them right.

        19. Moonie

          Remembering this next time I f*** up

        20. Deanatay

          Unfortunately, this is often what your opponents want. They don’t want to convince you – they just want you to shut up and let them do what they want.

          Which, of course, is what gets people killed.

        21. Ana Chronistic

          I said often

          For instance, “Dad said you talk too much”
          Kid: “NO WAY I DON’T TALK TOO MUCH WHEN DO I TALK”
          *argument ensues*

          Vs.

          Kid: “yeah, you’re right”
          *discussion dies*

          stuff where discussion is unproductive, like in almost any business meeting

        22. Ana Chronistic

          Wait, I didn’t say often

          Yeah, you’re right idk

        23. Siva

          Generally true. Generally false when narcissism is involved, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, assuming analog.

        24. Hilzabub

          We have a broken analog clock with a variable number of seconds per minute. I’m not sure it’s right more than twice a week.

      2. Ntrovert60

        Not for the first time, Ana wins the Internet…

        1. Clif

          I like to believe she has a huge closet where she keeps all her spare Internets.

    3. Thag Simmons

      Truth Sticks feels like it could be either a mediocre snack brand or a bludgeoning weapon.

      1. ThunderNight

        maybe both depending on how durable the snack is

        1. King Daniel

          “The food here is…*taps*…weapons-grade.”

        2. Doctor_Who

          Like Dwarf Bread?

        3. Thag Simmons

          The cat peed on it and it doubles as a lethal throwing weapon

        4. Clif

          That …. sounds much less appetizing.

        5. anonymsly

          Dwarf bread is never appetizing. It exists to make other things more appetizing. Slugs. Tree bark. Your own shoes. Hair clippings in mud sauce. There’s delicious food everywhere when the other option is dwarf bread.

      2. Clif

        My theory is that Truth Sticks is a brand of baseball bat that Sarah uses.

      3. Victor

        In the IT business we refer to it as a LART or a clue-by-four.

      4. James

        Truth Sticks are the snack food. The bludgeoning weapon is the Chair Leg of Truth.

  2. Sirksome

    That was kind of a low blow there…and accurate…kind of.

    1. Decidedly Orthogonal

      Low blow, sure, and yeah kind of accurate. But it’s also completely flawed with the entire premise being, “you are believing the wrong way.” At the end of the day, this is the problem with faith. There are dangers with it, but you can’t really tell one person that their beliefs are wrong, while someone else’s are right. There’s no internal objective moral framework that can be constructed to prove to _someone else_ that they are believing wrong.

      1. Clif

        Empirical evidence is just an arbitrary preference.

    2. Decidedly Orthogonal

      I kinda wonder what Becky thinks her beliefs are anchored on. Certainly, “not letting daddy take her T-bird away,” ain’t a great reason to hold onto a religion either Becky.

      But lastly, I don’t recall Joyce’s faith being based on who she’s better than. Her whole schtick at first was how accepting she was. The real problem for Becky now is she seems to feel Joyce’s rejection of that _faith_ includes the rejection of it’s followers. This does match sort of with some of what Joyce was yodelling, but Joyce’s efforts with Becky now, show that clearly isn’t 100% the case.

  3. Andy

    What’s wrong with Dina, Joyce? Say the quiet part loud, just this once. We’ll only judge you a lot.

    1. Thag Simmons

      She’s an ‘evilutionist‘

      1. King Daniel

        So’s Becky. I think Andy was fishing for the A-word there.

        1. Andy

          Honestly, I don’t know what the quiet part is for Joyce. All I know is that it’s not gonna be a good look for her.

        2. Thag Simmons

          But the thing is Dina was that way when Joyce met her, pretty outspokenly so. So even though Joyce now believes basically the same stuff (with a weaker understanding of it, admittedly) she still perceives Dina as believing different things.

      2. someone

        A fault indeed, everyone knows that Plutonia is of much higher quality throughout.

    2. segnosaur

      Remember, when she met Dina, Joyce was still a hardcore creationist. Even after she became an atheist, she still sort-of kept hold of some of her false scientific ideals (e.g. micro evolution, etc.), right up until she started her Science project with Joe (just a day or 2 ago in-story).

      That sort of indoctrination might have a lot of long-term side-effects, such as finding it ‘weird’ to agree with Dina (even though you have now rejected all the scientific nonsense)

    3. QuixoticMaunster

      Nothing is “wrong” with Dina.

      Joyce is experiencing a realization that just feels weird and wrong to her. When you start throwing off the indoctrination that’s been with you since you were a child, realizing that you now believe the same things as someone who was your complete opposite only a few short months ago feels wrong regardless of how you feel about that person as an individual.

      I swear the comments sections on these strips are stunningly devoid of understanding for a teenager who is dealing with the collapse of the entire way she thought the world worked.

      1. A Red Balloon

        This is all totally lit!!!

        I really wish I could upvote this!

  4. Doctor_Who

    “Dina, I believe the same things as you.”

    “You believe that Lucky Charms should be considered a valid pizza topping?”

    “Dina, I believe some of the same things as you.”

    1. A Red Balloon

      Certainly when she’s a carnivore, she takes the opportunity to eat more savory, meaty pizza toppings:

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/sausage/

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/pawing/

      But I guess as long as “foods are touching”, it’s a no-go for Joyce.

      1. Tan

        Joyce simultaneously agrees and disagrees regarding sausage. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/broughtcher/

    2. Reltzik

      “Isn’t that one of those cereals with like 20 DIFFERENT types of things mixed into it?”

      “But they are all just marshmallows.”

      “Different shapes! And colors!”

      “Yes but at their most basic they’re the sa-”

      “YOUR CEREAL IS EVIL!”

      1. powerpowerpow

        And thus Joyce becomes religious again; not because she found proof in God, but because only Satan could have created Lucky Charms.

        1. JBento

          I thought leprechauns created Lucky Charms?

        2. Clif

          Yes, but they were under contract at the time.

        3. JBento

          Made a deal with the devil, did they?

        4. Clif

          A cereal company, but the difference is negligible.

        5. Jamie

          General Mills? Yes.

        6. JBento

          Could be worse, could be Nestle.

  5. Nono

    …really, panel 5 Joyce? That’s terrible timing for an epiphany.

    1. Jon

      No fuckin’ joke, there are still some days that I’m talking to/about someone and I associate them with atheism, and the conditioning sunk deep into my brain triggers and reminds me to hate/fear/redeem that person.

      When Joyce came to college, Dina was (intellectually) everything she’d been raised to fear. Smart, informed, entirely non-indulgent of Creationist pseudo-logic, and militantly outspoken against it.

      Even if they became good friends since then, that is STILL a tough pill to swallow.

      1. A Red Balloon

        Although I personally think that “militantly” is a rather charged word to use here, this is all totally legit.

        It’s like AGONY to know and feel your brain constantly lying to you after years of conditioning.

        1. Jon

          …huh. Didn’t expect to demonstrate how deep the tendrils can go in a comment about how deep the tendrils can go.

          “Militant atheist” was absolutely in the big approved list of words.

        2. A Red Balloon

          Sorry if I was being a little sensitive there. I just personally feel that “militant” has rather authoritarian undertones, when Dina was appealing to science and reason.

          I wasn’t trying to call you out on anything, it’s totally OK to use “militantly”, I was just trying to say that I would have personally selected a different word, like “critically”.

      2. anonymsly

        Dina and Joyce are not good friends. I would say they’re not friends at all. They tolerate each other because they both love Becky.

        1. Shade

          I don’t think Dina has issues with Joyce to the point where she’d consider herself tolerating her presence. She’s probably indifferent.

        2. Azhrei Vep

          … Right. She’s indifferent. So she tolerates her, because she doesn’t have interest in not doing so.

        3. Shade

          Eh tolerating to me implies more of a negative but willing to put up with their presence because they aren’t that bad.

        4. alongcameaspider

          You guys should probably go look at some of their early interactions, they were downright hostile towards each other at times

  6. Jon

    Joyce, I was REALLY expecting a little more…*apology* in your apology.

    Like, I know you’re unpacking a lot right now. But you’ve always demonstrated yourself to be incredibly empathic, thoughtful, and kind. You’ve got to be realizing how hurt Becky is.

    1. Amós Batista

      they’re just venting to each other…

      1. Jon

        My read is that Joyce is venting and Becky is genuinely, deeply hurt — and Joyce should maybe pick up on that a bit more, even if I want her to have space to vent.

        1. anonymsly

          What space to vent? She’s not allowed to do it where Becky isn’t present and not allowed to do it where Becky is present, and either way she has to apologize.

        2. Shade

          Speaking as an atheist, she can vent without being an ass to religious people.

        3. QuixoticMaunster

          She’s not just “an atheist” though. She is a teenager attempting to throw off some serious cult indoctrination.

          She’s allowed space to vent. She chose to be around people who wouldn’t be hurt by her venting while she did it and Becky barged in because how dare Joyce spend time with anyone who isn’t mememememe?

          She doesn’t owe Becky an explanation for working through her own shit AWAY from Becky given how regularly Becky has shown that she can’t deal with Joyce changing or expressing a view she doesn’t approve of.

          Other than the thing Becky overheard by lacking boundaries, Joyce hasn’t been an ass to religious people. She’s been trying to make this okay without apologizing for what she’s feeling.

        4. A. Gorilla

          All of this, yes.

        5. Spencer

          I mean yeah this is concise and accurate, at least to me.

          I don’t think Becky has been expecting Joyce to apologize for some nebulous rudeness, I can’t read this as anything but Becky expecting Joyce to apologize for what she believes.

        6. Fart Captor

          Spender, I’m very confused as to how you’ve reached that conclusion after Becky yelling “DINA DOESN’T LIE TO ME OR MAKE FUN OF ME BEHIND MY BACK”?? I’m not sure how much more explicit she could be that it’s not about what Joyce believes

        7. Spencer

          Spender is my cash money rapper name.

          Anyway the last panel of the strip is Becky telling Joyce that she’d still have faith if she didn’t do it wrong, and Becky is saying this because she thinks she has her faith figured out, which is true, she does.

          The problem is that Becky has faith in a God of unending love and Joyce had unshakeable adherence to authority figures, and every word they’re saying to each other is influenced by how they thought that the other processed faith the same way they did.

          Like, I think this has been way too messy and angry a conversation for it to be as simple as “Becky is mad because Joyce was mean.”

      2. Needfuldoer

        *At each other.

  7. A Red Balloon

    Joyce, Becky, both of you, CHILL with the comparisons to Dina!!!

    1. Airyu

      I think it’s fair on Becky’s end though. Joyce is basically saying if Becky’s going to be mad at her, she has to be mad at Dina too. And on top of that, Joyce says that it “feels wrong” to think like Dina… If someone said stuff like that about my girlfriend, I’d be mad at them too

      1. A Red Balloon

        Well, I guess that holds, but I just kinda think the issue is between only them, and it just seems kinda wrong to rope Dina into it.

        1. zee

          Joyce roped Dina into it, Becky just shut it down with a very reasonable response

      2. anonymsly

        In this specific case, I’ll give it a pass. Joyce and Dina have possibly the worst non-overtly-enemy relationship in the strip. Joyce’s relationship with MIKE was better than any part of her relationship with Dina.

        Dina’s reactions Joyce have included literally hissing and spitting, and physically trying to haul Becky away from her like she was a plague rat. I’d doubletake if I consciously realized I was thinking like that person too.

        1. A Red Balloon

          Yet again, we come face to face with the egregious problem of trying to distinguish Joyce from her indoctrination.

          It’s the kind of tangled mess that happens when a person invests their core identity into ANY belief, religious, political or otherwise.

        2. Clif

          Some belief systems work out better than others.

          https://www.heavensgate.com/

        3. A Red Balloon

          Thankfully Joyce would never eat applesauce laced with phenobarbital, as it probably counts as “foods touching” to her.

          But she should still be careful.

  8. Black

    In Joyce’s defense, isn’t “being better than others” a big part of religion? At least the “evangelical Christianity” in this country?

    1. Nono

      No, it’s not.

      1. Jon

        It was where I came from.

      2. Thag Simmons

        With the Evangelicals? Yes. Absolutely.

        I’d also say an undercurrent of that absolutely runs through a lot of other religions.

        1. Leorale

          Which other religions? It’s specifically not part of Judaism*. And Muslims are supposed to humbly submit to God, so that doesn’t encourage walking around all better-than-you. I like learning about religions, fill me in on more examples if you’ve got ’em.

          (*FAQ: classically, the idea that Jews are the “Chosen People” is that we’re chosen for a particular job. We aren’t better than people with a different job.)

        2. A Red Balloon

          It’s a trend that’s as old as religion itself.

          Mesopotamian kings for sure justified their power and waging war against neutral countries under the premise that the gods were on their side, just to set one example.

        3. Thag Simmons

          I probably phrased that badly, what I meant was that even in religions that do not actively encourage that mindset, it will exist because it’s sort of just a recurring human thing.

        4. Clif

          If you want to look down on others for their beliefs, politics works so much better than religion.

        5. Thag Simmons

          They’re both good for it.

        6. James

          It may not be “officially part of Judaism” but there’s definitely several Jewish sects that wholeheartedly embrace the idea as a core part of their belief.

        7. Carla's #2 Fan

          Agreed. I was going to say it’s absolutely a part of Judaism. I grew up reform (although I think I’m Reconstructionist now) and I knew that Orthodox Jews believed that we were Jewish, but not practicing Judaism.

      3. A Red Balloon

        This is a kind of question that can’t be answered that well with a simple “yes” or “no”.

        Even with a narrowed group of Evangelism, you have a lot of smaller subdivisions before you get to Joyce and Becky’s (formerly shared) religious domain.

        However, any religion, at least those involving gods, are not only able to be used as a resource to comfort the meek.

        They are a resource that can be used by anyone, elitist or otherwise, who can and do use it to support the idea that the gods are on THEIR side.

        1. Rose by Any Other Name

          I would point out that much of American Evangelical traces its roots back to Calvinism.
          Calvinism is based on the idea that rich people are better than everyone else because God gave them money and thus must love them more than everyone else.
          It is one of the most toxic ideas to come out of the Reformation.

        2. Leorale

          You may be thinking of prosperity gospel, which is indeed toxic.
          Calvinism is also super wack, though! Predeterminism: humans controlling their own fate implies that God is less powerful than God controlling it. So, they don’t. God knows and controls everything, God knows what you’ll choose and has already sorted you into heaven or hell before you were born, you can’t do anything about it. Very very few people are the heaven-bound elect, they were born that way. Acting like a puritan is a hint that you are one of the elect. But, most babies are fated to go to Hell. It’s… it’s intense.

        3. Mr D phone posting

          I was under the impression that the original idea of the prosperity gospel was “god made you rich so you would help out those less fortunate”?, Which was, of course, later co-opted by corrupt people (as most religious variants that usually start out with an idea for kinder ways)

        4. Jamie

          Nope. Unless you have a specific citation for that, I’m not aware of any such roots for prosperity gospel. That could be a post-hoc justification that gets trotted out occasionally, or a spinoff, but as far as I know, there was never a period during prosperity gospel was any kind of noblesse oblige. Maybe a specific preacher?

        5. Clif

          Yeah, Rose, I’m pretty sure that Calvinism is less based on the idea that rich people are better than everyone else and more on Calvinists are better than everyone else on account of God preordained them to be.

      4. Switchchris23

        It all depends on the person and/or the religion. If a central belief is that all people who aren’t like you will go to hell, that’s saying that your better then others simply because of what you believe in. I come from a very, very religious family, a very big one at that, almost all of them think they are better then people who arnt religious. (its a big reason why I don’t talk to them)

        1. Clif

          People that aren’t like me all go to hell?

          Nobody else is like me.

          Sorry about that, Y’all.

      5. John Smith

        Many (most?) religions have a pretty large “We’re chosen by god” or “We recognized the RIGHT god” element to them. So… they are, de facto, “better” than everybody else.

        1. Leorale

          Chosen *for a job*. The job is following a bunch of commandments, which is kind of difficult and annoying. Chosen is closer to meaning drafted. It’s not like we’re better somehow.

        2. John Smith

          The whole “Heaven” thing would beg to differ.

          Yes yes, Hell isn’t really mentioned in the bible, or not as such. And it’s not literal, all a metaphor. God wouldn’t actually brutally punish 2/3 of the world’s population for eternity!

          But an awful lot of religious folks certainly seem to think he would.

        3. Leorale

          Jews don’t have heaven and hell.

        4. John Smith

          True. But all flavours of christianity do, Islam does, LOTS of historical religions had some kind of afterlife full of punishment.

        5. Clif

          Joe’s heaven is based on doing others as you would have them do you.

        6. Mano308gts

          Fun thing is, not all interpretations of ‘hell’ fall under “brutally punishing people”. Some interpretations comprehend it as self-chosen, self-inflicted misery; essentially, the action of flipping the game-board because you’re angry about not winning, mid-way through the game, for eternity- at which point nobody in hell is happy, but it is caused only by the greed and selfishness of the hellish, and not by their being ‘punished’.

          A common example of this idea is the usage of a comparison between heaven and hell as two groups, both sat around a feast, both using eating instruments that prevent them from feeding themselves directly. The hell-bound attempt to feed themselves, though the task is impossible, and become miserable, frustrated, and angry; while the heavenly contentedly help their neighbors, and thus are in turn helped themselves, and enjoy the bounties of the feast.

        7. John Smith

          I’m familiar. The “Turned away from god through their own choices” version of Hell is pretty popular in some christian denominations. Means you get to have hell, but it’s not God torturing people.

        8. Mr D phone posting

          You know, that just makes it sound like hell is basically the same as regular earth.
          Wouldn’t that be a kicker? Live your whole life here, then we die and…
          Hell is the exact same thing, including suburbs and slow DMVs and your cousins screaming politics at each other over dinner.

        9. King Daniel

          Politics at dinner? Definitely hell.

        10. Agemegos

          “Hell is other people.”

        11. Jamie

          So, is belief in Hell literalist or non-literalist, given that it’s not actually based on Scripture and is something people made up?

        12. King Daniel

          Christian Hell has at least some basis in Christian scripture, though the modern pop-culture view owes far, far more to the likes of Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost than to any biblical source. It’s Judaism that lacks a concept of heaven and hell, as Leorale pointed out above.

        13. Rheinman

          Both are Biblical fan fic, when looked at from a certain way.

        14. Clif

          It was originally a reference to the place where they burned the bodies of the dead.

          Unless it wasn’t.

      6. Huehuetotl

        There’s a very large Christian identity movement trying to take over the US, which thinks non-believers, at best, shouldn’t be citizens, (and more and more commonly, Satanic). So yes, it’s about being better than other people.

    2. Marisa Mockery

      Yes, it is.

    3. Andy

      Yes, in contradictory ways. The way it should play out is that Christians are generally exhorted to be better than the rest of the world in terms of behavior. The other way is how it does play out, whereore than a few Christians believe theyre better in terms of worth by virtue of being Christians.

      1. Huehuetotl

        I don’t see the contradiction. Your -should play out- is still holier-than-thou conceitedness.

        1. Andy

          It can be, yes, depending on how it’s approached. Mary is a perfect example of it still being conceitedness. On the other hand, it’s possible for a person to do their best to follow the tenets of their faith without forcing them on anyone or hurting them, and to be led by their faith to do charitable works and help others. This is the sort of better that Christians are generally exhorted to be, and when done as an act of belief rather than a show of belief, is the sort of better that might actually be better.

        2. Schpoonman

          I always remember the passage where Jesus says that you should not be praying in public. People will know you’re a follower of Christ by your works: Your humility, your charity, the way you build others up and then you tell them that Christ gave you this strength, blah blah blah.

        3. Huehuetotl

          Believing that they hold themselves to a higher standard than they hold everyone else is still a holier-than-thou conceit. I’m reflecting on when that’s how I felt about myself, I even dressed it up the same way. It’s less confrontational, but there’s still not the contradiction.

    4. Rose by Any Other Name

      Evangelical Christianity? Yes.
      Other religions? I mean, it varies, but not a lot of them.
      I’ve known a fair number of Jewish people. None of them thought they were better than anybody else (or at least not due to being Jewish).
      Likewise, a lot of smaller religions like Neo Paganism and Spiritualism don’t have that attitude. Most of those have the attitude of “please leave us alone to worship in peace”.

      1. Clif

        My traditions are more authentic than yours.

    5. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, “I am not the kind of person I want to be.” It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.
      Last words of Toure Bomoko, in “Appendix II: The Religion of Dune”

      – Frank Herbert

      https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dune#Appendices

    6. C.T. Phipps

      I mean Jesus’ whole thing was, “Remember you are not better than others. Being rich, righteous, and successful means you’re actually an asshole.”

      Part of the great irony of fundamentalism. They ignore this.

    7. jmsr7

      Joyce’s branch of christianity is highly authoritarian in nature. “Being better than others” is the main thing it’s about. The higher up the ladder you are, the less danger you’re in from those above you, and the less abuse you’re subject to.

      Conversely: if you’re a terrible person, the higher up you go, the fewer rules you have to follow and the more people you can abuse. Rules are made by the strong to control the weak. Children raised in authoritarian religion learn some truly horrific lessons and are entirely driven by fear.

      I’m guessing that Becky had a loving mother who was trapped in an abusive marriage to a horrible man; one who himself had learned the those lessons. And because fundangelical christian culture literally demonizes outsiders, critical thinking skills and effing questioning ffs – she had no way out to make the pain stop but suicide.

      (yes i mean literally – they live in a world where demons are everywhere. They think “spiritual warfare” actually does something; they’re not acting when they walk around in public screaming and waving their arms.)(and any pushback – like telling them that they’re scaring people – is interpreted as them being right and that they’re succeeding in scaring away the demons!)

      By the way, if you ever wondered why fundagelicals are such awful people overall, or why so many of their leaders turn out to be terrible people: this is why. You couldn’t design a system more effective at abusing people and creating abusers if you tried. They’ve left nothing to chance.

      As a single example of the most recent leader to fall from grace (that i’m aware of; there’s probably been someone else by now): take Ravi Zacharias. He abused literally hundreds of women he had power over, and who knows how many during his trips to Southeast Asia. However, the thing i find most shocking about this scandal is not the abuse but rather the fact they DIDN’T attempt to cover it up! – probably because he was already dead and couldn’t call in the favours from the fundagelical old boys network.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I admit I kind of have been feeling that Becky’s mother wasn’t unhappy because of reasons (Ross aside) but mentally ill but couldn’t get treatment because her church didn’t recognize that as a valid way to deal with it.

    8. JepMZ

      Yeah, basically. I get “you’re better than that” all the time

    9. Reltzik

      A big part of Christianity?

      …. wellll… depends on what flavor of Christianity you’re talking about. But it’s a big part of a significant part of Christianity.

      A big part of the type of Christianity that Joyce’s church practiced? YES.

    10. Rainhat

      That’s pretty much any ingroup identifier. Atheists don’t get a pass, for that matter. (Remember “Brights?” Or people identifying themselves as Rational as if that’s a thing you are rather than the description of a process?)

      1. Mr D phone posting

        Don’t remind me of HPMOR. It may be entertaining but the entire fanfic is so hard up its own ass (and the author as well) it can nibble on its own tonsils

        1. Jamie

          Hey now, HPMOR was good shit. Eliezer’s a self-defeating turd and his movement is dumb, but HPMOR was funny and actually managed to tell a good story, with plenty of cool tweaks to the worldbuilding, in spite of itself or its author.

          It’s absolutely better than JKR being JKR for the last decade, but I admit that’s a low bar to clear.

        2. Clif

          Hey, I liked JKRs fan fiction, but yeah, HPMOR was better.

        3. BBCC

          Definitely can’t relate. That whole story dripped condescension and Eliezar didn’t understand the ‘rationalist’ concepts nearly as well as they thought they did.

        4. Clif

          That’s part of what made it entertaining.

        5. BBCC

          Okay, y’know what? Valid. There were definitely parts like that I thought were funny. I’m not trying to knock people who liked it, for whatever reason. I just wanted to state my own piece on it.

        6. Clif

          There are also a lot of parts that would make great movie. The part where Harry first turns a dementor. The part where his Phoenix rejects him. Lots of powerful scenes.

        7. Heather

          Wasn’t that like the fanfic which spawned like one of three known cults attached to Harry Potter. Like I also remember Snape Wives but HPMOR and one other fanfic (I think it was The Year of Darkness) resulted in some weird shit.

        8. aelfwine

          HPMOR/LessWrong-style rationalists never call themselves (ourselves) “rational” for the same reason that most Christians wouldn’t call themselves “saints”. Rationalists *know* that they aren’t rational creatures, know they’re full of biases.

          Pretty much the entirety of HPMOR is about how non-rational Harry revealed himself to be, among other things in trusting Quirrel simply because… he wanted to trust him, not for any actual rational reason.

      2. thejeff

        Yeah, I think the last few days of comments have shown that pretty clearly. Not to mention the comic itself.

        It’s a part of human nature. Some religions might amplify it and many wield the systemic power to make it more dangerous, but it’s hardly unique to them.

  9. Lanie

    For as much as Becky irks me, she really does seem to have a strong sense of what her religion means to her on a personal level, and I’ve got to respect that.

  10. not someone else

    Wow, Joyce. Just… triple down there. Everyone was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were talking about yourself (even if it didn’t sound like that) but apparently that’s not something remotely conscious yet.

    1. Thag Simmons

      Joyce was talking about herself, but the thing is that she was also talking about other people at the same time.

      1. Needfuldoer

        She was facetiously placing herself in a role and then mocking it, not realizing how wide a net she was casting.

    2. C.T. Phipps

      I mean, Joyce does think Becky is being stupid. It’s not really subtext.

      Joyce: I am still righteous and superior. It’s just Christians who are stupid and inferior now.

      1. thejeff

        Also Joyce: Wow I was really stupid to believe all that.

        I don’t think Joyce has actually gone to Liz’s “and I’m a brain genius for not believing it anymore”. Mind you, I’m not sure Liz is really there either.

      2. Fart Captor

        I think it’s more that losing her faith was/is a painful process for Joyce, and the way Becky’s faith has only gotten stronger if anything through everything they’ve been through has felt like salt in the wound. She clearly doesn’t appreciate that while they were raised to believe the same things, Becky never fully bought into it the way Joyce did

  11. Bagge

    Well, yeah, that’s one of the reasons Joyce doesn’t have that faith any more.

  12. Cmasta1992

    I don’t like Becky but she’s kinda making some good points here.

    The absolute fear that one day I’ll agree with Malaya about something.

    1. Lumino

      Right?

      Like, 9/10 times when Becky is in a strip, I feel like she’s in the wrong. But holy hell she is just killing it lately.

      Or maybe it’s just that Joyce is screwing it up so hard that it’s impossible to go beneath that.

      1. Huehuetotl

        She did put Joyce in a difficult situation, asking her why she hesitated when she was tying to comfort her. Joyce deserves time to work out her irreligion without having to out herself to the person who most likely would try to keep her in the religion.

        Like this apology is going terribly, but Joyce’s apostasy is a life change that she’s going through. It’s unfortunate Becky heard when Joyce was venting about her regrets, but it’s not wrong for her to have those regrets, or need to express them.

        1. thejeff

          She did, but that wasn’t wrong in itself. That’s part of their relationship – of many close relationships in fact, and can easily be a good thing in slightly different circumstances. It just made it really hard right there.
          There’s a balance in any situation like this between deserving the privacy to work things out yourself and not lying to people who trust you. Lying will damage that trust, even if it was the right choice.

          And while Joyce has the right to vent, does that right need to include mocking her oldest friend?

        2. Huehuetotl

          She has the right to be frustrated with her past self and to mock her past self, even though her past self shares those qualities with her friend. I don’t like the idea that people can’t regret something about themselves if that might upset other people if they found out.

    2. Wizard

      I’m sure you agree with her about something. You know what they say about stopped clocks and blind squirrels…

      1. Clif

        They both function occasionally due to chance?

        But suppose that the clock shows 15 minutes to a little after 6 and the blink squirrel is dead.

        1. Clif

          Blind squirrel is dead?

        2. Needfuldoer

          It didn’t see the end coming.

          (I’m sorry, that was terrible.)

    3. Jamie

      Malaya has made great points. Gives good drawing advice.

      1. Amós Batista

        when malaya said it? Could you pass a link?

        1. Jamie

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

    4. Ludaire

      I’d agree with some of it. Criticizing the dishonesty? Sure, absolutely valid and the main complaint to be leveled here.

      But she’s also insulting Joyce for her beliefs. “I thought you *knew* what were the correct parts” and throwing her indoctrinated feelings about Dina? That’s losing a lot of sympathy from me. Just because Becky was hurt first doesn’t mean she gets to turn around and hurt Joyce the same way. She’s not using the word “idiot,” but she might as well be.

      I also really dislike the way she tried to pin Joyce into either turning her general statement into a personal insult or like, renouncing her clearly different beliefs.

      Focus on the lack of honesty, Becky. That’s the path to healing, not trying to manipulate your friend back into your religious box just because you disagree with her now.

      1. thejeff

        I think that’s a pretty harsh take on Becky.
        That line was in direct response to Joyce defending calling her an idiot by referencing a 6000 year old earth and the ark. She’s saying those weren’t important to her and she didn’t think they were the important part to Joyce either. She also says “important”, which has very different connotations than “correct”.
        I’m not sure what you mean about “indoctrinated feelings about Dina”. Joyce brings Dina up and Becky responds with “she doesn’t mock me or lie to me.”

        1. Ludaire

          The word choice really doesn’t matter. Either way, Becky is looking down on Joyce’s expectation of consistency in her beliefs and gaslighting Joyce for things she was taught by her religion. It’s Joyce’s fault she believed the wrong things were important. It’s Joyce’s fault she’s judgemental. It can’t be religion’s fault; Becky has to maintain the validity of her own faith. It’s easier to assert that Joyce is at fault. This isn’t the first time either. Becky has a tendency that’s pretty common where she gives credit for good things to religion (like a god sending a super hero and her best friend to save her instead of giving credit to the friend who called in Amazigirl and charged in on a motorcycle) while blaming the individual for bad things (like blaming her father and Joyce for their poor behavior instead of blaming the religious beliefs behind that behavior).

          The indoctrinated feelings I mentioned were her comment that her believing the same thing as Dina felt wrong. Instead of acknowledging that Joyce is fighting ingrained preconceptions of irreligious people, Becky gaslights her for it.

        2. Spencer

          Yep.

          Joyce saved Becky in defiance of God and her upbringing and everyone in her hometown because she loved her. When Becky got kidnapped by her Authority Figure who decided what is right and wrong was going to ship her off to conversion therapy, Amazi-Girl and Sal swooped in to save the day.

          All of these things that were done by people in defiance of Joyce and Becky’s upbringing and its Authority Figures, Becky thinks were God’s will.

      2. Aus

        I think the trouble is that putting Joyce back in her religion box is her primary motivation – in the sense that it represents Becky’s primary character flaw. This goes back to strip #6 of the whole comic – Becky does not want Joyce to chance. It’s likely this extends to many parts of her life, but in general, she does whatever possible to ensure Joyce does not chance, or at least tries to reframe her changes as being expressions of the status quo. Dorothy isn’t her new best friend – she’s just her *atheist* best friend, and Becky’s still the real one! Joyce isn’t really atheist, she’s just refocusing on the Good Parts of the faith!

        Becky relentlessly and aggressively makes changes in her own life – often to a reckless degree. Some of them are necessary, like fleeing her father’s control, but she also resists attempts to get her to slow down and make more deliberate choices. Her character flaw is expecting everyone else, particularly Joyce, to remain the same.

        Joyce’s words have strongly hurt Becky, and that’s valid, but they would have hurt Becky whether she said them behind her back or in front of her – she’s hurt most at the fact that Joyce is changing. In a sense, she’s attempting to exercise control over Joyce the same way her family and community did to everyone. It’s perfectly understandable she would do this given her experiences, but we’ll have to see whether she can grow out of it before losing Joyce entirely.

  13. alongcameaspider

    Yeah this friendship seems to be deteriorating fast now

    1. King Daniel

      You were my sister, Joyce! I loved you!

      1. Lanie

        Cue the lava?

        1. Doctor_Who

          Nah, they’re gonna battle over a giant bowl of oatmeal.

        2. Schpoonman

          Joyce: “Honestly? Would rather have the shielded droid and lava river.”

        3. King Daniel

          Becky: *kicks Joyce into the oatmeal*
          Joyce: “I HATE YOU!”

        4. Clif

          Honestly, there’s never a bad time to cue the lava.

          You just got to release the Krakin with enough time for it to get out of the way.

      2. TemporalShrew

        “It’s over – I have the moral high-ground!”

      3. cbwroses

        Continue with the Star Wars references. I am here for it.

        1. King Daniel

          Your move.

        2. cbwroses

          Hello there.
          I did not expect a reply as I was only expressing my appreciation.

        3. King Daniel

          So you’re saying “it’s a trick, send no reply”?

        4. Jamie

          Saying It’s a trap.

        5. King Daniel

          I was hoping for Kenobi. Why are you here?

        6. Clif

          You mean, with all those movies and novels “Your move” wasn’t a Star Wars reference to one of them?

        7. King Daniel

          So uncivilized.

        8. Keulen

          General Kenobi, you are a bold one.

        9. King Daniel

          You fool! I’ve been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku!

        10. Jflb96

          What a curious coincidence. I trained the man who killed him.

        11. King Daniel

          Do not want!

  14. StClair

    True.
    But what Becky still doesn’t understand (and really should be told, IMO, if Joyce is capable of realizing and saying it) is that it was never actually Joyce’s faith. It was what she was told, and what she tried to follow (to please and/or avoid punishment), but it was never hers.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Oddly, Joyce saying she never believed in God but believed in the church probably would have gone over better.

      Still upsetting but Becky sees this as a matter of trials.

    2. John Smith

      Why wasn’t it “Her Faith?”

      Why is there all this “she was never really a christian” sentiment all of a sudden? Because she had one comment about how maybe she’d never really been feeling god all this time?

      Seriously, people recontextualize what they feel all the time. I’ve never felt god – but I’ve certainly felt the devil. Or more accurately, I’ve felt the sleep paralysis demon. Since I was religious the first time that happened, let me tell you it scared the absolute shit out of me.

      I’m an adult now, I still get sleep paralysis. Even get that evil feeling sometimes. It’s much easier to deal with once you read up on what’s actually happening to you. The feelings are recontextualized.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        Probably because it’s an interesting twist that Joyce really never cared about the God but extreme structure.

        1. John Smith

          Interesting maybe, but is it actually supported by the story? She seemed pretty distraught with losing the “god” bit.

        2. C.T. Phipps

          Her freakout in the Catholic Church was in large part because of how different it seemed. We also know Joyce has extreme biases to routine, food, and other things that resemble a thing I have (*cough* neuroatypical *cough*)

      2. ischemgeek

        Actually way back in Book 9 she was already having dreams around her lack of a felt connection with God:

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/richmullins/

        And maybe I’m reading too much inti it but in her Dream it was about Joyce not feeling god when she prays, general tense there, not about Joyce not feeling god anymore.

    3. Huehuetotl

      I don’t see where you get that at all. A person can have genuine religious experiences than then later become irreligious. And what I’ve read for Joyce. Like here: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/notaste/

      1. thejeff

        Even that includes the “maybe I never did”.

        1. Huehuetotl

          yes, it does include that because there she’s reconsidering what she experienced, what she used to believe was hearing God’s voice. And realizing that she could have been mistaken.

          It does not mean she never believed. Adding to what John Smith said, I did have experiences where I thought I felt God. I was a sincere believer. I’ve since realized what I experienced wasn’t supernatural. So yes, I’m taking all the “she was never really a believer” stuff personally. I was a mainline protestant, and not a creationist so the details are different, but a lot of Joyce’s internal turmoil is familiar to me.

  15. Switchchris23

    This…. doesn’t feel like the Joyce we have been seeing for the past couple months…. hell even just a few pages ago…
    She was so worried she had upset Becky and ruined their friendship, but she seems to be just doing everything she can not to say sorry or make things better. All she has to say is “I wasn’t making fun of you, I was making fun of myself”. Liz really did have a bad effect on Joyce and this change is really making me pissed off at her.

    1. Thulcandran

      Liz and Joyce spent less than six hours together, I’m pretty sure this isn’t Liz’s influence. This character arc is rough, but I don’t think it’s out of the blue. We did time-skip forward a bit, too. Joyce seeing her parents’ marriage coming apart in real time probably has a lot more to do with this than her Jesusy friend on social media turning out to be an atheist.

      1. Needfuldoer

        If anything, I think Liz influenced Joyce to finally uncork the repressed anger, resentment, and pain she’s spent the last few in-story months bottling up.

    2. Jon

      Nah, this isn’t Liz.

      This is Joyce, finally talking through some of these things for the first time, with the exact worst person to talk to about them.

      She’s trying to unpack her reasons for doing something at the same moment she’s trying to apologize for it. That’s a tall order. I’m not surprised it’s coming out really rough and hurting Becky.

      1. alongcameaspider

        Honestly going straight to an apology was probably a mistake

        Becky needed time to cool off and Joyce needed time to properly work through things

        1. Switchchris23

          If she didn’t run out to apologize Becky would just assume Joyce really didn’t care, and really was making fun of her behind her back. To cool off properly from a fight it needs to have actually been a fight, Becky stormed off before getting anything close to an explanation, meaning all that would happen would be for her to be angry until that feeling went away and get really sad assuming their best friend hated her.

        2. Thulcandran

          Yeah, I think Joyce made the right call in going out to apologize, but now she’s sort of . . . not apologizing. Seems a little counterproductive. Even a “look, I’m sorry, I’m just kind of a mess right now, but I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Which is sort of what Becky pointed out last strip, but with different emphasis.

    3. Lanie

      I mean, maybe telling Becky she wasn’t making fun of her feels like too much of a lie to Joyce right now.

      1. goggleman64

        Yeah, this rings true for me.

        Maybe Joyce is wrestling with the fact that she *does* think Becky’s faith is ridiculous now, and hasn’t figured out a way to get across (or accept?) the idea “I love you, even though I think your deeply-held belief is idiotic”.

        Fittingly, she should ask Dina for advice.

        1. jmsr7

          I disagree. Dina doesn’t make fun of religious beliefs because she doesn’t care about religious beliefs. She was raised without them, they don’t ping her radar and until recently, she was never personally affected by them. It’s easy to be polite to believers when your stake in the conversation is the equivalent of debating “should ships dock at yellow painted docks or can we leave them unpainted?” Politeness is simple courtesy.

          It’s easy to not make fun of peoples’ religious beliefs when you’ve never encountered religious people or had to deal with them at all. Or until recently at least.

        2. Formerly Glenn

          I’d argue that it’s easy to not make fun of peoples religious beliefs even if you have met religious people.

          Inaction is almost always easier than action.

        3. thejeff

          Harder when they’ve been core to your life for basically all of it and you’re in the middle of a crisis about it.

        4. Hatman

          Unless someone religious is coming at her with conflicting actual scientific theories (or directly attacks her), she’s not going to care because it does not register with her.

          I don’t know if it’s a politeness thing and more that since it doesn’t register in Dina’s lens, she doesn’t care about it.

      2. goggleman64

        Boy, as I think about Joyce’s possible motivations, it seems more and more like she’s a mish-mash of fear of rejection, shame over lying, self-loathing over being a non-believer, incredulity that *anyone* could *ever* have been a believer … just, all fucked up inside.

        When I was reading her conversations with Liz, it seemed kinda weird and out-of-nowhere … but now it seems like a pressure valve blowing. I bet she hasn’t figured out how to talk to anyone else about this; worried that if she voices some of the things that are running through her head they’ll say she’s no longer the kind, loving Joyce they like; that she’s become shitty and mean. I bet she fell in hard with Liz once Liz started saying out loud the things that were ricocheting around Joyce’s skull.

    4. Thag Simmons

      That apology wouldn’t work because she kinda was. She was making fun of herself sure, but at the same time (and perhaps unintentionally) she was making fun of Becky.

      1. thejeff

        Right, but getting across that she was mostly aiming at herself would help.

        “I can’t help feeling like I was an idiot and that’s splashing over onto you” might still hurt, but it’s better than “You’re an idiot and I’m a brain genius”.

    5. Andy

      Joyce has a fun cocktail of adrenaline, fear, guilt, and anger running through her right now, and it is one hell of a drug.

    6. John Smith

      Never been in this kind of argument, eh? The kind where you just get all the shit that’s been building up out in the open, any way it happens to spill out? They’re not typically well thought out.

    7. Jamie

      I don’t think Joyce actually knows that that’s what she was doing.

    8. Ludaire

      Becky backed her into a corner where she has to agree to her new beliefs being a personal insult to Becky or renouncing them to some degree. Given that, I think the defensiveness is understandable, even if it’s not the most productive response.

      It actually feels very consistent with Joyce’s character. This conversation mirrors the conversation they had shortly after Joyce and Dina started dating, where neither really answered each other’s questions about faith. In both situations, she was trying to rectify her concern for a friend making a mistake and respecting their autonomy.

      I think right now she sincerely believes enabling Becky’s faith is risking further harm to her friend at the hand of religion. She doesn’t want to explicitly enable that, but she also doesn’t want to agree to a reinterpretation of her beliefs as a personal attack on Becky. Not only would allowing the more personal reinterpretation damage further damage their friendship, but it would also be really unfair, especially with Becky firing back with very personal and directed jabs at Joyce’s beliefs.

    9. zee

      Joyce quadrupling down when she fucks up isnt out of character, she did it with Jacob and she’s doing it here. She’s going to hate herself for it later

  16. Cephalo the Pod

    Still confused as to why Becky is taking everything Joyce said as directed solely towards her.

    1. Jon

      ’cause she walked in on Joyce calling all Christians idiots, and Becky is currently the only truly Christian friend Joyce has?

      1. Cephalo the Pod

        I’ve seen plenty of commenters on her make the assumption that those comments Joyce made here self-deprecative. I don’t see why that assumption couldn’t be made in-universe.

        1. StClair

          Because they’re young and … inexperienced, and everything is always all about them.

        2. C.T. Phipps

          I dunno, if I’m a Jedi and a friend of mine shittalks Jedi on a day where I’m mourning Master Qui Gon, I’m going to take it personally.

        3. Andy

          Is there ever a day where we don’t mourn Master Qui Gon, though?

        4. C.T. Phipps

          Naboo Liberation Day is rough, that’s all I’m saying.

        5. Clif

          Blessed are the Mauled

        6. Andy

          No kidding. It’s like a hole in the gut.

        7. Socks

          Sometimes, people hear something and come to inaccurate conclusions about the things they heard, based on their own pre-existing thoughts and feelings. Also it’s easier for many people to assume something is about them, than to assume it isn’t. It’s like, a Thing.

        8. Jon

          Becky has no way of knowing that. And heck, Joyce might not really 100% grasp it either. She was just venting. But it still came out in the worst possible way.

          I made some of those “self-directed” comments myself. But from Becky’s perspective, that’s not the obvious answer.

        9. cbwroses

          Because we have the frame of reference that Joyce has been dealing with this situation for months while for those same months, Becky thought Joyce was still onboard the soul train?
          Yes, Becky had an idea that Joyce’s beliefs had fluctuated, but so had hers and she’s still a believer. And while it has been mentioned many times recently that Becky ignored Joyce when she seemed to want to talk about it, Joyce has also avoided talking about it when Becky asked her at later times.
          So, since Becky showed up and until now (September/October to January), while seeing each other almost everyday if not everyday, Becky has thought they were both still believers, even having outright confirmation from Joyce the day before, only to suddenly find Joyce not only doesn’t believe but is making fun of those who do.
          Becky doesn’t know about Joyce’s crisis of faith so she has no reason to believe Joyce was only talking about herself. Hell, all of us know about it and a good number of us don’t believe she was only talking about herself. Believing she was making fun of both her and Becky is already generous considering Becky’s ignorance. And her not denying she was making fun of Becky would only discourage that belief.

        10. Agemegos

          Perhaps it is because of a pervasive human failing called “fundamental attribution bias”. We recognise our own actions as influenced by and responses to (even as driven by) external circumstances, but we tend to attribute others’ actions to innate character.

        11. thumb

          We have more context for Joyce’s actions. Becky has Joyce making fun of believers behind her back. Occam’s Razor does apply.

        12. Fist_of_Life

          We’ve had days to process Joyce’s comments, and we were able to clearly see her face. Becky has had, like 5 minutes, and I’m not convinced she got the view of Joyce’s expression at the time.

        13. JBento

          I mean, Becky doesn’t have the information we have?

        14. Kamino Neko

          It was self-deprecating. That doesn’t mean Becky wasn’t caught in the blast radius. That’s kind of the problem with edgy broad-brush shit like she said.

    2. justin8448

      Because they’re best friends and interact every day and are supposed to be real with each other.

      It’s not as big a deal to humor distant relations or friends you haven’t seen in forever just to avoid an awkward conversation. By comparison, secretly mocking the beliefs of your best friend would definitely be a sticking point for that friendship.

      Also, how many other Christians does Joyce even interact with at this point? Presumably she doesn’t interact much with her church friends from home, along with her mother and that one brother who showed his true colors when Joyce and Becky went home for a weekend.

      I don’t think there are any other Christians in her life who are important to her.

      1. King Daniel

        Prior to Becky rejoining the plot, Jennifer was Joyce’s closest Christian friend. Post-timeskip though (especially with her having moved to a different dorm), no idea what their current relationship is.

        1. justin8448

          Oh, thanks! I forgot about Jennifer.

          But yeah, it’s hard to guess what the current status of that friendship might be.

      2. Sam

        Most girls on Joyce’s floor are some type of Christian and she at very least has friendly relationships with most of them. Becky is the most outspoken of them in general though.

    3. Regina phalange

      It would have certainly been more helpful if Joyce had denied the accusation that it was about her, instead of focusing back on her Dina epiphany.

    4. Airyu

      I feel like I would have done the same thing
      If I was religious and had only one friend who was religious out of my entire friend group, and then I saw that friend saying religious people are stupid? Yeah, I’d be mad too

    5. anonymsly

      Everything is about Becky. Learn it now.

    6. QuixoticMaunster

      Because Becky believes everything in life is about her.

      Joyce has a new friend? New enemy for Becky.
      Joyce has a crush? Ugh won’t anyone think about how this affects Becky?
      Joyce has feelings about her parents? Becky was asking about SEX Joyce ugh grow up.
      Joyce is kind to Becky because it’s not a good time to bring up her new atheism? LYING to Becky because don’t you know she’s entitled to every thought Joyce has?
      Joyce wants to vent about a cult she was indoctrinated into and does it FAR away from Becky? WOW how could you not know Becky was going to aggressively insert herself into this situation at the wrong time?

      To say nothing of how she treats everything Dorothy says and does, or everything Dina is and wants.

      Becky has had an unbelievably hard time, and it has turned her into a really selfish, difficult person to deal with when you need an adult perspective. I’m not surprised at it, and I hope she learns and grows, but she won’t do that if no one ever calls her out on it.

      1. thejeff

        “I swear the comments sections on these strips are stunningly devoid of understanding for a teenager who is dealing with the collapse of the entire way she thought the world worked.”

        I guess only Joyce gets any of this consideration.

        1. QuixoticMaunster

          “Becky has had an unbelievably hard time, and it has turned her into a really selfish, difficult person to deal with when you need an adult perspective. I’m not surprised at it, and I hope she learns and grows, but she won’t do that if no one ever calls her out on it.”

          See also my comment yesterday about how Joyce doesn’t have the same amount on the line as Becky does when it comes to religion because if Becky accepted that her religion isn’t real it’s a fresh loss of her mother.

          If you’re going to attempt to use my own comments against me because I dared point out a very obvious character flaw (Becky is self-centered) please kindly understand what those comments are. Thanks 😉

        2. QuixoticMaunster

          To be clear, my comment from yesterday:

          “If there’s no god, then there might be no heaven. If there’s no heaven, then her mother is really gone in a way she hasn’t had to face. There’s no television to watch, no impending reunion at the end of her life. Becky will have to accept she has probably had all the time with her mother that she’s going to get, and that is a horrifically large wave of grief for anyone to deal with. Let alone an 18yo”

  17. BBCC

    It’s such a relief these two are still totally on the same wavelength so they don’t talk past each other.

    1. Hazel

      *snort* Okay, you made me smile there.

      1. BBCC

        I aim to please!

  18. Jamie

    Welp, there goes my last shred of benefit of the doubt.

  19. Rakeesh

    It’s fun how Joyce isn’t allowed, by basically anyone in her circle, to be dealing with fallout of losing her faith. Yes, she said a number of hurtful things-but she didn’t say them to Becky, and if she hadn’t been egged on and getting caught up in her own bitterness, she probably wouldn’t have said them at all.

    ‘Those weren’t the important parts’ is also pretty damn stupid. But I suppose it’s helpful to be able to say ‘*this* part is the ineffable word of God, but not all these other things. They’re not important.’

    Also, I wonder to what extent Becky is capable of recognizing the irony in her last remark.

    I hope they can both step back and say, ‘Hey, we’re dealing with some bad shit right now and we’re both lashing out. Let’s step back a bit.’

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I mean, Rakeesh, Christianity is the WORST religion to try to make a fundamentalist inerrent truth of God out of. Because Jesus starts and ends his testament talking about how a bunch of stuff doesn’t count.

      You can’t be a reform branch of Judaism without the reform. So being orthodox about Jesus is….well, pretty stupid. Becky has it right there.

    2. Suzi

      To be fair, she has hidden this from almost all of them so how the heck where they supposed to know? Instead of talking it out with them, she just mocked her “friends” behind their backs, so it’s not like Joyce is exactly doing any of the proper steps here.

    3. Jade

      I don’t really think there’s been much opportunity for people around Joyce to give her space to deal with losing her faith, since isn’t this the first time it’s really been revealed to anyone outside of Sarah and Joe? But her losing her faith also doesn’t excuse the fact that she’s said something that hurt her friend. A kind of “your right to swing your fists stops at my nose” kind of situation.

      While I do think Joyce was getting caught up with Liz and also feeling bitter about her loss of faith, just because she wasn’t saying “I’m Becky, I’m dumb for believing in God” and was instead using generic statements saying people who believe in God are dumb, it still implies that Becky is included in that group, so it’s still hurtful.

      Also, I’m guessing that “the important parts” are more about the life lessons of her religion, such as being kind to others, helping those in need, and treating people the way you want to be treated. Not so much a strict adherence to the “earth was literally made in 7 days and people were literally made of dirt” parts.

      That being said, I do agree that it might be helpful for them to talk about this after Joyce stops being so defensive and Becky cools off. I do think that Joyce needs to be able to tell Becky what she’s been going through lately and also be able to sincerely apologize.

      1. anonymsly

        The thing is, Joyce was swinging her fists in space she believed to be empty, and Becky walked right into them mid-swing. That that point, it’s not exactly Joyce’s fault Becky has a bloody nose.

        1. Wraithy2773

          Yeah, I don’t fault Joyce for the Three’s Company shenanigans that caused this whole situation to blow up. It’s… shitty but it happens, I’ve calmed a fair bit about the venting (then again, I’ve had days and zero personal stakes involved with this topic, the characters have had a couple minutes maybe).

          I think its more about the lying and deception and a question of how much Joyce really does believe the stuff that she was saying. And I don’t think that Joyce has those answers fully, which is why this is going so ugly.

          What Joyce should do is apologize, say that she didn’t know how to break it to Becky, that she’s still trying to figure out what her own position of faith is but she doesn’t look down on Becky at all.

          I also firmly belief that Joyce is not in a mental space where she’s capable of saying any of that right now, because she doesn’t fully know what she believes in right now.

        2. anonymsly

          Agreed. And the sad thing is that Joyce is probably going to have to get herself to a place where she can recognize or say those things either entirely by herself or with main supports Sarah and Joe. (Becky’s emphatically Not Interested in any part of this process, and I suspect she’ll be angry-spiteful enough that she’ll make sure Joyce has zero Dorothy access. It’s not like Joyce and Dorothy seem to share any classes this term.)

          Oh, I just realized! If that happens, Joyce’s lie to Liz about Joe being her best friend will become true. I like that.

        3. Wraithy2773

          Mmm, I don’t see Dorothy getting pushed around by Becky. She’s willing to humor the faux-rivalry stuff because she knows that it comes from a place of friendship, but Dorothy’s got a strong enough will that if her roommate tries to control her actions, she’ll barrel right on through.

          I do agree that Becky isn’t going to be a good aid for Joyce’s next steps. If anything, I think she works best as the goal: Someone that Joyce wants to be on good, friendly, happy and honest terms with, but isn’t really sure how to do it yet.

        4. anonymsly

          I don’t think it does come from a place of friendship, though; that may be the irreconcilable difference in our thinking about Becky and Dorothy relationship status. Either way, gating Joyce’s Dorothy-access to nil doesn’t require Dorothy’s acceptance as long as Becky can control their door.

          I don’t think Becky should be a goal. Becky should be a side quest objective. Main quest is Joyce sorting stuff out for her own happiness. If Becky gets to be part of that end-state, yay for her. If she doesn’t, well, that’s life.

        5. drs

          They have cell phones and e-mail. There is no way that Becky can keep Joyce and Dorothy from communicating.

        6. Needfuldoer

          How is Becky going to inhibit Joyce’s teleport-to-Dorothy powers? She might as well prevent Dina from appearing behind open doors!

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/teleport/

    4. Huehuetotl

      “those weren’t the important parts” has been bothering me too. She thinks the creator of the vast universe will be cross with her if she has sex, based on the same authority that says the world was flooded a few thousand years ago (Which the Matthew and Luke versions of Jesus affirm, C.T.)

      1. Wraithy2773

        I’m honestly not sure how literally I take Becky’s concerns about premarital hanky-panky. It 100% feels like the sort of thing that she’d dismiss as being not one of the important things…

        …but it’s sex. People have a whole mess of hang-ups about sex. A metric fuckton of them, in fact. We barely have a fraction of an iota of the language needed to describe how little we really grasp about our hang-ups about sex.

        I can fully believe that it’s less Becky going “I should follow the word of the bible here!” and more “…aaaaaaah what am i doing aaaaaah i don’t know aaaaaah i want it but its scary and i’m horny but i’ve never done it aaaaaah m-maybe i can hide behind the bible here”, ya know?

        1. Jamie

          I think that’d be a valid guess at Becky’s actual reasons, yeah.

        2. Doki

          Also, how much do you think Becky knows about cis lesbian sex? I assume literally nothing. For example, does she even know the clitoris exists yet? Ever even tried to masturbate in her life??? My guess is no to both, TBH. :C

          So yeah. She probably has doubts about how well sex would actually go – especially with this huge emotional buildup of EXPLOSIVELY coming out and getting to ACTUALLY have a steady girlfriend she finds sexy for the first time in her life – and is hiding behind religion as an reason to not act on those desires yet. She obviously desperately wants sex, physically, but is probably emotionally terrified of it. Not saying she isn’t also conflicted because of stuff her cult church indoctrinated her with, nor do I think it’s a conscious action! But even non-Christians have these fears surrounding sex (bad performance due to lack of knowledge, being ‘dirty’ for your desires, etc.), so there’s no way an ex-fundie isn’t scared shitless LOL

          So yeah. Easier to just worry about not wanting to disappoint your god than all THAT.

          (I, uh, have a lot of feelings about the US’s currently fucked up relationship with sex as an American who grew up in Europe hahaha)

        3. A Red Balloon

          This is all totally lit!

          I don’t know what all this “performance anxiety” stuff is about, though. I mean, it’s a pleasurable act, not the SAT. Unless I’m missing something?

        4. SillyGoose

          Oh, sexual performance anxiety is a thing.
          Some of it is toxic and performative; being ‘a good lay’ shows you have experience, which is also a way to demonstrate you’re wanted.

          Some of it is simply relationship anxiety, you want your partner to enjoy it and of course you don’t wanna be a bad kisser.

          Also…, there is a deeply-ingrained fear that not pleasuring your partner enough will drive him to cheat. (And I do mean “him”, because even though of course that fear also exists in reverse, and in lesbian couples etc., it’s def a gender thing that has been taught to many women. You cheat, you’re a whore. Your husband cheats, you weren’t enough of a whore to keep him happy.)

        5. eh, whatever

          Lots of people believe it’s the SAT – that they’ll get a reputation as a “bad lover”, or a reputation for having genitals the wrong size or shape, for example.

        6. Wraithy2773

          Ugh, tell me about it, got a 450 on my cunnilingus score, really ruined my long-term prospects.

        7. Clif

          You should have hired a coach.

        8. thejeff

          Maybe so, but she’s expressed in explicitly religious terms. I don’t think there’s any real reason to think the religion is just an excuse rather than a major source.

    5. anonymsly

      Joyce is never allowed to have trouble or need support. Poor Becky is the only one who needs support or understanding, you know.

    6. Keulen

      I’m pretty sure the fact that Joyce hasn’t been allowed to properly deal with the loss of her faith yet is why things like her trying to apologize to Becky here is going so badly.

    7. GeekyWarrior

      Yeah exactly. I was so confused by Dorothy’s “disappointing” comment. Joyce had no intention of coming out to Becky that harshly and obviously wasn’t even ready to do so.

      I really think Joyce was dunking on her past self more than she was dunking on Becky, past or present. She’s just supposed to quietly and cleanly have a crisis of faith and deal with her parent divorce.

  20. Pocky

    This is a wake up call for Joyce; gotta avoid becoming like her mother.

    1. anonymsly

      Joyce was never in particular danger of becoming her mother. If she was, she’d have doubled down on ‘faith’ and dropped out of school last term.

      1. justin8448

        “I’m better than you because I believe X” is not a great attitude to carry around all the time, regardless of what “X” happens to be.

        1. JBento

          Oh, there’s plenty of Xs that make that a lie.

          I can tell you right now I’m better than the overwhelming majority of US politicians because I believe brown people shouldn’t be bombed to keep weapons manufacturers profits up, as an example.

        2. SillyGoose

          Oh, so you’re opposed to the free market then?

          /s

    2. Dr. T

      Pretty sure more than half of the bile she was venting was aimed directly at her mother, the “good Christian”.

  21. RassilonTDavros

    Speaking of Dina, I think I speak for a lot of us when I say I could reeeeeally go for a Becky/Dina conversation right about now

    I know some comments were worrying that the fallout of this (specifically the atheism thing) would hurt their relationship, but this strip is definitely alleviating those concerns for me. I think Dina understands what’s really important to Becky better than Joyce ever did.

    1. justin8448

      An interesting point, thanks for bringing it up.

      Becky dropped Young-Earth Creationism like a bag of rocks the moment she was introduced to science, but kept her personal faith in a loving God despite enduring metaphorical mountains of trauma.

      We know Dina was ecstatic about saving Becky from science-denialism. It would be interesting to hear Dina’s thoughts on the parts of Becky’s faith that she still keeps around.

      1. Leorale

        It could be that Becky’s trauma *solidified* her faith in God. That’s surely who she turned to when she had nobody else, and her inner faith probably provided her a precious shred of comfort when nothing else could.

        It’s not stupid for a person to cling to something that has helped them that much.

        Plus that whole thing where she was in trouble and God sent her a superhero on a motorcycle to rescue her, she’s taken that as some strong evidence.

        Plus since she’s living in a comic strip drawn by an intelligent creator who loves her, she’s technically correct.

        1. Jamie

          Look, we don’t actually have evidence that Willis loves any of his characters.

          Mostly we have evidence that he puts them through hell. =P

        2. Ludaire

          “It makes me feel good” isn’t a good reason for continuing to believe something. Especially when those happy feelings are called in redirecting the credit from the person who actually brought a super hero on a motorcycle to save her, Joyce, to Becky’s arguably imaginary friend.

          It’s understandable and not surprising because that’s a very common pattern in religion. I don’t think that qualifies it as “not stupid.” Or at least any less stupid than your general view of religious belief.

        3. Jamie

          What? No, that’s a great reason to continue believing in something. Ceteris paribus, feeling good is preferable to not feeling good.

          It just becomes a bad reason when it comes into conflict with better reasons to stop believing in that something.

        4. Bryy

          Yeah, Becky’s dealing with (or not dealing with) a lot of shit right now, and literally all of it stems from trauma induced by the cult.

  22. Amós Batista

    I am in this conversation, but instead Becky, I’m confronting my dad, who got a cancer diagnosis. And he started to complain to God and church (“why I don t get healed, like in Bible).

    I just don’t know how to deal with it. If I blow all his toxic faith, or go to console him…

    Anyway, I’ve waited for this, and I glad Williws created DoA, that helped me a lot in these christian issues.
    Hope everybody got healed here.

    1. Huehuetotl

      I don’t know what to say to someone who expects their life to be like Bible stories. What I do know is that when people get sick, it’s not punishment for being bad or impious. If they get better, it’s not a reward for piety. It’s not a test. Sickness just something unfortunate that happens because of biology. And it’s unfair, and anger at that unfairness is a understandable human response. And if a person has that kind of anger, and they believe there’s a god, they’ll direct that anger at that god. But if there is a god, it’s not intervening for anyone here.

      I know you didn’t ask for advice, but it sounded like you needed to be comforted too. and that’s the best I know how to give.

      1. Amós Batista

        I don’t know if any adivice could help me in this case, but I appreciate. Thanks.

    2. Airyu

      That’s so rough, I’m sorry you are going through that. 🙁 I’d give you a hug if I could

      I don’t know if this helps, but

      I’m a atheist, and in college one year a summer student roomed with us. He was (is? I lost contact) a Orthodox Jew – strict adherence to the Sabbath (for example, no turing on the lights and no asking for those kinds of things), no alcohol, had to eat only using utensils blessed by a priest or disposable ones, etc

      So I helped him as best as I could. There was no rule that said I couldn’t turn on the lights for him during the Sabbath, so I did, and when he thanked me I said he didn’t have to, especially if doing that only for him was bad, then I turned the light on for me. He had a Mike’s hard not knowing what is was at a party, and came home sobbing, and I consoled him the best I could, and told him fwiw I didn’t think his faith in god wavered. I made him a cake for his birthday only using plastic spoons and disposable bowls

      I know it’s not the same – I have/had people in my life with cancer and other terminal illnesses, but they aren’t religious so I can’t compare. But I just feel like, if your faiths don’t match up, you just do what you can. You can let the other person know you don’t hold the same belief, but still be on their side as much as possible

      I can’t tell you what to do, but I don’t see why you can’t do both. It sounds like you are religious, and you can let him know that you don’t think god has forsaken him, that healing doesn’t work that way, but you believe god’s love for him is still strong. I don’t have a good grasp on things because I’m not religious, but I still don’t think you have to lie that his beliefs match your own truth in order to support him

      I’m sorry this was so long.

      Best wishes to you and you family

      1. Amós Batista

        Wow, your salvation in Orthodox Jew heavens should be granted, god damnit.

        I don’t know if I could be so friend with dad. I confess I’m turned myself eghoist.
        But, thinking about, I already doing a lot for my family.

        Anyway, thank you.

      2. King Daniel

        @Airyu: I’m reminded now of the Parable of the Atheist:

        The Master was teaching his students that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson. One clever student asked him, “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”

        The Master responded, “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that a god commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”

        “This means,” the Master continued, “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead, for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”

    3. BBCC

      I’m sorry you’re in a rough situation. I hope things work out as well as can be expected.

  23. avistel

    >lie to me
    the last time Joyce went all doomer and cynical on her, Becky was patronizing and dismissive as fuck. I’d lie to her too.

    >make fun of me behind my back
    Yeah, as opposed to little miss Sassy McObnoxious, who just does it to everybody’s face.

    1. BigDogLittleCat

      This.

    2. anonymsly

      Twice this.

    3. Fox

      Agreed, it’s hypocrisy at it’s finest to be mad at Joyce for “making fun of her” when Becky is rude to/mocks people all the time directly to their face. Also, while Joyce caught Becky in her sweeping statement, it certainly wasn’t a statement ABOUT Becky, so she was making fun of the beliefs not Becky. I also agree, I wouldn’t be chomping at the bit to tell Becky anything either after being told “this is a stupid phase you need to grow out of” the minute she said negative bitter things about religion and how they were lied to.

    4. Airyu

      I hadn’t considered this, but yeah these are fair points. I do think talking about someone behind their back is worse than saying it to their face, but this gives me a lot to think about and good perspective because I wasn’t understanding how people were siding with Joyce on this one

    5. Ludaire

      Yeah, I agree. Becky has zero room for complaining about someone speaking their mind in blunt and unapologetic terms. Especially not when someone is doing so with safe people rather than in general company, and they’re talking on general rather than targeting a specific person.

      I have some sympathy for being upset with Joyce’s dishonesty. That’s going to hurt even if Becky unknowingly contributed to Joyce’s discomfort. I think it’s certainly healthy for her to acknowledge her part and be more forgiving based on it, but I don’t blame her for being hurt about that.

      1. anonymsly

        Becky will never acknowledge her part. She never does anything wrong ever, and that’s why everyone loves her. (Parks and Rec ref don’t jump me)

    6. Josh Spicer

      Oh hey there it is.

    7. Seralyna

      i feel like you don’t fully understand that sometimes a character says something thats a joke for the audience and sometimes they say something thats intended to have an emotional impact.

      If you took every single time someone said something insensitive or rude seriously, no one would be friends with each other. It really is as simple as reading how the characters respond and react to a statement to see how they actually feel about it, and what impact it has on them.

      1. anonymsly

        The thing is, ‘lol I am a joker that was a joke’ doesn’t make a thing not rude/insensitive/cruel. Becky uses ‘I’m goofy and funny’ to render her conscious jerk moves acceptable even to her targets and always has. Funny =/= not mean, even if it IS funny and even if the person you’re being mean to doesn’t call it out.

        Joyce said something thoughtless. Not directly to Becky, not intending Becky at that time, fully secure in the belief that she was somewhere Becky would never be. (Crucially, note that she was also somewhere she believed Dorothy would never be. Even her avoidance wasn’t Becky-specific. She homed in on Joe.) Becky is now screaming at her as if every ‘I’ in her rant was ‘Stupid Becky’.

        Joyce is honest enough to realize that oh, she kind of DOES believe continued belief is dumb, even in Becky, so she’s been trying to weasel out of saying that directly to Becky’s face. But much like her realization re: Dina here, she hadn’t entirely realizes that specific thing yet.

        And aaaaaaaall of this was why she didn’t want to pull out her stuff anywhere Becky was.

    8. Keulen

      That’s how I feel about it as well.

  24. AbacusWizard

    dang that final panel is absolutely forged from the fires of righteousness

  25. Ivy

    I don’t know, I think there’s some accuracy in saying that performative superiority was a big part of Joyce’s faith, but the way she’s flinging that at her right now and in that context makes it seem like she’s blaming THAT for why Joyce no longer believes, instead of the trauma of every trusted adult in her life betraying her to some extent. (On top of the more cerebral reasons, she doesn’t have room for faith in her reasoning process anymore.)

    I’m also one of the people who- I just don’t believe you’re entitled to know whether your friend is questioning their faith or even lost their faith. It’s not your business! If they feel comfortable telling you eventually, they will, but I’m not going to categorize that under ‘you’re lying to me!’ for the same reason I don’t categorize being closeted as ‘lying’.

    Joyce DID need to say something super important like: I don’t think you’re stupid! or “I’m sorry that hearing me talk like that hurt you!”

    1. justin8448

      I don’t know if Joyce knows the answer to whether or not she thinks Becky is stupid. Judging by the way she avoids saying anything about it in these past two strips, I’m guessing that her immediate reaction to the question is that she does, in fact, think that.

      Which doesn’t bode well for their friendship in the near term, while Joyce works through all this.

      1. Huehuetotl

        She’s *just now* working through that question herself. Like while playing mario kart, she’s admitting it out loud for the first time, and her instinctive description of it is “kind of silly”. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/braingenius/

        Religious people, you all must know that irreligious people think you believe some silly things. Just like we know the kinds of things you think about us, even when you don’t mention it or try to couch it in softer sounding words.

        1. Akp

          Pretty much. It takes a lot of work to reconcile “I believe this is fundamentally baseless” with “I think the world of some people who this is very important to,” and that’s as a person who has zero ego or trauma tied up in it. Joyce is getting here for the first time and while her words were directed at herself and not Becky, it can be years of work to understand how the one can be different from the other. Years of work which she is being asked to do in minutes.

        2. Ludaire

          It’s sadly pretty typical to give religions a pass on their hurtful beliefs while taking any secular opinion on the matter as a personal insult.

          There’s a lot of cases like that. A vegan says “I don’t eat meat” and some will take it as a personal attack on them and their character. Meanwhile, vegans are on the receiving end of a ton of very overt mockery and hostility that’s written off as understandable.

          It’s easy to minimize the hurt the other party is experiencing and maximize your own when your position is the more privileged position.

        3. JBento

          I mean, a couple of months ago SCOTUS ruled that it was perfectly ok to discriminate against gay people for adoption as long as you did it because of religion.

          “Religious people get a pass that atheists don’t” is literally the reason for the existence of the Satanic Temple.

  26. Aphid

    I at least find it somewhat implausible that this is going to be the end of their friendship. Like most defintely it is going to be rough for a hot minute but this seems like a situation that while painful and poorly handled isn’t really a make-or-break deal.

    It doesn’t seem to me at least that one instance of shit behavior is going to ruin everything forever. Although though joyce is definitely cocking it up pretty bad right now.

    1. Thag Simmons

      These two have been through a lot together, and they have enough shared friends and classes that they will still be seeing a lot of each other in the future. This isn’t the end.

      But it could be rough for a lot longer than a hot minute.

    2. Spencer

      See, I wonder.

      Like no obviously they’ll patch things up eventually but in terms of being on the rocks with each other for a while? That seems plausible.

      ‘Cause what happens when you have it out with someone, and they have it out with you, when your every previous interaction never trained you to think outside the boxes you assigned each other?

      Does Joyce even Dorothy bleeds, as if she were a mere mortal?

      1. Spencer

        Does Joyce even know Dorothy bleeds, as if she were a mere mortal*

        I don’t know why but skipping words has been happening to me a lot lately.

      2. Thag Simmons

        What seems likely to me is that Joyce and Becky are on the rocks for at least this current book, probably longer.

        1. MrSmith

          Good. There are aspects (Becky) of this relationship that are a little unhealthy, some time apart might help them grow.

    3. Jamie

      No, but Becky has needed time away from Joyce before.

      I think my prediction money goes on “they’ll stop talking for a week”, but I’m not really taking into account biology class.

      1. anonymsly

        They’re not bio partners. Bio class does not render interaction necessary. They probably don’t even have to sit together; assigned seating isn’t really a thing in most college classes.

        Continuing to Not Talk is just as easy as Moving A Table Or Two Away.

      2. Spencer

        Oh no, what about Joe and Dina’s burgeoning friendship?

        Becky and Joyce took one kid each in the divorce.

  27. carms

    man wouldn’t it be nice if we had different brains for processing different problems so that like, when one problem is really hard and takes a lot of processing power, it doesn’t make us SHIT at every other kind of problem?

    I mean no, but, a little, yes.

    There’s a LOT GOING ON and it’s ALL TIED UP with nearly TWO DECADES of FEELINGS, and like, inner child damage and how tf are you sposed to handle any of it?

    1. Jamie

      *looks at Amber*

      I won’t say no.

  28. Sirksome

    There’s some (a lot) of validity to Becky’s comment as Joyce was pretty cringe for a very long time, but it feels like a bad faith insult. This is the same girl Becky came to when she essentially ran away from home and Joyce rewrote her entire religious belief system on the fly to support her unquestioningly. I don’t think it was ever about being better than non believers otherwise Joyce would’ve been best friends with Mary.

    They’re both going to regret a lot of shit they’ve said today.

    1. Yotomoe

      I don’t know how any of that contradicts Joyce looking down on people or not. You can be athiest and look down on people. Christian, Jewish, Islamic. A superiority complex isn’t a religion you practice, it just can manifest through it.

      1. Sirksome

        I feel like if Joyce’s faith was about a sense of superiority over others she wouldn’t have caved so easily. She made exceptions for Dorothy, she made exceptions for Becky, and then eventually she folded completely. To me that doesn’t sound like someone whose in it to feel better than other people. Just admitting you’ve lost faith is fairly humbling and will probably at least get her disowned by her mom. Joyce is pretty judgmental sometimes, but I think that’s separate from her original Christian values. And I think Becky knows this but she’s just saying that to be a jerk and making it feel close to the truth makes it hurt more. Like Joyce hurt her.

        Kind of like her saying Dorothy really needs to be more selfish to spice up her personality. Sure that’s kind of true, but also Dorothy is actually just fine the way she is and Becky was being a ass. Like she is here, because this is what happens when you’re young and arguments get personal.

        1. Yotomoe

          See it’s kind of a false dichotomy. Being benevolent and making concessions doesn’t actually keep one from looking down on others. In fact a lot of times it can be a sign of a bit of a complex. You can change your mind about what you believe in while still being somewhat arrogant about your perspective being “correct” and anyone who believes anything different being “wrong”. Joyce ALLOWED Dorothy to be wrong. She made EXCEPTIONS for Becky. It was only once she started to feel wronged by the religion that she decided “Nope, THIS is wrong.” She would meet any challenge to her beliefs with discomfort and hostility, and now that she’s finally given up those beliefs she seems to be wiggling in the opposite direction.
          This isn’t just an issue of religion. I mean partly. But this seems more like a character flaw. I mean y’know I could point out all day that Becky’s got a bazillion character flaws too, but this isn’t really about that.

        2. Sirksome

          We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. Joyce is definitely judgmental. I get that. Even now, post time skip, “atheist” Joyce still judges Dorothy and probably all other fornicators for having sex. She judges Sarah and probably 99% of all living creatures for eating food that touched other food. I just don’t think she used her religion as a platform for that. At least not intentionally like Becky’s statement implies. I think Becky knows Joyce is
          naturally judgmental and used that as ammunition in this war of words.

          It would be like someone calling Becky a misandrist for being an obnoxiously out lesbian that vocalizes her disinterest in men. Parts of that statement are true, but the statement itself in inaccurate and anyone would and should call me out for making that claim in bad faith.

          But I hear your interpretation and it is a very valid take. Joyce isn’t above Becky’s statement. She fucked up here.

        3. Spencer

          Is it, though?

          Realtalk, I don’t really understand the comments the past week on Joyce as some kind of Amazing Atheist type. None of it is coming from the surface level “well if God is real why does Bad Thing happen??? Checkmate, theist” that should and does define the image of the extremely online atheist, every single word coming out of Joyce’s mouth has been pure venom at shit that is either factually wrong, morally troubling, or related to the constant emotional trauma she’s been going through and two of those instances involved a car chase.

        4. Ludaire

          I don’t think any of what Joyce said on the topic of religion has been bad. It’s unfortunate that Becky heard it, but it was not personal and not even meant for her. I’m actually glad that the clarification was that Joyce’s “I’m sorry” wasn’t really an apology about saying what she said. An apology isn’t owed for Joyce believing faith is idiotic based on that being a less diplomatic word than “irrational” or “poor reasoning” or whatever people tell themselves nice atheists think of religious people.

          What’s needed is empathy. Joyce needs to acknowledge the pain Becky is experiencing as valid feelings that she understands, and then maybe she could apologize for not sharing her new lack of faith. She shouldn’t apologize for her beliefs or not meeting some level of diplomacy when discussing them in private (especially with Becky being a bull in a china shop). I don’t even think she owes Becky an update on her beliefs. Others’ religion or lack thereof isn’t your business if they don’t want to share. Same thing for their opinion on your specific religious beliefs. Plus, once again, Becky has things she’s kept from Joyce like her mother’s suicide.

          It’s a shitty situation, feelings have been hurt, and people need empathy and acknowledgment all around. But no one is to blame and needs to apologize. At least not up until this conversation on the steps where some much more personal venom is being slung around (which is certainly not just one of them).

        5. thejeff

          An awful lot of online obnoxious atheist stuff does come out of the same kind of roots as Joyce’s. Not as extreme trauma as a webcomic character, but many have survived and are mostly reacting to cultish fundamentalist upbringings.

        6. Spencer

          I’m going to make a rule that if your words are coming from a place of legitimate grievance and trauma then it stops being obnoxious.

          Like if you go through what Joyce did you’re actually allowed to Jokerize one statue of Jesus and no one can stop you.

        7. Yotomoe

          I can’t subscribe to that. Again it seems to be a rule people would only subscribe to if it’s “punching upwards”. If you’re a woman who’s been hurt by men and are lashing out talking about how men all suck it won’t be the same as if you’re a man who’s been mistreated by women and is ranting about how all women suck. Granted if you’re in a safe space of buddies who understand where you’re coming from while going on a rant about your personal experiences that could get a bit complicated. But y’know if you were in that scenario you wouldn’t go outside and start quoting negative facts about women instead of bringing up how personally hurt you were in that situation. I feel like regardless of your personal experience you should try to remember that people have feelings. Nobody likes being lumped together into a negative group, even if you have legitimate problems with that group. (Obviously unless that group is something that is just shitty like the KKK or anti-vaxxers).

        8. Spencer

          I mean I think of it less as Morally Right and more that people don’t process wild emotional feelings based on how they affect the people who believe the things they’re mad about.

          Like yeah I do think punching up plays into it on some level, like Jewish folk in North America don’t hold the same cultural power as Christians and the Evangelical Right in particular, I think saying “fuck Christians” carries a lot less power than saying “fuck some other religion”, I think that power intimately matters when you’re lashing out at those power structures in the first place.

          And that’s getting into boring stuff like rules and existing power structures and the influence they have, and, like, feeling the way you do because you’ve suffered on every level because of something you were told was right that you’re not tearing into.

          Joyce isn’t being an edgy reddit atheist, she’s talking about things she was told were facts and that actually are not facts, not even to Becky (in the same way they are to Joyce, I mean) because if they were factual to Becky then none of it would be unimportant.

        9. Spencer

          Wait fuck why did I make this thing when Jokerized Joyce would have been way funnier?

      2. Clif

        But I can still look down on the Normals though, right? Else what’s the point?

    2. BigDogLittleCat

      This. Especially since Joyce’s cringiness was just what their church taught. She’s accusing Joyce of being a “bad christian” because Joyce did exactly what they were supposed to do.

      Plus, I don’t think Joyce was making fun of Becky. She was making fun of her former self.
      And what was Joyce supposed to say when they were mourning Becky’s mother? “Would this be a good time to tell you I don’t believe any more?”

      I hope Becky figures out that losing her faith did a number on Joyce, and she’s allowed to hide her trauma just as much as Becky is. And maybe remembers that when Joyce tried to express her doubts to Becky, Becky kicked them back into Joyce’s teeth.

      Becky’s anger at Joyce is ironic, given that it was their church’s treatment of Becky that took the scales from Joyce’s eyes.

    3. Andy

      For some Christians, being better than the world is a HUGE part of their beliefs. As I said above, Christians are generally exhorted to be better in terms of behavior. You shall know them by their fruits, and being a light shining in a dark world, and all that sort of stuff. The problem is, that also often manifests in pridefully thinking you are better for XYZ. Better because you’re saved, better because you do better so of course you’re better than those sinful heathens (see also: you’re atheists but you’re actually good people), better because they’re the world and you’re apart from it even as you live in it, etc, etc. And when you’re the sort of Christian whose beliefs rest on your connection to God and feeling him there and the constant terror that the World wants to corrupt you and drag you down to them, you really don’t have a choice but to let being better manifest itself in bad ways. All of that sums up Joyce’s experience with Christianity to me, and it helps explain why she fell so hard when she lost her faith and why she’s acting the way she is now. She’s just falling into old habits, but with a different motivating belief behind them.

  29. DiDi

    And that was the big one, wasn’t it? Joyce has always been incredibly judgemental. Even after all this time, that part of her hasn’t changed. The targets have merely shifted.

    1. TemporalShrew

      It’s a lot easier to change your belief structure than it is to change the fundamental character that underpins it, even if the belief structure was what helped to make you that way in the first place.

    2. Spencer

      Yeah no. Becky’s wrong.

      I mean Becky’s right in that Joyce believed she was better than other people, just in that she thought she and everyone like her got the secret rule book for cool people only that listed all the objective facts of the universe.

      Like here let me try and put it this way: We are talking about math formulas, which objectively exist. You know more than I do, ergo you are better than me at math. You are more correct than I can be.

      Now apply that to something like “knowing the truth of a specific origin of all life on Earth and the inerrant facts that define existence and human morality.”

      Joyce didn’t believe she was right, she just was right. You don’t believe in a light switch, you just flick it to turn it on.

      1. Clif

        I believe in light switches. I just want to replace them with smart light switches that learn when they should be off or on so that I don’t have to do the flicking.

      2. Jamie

        This is irrelevant to your point, but

        There’s a fun concept called “mathematical reality” and it’s different from the physical world. It’s very weird, and it’s why Pythagoreans and Neoplatonists were, y’know, religions. Math formulae don’t objectively exist. They exist in the ideal, supernal world.

        (This is different from the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, btw, or Wolfram’s computational reality thing, or the “our universe is a hologram” thing. This is “perfect triangles don’t actually exist” stuff.)

        1. Clif

          Only mathematical reality exists. The rest is just crude simulation.

  30. Yotomoe

    She believes the same things as Dina? So she thinks Becky’s hot and wants to touch her mouth parts with her mouth parts?

    1. Clif

      Sounds legit.

    2. eh, whatever

      Being asexual, Dina doesn’t believe anyone is or can be hot.

      But she’s ready to do the mouth-part stuff as a culturally significant expression of love.

      1. zee

        She’s grey ace, so she might believe Becky’s a little hot. Also aces still experience aesthetic attraction so she can still believe people are hot without feeling any way about it. Like straight dudes who think Michael B. Jordan is hot, it’s not attraction it’s just fact

      2. Yotomoe

        I don’t think that’s true. Asexuals can TOTALLY believe people are attractive and want to touch mouth parts in a non-performative way.

  31. MrSmith

    Panel two demonstrates why Joyce couldn’t tell Becky.

    What was Joyce supposed to say “sorry your moms dead but theres no heaven or hell and you’ll never see her again”

    Becky doesn’t want the truth from Joyce, she wants a comforting lie

    1. Yotomoe

      That would be true if Joyce became an atheist yesterday. While I don’t necessarily think Becky is OWED Joyce telling her her religious alignment (most of my family doesn’t know I’m atheist cuz they don’t ask or anything) I do think trash talking believers is more what Becky is mad about rather than just that Joyce lied.

      1. MrSmith

        It appears to be trash talking about herself which is something Joyce might want to point out very quickly

        1. Yotomoe

          The problem is it’s not. Well it is but it’s not. Based on this it wasn’t JUST herself she was talking about. It’s herself, her mom, Toedad, Mary and all the other Christians. And yes that includes Becky. She thinks what Becky believes IS stupid and that any moment now she’ll realize how dumb it is just like she did. Or maybe she won’t…and what a pity that she won’t. How sad that she still holds onto those unfounded beliefs.

        2. A Red Balloon

          Believing that only stupid or weak-minded people are the ones that get manipulated by religion and other dogma is more harmful than you think, and it’s actually deterrent to efforts of all kinds to make sure people don’t fall prey to manipulative ideologies.

          If we don’t see ourselves or others reflected in categories like “stupid” or “weak-minded”, we can be left with the false impression that we’re not vulnerable to ideological manipulation.

          My friend once told me about his uncle who was like this really smart bio-chemist who got roped into Scientology and lost thousands of dollars, because he didn’t want to believe he wasted all that time, emotion and money invested into the group.

          So yeah, don’t kid yourself Joyce. Smart, dumb or in between, we can ALL fall prey to ideological traps.

        3. thejeff

          Very much this.
          While I get that a lot of religious ideas sound stupid to outsiders – and even more for whackjob conspiracy theory stuff, believing in them doesn’t seem to have anything to do with intelligence as we see it in other areas. Nor does not believing.
          Joyce wasn’t stupid for believing, nor was she so smart that she thought her way out of her old beliefs.

        4. A Red Balloon

          It may not require a lot of intellect, but breaking free of that ideological hold can be VERY tough, especially if you’ve been indoctrinated in childhood — you have to detangle yourself from an elaborate nexus of false ideas, and deal with the AGONY of knowing that your brain constantly lying to you to defend the ideology after years of conditioning, of feeling that your mind is not your own.

          It takes some serious guts to break yourself free of that manipulation, especially in cases like Joyce where you face the threat of losing nearly everything, and have to rebuild your entire understanding of the world from scratch!

        5. thejeff

          It’s certainly hard, but it’s often not really the intellectual exercise it’s often painted as. Joyce has a lot of work to do detangling that nexus of false ideas and dealing with her brain lying to her from the conditioning, but her actual loss of faith did not come from being so smart she logicked her way through the falsehoods. She stopped feeling god, almost against her will. The rest is dealing with the consequences.

        6. zee

          Becky directly asked if Joyce thought she was stupid for her faith and Joyce effectively said yes, i don’t see any other way for her to take this

        7. zee

          Like THAT was the time to say it was about herself and she chose not to

    2. Socks

      She wants the comforting lie to BE the truth. That’s a lot of the problem here. She doesn’t like Joyce lying, but she doesn’t like Joyce telling the truth, either, because a large part of the problem is the fact that Joyce feels this way at all.

  32. C.T. Phipps

    I mean hiding behind religion is what Jesus said was the worst thing you could do. There’s a lot of irony about Joyce’s disgust with the hypocrites in her life for a woman so well-read in the Bible.

    The Brown and MacIntyre Church were literally the sorts of people the entire New Testament is about Jesus raging at.

    1. JBento

      That entire church DOES need more whipping.

  33. bcb

    Yeah Joyce: make your faith all about how you know the most about transformers.

    1. MM

      I don’t know that Ethan finds much comfort in that.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        Have you seen any vampires around Ethan? No, it’s because holding an Optimus Prime holds them away.

        1. Thag Simmons

          No, but there’s one local vampire and she keeps to herself most of the time

      2. King Daniel

        But Optimus Prime died for his sins!

    2. Josh Spicer

      Hey people tried to make a religion out of being a brony. Anything is possible.

      1. Clif

        Religion out of being a brony.

        Links for my collection?

    3. temperaryobsessor

      Auto transformers are the ones that bring power to the primary side.

  34. Delicious Taffy

    Less than half an hour and already about a hundred comments? ……k

    Y’all have fun shitting all over each other and making each other feel worthless all night, I guess. I usually prefer some Final Fantasy 14 when I’m feeling bored or down, but to each their own. Hopeless contention with no chance of any outcome but hurt feelings seems really fun. Y’all really seem like you’re having a blast, lately.

    1. MM

      If there’s anything less productive than an increasingly circular and heated discussion – which is not actually what’s going on here for the most part – it’s people who feel the need to pop in and proclaim their superiority in not contributing to the discussion.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        That’s not what I fucking said, but since when did that ever matter here?

        1. MM

          All I’m saying is that the only weirdly hostile comment I’ve seen tonight is yours. Maybe you should log off and go play that game.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Well excuse me for being EXHAUSTED and having the gall to express it in any fucking way.

        3. Delicious Taffy

          “Actually, it is YOU who is the Hostile Person here for saying literally anything about the active and incessant hostility that’s been going on for the last week”

        4. Delicious Taffy

          Fuck it, fine. I’ll piss off and never burden you with my pathetic, cringey existence again. What the fuck ever.

        5. MrSmith

          Hey whoa, have a break, play your game and come back when you’re ready, its all good.

        6. Kaz

          K.

        7. Fox

          I hear that you’re struggling and going through something, however, taking it out on people in this comments section is not going to do anything positive for you and will not garner you the support nor validation it seems you’re needing right now. Probably best to take a break for some self care and come back later.

        8. Delicious Taffy

          …Fine. Tonight’s the night I finally make The Attempt.

        9. Deadjolras

          Hey, @avistel, shut up, dude, and leave Taffy alone.

          Taffy, I know we’ve never talked but I genuinely do enjoy your presence in this comments section. As vitriolic and shitty as this place can get some times, there’s people like you that make it fun. If you need to talk, my Twitter DMs are open? Link to my account is in my username.

        10. Fox

          Ok, no @Delicious Taffy, it is not appropriate to be laying attempt declarations on strangers in a comment section of a comic. Please call an appropriate hotline.

        11. Rainhat

          Alright then.

          Honestly, do any of us even know you enough for this level of investment?

        12. BBCC

          @avistel – Unnecessary and cruel. Congrats, you’re 2 for 2.

          @ Rainhat – Delicious Taffy doesn’t really need to be close with people for them to feel like the board’s been hostile and heavy lately, and to not want it on somewhere where they regularly hang out online. This comment seems at best unhelpful. And responding “Alright then” to someone mentioning a suicide attempt is inappropriate as all get out.

        13. Sam

          Taffy, I hope you are okay and that you calm down and come to your senses. You are a valued member of our community but I think you might need a break from the comment section if you are getting riled up and upset really quickly. You don’t sound like you are in a good headspace and that worries me.

        14. avistel

          BBCC: oh, do fuck off. I have no sympathy for people who play the “I’m gonna Roblox myself” card over being told to eat a dick in a comment section. If anything, my cruelty – such as it is – is necessary, because people like you turn altruism into a fucking liability by enabling these soul-sucking human cyclones of BPD and bad attitude.

        15. BBCC

          I can see you have the comments reversed in your head. You told them that before they said anything about attempting. You can take whatever justification you want to keep playing cyberbully if you want to though. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Want to be helpful without ‘enabling’ whatever mental illnesses you think Taffy has? Fox did a pretty good job up there.

          For someone bongoing about bad attitudes, you’ve got the worst one tonight.

        16. Delicious Taffy

          “It’s actually cool and necessary to bully suicidal people, because if you’re remotely kind to them in any way, they might not Do It, which would be bad because mental illness only burdens us Normal People.”

          (Attempt failed, btw. Sorry if that’s inconvenient.) Fox is right, it wasn’t appropriate to bring it up here, and I should have called a hotline.

        17. milu

          @avistel? stfu dude? you’re passing wildly inappropriate judgement on someone you don’t know to justify making a pissy comment. you did not have to engage with Taffy. you’re not an aggrived party here. people are allowed to be feeling like shit and say scary stuff sometimes, and not be instantly insulted for it, like how ghoulish does a person get. jeez

        18. milu

          @ Taffy oh my god i was literally just now reading this. i’m so relieved. i hope you’re ok. i hope you take good care of yourself, you can also email me if you want, idk. email’s in my username link, i’m not super busy these days. i think you’re swell. and yeah, hotlines are a good idea, anyone knows anything about what’s good in the US? National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, is that good? i’m sure that’s info you already have.

          https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

        19. BBCC

          @ Taffy – I’m glad to see you’re still here. I’m glad it failed. It’s not too late to call a hotline and talk to someone about getting help if you need it.

        20. avistel

          eat my ass, you enabling fuckwits, grow a fucking pair for once

        21. Delicious Taffy

          I am begging you to go touch some grass. 🙂

        22. thejeff

          Taffy, so glad to see you post again.

        23. Fox

          @Taffy Yeah, I hope I didn’t come off as harsh, but as someone who has attempted and had the experience of having anonymous people dropping declarations of intent and then watching as myself and everyone else panics, it’s very traumatic to have that dropped when you can’t help. Please in the future seek a hotline because none of us are in the position to help you here and given it’s nature as a comment section, you’re going to get unhelpful comments.

        24. BBCC

          Yeah, sure, not being deliberately cruel and telling them to seek a hotline is enabling. You are super cool, avistel, and very helpful and I hope that that makes you sleep well tonight.

        25. Clif

          I just popped in to point out my superiority.

          I mean I figure there’s GOT to be SOMEONE one here I’m superior to.

        26. King Daniel

          Faz.

        27. John Smith

          Ouch.

        28. A Red Balloon

          Speaking of Faz, I wonder what happened to the little bugger ever since he and Joyce were kidnapped.

        29. John Smith

          Child Protection Services?
          Eesh, that’s not really likely to improve Faz at all…

        30. JBento

          @A Red Balloon He’s making all the charts required for his next appearance. Faz’s charts are the best, as they are made by Faz, as this chart here clearly demonstrates.

        31. Clif

          Faz seems kind of a low bar, but hey, I’ll take it.

        32. Regalli

          My current hope re: Faz is that he and Amber are in regular sibling contact and that Yuri, now that Blaine is dead, is slowly starting to realize how unbelievably terrible Blaine was. Or she didn’t know about the mob and has QUICKLY realized how unbelievably terrible he was. Either way I’m hoping for therapy.

        33. King Daniel

          Walkyverse!Yuri was a ranking mobster’s daughter, so if that held over in this universe then her not knowing about the mob is…unlikely. Possible, but not especially so.

    2. cbwroses

      I’m here for the Star Wars references.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Valid.

      2. Hazel

        I’m here for the juicy reveals.

        And puns. Love a good pun.

        1. MrSmith

          I’m here for Spencer and drama

        2. Clif

          All new episodes on MrSmith Theater.

    3. Jamie

      FF14 is good shit and I feel like I’ve been neglecting it.

      But I’ve also been playing it solo, so it’s been a rough going.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        What DC do you play on? I’m a Primal native, personally. Leviathan, even.

        1. Jamie

          Primal, too, on Excalibur. I started a free account a few months back and have been enjoying the crafting/gathering a little too much.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          😀 Swozwall Haeredzwyn’s my Toon’s name. Big green lady.

        3. Jamie

          Mine’s called Nohen Ashigane. I made him tall and I kinda regret it.

    4. BBCC

      Dude, same. I said my piece the past few days and then I decided to step back a bit. It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

      Have fun playing your game. I spent tonight watching cartoons and wrestling.

    5. AGV

      It’s ok, you don’t have to be active through these strips. They’re touching on very personal issues for a lot of people in the comments and at least some interactions are much more intense or cynical than usual.

      You’re no less part of the community for not immersing yourself as usual.

    6. Delicious Taffy

      Sorry for lashing out last night. Should have just said “Noooope” after the first sentence. Wasn’t in a good place for various reasons involving a friend.

      1. Reaver

        Hey it happens dude, PLEASE look into talking to somebody though okay? I’ve been there and I know having people to talk to is vital 🙁 Sorry stuff with your friend isn’t going well.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          Tbh part of it was said friend already dealing with an Attempt by somebody close to them, and the aftermath of trying to talk them through it. Spent too many spoons and wound up almost putting them through that twice in one night. That one dweeb’s comments were basically just the last little push, not even anything I’d react very strongly to in a better headspace.

        2. Clif

          I’m very relieved you’re alright.

      2. BBCC

        It’s all good. You’re hardly the only one who’s come to this board when they weren’t in a good place or needed to talk about something. I hope you and your friend are okay and the situation improves.

      3. Deadjolras

        I’m glad you’re still here.

      4. Regalli

        Very glad you’re still here, and yeah, these strips have gotten heated lately. No shame in taking a break from commentary for a bit.

      5. Fart Captor

        It’s totally cool. I haven’t been reading them here on the main site lately, but today’s are definitely more heated than usual. Glad you’re still with us

  35. Theozilla

    I mean Becky’s accurate statement in that last panel is kinda precisely why Joyce lost faith. Joyce’s upbringing with her family’s faith was kinda all about positing that they were better than other people. The fact that Becky didn’t end up being instilled with the same mentality is more in spite of their religious environment than because of it.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Depends on how her mother believed, I suppose.

      1. Theozilla

        Becky’s religious environment was more than just her mother and father, Joyce’s Church in general (along with Joyce’s parents) contributed to that mentality. So even if Becky’s mom was an exception, she doesn’t negate the rest of the religious environment.

        1. AGV

          But she still was probably her main reference. If she picked up something that upsetted toedad she wouldn’t feel remorse for it. But if she picked up something that upsetted her mom she would have second thoughts.

    2. segnosaur

      It would be hard for Becky to get the feeling of “superiority”, considering that she is a member of a group (LGBTQ) that her religious clan was looking down on.

      1. Theozilla

        While rare, there are gay religious fundies. And either way that’s still Becky being better in spite of her environment than thanks to it.

  36. Deadjolras

    Willis has been knocking it out of the park. These past strips have been fantastic – in narrative, dialogue and character development. Faith and religion are such complicated subjects and I’m glad that Willis is tackling them with nuance through two understandable perspectives.

    1. Hazel

      100%

      This all feels very true to life (whilst staying entertaining). The pain, the emotions, the very youth reactions…*chef’s kiss*

      1. Deadjolras

        Exactly! Like, you can see where both of them are coming from so none of them is Truly Wrong in spite of doing or saying the wrong things. That probably doesn’t make sense, I know, but it’s just so very human and it’s the reason I refuse to take sides in this matter. I just want to watch this conversation unfold and see where it takes them, in their friendship and as individual people.

    2. Deadjolras

      Jut realised my comment is at odds with my smug Joe gravatar.

      1. cbwroses

        If you encourage Becky and Joyce to make out, you can bring it closer to smug Joe levels.

    3. BBCC

      Agreed. Character wise, I’m ranting and raving about these two kids and how they just need to communicate better. Writing wise? Willis is killing it and I’m hooked.

      1. Thulcandran

        Very, very much same.

      2. Regalli

        Totally.

  37. Spencer

    These two have not been having the same conversation for the past three strips.

    1. PB

      They have not, but there is a shared thread of “everything I once knew is a lie”, and that is why this is physically painful.

  38. BigDogLittleCat

    Becky is angry at Joyce’s lying about believing Becky’s mother is in heaven, at a time when Becky needed comfort.
    Will she ever understand that *Joyce* is upset at every adult in her life having lied to her her entire life? That everything she was raised to believe is a lie?

    1. Regina phalange

      I really wish Becky would at least *try* to be understanding here. She walked in on Joyce bitterly mocking the “everything happens for a reason” idea, and while that could easily have been about Becky—as someone who makes it very clear she believes God has a Plan for her—why is it so hard for her to imagine why Joyce might resent that idea in general? That even if Joyce is just having some minor doubts, this might be the Thing causing her the the most doubt and pain?

      As others have pointed out, when bad things happened to Becky, people she loved and trusted leapt to her aid—and it would be easy to believe they were sent by God. When bad things happened to Joyce, she either had to actively step up to save herself or others (like Becky’s kidnapping or her own), or she was victimized by apparently religious people only to be saved by sinners and the non-religious (such as her drugging and assault).

      But I wouldn’t be surprised if at a certain point in this fight Becky alludes to having things ~so~ much worse than Joyce (because she had real “pain competition” vibes in the last exchange where Joyce voiced her doubts)—and if that happens, I hope it triggers Joyce into finally being honest about how SHE is entitled to be in pain too.

      1. Airyu

        I’m honestly starting to feel like everyone here is a better person than me. This is not a ding at you, but I’ve seen the sentiment of “why can’t Becky recognize Joyce’s position” a lot and like… if I was in that situation I would 100% act like Becky. I’m not religious, but if I was and I found out that my only religious friend pretended to be religious around me *and* was calling religious people stupid behind my back? I would totally take it personally and get angry, probably even more than Becky is, especially thinking about myself as an 18 or 19 year old. A lot of people here… wouldn’t it seems, maybe I need to do meditation or something? I thought my response would be normal

        1. Buli-Buli

          Personally, I have the opposite takeaway.

          I think a lot of commenters are coming from the same position as Liz. Joyce shouldn’t have to apologize because she spoke the Truth.

          I’ve also noticed a long running theme in the comments where people argue “so-and-so has no right to X” or “so-and-so has no responsibility to X”. And they just hammer that as if that’s the end of the conversation.

          Joyce has no legal or ethical responsibility to keep Becky up to date on her internal world. And Becky has no Right to demand that info.
          That doesn’t make Joyce directly lying about it to Becky anyless hurtful or wrong. Becky isn’t a stranger, she’s Joyce’s friend and that comes with a measure of Trust.

          Joyce had every Right to skip class and shit-talk religious people. But, now she has to deal with the consequences.
          Becky had every Right to skip class to hang-out with her friends.

          Honestly, all of this “but what about Joyce’s pain?” comes across as equivalent to manpain to me.

        2. zee

          Oh i would already be blocking Joyce’s number if i were Becky, the amount of insight and understanding people expect from a teenager after seeing and hearing something deeply upsetting from her best friend is insane. How are you gonna say Becky has no right to feel insulted when Joyce was calling an entire group which is an important part of Becky’s identity idiots, and then when directly asked if she thinks Becky is an idiot said yes

        3. Clif

          Well, I missed the part where she said yes. But yes, it was implied.

  39. Hazel

    “Maybe your faith should’ve been a little less about who you’re better than”

    Very true! Joyce has always had a lot of judgement of others (as taught to her by her family and church). Learning that she is wrong about people has been a core part of her experience in college.

    But also…Becky is yelling because she believes she was being mocked and lied to. She didn’t get angry at the other times Joyce acted in ways that distanced herself from other beliefs. Kinda feels like she is really means is “Maybe your faith should’ve been a little less about thinking I’m less than you”.

    1. Ludaire

      I don’t think it’s a fair statement at all. It’s a judgemental statement aimed at being judgemental. Becky is saying “I’m better than you because I believed the *right* parts were important and don’t think I’m above everyone else.”

      Yes, Joyce has problems with being indoctrinated with knee jerk negative reactions to many things. However, whenever she does sit down and think for herself, she is constantly choosing friendship and empathy over years of indoctrination. She’s not perfect, but Becky isn’t either, and I think Becky tends not to get past that knee jerk reaction. Consider the absolutely ludicrous “rivalry” she’s instigating with Dorothy.

      This bit here isn’t even any indication of personal judgement of Dina. It’s her own thought-out beliefs once again butting heads with her old beliefs. She believes more in science now, but still hadn’t resolved the indoctrinated view of science-y people. People sometimes act like new realizations like discovering your sexual/romantic orientation or losing your faith as one time events. The reality is that there’s always a constant stream of aftershocks, especially for big changes like what Joyce has been through. This is a moment of her learning to be less judgmental.

      Then Becky throws that in her face, putting the blame on Joyce for the indoctrinated beliefs while giving faith/religion a free pass. “No, it can’t be that our upbringing, Christianity, and faith in general are to blame for our prejudice. The problem is obviously *you*, and both I and my religion is perfectly fine.” This gaslighting response is also probably something Becky was raised into. I guess we’ll see whether she realizes it and grows the way Joyce has been.

      1. Hazel

        Hmm, yeah I can see where you are coming from.
        Many others have mentioned it before that for Joyce her faith was one unbroken whole, whilst for Becky it was many parts to create a whole. Both faiths were similar in shape but very differently constructed. To Becky her old church, her dad, most of what she was taught or grew up with, none of these things being morally or scientifically wrong mean that her faith is wrong. She can toss away the culty parts of her religion and still feel just as religious as before. She isn’t them, they aren’t her.

        For Joyce that isn’t the case. College was a huge wake up call. Atheists/lesbians/evolutionists/etc can be good, family/church/other christians can be bad, trauma after trauma can happen to her. Her atheism is very new and it came from pain. Heck, she’s having a small revelation about her and Dina, someone she likes but started off thinking was very different from her, right in the middle of an argument. She isn’t equipped right now for this conversation with Becky, and Becky doesn’t understand why Joyce would have anti-christian emotions because of what others do.

  40. Reltzik

    Like, 99% of the time when a Christian starts diagnosing why someone deconverted from Christianity, they’re completely off-base and just listening to it means you’re in for some awful.

    Here? Becky’s hitting the 1% mark. No foul. She’s not quite got it right, but no foul.

    1. Spencer

      It’s kind of foul. Actually a lot foul.

      One is that it’s wrong in that Joyce wasn’t “better than other people” so much as she was objectively correct about the origins of everything in existence. Like, Dorothy isn’t a bad person, all she needs to do is accept the bible as the factual text of Jesus Christ and everything will be fine.

      The other is that it sounds like she’s blaming Joyce for her newfound godless status on the grounds of Joyce doing faith wrong, unlike Becky, who just cares about “the important stuff” and therefore she doesn’t have to process the idea that Joyce’s “important stuff” was something else.

      1. Reltzik

        … okay, on a reread I can see that interpretation.

        But I’ve been seeing these past few days as them having two different conversations.

        Becky’s conversation: “You were making fun of me and mocking me and you think I’m an idiot.”

        Joyce’s conversation: “What you’re really unhappy about is that I’m an atheist.”

        But I didn’t read Panel 6 Becky as saying “You deconverted because you felt Christianity was being about feeling better than people.” I read it as “Your problem is that you’re focused on feeling like you’re better than people.” Now I’m waffling on that interpretation.

        1. anonymsly

          I read panel 6 the same as you. Becky is saying ‘maybe what you believe shouldn’t involve who you’re better than’. Which wasn’t actually at ALL what Joyce was talking about re: thinking like Dina feeling wrong. But Becky’s just aiming for blood now.

      2. Airyu

        I think even before Becky and Joyce approached things differently wrt religion. Was Joyce the same as Mary? No, but Joyce did think she was better than other people for sure. You said she felt that Dorothy was good and all Dorothy needed to do was believe in god and everything would be cool – I agree, but I see that as Joyce thinking she was better than Dorothy

        Becky doesn’t seem to feel that. Becky doesn’t seem to think that Dina needs to convert, she’s like, okay Dina believes that, which is fine, and I believe this, which is fine, and we exist at the same level.

        Also I didn’t read that line as Becky saying that Joyce was doing faith wrong. I read it as Becky saying that the ark stuff wasn’t what Joyce was making fun of. Joyce was kind of changing the topic by swinging around the concept of god to talk about stuff like the earth being young. And then Joyce put all the pressure on Becky to defend her faith, by bringing up Becky’s dad

        I don’t think Becky is trying to “diagnose” Joyce at all. I think she feels sad and confused as to why her friend who prayed and talked about the bible multiple times since the semester started, and probably during the time skip as well, just said that everyone like Becky was an idiot. I’d be angry too

    2. Ludaire

      Except she’s not right. She’s calling out Joyce for not believing the right stuff was important/not important and saying her problem with her judgemental nature was Joyce’s fault, not her faith’s.

      Nowhere does she properly acknowledge the pain Joyce has been caused by religious people in the name of religion. Nowhere does she acknowledge Joyce’s desire for a consistent belief system and unwillingness to compartmentalize (“you believed the wrong stuff” is adjacent to that, but not remotely the same as understanding).

  41. Wraithy2773

    REMEMBER: DON’T LOOK AT WHAT EITHER OF THEM ARE SAYING AS BEING FULLY LITERAL OR ACCURATE TO THEIR ACTUAL LOGICAL OPINIONS.

    They are going through shit.

    A lot of shit.

    They are dealing with a lot of shit that’s been building up over a long time and without having time to really come to terms with it all.

    Here’s what I’m taking from this:

    Becky might care about Joyce being Christian or not, but her biggest problem right now is that Joyce hasn’t been honest with her and seemingly is mocking her by proxy.

    And Joyce… she wants things to be good with Becky, she doesn’t want to lie to her (but isn’t sure about how to tell the truth either, it’s one of those ‘fun’ dichotomies)… but the key here might be that Joyce doesn’t really firmly have a solid foundation for her own beliefs right now. Like, her just now realizing that she broadly speaking shares a system of belief with Dina and finding it uncomfortable? That… kinda implies a lack of introspection about it all.

    As for what Becky said in the last panel? That…… look, there’s some truth in there. Joyce has repeatedly shown a sign of judgement of those that have different faiths or expressions of faith than her. She’s been poor at adopting a “we disagree and that’s fine” type viewpoint…

    …but I don’t think Becky fully means it. I think there’s a lot of her lashing out here, because she feels hurt right now and lashing out at someone when you’re in pain is human as fuck. She shouldn’t be saying this stuff, but… well, we’re dealing with teenagers, hoo boy are we barking up the wrong tree if we’re expecting fully reasoned arguments here.

    1. Amós Batista

      Yeah, I get what you said. But it’s funny, because I forgot they are venting and I read this sequence 3 times, and returned some books, trying to figure out about what they’re saying.

    2. anonymsly

      I think Becky absolutely means it, but that’s actually not what Joyce was talking about. Joyce has taken it for granted for months that she is fundamentally different from Dina, and she just realized she’s not. Becky’s the only one who’s angry here, Joyce seems distracted by her realization. It doesn’t look like ‘wait, am I not better anymore?’ It looks more like ‘ohhhh, I’m NOT different, that’s weird and unsettling, the world is even more askew than I thought’ to me. Like one more piece of the world has fallen off.

      Not that Becky’s exactly paying attention either. She’s just going for the throat here. I suspect these are the things she’s always thought about Joyce (look at little miss perfect, thinks she’s so much better than everyone, but I love her so I guess she kind of is….) so she’s just letting rip.

  42. Jess

    I may be reaching but I kinda feel like Joyce not denying what she said mirrors something Becky said when she came out to Joyce.

    “If I had to do it again, I’d have definitely, definitely, would have locked the door.”

    Maybe I’m off, but still.

    Here’s the link to the strip I’m talking about
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/definitely/

    1. MrSmith

      Not bad

      1. Jess

        Yay parallells

    2. Jamie

      I think that’s a fair comparison.

    3. Hazel

      Ohhhh, nice spotting!

    4. Cerusee

      Oh yeah I’ve been thinking about it ever since Joyce found her. I don’t know whether JOYCE would actually choose to draw that parallel for Becky even if she thought of it, but the irony has not escaped me.

      1. thejeff

        That’s an awful comparison and drawing that parallel would be more likely to ruin their friendship than anything else. At least if Joyce doesn’t provide a lot more context than she has yet.

        Cause right now it would come across as “I wish I’d kept the door closed so I could have kept making fun of you behind your back.”

        1. Cerusee

          If you’ve never said anything unkind about another person because you needed to work through your feelings about something, but would never have wanted them to HEAR that unkind thing you said in anger and be hurt by it, power to you.

          I have definitely said angry, mean things that I *needed* to say in order to process them, to hear them out loud, to verbalize my anger or frustration or hurt, and learn how to handle it. I have said them directly to the person I was angry with or hurt by; I have said them to a pet; I have said them to myself, alone in a room; I have said them to a neutral third party who wasn’t hurt by them, but who could both validate my emotions and help me through anger in order to find grace or acceptance or forgiveness or better see the places where I was irrational or at fault. The latter is by *far* the healthiest way to handle that kind of pain. I think it really sucks that Joyce was trying to manage her anger at herself and her religion and her sense of betrayal in a safe place that wouldn’t hurt her closest friend…only to have that blow up because said friend is wildly over-possessive, has no boundaries, and showed up in a place where she had not been invited and had not been expected.

          “Never say mean things ever, anywhere, to anyone” sounds good on paper, but most people aren’t built that way, and people who in fact never ever say mean things to anyone ever about anything aren’t necessarily just nicer than other people; sometimes they’re like that because they’ve been socialized to believe they have no right to anger or other negative emotions. Which is overwhelmingly unhealthy. This is all reminding me a bit of how John told Joyce something to the effect that anger wasn’t a good look on her, in the wake of the first kidnapping.

        2. thejeff

          I have definitely said dumb and painful things and hurt people. I get that it can be helpful sometimes.

          When you’ve done so though, doubling down by telling them you’re only sorry that they heard doesn’t help the situation.
          And drawing a comparison with the time they got thrown out of school for being outed as a lesbian is just beyond words.

        3. Cerusee

          It has literally been five minutes total since Becky heard this. Joyce, herself, is walking around in a state of something approaching shock. I know from personal experience I am not capable of the kind of self-reflection and deep thought necessarily to instantly re-orient myself entirely towards someone else’s needs when I’ve been plunged into an emotional crisis, especially one that I’ve been deeply terrified of for a long time. This is why people have fights, and sorting out fights after the fact can take time.

          Joyce HASN’T drawn that comparison, I did. I absolutely do think there is a common element between those experiences of “Well, THIS extremely important thing about myself came to light in just about the worst possible way, and I definitely wish it had happened in a way that hadn’t instantly spun out of my control” and that Joyce and Becky wish that both for themselves and, probably to different degrees, for the other people involved who’ve been affected or even harmed on their respective paths of learning who they are outside of their childhood cult conditioning.

        4. Huehuetotl

          Anderson University requires students go to church. There are still people at risk of being shunned by their families and friends for being an atheist.

          It’s not a comparison Joyce should make out loud, because she should lie to not hurt Becky’s feelings here. But it is an accurate comparison.

    5. Ludaire

      Oof, that’s painful to remember. The deeper I read into things, the less sympathy I have for Becky here. I get that she’s hurt, and she’s made some valid points about Joyce being dishonest. Just about everything else she’s saying is hypocritical, gaslighting, or manipulation, though.

      1. zee

        Okay gaslighting? When has she tried to make Joyce question her own perception of reality? Genuinely asking, bc that word has been bastardized more than “sociopath”

        1. Spencer

          Kiiiiinda?

          Like, Becky and Joyce are kind of gaslighting each other, in that Becky and Joyce are telling the other “you believed the same thing I did and therefore must have processed faith in God as I do, so why are you acting the wrong way?”

          Not necessarily making them question their perception of reality, but that they assume the reality they believe in is the one the other intimately understands.

  43. Beau Kirin Maysey

    Joyce: technically Christianity is all about god being better than all of us though isn’t it?

    Becky: joyce your avoidance tactics aren’t going to actually dig you out of this one…

  44. Fuzzy

    Dina had a whole thing recently about magical thinking, which makes me wonder if she’s really okay with Becky being Christian. “God sent me a superhero” seems like a belief she’d normally have problems with, except it’s Becky saying it and Dina really really likes Becky.

    1. Spencer

      I mean yeah “renounce magical thinking” is a thing Dina said, I can’t remember if Becky was in the room or not, and no one ever had to talk about respect or making fun of you or whatever.

      Like that should be on the same level as what Joyce is doing now right? I know Becky wouldn’t process it that way because a lot of this is based on Joyce herself than Joyce’s faith.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Becky was in the room

    2. Mr.Morningstar

      Yeah I was a bit puzzled. While she hasnt badmouthed Becky over it or anything her views on religion in general seem to be at the very least tolerate but not approve of.

      She has mentioned “saving” Becky from that way of thinking g in the past it I’m not mistaken (though that may have been just for an joke I dunno sometimes).

      At best shes neutral towards it but she doesnt tolerate any of it that contradicts science

    3. OBBWG

      My take has been the Dina, intentionally or not, is playing the long game. By constantly pointing out the fallacies of Becky’s beliefs and gradually shifting her thoughts, she hopes to eventually turn Becky into a rationalist. She, among other things, has already helped turn Becky away from her dogma to focusing on “the important parts”.

  45. Heather

    Hmm some people are taking Becky’s last words as the absolute truth of the matter, but while I can get why Becky thinks it’s true based on what she walked in on and how poorly this is going so far. But I actually don’t think Joyce feels inherently superior. I think a part of it could be Joyce going ‘Wowa at the beginning of the year Dina’s beliefs horrified me and now I’m there’.

    Like when I deconverted at a few months shy of 20 a part of me realised younger me would have been horrified. It’s kind of wild looking and thinking at how your past self would react to things and how much things have changed.

    1. Spencer

      I mean yeah that last panel does not read to me as Becky dropping a truth bomb on smug Christian turned smug atheist Joyce, it just comes off to me a lot like Becky is blaming Joyce for being faithless and if Joyce did it like Becky it’d be fine.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I mean it does show the differences of WHAT they thought Christianity was about. For Joyce it was there was an in group and an out group. For Becky, it was about love and acceptance no matter who you were. Which shows why Ross did not UNDERSTAND Becky’s attempts to reconciliation.

        1. Jamie

          I like this take. And I think it captures a lot of why Joyce is in crisis: the line between the in- and out- groups has gotten not only fuzzy but incredibly convoluted and Joyce doesn’t know how to fix that.

          I’m less confident about the Becky take, but I don’t think it’s wrong. I’m kinda hoping Becky blows up and talks about herself next strip.

      2. Heavensrun

        No, definitely not. Dina, Becky’s favorite person in the world, is faithless. It isn’t about the fact that Joyce has lost her faith. She’s angry and hurt because Joyce was mocking her, lied to her, and because apparently Joyce never understood the nature of her faith in the first place.

        1. CJ

          You are very in Becky‘s headspace here. Yes, that’s what Becky is thinking.
          Did Joyce actually mock her? I don’t think so, she was mocking her own younger self who thought like that. She was venting, and n a space she didn’t think Becky would be there.
          And I think Joyce didn’t tell Becky about her fall from faith because she didn’t want to hurt Becky and couldn’t imagine the fact not hurting Becky.
          As Jamie pointed out, Joyce‘s idea about belonging had very strict in/outs and that puts a lot of pressure on telling your truth.
          We’re those good decisions?Nope. that’s why the comic isn’t Smarting of age,

        2. thumb

          Becky explicitly asked if Joyce really thought she was an idiot. Joyce countered with “facts and logic”. She was mocking her, at least on some level. And she’s aware that she was mocking her. Becky spends most of her time deflecting, but when she wants to get to the core of things, she is very good at it.

        3. CJ

          That’s a typical reaction if someone accuses you of something that never crossed your mind. Revert to facts.

        4. thejeff

          But the facts were of the “Come on, your belief is really stupid” kind.

          They were defending the mocking, not denying.

        5. zee

          Or, or, oooor
          If someone asks you if you were mocking them, and they idea that you were mocking them never even crossed your mind
          You say no

        6. Spencer

          Why does Joyce need to be precise and mature for every word that’s coming out of her mouth when all this shit is happening because Becky’s absolutely tilted?

          Like why can’t Joyce also be mad enough to say the wrong thing, and why can’t she be mad at Becky for making this worse? Why does she need to constantly accommodate and coddle Becky’s feelings instead of just saying what she feels?

          Because Joyce already said sorry and Becky didn’t care, so the only way for Joyce to defuse something she deserves to feel even at Becky’s expense is to go over ever single piece of anger and trauma and carefully word herself so that she expresses how she hates her upbringing but in a way that squares it with Becky, who wouldn’t accept Joyce rejecting her faith outright instead of just the parts Becky finds inconvenient either way.

        7. Clif

          Joyce doesn’t have to care what Becky thinks. But she does.

        8. Spencer

          That’s an entirely separate point.

          Plus we know that Joyce cares enough about hurting Becky, that’s why she apologized, but Becky isn’t interested in “I am sorry I hurt you” because what Joyce is thinking is what is hurting her.

        9. Spencer

          Is not saying something the same as saying it?

          We know that Joe is in love with Joyce because when Amber observed an entire conversation of Joe trying his damndest to be emotionally supportive to Joyce, Amber noted that Joe had it bad for her and Joe Did Not Say No, meaning he does in fact want to crush her bones in a powerful yet reassuring embrace.

          Does that really apply when we’re on strip two of these two not responding to each other, because the words they are saying inherently carry different meanings for both of them and are getting further coloured by the emotional weight of hearing it from the other?

          Because this isn’t something as simple as “if I ask a question and you don’t directly answer the question, that means you agree”, it’s a conservation between two people on completely different levels of reality.

        10. anonymsly

          Off-topic: I do very much want Joe to crush Joyce’s bones in a powerful yet reassuring embrace.

        11. Spencer

          I’m kind of twigging onto the interpretation of Joe and Sarah as, like, the only people in Joyce’s circle that let her be wrong and Not Joyce, whatever that means. I was gonna say “core circle” but I don’t think Joe is there yet so much as he’s building up to it and right now it consists of Becky, Dorothy and Sarah.

          Sarah loves Joyce, except Sarah lets herself be grumpy and exasperated by her antics. She vocalizes that Joyce annoys her, she pulls away from her, they are actually capable of hurting each other when one uses shared pain as ammo against the other (“you want to get rid of her, just like you did Dana!”) and once it happens they don’t just reconcile, they meaningfully grow from it. They’re close enough to hurt each other, they can annoy each other enough that they need to stop talking for a bit and it never changes things that really matter between them.

          Joe has this weird approach where Joyce is completely human, except he’s fully convinced she’s such a wonderful human that whatever mistake she is making now is one that she will overcome. Hypothetically if we find out Joe here is #TeamBecky then he’ll process it as something Joyce did wrong, but that she’s good enough to make it right when she can because she’ll never stop trying to make it right. Unlike Joe, who can’t actually love a woman because if he does then he’s such a fuck-up he’ll break her heart, that he can’t bear the idea of hurting someone who loves him so much that he can hurt her, Joe is actively encouraging of Joyce making as many mistakes as she can, because they’re all something she can crush with time.

          And I don’t think Becky and Dorothy have that with Joyce, because they’ve been friends for so long without Joyce ever causing real heartache to either of them that they don’t know how to process Joyce doing something actually wrong, except “actually wrong” in this case is filtering in from two incredibly biased sources of Becky and whatever after school special speech Dorothy has loaded up.

  46. anonymsly

    Well, Becky is not sticking this landing anywhere near as well as Joyce did when it was Becky whose world had crumbled around her. I 3xpected nothing else.

    Hopefully Becky stomps off in a righteous huff and Joyce realizes following her is not the correct move. They then Don’t Speak for some time, during which Joyce works on herself and develops her non-Becky support structure. (And, sadly, non-Dorothy support structure. While Dorothy would want to be there for Joyce, ACCESS to Dorothy is likely to be heavily gated by Becky until and unless Dorothy actually stands up to Becky.)

    1. segnosaur

      How exactly does Becky ‘control’ access to Dorothy?

      I get that Joyce wouldn’t be able to just show up at her room (since it might cause a conflict). But they have each other’s cell numbers. they can easily meet for lunch.

      And if Becky raises a fuss (along the lines of “why are you spending time with Joyce my enemy?”) then Becky is overstepping her bounds.

      1. MrSmith

        Part of this issue is Becky overstepping her boundaries all the time.
        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/shallowgrave/
        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/usurper/

        “I’ll go be unapologetically me”

        She sure did

        1. Josh Spicer

          And it’s okay for Becky to be unapologetically her whenever she wants.

        2. Ludaire

          Yep. Becky is the spunky, disrespectful lesbian, so she’s golden. But if Joyce is unapologetically Joyce, she’s just an angry atheist who deserves all the blame and scorn in the world.

          /s

        3. Clif

          I cannot imagine for one second Dorothy allowing Becky to control access to her.

        4. Spencer

          I mean she’s letting Becky do something else, for whatever reason

        5. thejeff

          There’s a difference between not controlling Becky and letting Becky control her.

        6. Spencer

          That’s actually true.

      2. alongcameaspider

        Remember the entire reason Becky walked in on Joyce mocking believers (and that’s what she was doing) was Becky doesn’t want Joyce to have Becky-less spaces

        That said I think push comes to shove Dorothy wouldn’t let Becky control access to her

  47. ADLegend21

    Becky, your entire friendship with Joyce has been about you being better than everyone for her. That’s y’alls entire upbringing.

  48. CJ

    Dina is busy growling at „you’re only a real dinosaur fan if you don’t believe they had feathers“ over at egs-np.

  49. Airyu

    This is so funny to me because everyone is taking about how Joyce should do [thing] or Becky should do [other thing] and meanwhile I’m like, if I was Joyce irl I’d probably be screaming and if I was Becky irl I’d probably would also be screaming and/or would have punched her

    1. SillyGoose

      Haha, I was thinking the same thing! It’s easy for us to give them pointers because… we’re not 17, in the middle of a personal crisis, fighting with our best friend, and still reeling from deconverting, a kidnapping, attempted rape and witnessing a murder.
      Both of them are acting suboptimally, and both are relatable and allowed mistakes.
      (And both of them are still handling it better than I would if it happened to me, probably)

      1. Hazel

        Oh, if I were in either of their places I would be full on ugly crying by this point.

        1. anonymsly

          I would have walked off and blocked Becky’s number. Why Becky? Because my very first reaction to this strip was ‘Jesus CHRIST, Becky!’

  50. Rainhat

    Wow. Game and set to Ms. McIntyre on that one.

  51. acher4

    But was Joyce doing those things?
    Not convinced yet.
    *waits patiently for the more drama (with popcorn on hand).

  52. segnosaur

    Something just crossed my mind…

    Becky is accusing Joyce of ‘lying’, mostly because she continued laying the christian long after she became an atheist. (More or less lying by omission.)

    But didn’t Becky do the same thing when she hid her homosexuality from Joyce prior to her kissing Joyce?

    (Not that I would expect Joyce to bring it up, but it is a little bit hypocritical on Becky’s part.)

    1. King Daniel

      I mean, in total fairness that was only a few hours in-universe for Becky’s case – we don’t know when exactly during the timeskip Joyce became an atheist, but we’re on six chapters (six days in-universe, by the one chapter = one day rule) since they’ve started going back to college in Joyce’s.

      1. Segnosaur

        I think it was more than a “few hours”… Becky probably knew she was a lesbian for years.

        1. King Daniel

          When she kissed Joyce, she specifically said “it took a few weeks away from you [at Anderson] to figure it out.”

          So while Becky may have felt “different” for years, she didn’t know she was a lesbian for years prior to the comic’s events.

    2. GUIGUI

      I think that’s completely different. Especially as Becky made a point of actually telling Joyce about it as soon as she had the courage to do so. And it wasn’t just a coming out confession but also a love confession.

      1. Segnosaur

        So becky wanted to wait until she was ready to tell joyce she was gay…is that much different than joyce wanting to wait to tell becky she was an atheist once she was ready?

        1. GUIGUI

          The difference is that Becky’s world was falling apart and she had literally no one else to turn to ans she was afraid it would have compleltly destroyed what little she had left. And it’s also coming out. Joyce isn’t under such pressure. she knew it would be difficult, but also knew it wouldn’t destroy their friendship, just that it would make things hard for a while. The two aren’t comparable.

        2. anonymsly

          IS Joyce’s world not falling apart? DID she know it wouldn’t destroy their friendship? I would argue that it is falling apart and she did believe it would destroy their friendship. Joyce is largely ruled by anxiety/fear to boot in a way that Becky isn’t.

          It’s not coming out as queer, and the pressure is different, but that in no way means that the pressure is absent. And, as it happens, Joyce’s fear was absolutely correct: her new atheism is costing her Becky.

        3. Segnosaur

          In the past half year joyce has: lost her religion (along with whatever emotional support she used to get from the church) seen her parents get divorced (after believing they were an inseparable unit), was drugged at a party, and was kidnapped. Maybe becky had it worse, but joyce’s problems are significant too.

        4. Ludaire

          The fact that you don’t see coming out as an atheist to your Christian best friend as coming out is pretty telling. It is similar. Not identical, no, but coming out is always different depending on the person, who they’re coming out to, and about what.

          If Joyce accidentally walked in on Becky making out or having sex with a girl, I think she’d be much more understanding than Becky is being.

    3. Heavensrun

      Becky didn’t *mock straight people* behind Joyce’s back. There are other differences, but they mostly relate to ways in which the comparison is bad. Joyce -just- did a thing the other day where she pretended to believe that Becky’s mom was looking down on them. She constructed -deliberate lies-, not lies of omission, actual falsehoods, to avoid telling Becky that she’s an atheist.

      Then she turned around and mocked Becky’s beliefs behind her back. She wasn’t trying to mock Becky’s beliefs, she was trying to mock herself, but she wasn’t thinking about the fact that Becky currently believes what she herself used to believe.

      1. Mr.Morningstar

        Okay look to be fair to.joyce, that was definitely not the time to tell Becky that she doesnt believe anymore, when shes saying that her mom is watching over her from heaven.

        She def needed more time to actually tell her, and what she was saying was wrong and this apology sucks absolute ass. But in understand why she was saying what she did, since liz was in a similar boat as her, and thought it was a private space to vent her frustrations and mock herself.

        She was still wrong in what she said but honestly, that’s a common thing that (most) new atheists grow out of.

        Becky is right to be hurt by it, but I feel joyce wouldve have stopped the mockery long before she told her when she felt ready to.

        1. Clif

          Now see, that’s the thing Heavensrun. Becky’s mom is in heaven looking out for her daughter whether there’s a heaven to look down from or not. And that’s the truth because that’s the kind of mom she is. It’s only a lie if you insist on trying to fit everything in one bucket. But the world we live in is too complex to fit in a single bucket. If you throw out worthwhile things because they won’t fit in the same bucket, you wind up with an impoverished bucket that isn’t as useful as it should be. If you’re fanatical about it, you wind up with a bucket that isn’t worth living in.

      2. Ludaire

        No, Becky didn’t mock Joyce. Instead, Becky throws constant vitriol at Dorothy, one of Joyce’s best friends. Becky mocks straight people to their faces (she told Lucy “I have a girlfriend, which is objectively better”).When Joyce started to open up about her changing views, Becky belittled her anger, calling it a “stupid phase” and played suffering competition. Not to mention Becky’s over the top possessiveness of someone who isn’t a romantic partner.

        Even here, she’s gaslighting Joyce about her past religious beliefs. It’s Joyce’s problem she believed the wrong things were important and believed she was better than other people. It’s not religion’s fault. Religion is fine and perfect. It gets all the credit for the good things people do (sending a super hero and Becky’s best friend on a motorcycle) while people get all the blame for bad things (her dad’s behavior and the less savory aspects of Joyce’s past beliefs). Not that this is an unusual response; it’s very common. That doesn’t make it any less shitty.

        Joyce isn’t being kind or understanding here, and I do feel for Becky. She stumbled into a situation where someone was saying something that inadvertently hurt her. That’s unfortunate, but understanding and accepting that others around you believe things that would hurt to hear is just part of being an adult. She’s also understandably upset about the dishonesty. I think Joyce was perfectly justified in not opening up to Becky, and I don’t see her lies as any worse than a gay man lying about a girlfriend to avoid coming out before they’re ready. Joyce has got to be terrified of what’s going to happen when she starts admitting to more people that she’s an atheist, and the only people she’s opened up to about it are people who figured it out or she knew understood up front: Sarah, Joe, and LIz. To our knowledge, she has yet to come out willlingly to a single person thus far. Despite all that, I understand being hurt.

        I wish Joyce was doing more to validate Becky’s feelings and show empathy. However, speaking bluntly among people who are comfortable with it is nothing she has to apologize for, especially not to Becky, who is the most “bull in a china shop” character in the comic. Nor is not wanting to talk about her changing beliefs to everyone around her, any more than Becky not wanting to share anything about her mother’s suicide is something Becky has to apologize for.

        1. MrSmith

          Damn good take on this

  53. GUIGUI

    I’ll say it again. Joyce never felt better than Becky. Her spite was aimed at herself.

    1. Heavensrun

      Yeah, but she is botching this, hard.

    2. zee

      She’s certainly not portraying herself that way though

  54. Rabisch

    I love Becky’s powerful reaction when Joyce brought Dina into the discussion. Dina has always been extremely honest with her and now Joyce is trying to say that she’s no different from Dina? And then she seem really shocked thinking that she’s s like Dina? Enough! Becky will probably leave without wanting to hear what Joyce still wants to tell her. She probably will avoir her for weeks and Joyce will feel terrible for this. They bith will feel terrible for this.

  55. darkoneko

    oh yeah, he whole holiest than thou tho

  56. Jbluewind

    Honestly? I can understand Joyce here. “But her apology is so bad!” you might say and I would agree. The problem is the headspace she’s in. When you’ve experienced a trauma, there are a lot of feelings tied up in there, all mostly repressed. Repressed emotions become amplified and are stronger than they would have even been originally the moment they are released. The released emotions are overpowering. Other logical processes (sometimes even including empathy) go temporarily out the window. There is no room for logic, subtlety, or caring about the needs of others (it takes training in coping techniques to do that). It’s very self focused, so there’s a risk of the person lashing out at others or themselves (may or may not be seen that way by observers, but the individual will view them as behaviors that they previously viewed as unacceptable from themself) or engaging in maladaptive coping techniques. That’s why they try to get people to work through those emotions in therapy with a professional present who can guide the person.

    Joyce is in a very self focused state right now. Her guard went down. Under the guise of pretending to impress Liz, she let some of the things she wanted/desired or was curious about (but never allowed herself to think about because of her religion) slip out. Sexual attraction, rule breaking, spontaneity, cursing, doubts, frustration, religion/spiritual fatigue, shame, curiosity about certain drugs (specifically marijuana), anti religion sentiments, taboo media/games, religious conditioning,… These were all tied to real feelings Joyce had and she was not only not judged for having them, she was accepted which led to a feeling of kinship with Liz. That led to feelings of satisfaction and relief (and some level of pride) with everything she shared and that openness snowballed until she FINALLY released some of her dark thoughts and pain tied to her previous religion in an environment that felt safe in. All the anger, pain, self judgment, self disgust, shame, betrayal, blame, denial, insecurity, misery, disappointment, frustration, bitterness, apprehension, isolation, self-hate, pride,… it was like expressing an abscess; pain mixed with relief.

    Becky and Dorothy walking in didn’t stop the wound from weaping; it added rejection to it with some added adrenaline from a fight/flight/freeze response! Saying sorry to Becky right now is not an option. Logic, empathy, and interpersonal skills aren’t on the table right now until those feelings have been processed.

    Now, I have no doubt that Joyce is sorry for hurting Becky, but she can’t appologize for what she said. She can’t take them back and hiding them was obviously causing her pain (not unlike someone who was closeted). Apologizing for what she said is like admitting she was wrong to feel the way she does.

    There’s also the fact that Becky (who reacted badly to Joyce’s pain in the past) is a religious person shaming and rejecting her for her feelings and very real pain. Odds are, Joyce will displace emotions onto Becky (or at least Becky talking about religion) but at a less intense state. This would mean Becky would trigger some level of those emotions anytime Joyce associates her with religion.

    Joyce NEEDS to see a trauma informed professional (one she feels safe with who uses techniques she feels resonate with her) to guide her so that she can work through her trauma in a way that isn’t maladaptive. She also needs help will all of her triggers and cognitive distortions (especially the newer ones that can be changed easier because they aren’t ingrained).

    As far as the Dina (which might actually shock Joyce out of her emotional state) goes, I don’t think Joyce meant what she said as an insult.
    Imagine being very different from someone in something you strongly identify with (politics for example). Imagine being told this person is very wrong your whole life and believing such. You take time and energy to find counter arguments against their view and things that support your view. You make fun of the other view and everything that surrounds it. Maybe you even like this other person “despite” their obviously wrong view.
    Now imagine one day realizing that your view has changes so much that it MATCHES theirs. You are no longer fighting them, but one of them. There would probably be some emotions about that right? Maybe disbelief? Or a feeling or wrongness?

    1. ischemgeek

      Yeah agreed on that one.

      Like I don’t think it’s self deprecating in the sense of I’m no different from this horrible person, but rather disbelief in the sense of I’m no different from this person I’ve long thought of as my polar opposite.

      1. Jbluewind

        Exactly ^_^

      2. Regalli

        Yep. Joyce only yesterday realized that she can stop tying herself in mental knots to justify how MICROEVOLUTION is true but MACROevolution isn’t and just, believe in evolution. She’s been coming to terms with being an atheist, but she hasn’t really thought through the ripples of that – she believes the same things as Dina and Dorothy, she doesn’t have to believe in the great flood, what does she think of religious people – because it’s been so tied up in the trauma and the adults lying to her and the shame she feels about losing faith.

    2. Ludaire

      Yeah. I agree that Joyce apologizing as in “I’m sorry I said negative things about religion and wont’ do it again” feels very wrong. Especially considering the circumstances. Becky’s question in the previous comic is a lot like if Dorothy heard something Joyce or Becky said about religion and then interrupted with “Wait, you really think I deserve to burn in hell forever?” It’s taking someone’s beliefs and making them personal when those beliefs don’t have anything to do with you. Even if you’re close to someone, understanding that others don’t share your beliefs and that blunt statements of that fact might be painful is just part of being an adult.

      I also think you’re right about Joyce’s feelings on Dina. This is a moment where Joyce is recognizing her past prejudices and beginning to reject them. Then Becky throws that back in her face, blaming Joyce for the judgmental parts of her religious upbringing.

      Joyce may not be responding to this situation in a very kind and understanding way, but Becky is the one here who is making things personal and getting more vicious by the moment.

      1. temperaryobsessor

        While I don’t have time to get mad at everyone in the world who holds a belief I would find offensive its legitimate to not like people who hold those beliefs.

  57. Fox

    If anyone knows Delicious Taffy irl, you may want to check on them because they were threatening making an attempt on their life in the comments above and idk what to do other than suggest a hotline, which I did.

    1. A Red Balloon

      Huh? Are you sure? I thought it was peculiar that their icon changed to a reverse of Regalli for some reason and then back again, but if they’re going through a hard time, we should definitely support them!

      1. eh, whatever

        They mentioned being about to make “The Attempt”.

        1. anonymsly

          I thought that was an FFXIV reference…? If not, yikes. If anyone does know I’ll Taffy please check in.

        2. King Daniel

          Taffy’s mentioned their ideation and mental health issues before, so I definitely didn’t take it as a game reference of any kind.

        3. Delicious Taffy

          Have I done? Can’t remember, but it does track. If I tried to pass it off as a game reference, that’d be really messed up.

        4. A Red Balloon

          If you’re going through a tough time right now, I definitely support you to the fullest!

          Also, why did your icon look like a backwards Regalli last night?

        5. Delicious Taffy

          Oh, the icon thing? I was gonna make a joke yesterday about Regali’s grav changing or something, so I made a quick edit of it, but by the time I remembered to actually make the joke, it was partway into today’s strip being up and I’d missed the Relevance Window.

        6. Regalli

          Oh darn it, I missed that by commenting that one late and not checking right off last night! (My sleep schedule’s been a touch skewed lately and I’m trying to get back towards diurnalism.)

        7. Regalli

          And also, *internet support gestures* re: mental health. Sympathy and empathy.

  58. JoeCovenant

    Point of order:
    Becky was standing behind Joyce and facing her.
    So, whether or not she was making fun of *her*, it was actually behind Joyce’s back, not Becky’s.

    (Leave me alone! Its only 10:02 and already it’s been a long day!)

  59. Reaver

    Can I just say that despite how heated the convo has gotten, that its pretty cool that these characters are so real that we can argue about their motivee, actions and emotions like they are flesh and blood people? Pretty cool Willis, pretty cool

  60. Alan in DC

    An unfortunate aspect of growing up, Becky. Trust me, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait til you hit your 20s.

  61. RedCat

    There it is.

  62. Florence

    For all the truth in that last panel, Becky is still talking terms of failure which Joyce sadly agrees with, it’s why I think she’s struggling to speak honestly because these are some deep fears of hers. Regardless of intent and justified rage, this is turning into shaming someone for non belief.

    1. thumb

      Wait, Becky is shaming Joyce for her beliefs? Joyce is the one who called religious people idiots. Becky hasn’t attacked Joyce for not believing. She hasn’t faulted Joyce once for being an atheist. She explicitly points out right here that atheism isn’t the issue.

      Her best friend has been talking shit about her behind her back. And when asked for clarification, she doubled down. When confronted about that, Joyce hides behind atheism in the exact same way she used to hide behind religion. Except with even less relevance to the situation.

      1. Florence

        Joyce is absolute a jerk who mocked Becky, I’m not saying she’s right, only that Becky keeps switching between arguments that are true like in panel 2 back to jabs at Joyce’s faith being weak in the last panel. Like either her Joyce’s faith is relevant or it isn’t. And I get why it’s getting mixed up in her head but still awful to see

        1. thumb

          But again, Becky is not talking about faith or beliefs. She’s not telling Joyce that her faith is weak. She’s telling Joyce that she seems to believe she’s better than others. That this was the case when she was religious, and that this is again the case when she’s not. The religion was an excuse. Atheism is an excuse. Joyce is the only one deflecting criticism of her character through religious or atheist platitudes. To Becky, atheism is not at issue.

        2. Florence

          She’s saying the directly but implicit to her jabs like yesterday with “important bits” and here at the end are about being superior are about Joyce’s faith. Does not mean there isn’t truth in what she’s saying but it reads like it’s getting mixed with other intense emotions about realising Joyce is an atheist. Which I think is one of her issues, not just anyone being an atheist but Joyce being an atheist.

          That’s just my interpretation though. We will see how Willis resolves this dang arc. As interesting and complex as it is I’m definitely hoping for slightly less debate inducing stuff ?

        3. Florence

          And your interpretation is valid too, to be clear

        4. Ludaire

          Yes, she is talking about Joyce’s faith. She explicitly criticizes Joyce for not understanding what parts of their faith are important, and then she blames Joyce for being judgmental. Both are cases of Becky gaslighting Joyce for things she inherited from her religious indoctrination. “It’s not Christianity that’s the problem. It’s *your* fault you believed those things you were indoctrinated into.”

          You’re essentially doing the same thing. You frame Joyce’s judgmental responses as a core aspect of her. She’s a Bad Person ™ because she’s judgmental.

          I’d honestly argue the opposite, that Joyce is a very good person who was raised with really shitty beliefs and has been growing out of them. Joyce came into this comic as a deeply indoctrinated person trained to judge anyone not like her. Since then, she has tossed aside those judgments in favor of empathy, understanding, and kindness on many occasions. She befriended Dorothy, tolerated and eventually became friendly with Walky, accepted Becky’s sexulity with barely a pause, and was happily supportive of Dina and Becky being together. She’s even doing that in this very comic: recognizing a prejudice she hadn’t reconsidered in the context of her new beliefs. Yet Becky frames it as still being judgmental because faith being problematic is contrary to Becky’s compartmentalization she does to maintain her own beliefs. Becky has to blame those beliefs on Joyce or recognize that Christianity was the source and admit it might be affecting her, too.

        5. Spencer

          All of your posts have been good.

        6. thumb

          huh, I’m pretty sure I should just drop it and yet, here I am. So when did Becky said anything about Joyce’s religious or non-religious beliefs? Joyce put some of Becky’s beliefs into question, to which Becky responded (i.e. these specific beliefs weren’t important to her). Joyce tried to defend herself by saying her position is the same as Dina’s, to which Becky is responding right here that the position is different since Dina isn’t calling Becky an idiot behind her back. And then she says Joyce is arrogant and condescending and has been hiding this behind religion and now atheism. Which is supported by Joyce’s statements in the past few strips. And again, I am aware that on some level Joyce is deflecting rather than answering.

          Anyway, Becky’s argument isn’t about religion or faith. It’s about being a friend. Joyce’s (stated) argument is about religion and faith.

        7. Spencer

          Becky right now is blaming Joyce’s inability to have faith anymore on her, in that she is stating that Joyce’s faith was in lording herself over other people.

          As in, Joyce not being faithful is a direct result of a defect on her part that she is responsible for and not *gestures broadly at her entire life*, because Becky still values the beliefs she was taught that she then scrubbed clean into genuine faith.

      2. Buli-Buli

        Because a lot of the people here fundamentally agree with Liz. Religions are hoaxes, their adherents fools deserving of ridicule, and no one should apologize for not believing in it or in stopping believing it.
        And extrapolating further, there’s no fundamental difference between humoring religious believers and tolerating them because they both involve biting your tongue when their absurd beliefs are brought up.

        So… Joyce did not only do nothing wrong, she actually stopped being wrong. Her lying to Becky about Heaven is no different from Dina or Dorothy allowing Becky to believe it, and Becky is at fault for (a) not being Atheist (yet) and (b) for being a dragging anchor on Joyce’s own deconversion.

        1. Florence

          No? I’m just discussing what I’ve seen in the comic and do not wish to get into the weeds with anyone’s insecurity around whether their beliefs are respected. I’m an agnostic so I’m kind of used to being treated like a second rate atheist instead of having my own feelings around belief respected. I would rather not go there if I can help it.

        2. Florence

          Oh and I still do believe in something spiritual(not to get too deep in the weeds as I said) so I understand belief being mocked hurting. I wasn’t discussing that but if you want to know I get it a little(not as much because there isn’t really an institutional way agnostic beliefs are marginalised). Again, not trying to attack anyone’s personal faith, I’m sorry if my post came across that way.

        3. Buli-Buli

          Actually, I want to apologize to you. My comment did not belong in a response chain to your comment.

          As you mentioned, this topic makes people heated and I was reacting to some general themes I’ve noticed in the comments instead of the conversation at hand.

          That was rude and inappropriate and I apologize again.

        4. Florence

          Thank you. It’s a very touchy subject, I feel like there needs to be some slowing down and separating the comic from people own experiences. I definitely have my own anxieties around religion and atheist as well. I’m sorry some commentators are operating in a way that lacks respect to other perspectives, as you said it’s cruel how some are treating faith like make believe instead of different answers thoughts and feelings on existence.

  63. Sombrero

    Black clouds approaching the Dina/Becky relationship. I feel sorry for Becky.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      See, this strip is actually making me think that Becky and Dina’s relationship will survive this, because Becky is explicitly rejecting Joyce’s argument that Dina is just like her.

      1. Sombrero

        But on the other hand she will come out from this with conflicting needs of religious and sexual reassurance that will be tough for Dina (ace and atheist) to manage. The relationship will maybe survive, but sure it will be painful.

  64. Moonie

    Ooh Becky in with the wicked truth bomb

  65. ischemgeek

    Tbh, it comes down to, for me, both Becky and Joyce are coming from reasonable places.

    Becky absolutely has a right to be upset because, to he, she walked in on Joyce making fun of her and her faith behind her back.

    Joyce OTOH absolutely deserves a safe place to work out her trauma around religion and her deconversion.

    Becky is absolutely right that Joyce’s faith was at least in part about feeling morally superior (which is a big part of why, when the people who had always served as proxies of her faith’s moral superiority to her showed they were flawed and fallible humans, Joyce’s faith shattered).

    OTOH, so is Becky wrapped up in feeling superior to people. Like that’s exactly why she bullies the shit out of people around her (but ESPECIALLY Dorothy, who she views as a threat to her own status).

    One thing I really appreciate about Willis’s writing is most of his characters are complex humans who are often simultaneously right and wrong about things. And very few of the people who are being shitty think they’re being shitty when they are.

    Like… Becky has absolutely contributed to the situation where Joyce felt like lying to her was the best option. By rejecting Joyce’s growing discomfort with faith and religious beliefs and her growing anxiety about being able to fit all these changes to her world view into her increasingly cracked and fragile, brittle faith. Joyce’s community thought she was safe to go to secular college because of how hard she believed – but hard things don’t tend to bend well. They build up stress until they break, generally. Becky hadn’t seen the growing stress fractures in Joyce’s faith because her own faith has always been plastic enough to assume whatever shape it needed.

    On the other hand, Joyce absolutely has a dishonest streak in her a mile wide and will tend to avoid accountability at almost all costs. At her worst, she’s a lot more concerned with maintaining an appearance of goodliness that is pleasing to those around her than actually figuring out and acting in accordance with her principles (see also: mimicking Sal, going along with Liz, trying to convert the gay Jewish boy to straight Christianity because that’s what her parents would like, etc). At her best, she finds a principle she cares about and acts in accordance with it and damn the consequences.

    As a recovering people pleaser myself I sympathize with Joyce very much even as I see her flaws. But – and here’s the thing Becky needs to understand – Fawn is also a trauma response. Becky’s mostly flight with a bit of fight if she’s cornered. Joyce is generally a fawner, with a bit of fight and freeze. Joyce is a people pleaser because that’s how she survived in her toxic upbringing. So it’s no wonder she lied to Becky – knowingly voicing something someone else will find disappointing or upsetting as a people pleaser is the most terrifying experience.

    That said I’d say a majority of the fault lies with Joyce here. Even if I do think neither of them is being entirely unreasonable and both need therapy.

    1. Zaxares

      I hadn’t heard of the concept of “fawn” being a response to conflict/danger before now, but it absolutely makes perfect sense. Thanks for teaching me something new! 😀

      1. Sam

        It is rarely ever brought up because fawn doesn’t really apply to emergency situations when the danger isn’t another person usually, it usually comes up more in interpersonal conflicts and hasn’t been studied as much as others as a result. And even FREEZE is still not always brought up even though it is the most common reaction to actual danger.

        1. ischemgeek

          Yes but if like me you grew up in a household with volatile emotionally and sometimes physically abusive parents that were also quite inconsistent, fawning was a way of life.

          I’m just now learning how boundaries and stating preferences explicitly are better than seething in passive aggressive resentment for years before you finally just erupt when it could be avoided by having an assertive conversation in the first place.

          (Cuz like if I tried the reasonable conversation approach with my folks the consequences was usually they took it as a sign of what to do more of whenever they wanted to provoke a fight).

          (Reasonable people respect reasonable boundaries even if they’re sometimes a bit silly! Go figure!)

    2. Ian livs

      This is a good analysis, and refreshing to see

      1. milu

        +1. thank you!

    3. Wendy

      Great comment, and I agree with everything you’ve said. Both could work on showing some more understanding to each other – but damn if Joyce isn’t really making much room for that right now.

    4. Ludaire

      I agree that both are coming from an understandable place I can have some empathy for, but I hard disagree that Joyce is more in the wrong here. During this conversation on the steps, Becky has made some fair points about Joyce being dishonest with her, but she’s also made general beliefs personal and she’s doing a lot of gaslighting.

      Becky taking Joyce’s general statement about her feelings on religion and making it about Becky would be like Dorothy cornering either of them with “Do you really believe I deserve to burn in hell for eternity?” It’s a totally unfair thing to do to a friend when you have major differences of opinion. It’s also really immature and comes from a position of privilege where most of your beliefs are mainstream enough that people who might think poorly

      The gaslighting is where she’s blaming Joyce for the negative aspects of her faith. Joyce was *raised* to be judgmental and think certain stories were important and true. Blaming Joyce for those beliefs instead of blaming the upbringing and religion that they come from is pretty standard religious gaslighting. It’s understandable and very common, but still wrong. Especially when Joyce has been kicking those judgmental habits over time, as she’s chosen kindness over them many times throughout the comic, sometimes at great risk to herself.

      Joyce isn’t being very empathetic, and she shouldn’t be bringing Becky’s father or Dina into the picture. That’s still pretty minor compared to Becky, as she’s mostly stuck to talking about her beliefs. She hasn’t say, criticized Becky for having an inconsistent and elastic belief system that can adjust for convenience. She isn’t criticizing Becky for all of the religion-adjacent pressure she’s put on Joyce since returning even when Joyce was clearly uncomfortable. She isn’t criticizing Becky for continuing to be an asshole to one of her very good friends for no good reason. (Seriously, Joyce’s comment about religious belief was nothing compared to half the stuff Becky directs at Dorothy on a daily basis.)

      1. Spencer

        We do actually need to highlight this.

        This whole thing we’re processing as “Joyce calls Becky an idiot by not saying no when Becky asked, and then Joyce asks how Becky can still be faithful?”

        Every. Single. Panel. Becky has responded with the exact same question; Joyce, how can you not be faithful? You should understand how faith works, because it works that way for me.

    5. Regalli

      Fantastic analysis.

      And agreed, both of them need therapy, and probably some space because it’s increasingly clear they’re too hurt to have a productive conversation right now.

  66. Juanoku

    Joyce is that REALLY what you’re focusing on right now?

  67. thumb

    One of these days, Willis is going to be the subject of a Sarah Z video and time is going be spent on this specific strip’s comment section.

    Hi, Sarah. Sorry, Willis.

    1. Florence

      Oh gosh, the idea of being the main character of one of her videos is frightening

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Willis is Toby/Thomas/Ebony/Noah confirmed

        1. RassilonTDavros

          (for reference)

    2. milu

      is Sarah Z in here? that you know of?

  68. Amelie Wikström

    I have seen this scene play out in hundreds of possible realities and I found only one possibility for peace: Joyce has to say “That stuff wasn’t about you”. And also maybe even “I’m sorry about lying, I’m really scared about losing my faith and I guess I don’t know how to deal with it”.

    One it doesn’t look like she understands Becky has got wrong and the other would take a lot of course. So, good luck Joyce.

  69. Vulcanodon

    Joyce has got to feel like the ground is giving way under her right now. Disbelieving in God is just the first step, and now she’s connecting the dots. Or, getting them forcibly connected for her.

    1. anonymsly

      I think that’s exactly what’s happening. And, for whatever reason it started, her best friend is screaming at her both for that exact thing happening and while it’s going on, seemingly combining ‘if your ground was as good as mine you’d be fine right now’ and ‘how dare your ground crumble where I can see it?’

  70. Seralyna

    Genuine question, does anyone who was reading and commenting the whole time remember when people started to Hate becky?

    When i last was reading seriously (for a few books after becky was reintroduced, around 2016ish) she was absolutely the fan favourite, and doing a full re-read years later, not much seems to have changed about her character aside from gaining confidence, yet a lot of people seem to really hate her?

    Like, maybe its just the nature of reading a story every day instead of all at once, but it seemed to me like people were absolutely furious at her for her… extremely a joke (both in and out of universe) rivalry with Dorothy, despite it being Very Clearly a bit that dorothy was fine with.

    Like, thats just one small thing, but im just earnestly wondering where the becky hate came from, since she really has been pretty much entirely framed as sympathetic. She can sometimes be loud or obnoxious but not really ever in a malicious way.

    1. Spencer

      I just don’t like her because we’ve never gotten any significant emphasis on her character flaws and pretty much every interaction involves someone else picking up the emotional slack for her.

      Usually this is fine because Becky’s processing a lot of trauma in and around herself, but then there was her long term bullying of Dorothy that I’m only now starting to think about in a way that I think fits why Becky did and still does it and why Dorothy has put it up with, and that just went on forever and instead of getting slightly curt with Becky Dorothy just say’s they’re friends and it’s defused (and I have a more complex reading on this now)

      Basically if I like someone in this comic, it’s because I hate them every once in a while. It’s because they got right up in the center of stage and say the wrongest thing possible to as many people as they could, and then drop the mic and strut away.

      1. Spencer

        Oh but Becky/Dina is still the best ship because it avoids the usual drama romance formula by depicting two people who are just endlessly loving and supportive of one another and their attempts at bettering themselves, and it’s where Becky is just actually making a huge big dumb mistake that is her fault by judging Dina in and around her own hangups about sexual purity.

        Dating Dina is Becky’s most redeeming feature.

    2. Alex

      I started to hate Becky as a character at that point, because the whole rivalry shtick was extremely tedious. Dorothy always took the high road, which meant there was no punchline and I’d just feel embarrassed for Becky.

      Dorothy does acknowledge that she thinks it’s a joke, but she frames it in a way that suggests no one else finds it funny.

    3. Wendy

      Yeah, I don’t get it either. Becky’s awesome. I actually used to seriously dislike her – forcing a kiss on Joyce was absolutely not cool – but she’s since expressed regret for that. People seem not to understand or care that Becky has gone through even more trauma than Joyce, involving religion just as much if not more – Becky just emerged with her faith intact, and people hold that against her.

      I get that she’s also a very flawed person – but in my opinion, that’s what makes her such a great character. She’s been through some horrible shit, and she’s not perfect, but damn it, she’s so, so tough and resilient and sincere. I love her.

      Sal’s my top favorite, but Becky’s up there. (Not mad at all about this random avatar designation, either.)

    4. Yotomoe

      I’m not particularly a big fan of Becky but I will fight to the death her right to Becky.

      1. Yotomoe

        I do think saying “she was a fan favorite” is a little inaccurate. I was there I remember a lot of backlash to Becky’s character in her early appearances. And people who didn’t like her were more often categorized as homophobes (which may or may not have contributed to be fair). But I remember even in her early days people found her abrasive and obnoxious. And I think a lot of the love for Becky was also kind of the backlash to the backlash.

    5. Kintrex

      I’ve found Becky annoying ever since she came back.

    6. anonymsly

      I’ve always disliked Becky. Back when her way of ingratiating herself to Walky (or someone) was to trigger Joyce’s anxiety and point and laugh at her frozen face, that’s when I stopped liking Becky. That’s not something you do to people you purport to love, especially not for a cheap laugh.

      1. Fuzzy

        I think that was the start of my dislike for her too.

        1. anonymsly

          And like, I’m not even saying that she’s a bad character or I wish she was gone – she’s a well designed and complex character who is important to the narrative in a myriad of ways.

          She’s just a character that I find to be, almost more often than not, a cruel and controlling bully who doesn’t necessarily intend to be one. I wish someone would really blow up at her (just one THIS IS NOT FUNNY! IT HAS NEVER BEEN FUNNY! LEAVE ME ALONE!) so she can learn that it isn’t actually fun or goofy to find someone’s weak points and poke them until they shut down.

    7. Florence

      I don’t hate Becky, I think she’s wonderful when she lets herself be sincere. But recently her controlling of Joyce’s friendships(regardless of how playful) and sometimes direct pushing of people annoys me. I don’t think she’s created a safe environment to talk about personal beleifs if they go against her box. I’m also not a fan of playful bullying unless it’s already established friendship of some sort, which Dorothy being nice about doesn’t pass the sniff test.

      These nagging problems don’t really take away from her though, I think they flesh her out into a complex character where situations like this do not have right or wrong answers.

      1. Florence

        Boxes I should say, Becky puts people into boxes, even though it hurts her in many ways

      2. Alex

        If Dorothy had playfully insulted her back I’d believe it was fun for both parties. Dorothy patiently enduring it made it seem more like bullying. The kind that the bully can pretend is a joke if they’re ever called out.

        I sympathize with Becky and what’s she’s been through but the rivalry was annoying and petty. If someone acted like that in real life I’d tell them to knock it off.

        1. Florence

          Yea, that’s my feeling too. Maybe it’s cause my experience as an autistic has been struggling with it but I’m not a fan of playful bullying because once it’s accepted people can go pretty hard without even considering the effect

        2. Spencer

          I’ve written a few too long posts about it but: I think Becky wants Dorothy to talk back because Becky is actually trying to be funny and prove to Dorothy that she is a cool, affable rebel that Dorothy should think is the raddest person around.

          But Dorothy is slavishly accommodating to everyone to outright artificial levels, she has to be Morally Correct to contradict someone, so she exasperatedly rolls her eyes at Becky as a way of saying “haha Becky you’re funny, please stop doing this we can be actual friends” and Becky processes that as “Dorothy is not responding the way I want her to, I have to try even harder to prove that I’m cool enough to be friends so that if I’m ever sad in front of her she won’t immediately hate me for the rest of my life.”

    8. thejeff

      Yeah, I think there’s always been a lot of dislike for Becky around, despite the fans. Especially at first – remember the fuss over the haircut? Then big fights over how selfish she was to go home with Joyce. Or about how she was betraying her kind by campaigning for Robin.

      Sometimes I think the only time people like is when she’s being cute with Dina.

      Really though, she’s polarizing and she’s always been polarizing. She’s got a lot of fans, but her detractors come out in force at the slightest sign of her character flaws.
      I’m kind of surprised by the vitriol here though. I suspect a lot of people are seeing their own conflicts in Joyce right now and are scapegoating Becky to absolve Joyce of any blame in this conflict.

      1. Spencer

        We only ever like these characters when they’re being uncomplicated and unproblematic.

        1. thejeff

          I like them because they’re complicated and problematic.

          Then people in the comments yell at me for making excuses for them.

        2. Regalli

          Everyone’s a disaster! Because they’re like 18! I love them all because they’re disasters.

      2. Regalli

        Pretty much. The only time I think Becky didn’t get vitriol was, you know. The opening strips and that one where she’s at Anderson. (Though IIRC someone – Cerberus, maybe – was calling the warning signs about Ross as an abusive dad pretty early on as well, when she was using Joyce’s phone ‘to play Angry Birds’ because she wasn’t allowed one herself. But I think that action was seen as an early sign of Becky Being Obnoxious… up until the reveal that she was blocking incoming calls from Joyce’s parents, because she was worried about Joyce unwittingly turning her in to Ross. Which, yeah, still a breach of privacy, but mitigating circumstances.)

    9. milu

      i hear you, and thank you for your efforts and for staying so calm, seriously.

      i don’t speak up about it much, because i really don’t like getting into fights? but it gets to me, and makes me pretty uncomfortable sometimes.

      on the other hand i remind myself that people have their own good reasons for getting emotional, and to keep my own judgement of that in check.

      1. milu

        (meant as a reply to thejeff)

    10. Ludaire

      For me, it’s been a slow burn. Having an LGBTQ+ character come in swinging loud and proud in a very sympathetic situation endeared her a lot to me. Her unflappable nature and always being able to grin and roll with the punches was also pretty fun for a while.

      The problem is that she *also* grins and rolls with the punches with regards to her continuing possessiveness of Joyce and bullying of Dorothy. Jealousy is not something I feel any sympathy for, and unhealthy romantic possessiveness of someone and bullying of their friends is bad enough even if that person *is* your romantic partner. When they’re just a good friend, no. Just no. It’s one of the least healthy dynamics we’ve seen in the comic, yet Becky continues to get away with it because she’s spunky or whatever.

      I can like flawed characters. I love both Joe and Joyce in part because of their flaws. They’re flawed in ways that I can understand and relate with. Both care for others, but certain preconceptions about religion, morality, masculinity, etc. interfere with that and they have so many interesting ways to grow as characters. Being loud and obnoxious and unapologetic is great fun for a while, but if it’s not tempered by actually caring about other people on their terms rather than yours, it very quickly loses its luster. The growth arc is also pretty much just “Oh, yeah, other people exist and their feelings matter.” Backy hasn’t even had that arc, though. She’s had some new experiences and made some adjustments to her beliefs, but I don’t think she’s actually changed in any significant way.

    11. MrSmith

      I never liked Becky because from the start, I found her to be loud, abrasive and obnoxious and these are traits I don’t like in anyone I meet no matter who they are

      Next is her treatment of Joyce, the one who took her in, took food from her own mouth to feed her, stood up to her family, her church, everybody and how did Becky repay her?

      Teasing her because its “funny”, deliberately making her uncomfortable because “lols”, manipulating her and her relationships, gatekeeping her relationships, damn near stalking her

      Becky is Joyce’s oldest friend but not her best friend because Becky doesn’t want to be friends with Joyce, she wants to be friends with old compliant Joyce, comfortable Joyce, the Joyce that knows her place

      She even has a rad girlfriend buy that’s not enough for her (disrespectful towards Dina) she wants Joyce as well

      I understand why she acts like she does a lot of the time but it doesn’t make me like her but I am hopeful she’ll mature and stop acting like a 14 year old and we’ve seen glimpses of it so she probably will

  71. Notmuch

    Dear Becky:
    That’s religion in a nut shell. It teaches you that you are “better”, chosen, closer to god… all in all, a greater person than a non-believer.

    If you aren’t with that vibe? You’re probably just agnostic with extra steps.

  72. hof1991

    In the Catholic Church, the radtrads and Latin mass enthusiasts definitely feed on being the right kind of Catholics and look down on the other billion members of the church. Then there are the clerics who are sure they are special and above the other billion members of the church.

    As Octavia Butler wrote, a need for hierarchy will be the death of humanity.

  73. Spencer

    I’m just gonna say that in a series of painful dramatic strips where everyone’s mad at Joyce for inconveniencing Becky, all of this is happening because Becky decided to go stalk Joyce and insert herself next to her in front of Liz has Joyce’s Cool Christian Friend, and when told this was wildly over-possessive by Dorothy Becky countered that Dorothy is a stick in the mud who never lets herself give into a single vice and that’s why Becky is cooler and better than Dorothy, because she’ll go be unapologetically herself.

    And Becky this entire time has been trying to get Joyce to apologize for not being the Joyce she wants her to be (as in stay faithful, but just get rid of all the stuff that’s not important and its importance is entirely up to my discretion), and Joyce is wrong because she privately expressed resentment for nearly two decades of bullshit and Becky saw it happen, as if that should mean anything.

    I don’t know how to drop a mic in a text post so uh

    *thump?*

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Truly the saddest mike drop in the history of this comic.

      1. Spencer

        So sad even the sound effect was confused.

      2. Spencer

        Wait god damn it I just got it

        You’re good

    2. alongcameaspider

      This is a good point that seems to be getting lost in the discussion

      Regardless of if Joyce was wrong to talk like that or if Becky’s right to be hurt by those things the reason this is happening in the first place is Becky doesn’t want Joyce to have a life and friends that don’t involve her in some way

      Its not a healthy dynamic and I said it last strip but I feel like the best thing for both of them after this is if they “take a break” from each other

    3. Ludaire

      While Becky’s dynamic with Joyce is very unhealthy, I’m not a big fan of viewing her getting a faceful of blunt antireligous venting as karmic backlash. I think it’s okay that she’s hurt, especially about Joyce not being honest with her. She’s still being an ass in this situation with the gaslighting, making everything personal, and implicitly pushing Joyce back towards the convenient. But people are allowed to be hurt when hearing negative things like this.

      Joyce is also not in the wrong, though. We all have different filters based on who we’re with, and expecting everyone to always maintain their most restrictive filter just in case someone might overhear is ludicrous. I’m going to say “fuck” even if I would never drop that word in front of a 6 year old. I’m going to sexually flirt with my sexual partners even if I’d never talk about that stuff in the workplace. Joyce has nothing to apologize for. If anything, the only thing she could have reasonably changed was to close and/or lock the door to have a bit more privacy (a sentiment which Becky knows well from her time at Anderson).

      1. Spencer

        how could you betray me so, after i said all your posts are good

        Nah fr tho it’s the massive amount of freebies we’ve been giving Becky for her feelings, and I should probably rethink that because there also plenty of folks going “why are you all so mean to Becky?” the way I’ve been #TeamJoyce, when Becky is kinda sorta engaging in the exact same behaviour she’s pinning on Joyce.

        Like, specifically, that final panel is Becky blaming Joyce’s newfound godlessness on Joyce doing faith wrong. She is actually doing the same thing she thinks Joyce did, except Joyce isn’t asking “so do you think I’m an idiot?” so we’re not processing it that way.

        I fully acknowledge Becky’s feelings, but those feelings came about due to a toxic and untenable status quo for the both of them where Joyce had to please Becky and Becky needed Joyce to remain the same.

        They’ll work it out in the end, but I’m starting to realize their friendship as it existed was based so hard on how much they love each other that they could never deal with letting the other down.

    4. mrnoidea

      Figure you might like this comment from months ago—I’ve been archive binging.

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/homework/#comment-1515537

      1. Spencer

        The punchline here is that like a month later is when Dorothy just ‘we’re friends Becky :)” and then they just became friends.

        And I was extremely distraught, because I wanted blood.

    5. Fart Captor

      “Going to find your find your friend to see where she was instead of class” is not stalking? Like at all? It’s a very normal thing that people do all the time, especially in college dorms.

      They’re literally just down the hall

      1. Spencer

        Not only does Dorothy call her behaviour wildly over-possessive, as in there’s a textual acknowledgment that Becky is trying to assert herself as Joyce’s Cool Christian Friend in front of Liz, Becky agrees and thinks it’s hilarious because she can go be unapolegetically herself.

  74. DiktatrSquid

    Now, I’m an atheist, but Becky’s right, and said one of the smartest things uttered in the entire lifespan of this comic. Truthfulness of facts is entirely independent from what you’d like them to be. I can understand falling out of religion because of bitterness and anger, but those aren’t reliable ways to find truth, whether it leads you to belief or non-belief. You should look at the claim and the basis provided for it, and think to yourself if you feel the provided basis and evidence satisfies the burden of proof. For me, such evidence has not been forthcoming. My opinions on believers and how some of them treat others is irrelevant.

  75. Daniel M Ball

    And…Becky scores the winning point. Now to see if Team Joyce has enough self-awareness to understand just how thoroughly she’s fucked up.

    1. Spencer

      See these last few strips have been tripping me hard because I’m going “but Becky can’t have the last word in every panel! The last word is for the person who’s right and I’m supposed to agree with!”

      This is such a weird thing to think about, how much fiction I’ve read where I’m looking for it to assert to me what I’m supposed to think instead of, like, coming to that conclusion myself, and particularly not that relevant to Joyce and Becky having two entirely different conversations with each other at the same time.

      1. milu

        huh!! interesting!
        and i don’t think it’s bad that you notice that and react to that? i probably do too? i’m sure most people prefer to read fiction that upholds their worldview and cognitive dissonance = physical pain and yada.

        but certainly it’s an interesting observation that you can tell by who has the “last word” that Willis, if not outright implies one character is right and the other wrong, certainly sets up the dialogue in a way that affords one character’s lines more impact.

        1. Spencer

          I think it’s a few things.

          Being an Extremely Online person makes you want to be right all the time, so you start looking for reasons you’re right to interpret fiction a certain way, and nowadays it’s easier than ever to build a profile of the Actual Human Being creating the art to the point where you can just send a tweet asking them about how they felt about something they wrote.

          It’s kinda like parasocial relationships. John Mulaney divorced his wife and started dating a new lady and they’re having a kid, and I have an Opinion on this. Of course I do, I’m right, therefore it matters what I say.

        2. Clif

          Nobody’s had the last word because the conversation isn’t over yet.

          You can ask the artist/storyteller how they feel about what they wrote, but will they answer? Many creators prefer to let their work speak for itself. And once the work has left their hands it lives its own life anyway.

        3. Jamie

          Nobody’s had the last word because the conversation isn’t over yet.

          I would like this to be a flashing marquee around the comment box, please.

        4. King Daniel

          We do know the conversation will most likely be over when the new strip drops at midnight, however.

    2. anonymsly

      Yes. Joyce should absolutely police every word out of her mouth whether or not Becky is there, because she always is.

      1. Spencer

        THE MYTH OF CONSENSUAL JOYCE CHANGING

        Joyce: I consent!

        Becky: I don’t!

      2. anonymsly

        The sad thing is that I’m not even being facetious or whatever. This is absolute a thing Joyce should do now that she knows not even spaces specifically constructed to be non-Becky spaces are no such thing.

        1. thejeff

          How was this a “space specifically constructed to be non-Becky”? The only thing she did to make it non-Becky was not specifically seek Becky out. They were around the corner on the same floor talking loudly with the door open. In a college dorm, that’s basically public space.

        2. Spencer

          Isn’t that saying Becky’s just allowed to follow after Joyce wherever she pleases, and therefore Joyce always has to consider how her words come off to Becky?

          Like of course there’s no boundary, Joyce would not know how to establish a boundary with Becky, but it’s, like, objectively a scenario where Becky is being acknowledged, by herself, even, as being possessive of Joyce.

        3. thejeff

          No, it’s saying it’s not a “space specifically constructed to be non-Becky”. It’s a space that didn’t happen to have a Becky in it. This is a college dorm. They’re basically in a different room in the house Becky lives in, with the door open, talking loudly. It’s not in any reasonable sense a private space, much less one specifically excluding Becky.

          I know you think that Becky looking for her best friend when she finds out she’s skipping class is basically stalking, but she had no reason at all to think Joyce wouldn’t be happy to see her.

        4. Spencer

          I mean. She kind of did.

          Dorothy told her directly that she was being wildly over-possessive and instead of saying “psh naw im just joshing, i wanna meet Liz too”, like not specifically stating the Intended Meaning but even inferring that her intent was something she was subconsciously or otherwise not acknowledging, Becky explicitly states that she’ll go be unapologetically her and that Dorothy is a boring fuddy duddy for not giving into her vices every once in a while.

          Like, specifically, Becky is told she’s being possessive of Joyce and Becky thinks it’s a funny quirk, because Joyce and Becky are so close that there has never been a time in history that Becky can think “maybe Joyce doesn’t want me in the room” or “I don’t need to be near Joyce right now.”

          Also even if you want to define “someone’s room” as a public space, you can still actually talk about things in a public space where the reasonable conclusion of being able to speak for yourself is there. The only way Joyce spoke out of turn is if she needs to consider every single space other than a literal locked room one where Becky can appear at any moment.

          Like it’s not as if Arnold and Eric are going to care about what Joyce is saying.

    3. Ludaire

      How is Becky gaslighting Joyce for beliefs she was indoctrinated with and has fought to overcome a winning point? That’s all Becky is doing in that last panel. That’s not a mic drop. That’s standard abusive religious rhetoric blaming people for any problems with their beliefs while trying to maintain faith itself as a perfect, blameless thing.

      Christianity and faith have hurt both of them severely. Becky shifts all the blame for that to the specific individuals involved like Joyce and her dad. Meanwhile, she gives all the credit for good things like Dina and Joyce’s rescue of her, to her religion. Joyce blames both and gives credit to both. She recognizes the issues individuals have had that contributed while also recognizing that religious belief did have a major role in the trauma she’s dealt with. She also recognizes that most of the good she’s experienced has been from areligious friends, and I think she also understands that some of what she was raised with was good like standing strong for the things and people you care about.

      Joyce is by no means being kind or understanding here, but she’s mostly uncertain, confused, and trying to talk about her own beliefs and stick to generalities rather than direct anything at Becky. On the other hand, Becky is being vicious in making it personal and gaslighting Joyce very directly. Joyce absolutely could be doing better, but Becky has been far worse in most of her responses. The only real exception is the criticism of dishonesty, which is reasonable even if Joyce’s hesitance to come out as an atheist is understandable.

  76. Serenarayn

    I feel like this was the best take on this set of strips honestly. Joyce is trying to figure herself out still. Now did the other girl influence the religion shaming? Absolutely. Joyce went along with it because she felt the need to vent and wasn’t comfortable just yet telling Becky? Yup.

    Is Becky feeling superbly hurt that Joyce’s college age crisis of religious faith is potentially affecting her? Yeah, but here’s the thing. You don’t stalk your best friend, not the way Becky has done to people, and still be a “Good” friend.

    There’s a lot going on for Joyce right now and all of it is piling up. Was she there for Becky’ for her mom? Yep and she didn’t let her crisis affect it. That counts in a huge way. Is Becky crossing a line here trying to force Joyce back into what she used to believe in? Potentially.

    Has Dina bashed on Joyce for her beliefs before? Yup. So Becky’s counter argument is partially negated because Joyce could easily bring up the arguments Dina and Joyce had had in the past before Becky showed up at the college.

    So in essence, this sucks for both parties. On one hand Joyce needs a safe place to actually express her feelings and grow from them and still needs therapy from all the trauma she’s been through. On the other hand Becky also needs therapy based on her dad and good for her for keeping her faith but in my humble opinion? Friendship is greater than religion and Becky needs to focus on that.

    So while apologies are needed for both parties a better discussion of this is how i’ve been feeling and I need you to not Judge me right now is in order.

  77. Deviant

    So in the middle of a fight that stems from Joyce talking down on people behind their backs, Joyce talks down on Dina behind her back.

    Becky is right. Its not about faith, its about honesty and just being nice.

    1. Spencer

      Like two months ago Joyce and Dina thought the other was outrageously stupid and wrong about everything.

      1. Deviant

        Theres a saying-ish thing around here. “Don’t say anything about someone that you aren’t prepared to say to their face.”

        1. Spencer

          Is this about Becky or Dina?

          Because Dina and Joyce fucking hated each other’s guts all the time and made no secret about it.

        2. Thag Simmons

          Well they both absolutely have

    2. anonymsly

      How is Joyce talking down to Dina? She’s coming to a new and, given their acrimonious history, uncomfortable realization. And it’s not even insulting; Joyce would say it to Dina’s face. ‘Dina! I believe the same things as you!’

      1. Delicious Taffy

        I’d adore it if Joyce went to Dina’s room all “I’m ready to learn, if you’ll teach me.” and then Dina just slowly spins around in her chair, face shrouded in shadow with cat-like eyes reflecting the hallway light, a disturbingly-white toothy grin creeping up her face. Then the scene fades out and when it comes back, they’re both on the floor, lying disheveled on a pile of dinosaur info print-outs and for some reason missing their pants. Becky walks in to visit, sees the chaos, and slowly backs away, blushing furiously. Amber walks in, glances at them, shrugs, sits down and logs onto an MMO.

      2. Yotomoe

        “7@!And also that doesn’t feel right!”

    3. Ludaire

      Joyce isn’t talking down about Dina, though. She’s encountering yet another old prejudiced pattern of thought that she’s deeply uncomfortable with and has to resolve with her new beliefs. Her next statement would not be “Ugh, I can’t believe I share beliefs with that stupid Dina.” Her next statement is far more likely to be “I can’t believe I thought so poorly of her and I hate that my instincts still feel agreeing with her isn’t right.”

      This is a moment of her recognizing and overcoming her religious prejudice, not a moment where she’s judging Dina. Naturally, Becky blames Joyce for that past prejudice and focuses on it rather than the epiphany. It can’t be Christianity that created Joyce’s past judgmental behavior and Joyce’s personal strength of character overcoming it. That would mean that Becky might believe in something wrong! It has to all be blamed on Joyce so religion can be innocent and fine, so let’s gaslight her for beliefs she clearly no longer holds.

  78. JBento

    It just occurred to me that Becky’s unwillingness to let Joyce have a life besides her is basically Joyce getting a taste of her own medicine. Remember when Joyce barged in on Dorothy on the toilet because she was pissed that Dorothy had broken up with Walky and hadn’t told her? And then proceeded to say she was reclaiming her time?

    The best part about this whole arc is that the only people in it I actively like are Sarah and Joe, so even if the whole thing went nuclear I still wouldn’t care.

    1. Alex

      I’m not sure if it’s better or worse that Becky has more self-awareness of the way she monopolizes Joyce.

      1. JBento

        Depends. If you mean in the sense of “this speaks more poorly of the person”, then it’s worse. If you mean in the sense of “it’s easier to either have them course-correct or tell them to fuck off”, then it’s better.

        1. Jamie

          It’s potentially better, but actually worse until that potential actualizes.

    2. Clif

      Actively liking Joe is definitely a thing you should do. He will never ever disappoint you.

      1. Spencer

        I love Joe because my aesthetic is big tough manly men who only care about living an ideal of toxic masculinity experiencing an iota of feelings for the first time in their lives and getting utterly gobsmacked by what they’ve been missing out on.

        Like, this is a total non-sequiter I’ve kinda had brewing in my head but: you know that thing about “oh the dad says he doesn’t want the dog, but then he gets the dog and loves it”?

        You ever wonder if dads, an older man who’s supposed to be unfailingly smart and stoic and proper and just about unfeeling, like having dogs because a dog is the only thing in the universe they’re allowed to be constantly, outrageously open and affection towards?

        Because if I hug my son and tell him he’s special and I love him, I’m turning him into a pussy. If I do that to my dog, I am being a silly goofball in the one instance I am allowed before I return to the masculine status quo of not showing anyone you care because they’re just supposed to infer it, and by infer it I mean they’re just supposed to read positive intent in everything I do and say, and I can never actually verbalize I care.

    3. Spencer

      I mean yeeees?

      Joyce is super clingy to Dorothy, but pretty much always in comedy scenarios (like say Dina aggressively hompfking Mary to death is funny, but it’s funny because it’s Mary and she’d an unhinged weirdo if she did it to anyone else), and Dorothy can actually just say “hey Joyce, boundaries” and Joyce will listen. She’s basically just a puppy jamming her face into every crotch she can find and about half as threatening.

      Becky’s possessiveness of Joyce has never really had consequences either even if it’s maybe had a subtle undercurrent of being kind of annoying from an outside perspective but Joyce herself would never question it or even view it as a negative, so it was easy to look at it as “weird but harmless and they’re happy so whatever”. Becky would walk into a room and Joyce would go “aw yeah, Becky!” and they’d have a good time.

      Now we have a major dramatic beat between Becky and Joyce caused by Becky’s possessiveness, so it’s textually acknowledged as a negative to the story, just maybe not Joyce herself. Except Joyce not viewing it as a negative might be a problem.

    4. Deadjolras

      Team Joe is the only valid team, in my professional, unbiased opinion.

  79. Wakeangel2001

    OH! That last panel, it should be a poster, or a T-shirt, that line deserves to be preserved for the ages

  80. McMuffin

    I am so fed up with the people saying “Well it’s Becky’s fault/Becky shouldn’t be mad cuz she barged in on Joyce and wasn’t supposed to hear it.”

    You know what? This literally happened to me in high school (and I was in the wrong). I was venting about a friend’s girlfriend who I didn’t like, hardcore making fun of her. I thought I was in private. He and his girlfriend walked in on me, and walked right back out. That friendship was ruined. Because it doesn’t matter that they weren’t supposed to hear it. They did hear it. And what I said was unnecessarily mean. Was I just getting my frustrating with someone I don’t like off my chest? Yes, I was, but the fact is that I was making fun of her, and I can’t deny that, and she and my friend had every right to be hurt.

    Imagine you have purple hair. You have a friend – your BEST friend – who’s never said anything about it, or hell, they even told you previously they loved purple hair. Then one day you walk in on them laughing with another friend about how stupid and try-hard people with purple hair are. Your hurt is valid, and is not invalidated by the fact you weren’t supposed to hear it. Mocking people isn’t “speaking your truth.” Speaking your truth would be saying “I used to love purple hair (or, in Joyce’s case, God), but I really don’t anymore, and I don’t know how to tell my best friend and I have all these complicated feelings about it.” It’s not mocking everyone with purple hair and calling them idiots. That’s just being mean. And yeah, you’re allowed to be mean in private, but if your friend happens to overhear when you weren’t expecting them to? Well, that’s your problem now and they have every right to be hurt and possibly not want to be your friend anymore.

    1. Spencer

      Okay so I have things I would like to comment about your specific circumstance you talk about in your first paragraph and how that relates both to what we’re seeing in the comic as well as the delicate act of processing human relationships, but I feel like if I just say it out loud then I’m treating you like a piece of fiction and would be making commentary on you as a person, so before I write anything at all I would like to ask if talking about this topic with your specific experience as a reference point is something you are comfortable with.

      Because I can still talk about the broad stuff but it’s forming in my head as “in this particular situation McMuffin has shared” and so I want to check with you first if citing your experiences as a jumping off point is acceptable. If it’s not that’s absolutely okay and I can fanangle a word pile out of it anyway.

      1. McMuffin

        @Spencer sorry for the delay I’m absolutely okay with talking about my situation 🙂

        1. Spencer

          Much appreciated.

          So what I want to talk about is, essentially, the need to be able to say things even if they come at the consequence of other people.

          You (and while I am referring to your situation, I will refrain from making any personalized commentary on anyone involved) have a problem with your friend’s girlfriend, and this is a scenario where you cannot just tell her or the friend, so to let those feelings out in any capacity involves saying something you dislike about this person but without their knowing so that the existing social dynamic you three have isn’t interrupted.

          You believed you were in a space that allowed you to vent these feelings, and by a stroke of bad luck that was thwarted. If it hadn’t, those feelings and the pain they caused wouldn’t be up for discretion. It wouldn’t even be something you got away with, it’d be a natural venting of feelings that let you do so and keep the status quo. It is actually a problem because you were caught.

          So while you describe it as something you caused, and I will not attempt to dissuade or assuage any feelings you have on the matter because that would be a massive overstepping on my part, I would like to move on from the specifics you have shared to broader thoughts about the actions as opposed to the people involved.

          A person can be frustrating to deal with but not to such a degree they need to be cut from your life, but then those frustrations still get to thrive and grow. People around us lead to conversations we have with each other, we need to be able to talk about the impact other people have on us, but while it’s easy to say “confront them”, well, that doesn’t always play out just because it’s “the right thing to do.”

          I feel that, in situations like this, where something we said causes pain where we didn’t intend that wouldn’t happen had we “gotten away with it”, it still matters what we feel that motivated us to cause that pain. If I hurt somebody who has caused me pain (however we want to define that), the realities that led to me saying something in private that they heard don’t fade away on the grounds that this wouldn’t have happened if I kept my mouth shut or was smarter about it.

          This is also entirely specific to me and my own lived experiences, but I also can’t really deal with people who only like me as long I don’t cause them problems, that if there is something wrong with our existing status quo I need to fix it without their knowing, so that’s probably influenced me greatly on my thoughts of whether or not I can bring myself to care when someone leaves my life because they heard the wrong thing from me and don’t feel any need to gather any context or understanding, I’m just the aggressor and therefore whatever motivated my feelings means dick, because I can’t process someone who’d do that as someone who ever particularly liked me.

          (I also need to emphasize here that while I wrote this based on someone ending their friendship because of something I said, it was based on the concept itself and not intended as “what I would do in your shoes”)

    2. Yotomoe

      I totally agree. Though I’d be remiss to mention that both your story and metaphor are missing one of the key reasons people are defending Joyce. That being she spent her whole life being Christian too and has recently been put through the ringer in terms of her faith. Personally I feel like Joyce’s pain should outweigh Becky’s pain and both are justified but if I had to choose a side I’d say Joyce should apologize

      1. Clif

        And she has.

        Mostly.

    3. Alex

      Do you see how maybe it would be slightly different if you both had purple hair for a long time? In particular if purple hair was central to the community in which you were raised, to a degree that was unhealthy? And your mother used her purple hair as justification to treat your friend poorly? Because I could understand how someone might have some pent-up aggression towards purple hair.

    4. Fuzzy

      Say you’ve been dying your hair purple since you were eleven, right when you were really forming your idea of yourself. Your entire adolesence you’ve struggled with insecurities that you’re uninteresting and attention-seeking, and you responded by associating your own self-image even more strongly with purple hair. Purple hair makes people remember you, so if you changed that then you wouldn’t have anything any more, you’d just be you. And no one would like the real you. Your purple hair becomes the only part of you with worth, in your eyes.

      And then one day you walk in on your partner of a year cheating on you and they say, “I’ve always thought you were boring. Come on, you made your whole personality about your purple hair. Of course no one loves you, there isn’t anything to love.”

      And, holy shit, they’re a terrible person and that was uncalled for! But now you associate purple hair with the trauma of that relationship, and looking in the mirror fills you with anxiety and self-loathing. The worst part is, you think they’re probably right. You have been covering up your personality because of your insecurities. You let yourself become nothing more than The Purple Haired Person.

      What a fucking idiot you are. You thought people would like you because you had purple hair. You thought you were cool, but really you were just a try-harding poser and everyone saw right through it and you HATE purple hair, you hate how you associated every single compliment with your hair, and every flaw you had was just another reason you needed it. It was a crutch and now it’s gone and you’re worthless, and why were you so stupid to think you could use it as a crutch forever?

      And your friend walks in and they have purple hair, and they hear you say, “Ohh, look at my purple hair, wowww, I’m SO COOL. I’m totally not just an attention seeking idiot who everyone hates.” And their reaction isn’t: “Wow, it sounds like you have a load of trauma you don’t know what to do with.” It’s: “I’m hurt, I have purple hair, do you to think I’m an attention seeking idiot?” Which is…I mean that’s a fair thought. Everyone has insecurities and no one wants their friends to think they’re stupid. But I think you should try to stamp down the hurt until you’ve made sure they’re okay, because that was a lot of damage they just expressed. And no matter how bad someone else’s opinion of you can hurt, it’s ALWAYS gonna be more painful that the person you’re with 24/7, who lives inside your brain, thinks you’re worthless.

      It’s not a perfect metaphor. But replace “I’m boring and worthless” with “my pain and suffering is futile because life is meaningless, and there’s no guarantee anything will work out because actually there is no plan and no one looking over me.”

      1. Fuzzy

        oops I switched pronouns at the end there. “I think *they* should stamp down the hurt and make sure *you’re* okay.” Probably no one got confused by it (I hope) but it still bothers my editor brain.

    5. Ludaire

      This is a really unfair false equivalence. Joyce was not talking about Becky specifically. She was talking in general about her beliefs on religion. And I’m sorry, but if you get super bent out of shape and give up on a friendship because someone has views on religion contrary to yours, then you aren’t a very good friend. In general, if you can only be friends with people who agree with you or at least perfectly hide any disagreements that might be painful, then you must be really privileged, have your head stuck under a rock, or have zero friends.

      Talking in general about beliefs that have affected Joyce deeply is not the same as personally bad-mouthing Becky. We all have different beliefs, many of which would be hurtful if stated bluntly to each other, so we all maintain different filters in different circumstances. Saying that Joyce can never voice her distaste for religion the way she was even in private is like saying you shouldn’t say or do anything with a lover in the privacy of a bedroom you wouldn’t do with them in front of your elderly, conservative grandmother.

      Context matters, and sometimes accidents happen where people with differing beliefs end up hurting each other without anyone being at fault. That isn’t the same as directly insulting a particular individual behind their back and them hearing about it.

      1. Clif

        Joyce was not talking about Becky specifically, but Becky doesn’t know that. This far into the conversation, she still doesn’t know that.

        1. Needfuldoer

          I think that’s a pivotal bit of the argument. Becky has every reason to think Joyce was mocking her specifically, from both the Joyce lines we know she was present for.

    6. Wereg

      Everyone is quibbling with the specifics of your example, but I think it’s still pretty relevant. It doesn’t actually matter whether they were supposed to hear it or not, nor does any interactions you had with the girlfriend in the past matter. Emotions aren’t logical and the hurt can very easily override any logic, if you’re even capable of rationalising out the other party’s hurt.

      Becky has been toxic in the past, but she’s not thinking about that now. The only thing on her mind, and the only thing that really will be on her mind for the near-future, is what Joyce said and how much it hurt.

  81. Alex

    I do have to admit that it doesn’t feel like Joyce ever believed in Christianity; if she’s like her mother, then it may always have been about keeping score.

    1. Alex

      Wow, perfect picture.

    2. Reaver

      Well from my personal experience having grown up in a similar religion ( Non denominal pentacostal) Religion was really used as a method to control and keep in line. I was personally taught to obey and serve, not really in Christian values and helping. It seems to me Joyce has spent her whole life being told what to do, how to think, what to feel and now that her authorities are clearly liars and false prophets…. there isn’t anything left for her… No structure, No instructions….just free falling in a world of new opinions that are her own and she doesn’t even know what they are 🙁

    3. thejeff

      I don’t even see where that comes from. How is she like her mother?

  82. Username Taken

    I think it would probably be best for Joyce and Becky as friends, and for new and interesting opportunities for the characters, if they took a break from each other. Like immediately. They are talking past each other and it’s not helping. Hopefully they can both get a chance to grow independent from each other and can revisit their friendship when each of them is in a better place.

    Joyce is being asked to simultaneously apologize, explain what her loss of faith means to her, and justify both yesterday’s kindness to Becky on Bonnie’s birthday and today’s harsh words regarding believing in god. That much at once right now might be beyond her ability to express period, let alone to Becky, who is seething and looking for a fight.

    1. Spencer

      Yeeeeep.

      Nothing Joyce can say right now won’t immediately contradict something else that Becky needs squared, and if Joyce were able to wordsmith that then she’d be writing Dorothy’s presidential speeches.

      1. Username Taken

        Oh that gravitar is nasty! 😀

        And yeah, this is just really complex, and Joyce is still feeling out her faith issues by dreaming of Rich Mullins. She ain’t ready to write a dissertation on her faith in the face of a hurt, furious childhood friend.

    2. Cerusee

      This is kind of what I’m thinking, when I say there’s no perfect words Joyce could possibly say here, that would resolve this conflict between them neatly. There is so much more happening here than “Joyce did something bad that hurt Becky”. This cannot be resolved with an apology, because it’s ultimately about Joyce growing in a direction Becky is not prepared to accept and currently can’t forgive.

      “You were mean and hurt my feelings” is valid, but it’s just the surface of what’s really pissing Becky off, and that’s why she won’t accept an apology for it. How can you apologize for changing and growing as a person? You can’t.

      They need to take a breather from one another so that they can emotionally process the changes they’re both going through without the weight of “lifelong friendship/most important person” hanging over them both.

  83. OBBWG

    People in the comments sections have been suggesting Joyce was making the statements about herself. Has anyone in the comments explicitly said that Joyce actually believes what she said with Liz and that it does apply to Becky? (If someone has, I missed it. So many comments to read.)

    Joyce has had multiple chances to explain she was talking about herself, not Becky, but every time she has been silent.

    Realizing she actually believes what she said, even if expressed in the worst possible way, makes it very hard for Joyce to apologize. Becky cut off the “apologize because you heard me”. All Joyce has left is “I’m sorry for how I said it.” which is not going go over very well.

    1. Alex

      I think it was originally about herself, but she can’t turn around and say it’s fine for other people to believe what she now regards as false. The main point for her is that the religion she’s believed all her life is fake. Therefore people who still believe are wrong.

      1. thejeff

        She needs to reach the point where she can still think they’re wrong, without going past that to them being stupid and mocking them. That’s likely some time away though, or at least would be without this crisis.

    2. Ludaire

      I haven’t stated it outright, but I agree that Joyce does 100% believe what she said. I think I’d still argue that she was not talking specifically about Becky, but she certainly was talking about belief in god in general, which you can extend to Becky.

      But that also means extending other statements of belief. Becky talking about how her mother is in heaven implies that she believes in the Christian heaven/hell, which implies that both Joyce and Dorothy will burn in hell forever after they die, and that Becky approves of and agrees they deserve it.

      Hopefully that example makes it clear how unfair it is to take general beliefs, even harsh statements, and apply them to specifics. You don’t get to object to people saying “Ugh, people who believe in gods are such idiots” while also saying “I believe non-Christians deserve to burn forever in hell” is okay. If you’re going to criticize one name calling, you need to level proportional criticism at an entire book that details how awful certain people are and those people who say it’s the inerrant word of a deity.

      Also, you should be crucifying Becky for the all the bullying she’s been doing to Dorothy for what seems to be months now.

      The reason this isn’t happening is that people give religion a free pass on believing horribly offensive things as long as they aren’t too loud and obnoxious about it (and sometimes even then). Meanwhile, even the softest expression of antireligious sentiments that isn’t some kind of careful appeasement are viewed as a personal attack.

      1. thejeff

        There’s a difference though between knowing someone is a Christian of a sect that believes in heaven and hell with those particular ideas about who will go where and walking in on your best Christian friend joking about the unbelievers burning in hell.

        1. Ludaire

          In the moment, emotionally? Sure. But if two people who believe the same negative thing about me and one makes mean-spirited jokes when I’m not around and one is quieter about it, I’m not going to view them as that different.

          What they’ll intentionally say in my presence might make more of a difference, as that reflects on their respect for me as an individual and how pleasant they’ll be to spend time with. it does not mean that word choice in relatively private places is something people should be overly concerned wtih.

          This greater response to Joyce’s feelings just feels too much like tone policing and advocating willful ignorance of others’ beliefs just because it might be painful. It’s not really about how Joyce treats her friend. It’s about what Joyce is allowed to believe and say when it comes to religion.

        2. Spencer

          “This greater response to Joyce’s feelings just feels too much like tone policing and advocating willful ignorance of others’ beliefs just because it might be painful.”

          I mean I actually believe this yeah, I just don’t know how to phrase it without sounding like an asshole and I wouldn’t even know where to start.

          Like, we’re processing this whole exchange over the last week as “it happened because of something Joyce said, ergo she’s at fault and no reason justifies it, she has to Own Her Mistake and Be Better.”

      2. Schpoonman

        Thank you for writing this. I know the gravatar makes it sound very sarcastic but it’s completely sincere.

  84. Lys

    Bulmeria: mentioned.
    Trauma: set.
    Characters: sad.
    Hotel: trivago

    IT’S TIME FOR THE HEAD ALIEN TO APPEAR IN DOA 😀

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Head Alien II, after thousands of years reconstituting his body from pieces scattered across the multiverse, appears to Becky in a back alley, showing her video files of Ruth throwing herself in front of a truck, Dina dying feeling alone and unloved, and Joyce getting shot in the face by a doppelgänger. He convinces her that the only way to prevent this is to put a “Kick Me” sign on both Robin’s, Leslie’s, and Pamela’s backs.

      He then leaves, his work in this universe done.

    2. Sombrero

      Oh, come on!! Believing in little teletubbies from planet Alien is more idiotic than believing in the invisible skydaddy up there. If Head Alien appears in DoA everyone will mock him, knowing he’s Professor Rees still trying to get out of his Halloween costume.

    3. Regalli

      Head Alien decides to make Becky his newest peon, and starts, as all Head Aliens do, with ‘time to kill her parents in front of her to prove I mean Business.’

      Becky: My parents are already dead, you dingus!

      Head Alien: Hm. That might present some problems. I’ll have Monkey Master steal some resurrection chambers… *Is immediately dropkicked by Amber.*

      1. Spencer

        Head Alien sees Sal and redoes the thing where he kills her parents and blames her for it, but then Sal keeps walking and he just goes “huh, that usually works.”

        1. Regalli

          Sal doesn’t react and Walky’s sad, not Rageasaurus, which isn’t useful at all. Head Alien looks at the next name on his list… and then looks over at this scene, and decides to not touch Joyce right now. At this rate he might need to figure out MIKE’S psychological vulnerabilities! (Which will be an unwelcome realization in itself. This universe is WEIRD.)

        2. King Daniel

          And then he finds out Mike’s already dead.

      2. thejeff

        Hmmm, can we wait until he hooks Bonnie up to the resurrection chamber before we drop kick him?

  85. Ludaire

    And maybe your faith should be less compartmentalized, Becky. Maybe then you could understand the difficult shit your friend is going through, and you could avoid gaslighting her to maintain your own faith.

    I *want* to root for the friendship to be healed, but Becky is making it harder and harder. Liz’s words were harsh, and I don’t entirely agree that areligious people can’t have religious friends. But if Becky continues to escalate this, then it’s likely an indication of a pattern that may continue. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and if this conflict about religion can’t be resolved or dropped, it’s hard to see a healthy friendship surviving.

  86. Nenja

    “Dina, teach me the ways of atheism…”

    1. Spencer

      This is dialogue from Yotomoe art.

      1. Yotomoe

        Not quite yet it’s not 😛 (though I could be wrong cuz I’ve drawn so much stuff)

        1. Jamie

          I’m honestly a little sad I don’t frequent the comments enough to see even a tenth of your stuff.

        2. Yotomoe

          I made a big ass imgur folder of all of it that I update now and again.
          https://imgur.com/a/8Q50mBQ

        3. StClair

          and what portion of that folder would you say is composed of big asses?
          (you cannot lie)

  87. nightshade

    Although this convo needed to be had a long time ago

    the problem is Joyce is a follower/joiner and gets caught up in the “fuck them” when someone starts a rant or protest and doesn’t stop to think about who is around her ….

  88. Vulcanodon

    Part of the problem is that Becky is far more quick-witted than Joyce. As Joyce thinks through the dots and how they connect, Becky is jumping ahead, and not always to the place Joyce will land.

  89. zee

    I swear to God my ADHD is getting worse bc every other comment my brain just goes “i ain’t reading all that. Happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened”
    Why must i be so smooth brain

    1. Spencer

      I started adderall a few days ago after a long roulette of terrible meds that did not work.

      I don’t actually know if it’s doing anything, but these last few months I’ve been so scattered that I could only keep my brain in one piece by endlessly clicking through new pages, and now I’m able to sit down and write 8000 word pseudobrainy essays on why Becky is stinky and then just stop whenever I feel like it.

      It’s like I’ve learned the mystical middle ground of “complete inability to focus” and “so hyperfocused that your day is completely gone.”

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