You talkin about reference photos. Willis concerned about only one panel.
ANd me, trying to view in a higher resolution because I can barely tell WTF is going on.
joyce is walking towards dorothy while saying the gayest shit you ever heard. meanwhile cops are being cops and amazi-girl is kicking them in the head while protesters flee
Qlx
Yeah I don’t know who all is going to jail after this but if they can catch her, amazi-girl is def on the list. Only plot armor has protected her from tasers and rubber bullets up to this point
Nymph
I agree that this is the gayest shit you ever heard, but importantly she is quoting from the Bible (Ruth 1:16 if you’re keen)
Erik
“And your people shall be my people, and your… um, lack of god shall be my lack of god.”
Reb
It’s a quote from the book of Ruth, Ruth pledging her loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi (I believe her husband, Ruth’s son, was dead at that point). There’s a number of things in the Bible between people of the same-sex that have possible reinterpretations these days with the increased understanding of LGBTQ+ issues. Ruth and Naomi are an example of this.
zepangolynn
I want to assume you meant Naomi’s son, but given some relationships of the period, I can’t 100% say there is no way Ruth’s mother-in-law wasn’t married to Ruth’s son and I am about to go to bed, so I am steadfastly not looking up bible passages right now.
mags
These lines are also often used in Jewish wedding vows!
Damn. Between myself and my wife we own a lot of swords. Didn’t think to bring any along to the magistrate though. Not sure they would have let us either.
Shakes
What I’m gathering here is in case of zombies find the nearest lesbian couple.
Jon
Depends on the zombies. If it’s a transmissible blood-borne pathogen, swords are just an easy way to join the horde when their blood sprays onto you. (There’s a side bit in the “Mira Grant” novel Feed where they discuss some of the early zombie fighters who learned the hard way that Kellis-Amberlee is all too happy to spread via contact. That’s also why shotgun headshots are considered to be extremely rude. Bullets to the head are the way to go. Journalists going into infected areas must maintain a license that includes a high score at the target range.)
The line does feature heavily in Jewish and Christian lesbian weddings. It’s Ruth converting into the tribe and promising to love Naomi 4eva, like so:
“Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.
Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus and more may God do to me if anything but death parts me from you.”
(Technically they’re mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, on a quest to find husbands, so they can get back into the protection of the patriarchy. And once they get husbands, they don’t get any more lines in the story. But still! It’s romantic.
Never once had I thought of that as a romantic thing. Mother and daughter-in-law.
I mean, I guess there’s definitely an audience for that, but usually they play the “No, we can’t do that, you’re my step mother” way of skirting icky taboo.
Anyways. Joyce is 100% intentionally quoting, and I think the fact that she likely doesn’t mean it as romantic, means that it’s extra romantic.
Being a woman and not having a husband in those days, meant you had very limited means to take care of yourself. Practically nonexistent. Your only hope, if you didn’t want to be getting into the sex trade, is to find another man to marry.
Ruth is young, beautiful. She would not struggle hard to find another husband. Naomi was an older woman. Too old to marry, too old to attract for prostitution, too old to even do hard labor. As she goes to her homeland, she hopes to receive aid from family, but mostly she goes expecting to find nothing but death.
But instead, Ruth, a foreigner, pledges her loyalty to Naomi. You don’t know just how insane that is. The Jewish people at this time are intensely xenophobic. You do not simply waltz in there and emigrate to Israel. Most people who take a foreign wife are viewed as breaking God’s law. Ruth is not simply saying “I will go with you,” she is saying, “I will give up all I have left, so that you have something left, and we will each have each other.”
When Ruth says “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God,” you don’t know how crazy that is. Ruth was married to Naomi’s son, but didn’t worship the God of Israel. They are absolutely 100% outcasts returning to a land that if they are lucky, will simply spit in their face.
Two grieving widows, both who lost a husband, and in that moment Ruth – the one who Joyce is quoting – shows a self-sacrificial love, putting the needs of her mother-in-law over her own, so that she doesn’t have to stand alone.
In this moment, to me, it’s clear as day. Joyce *really likes* Joe. She loves Dorothy.
FlamestAndLight
Shipping Ruth and Naomi has been a thing for quite a while. Same with Yonatan and David. They’re the best ships in the Tanakh. Though the best ship in all of ancient Jewish lit is Rabbis Yoḥanan bar Nafḥa and Shimon ben Lakish. They were chevrutas! It’s so gay <3
Ducky
oh my god they were CHEVRUTAS
There’s also another pair of rabbis that had a joint ordination ceremony that was basically a wedding, Ami and Assi I think?
Colineo
Thank you for your comment. I’d never heard this story before, and you summarized it beautifully.
hapax
Also worth noting that for Christians (like Joyce used to be), Ruth is a *Moabite* (the most despised of foreigners) and also an ancestor of Jesus through her second husband (and Jewish descent is, to some degree) matriarchal.
So pretty radically inclusive.
Leorale
For Jews, she’s an ancestor of King David. And Jewishness comes from the maternal line, so it’s strongly supporting that Jews-by-choice are just as valid as Jews-by-birth and should be included as such.
(If the Messiah is a literal person, they’re supposed to descend from King David’s line, too, and Christians hold that that’s Jesus. Most Jews don’t give any thought to the messiah though.)
The story likely was codified / became super popular when Israelites were intermarrying with their neighbors the Moabites. Israelites needed a story of a really good-guy Moabite, so we can feel happy about our new Moabite son- or daughter-in-law that our kiddo just brought home. We need a way to have them join the tribe and everything is cool. Ruth is that Moabite, who is loyal and wonderful and helps her mother-in-law out of a real problem, anyone would be delighted to be related to her, let her in already.
Isn’t that a callback to the time Joyce made Dorothy a lunchbag and she put that quote in it as a message to her? Dorothy commented at that point that she didn’t know if Joyce knew it was a common quote for lesbian weddings. Now Joyce pretty much confirmed that yeah, she knows how gay it sounded.
I’m so confused, i thought “relationship paladins” meant everyone ending up in relationships (like seems to be happening), and “sickos” meant like secret hookups or something
It’s very specifically about Dorothy and Joyce staying 100.0% faithful to Walky and Joe, respectively – at least until they talk shit out vis-a-vis their perverse lust for one another.
This is contrasted with SICKOS pressed against the window, gleefully watching this surprisingly nontoxic yuri finally emerge, come what may.
mindbleach
With a strong dose of that ancient WeCanSexy 2koma.
…I was not expecting to see a fucking Caliborn/Calliope reference here
mindbleach
The odds are low but never zero.
Giffem
shall never escape the Homestuck
Bysmerian
More or less. As someone who definitely clicked “Relationship Paladin” I’m not against Dorothy/Joyce, I just wasn’t happy about Joyce being in what is by all accounts a pretty solid relationship and happy and about to have a moment of hormonal passion without being honest with themselves about what they meant to each other and their other relationships. Especially right before Joyce’s date with Joe, it felt like an incipient train wreck and just not good, and seeing people cheering it on made some of us, or at least me, dig our heels in.
This…well, look. I like the Joe and Joyce relationship. And I appreciate that Joe is being the better person he hinted he could be. But if Joe needs Joyce to be that guy, if one breakup sends him spiraling back into his old ways, he’s not that guy. And frankly he’s shown he has the emotional maturity to handle this, even if he doesn’t want it.
Whereas Dorothy and Walky just feels like going back to something that’s comfortable but not what you need. I don’t really ship it.
This feels like a more healthy official statement on Joyce’s part than if they’d made out on her bed. In a better world I would have liked Joe to have some advance notice and all, but the pressure and tension is external rather than internal and I’m more okay with this than I would have been.
I’m half expecting a photo of Joyce and Dorothy kissing amidst the tear gas to be THE media image of the protest.
thejeff
A little more healthy, I guess. I know it’s not “Smarting of Age”, but I’d still like it if someone would actually sit down and think about it. It’s only maybe an hour since they were telling each other “it’s just a trauma reaction/excess horniness” and then heading off to do laundry anyway.
Bad news for relationship paladins. But only if Dorothy survives.
Joyce has plot armor. Dorothy had plot armor all the way up until this panel, but it’s gone now. This is a story line where things are happening and it’s written by Damn You Willis.
Willis has posted panels a year from now where they’re both walking free, in full color, and have shading.
Thing 2
Which now? Willis has a buffer extending into the future? Our future? Well yes, Willis clearly does. Wow, I never thought of it that way before.
Thing 2
But has Willis gone into OUR future and posted panels?
GMOrganism
I mean, the updates are scheduled. So, arguably he has.
Crow
Yeah I mean they’re probably not going to prison for life for a college protest. The more likely consequence is that having a record will cause some inconveniences in their future career pursuits.
Well, there ain’t no screwin’ as of yet. Right now, it’s running-back-into-the-fire-to-save-the-bestie. BUT! If they get out of this free and intact, yeah, there might be some passionate activities.
537 thoughts on “Panorama”
NGPZ
…
??? ???
*plays “Rain” from Cowboy Bebop CD on hacked muzak*
Wack'd
it’s the tear gas, it’s the stormtroopers we have to endure
Clif
We hate it.
CianM1301
Very fitting choice of lyrics.
“Is it right, or is it wrong?”
“Or is it here that I belong?”
NGPZ
welp 420 comments again
I have to deal with some nasty road rash, thus, this warrants four joints
really hopin our star crossed homies pull through >~<
Decidedly Orthogonal
Is that the number of comments, or a note about “the weed talking”?
Decidedly Orthogonal
p.s. Sorry about your spill. Heal up well and may you be able to rest.
NGPZ
thank you ;-;
I’m not gonna be able to work for weeks while this heals, any help I can get staying afloat rn is HIGHLY appreciated >~<
Amós Batista
Camera name?
Clif
No? I name it Fred.
Queen Anthai
oh no
Clif
Oh, yes. There are points in a story where everything changes and nothing can go back to the way it was. This is one of those points.
AbacusWizard
?? WE CAN NEEEEEEEVER GO BAAAAAAACK ??
?? TO BEFOOOOOOOOOOORE ??
ValdVin
I guess this scene is a bit late for
? Let’s run away to Atlantic City ?
(PS I just saw this a month ago. I like your taste.)
Benjamin Geiger
I didn’t think there were any drama tags left to be pulled.
butts
how many reference photos did this one take
NGPZ
I mean Google Earth is a thing, so anywhere between one to a dozen, depending on how you count
Rose by Any other Name
You talkin about reference photos. Willis concerned about only one panel.
ANd me, trying to view in a higher resolution because I can barely tell WTF is going on.
Wack'd
joyce is walking towards dorothy while saying the gayest shit you ever heard. meanwhile cops are being cops and amazi-girl is kicking them in the head while protesters flee
Qlx
Yeah I don’t know who all is going to jail after this but if they can catch her, amazi-girl is def on the list. Only plot armor has protected her from tasers and rubber bullets up to this point
Nymph
I agree that this is the gayest shit you ever heard, but importantly she is quoting from the Bible (Ruth 1:16 if you’re keen)
Erik
“And your people shall be my people, and your… um, lack of god shall be my lack of god.”
Reb
It’s a quote from the book of Ruth, Ruth pledging her loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi (I believe her husband, Ruth’s son, was dead at that point). There’s a number of things in the Bible between people of the same-sex that have possible reinterpretations these days with the increased understanding of LGBTQ+ issues. Ruth and Naomi are an example of this.
zepangolynn
I want to assume you meant Naomi’s son, but given some relationships of the period, I can’t 100% say there is no way Ruth’s mother-in-law wasn’t married to Ruth’s son and I am about to go to bed, so I am steadfastly not looking up bible passages right now.
mags
These lines are also often used in Jewish wedding vows!
Shakes
So is that what lesbian weddings are like?
Rose by Any other Name
Naw. Not enough swords.
AbacusWizard
Swords might actually be useful here.
AMagicalDuck
There’s usually more swords
Dara
Ours definitely had more swords.
Adeptus
Damn. Between myself and my wife we own a lot of swords. Didn’t think to bring any along to the magistrate though. Not sure they would have let us either.
Shakes
What I’m gathering here is in case of zombies find the nearest lesbian couple.
Jon
Depends on the zombies. If it’s a transmissible blood-borne pathogen, swords are just an easy way to join the horde when their blood sprays onto you. (There’s a side bit in the “Mira Grant” novel Feed where they discuss some of the early zombie fighters who learned the hard way that Kellis-Amberlee is all too happy to spread via contact. That’s also why shotgun headshots are considered to be extremely rude. Bullets to the head are the way to go. Journalists going into infected areas must maintain a license that includes a high score at the target range.)
M!a
I think the judge at mine can vouch, we had a slightly better time.
Florence
It’s like that scene in pirates of the Caribbean at world end
Leorale
The line does feature heavily in Jewish and Christian lesbian weddings. It’s Ruth converting into the tribe and promising to love Naomi 4eva, like so:
“Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.
Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus and more may God do to me if anything but death parts me from you.”
(Technically they’re mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, on a quest to find husbands, so they can get back into the protection of the patriarchy. And once they get husbands, they don’t get any more lines in the story. But still! It’s romantic.
https://www.sefaria.org/Ruth.1.16?lang=bi&with=all
Leorale
The tear gas isn’t in my version of the story. Maybe it’s a King James thing.
BorkBorkBork
Never once had I thought of that as a romantic thing. Mother and daughter-in-law.
I mean, I guess there’s definitely an audience for that, but usually they play the “No, we can’t do that, you’re my step mother” way of skirting icky taboo.
Anyways. Joyce is 100% intentionally quoting, and I think the fact that she likely doesn’t mean it as romantic, means that it’s extra romantic.
Being a woman and not having a husband in those days, meant you had very limited means to take care of yourself. Practically nonexistent. Your only hope, if you didn’t want to be getting into the sex trade, is to find another man to marry.
Ruth is young, beautiful. She would not struggle hard to find another husband. Naomi was an older woman. Too old to marry, too old to attract for prostitution, too old to even do hard labor. As she goes to her homeland, she hopes to receive aid from family, but mostly she goes expecting to find nothing but death.
But instead, Ruth, a foreigner, pledges her loyalty to Naomi. You don’t know just how insane that is. The Jewish people at this time are intensely xenophobic. You do not simply waltz in there and emigrate to Israel. Most people who take a foreign wife are viewed as breaking God’s law. Ruth is not simply saying “I will go with you,” she is saying, “I will give up all I have left, so that you have something left, and we will each have each other.”
When Ruth says “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God,” you don’t know how crazy that is. Ruth was married to Naomi’s son, but didn’t worship the God of Israel. They are absolutely 100% outcasts returning to a land that if they are lucky, will simply spit in their face.
Two grieving widows, both who lost a husband, and in that moment Ruth – the one who Joyce is quoting – shows a self-sacrificial love, putting the needs of her mother-in-law over her own, so that she doesn’t have to stand alone.
In this moment, to me, it’s clear as day. Joyce *really likes* Joe. She loves Dorothy.
FlamestAndLight
Shipping Ruth and Naomi has been a thing for quite a while. Same with Yonatan and David. They’re the best ships in the Tanakh. Though the best ship in all of ancient Jewish lit is Rabbis Yoḥanan bar Nafḥa and Shimon ben Lakish. They were chevrutas! It’s so gay <3
Ducky
oh my god they were CHEVRUTAS
There’s also another pair of rabbis that had a joint ordination ceremony that was basically a wedding, Ami and Assi I think?
Colineo
Thank you for your comment. I’d never heard this story before, and you summarized it beautifully.
hapax
Also worth noting that for Christians (like Joyce used to be), Ruth is a *Moabite* (the most despised of foreigners) and also an ancestor of Jesus through her second husband (and Jewish descent is, to some degree) matriarchal.
So pretty radically inclusive.
Leorale
For Jews, she’s an ancestor of King David. And Jewishness comes from the maternal line, so it’s strongly supporting that Jews-by-choice are just as valid as Jews-by-birth and should be included as such.
(If the Messiah is a literal person, they’re supposed to descend from King David’s line, too, and Christians hold that that’s Jesus. Most Jews don’t give any thought to the messiah though.)
The story likely was codified / became super popular when Israelites were intermarrying with their neighbors the Moabites. Israelites needed a story of a really good-guy Moabite, so we can feel happy about our new Moabite son- or daughter-in-law that our kiddo just brought home. We need a way to have them join the tribe and everything is cool. Ruth is that Moabite, who is loyal and wonderful and helps her mother-in-law out of a real problem, anyone would be delighted to be related to her, let her in already.
Nymphie
Isn’t that a callback to the time Joyce made Dorothy a lunchbag and she put that quote in it as a message to her? Dorothy commented at that point that she didn’t know if Joyce knew it was a common quote for lesbian weddings. Now Joyce pretty much confirmed that yeah, she knows how gay it sounded.
Nymphie
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/kale/
Elsewise
Oh look at Sierra’s face. She KNOWS.
Gbz
I had a feeling this wsd Ruth. Thanks for confirming.
Kyulen
I assume they don’t usually have cops and tear gas at most lesbian weddings. I could be wrong.
Risky
Sometimes the lesbians are cops.
Clif
Look, I’m just going to assume that this is what all lesbian weddings are like and there is no need at all to disillusion me.
Ray Radlein
Yes. This particular passage is used regularly in lesbian weddings
mindbleach
So, bad news for relationship paladins.
Rose by Any other Name
Booyah!
Twinsword
Poor Walky. His hesitation and anxiety were not unfounded, I fear. I know he’s not the hero in this reality, but goddamn it, Willis. ?
Leaf
I’m so confused, i thought “relationship paladins” meant everyone ending up in relationships (like seems to be happening), and “sickos” meant like secret hookups or something
mindbleach
It’s very specifically about Dorothy and Joyce staying 100.0% faithful to Walky and Joe, respectively – at least until they talk shit out vis-a-vis their perverse lust for one another.
This is contrasted with SICKOS pressed against the window, gleefully watching this surprisingly nontoxic yuri finally emerge, come what may.
mindbleach
With a strong dose of that ancient WeCanSexy 2koma.
UU: PrecioUs babies!
uu: NOW FuCK!
IntangibleMatter
…I was not expecting to see a fucking Caliborn/Calliope reference here
mindbleach
The odds are low but never zero.
Giffem
shall never escape the Homestuck
Bysmerian
More or less. As someone who definitely clicked “Relationship Paladin” I’m not against Dorothy/Joyce, I just wasn’t happy about Joyce being in what is by all accounts a pretty solid relationship and happy and about to have a moment of hormonal passion without being honest with themselves about what they meant to each other and their other relationships. Especially right before Joyce’s date with Joe, it felt like an incipient train wreck and just not good, and seeing people cheering it on made some of us, or at least me, dig our heels in.
This…well, look. I like the Joe and Joyce relationship. And I appreciate that Joe is being the better person he hinted he could be. But if Joe needs Joyce to be that guy, if one breakup sends him spiraling back into his old ways, he’s not that guy. And frankly he’s shown he has the emotional maturity to handle this, even if he doesn’t want it.
Whereas Dorothy and Walky just feels like going back to something that’s comfortable but not what you need. I don’t really ship it.
This feels like a more healthy official statement on Joyce’s part than if they’d made out on her bed. In a better world I would have liked Joe to have some advance notice and all, but the pressure and tension is external rather than internal and I’m more okay with this than I would have been.
I’m half expecting a photo of Joyce and Dorothy kissing amidst the tear gas to be THE media image of the protest.
thejeff
A little more healthy, I guess. I know it’s not “Smarting of Age”, but I’d still like it if someone would actually sit down and think about it. It’s only maybe an hour since they were telling each other “it’s just a trauma reaction/excess horniness” and then heading off to do laundry anyway.
Clif
Bad news for relationship paladins. But only if Dorothy survives.
Joyce has plot armor. Dorothy had plot armor all the way up until this panel, but it’s gone now. This is a story line where things are happening and it’s written by Damn You Willis.
mindbleach
Willis has posted panels a year from now where they’re both walking free, in full color, and have shading.
Thing 2
Which now? Willis has a buffer extending into the future? Our future? Well yes, Willis clearly does. Wow, I never thought of it that way before.
Thing 2
But has Willis gone into OUR future and posted panels?
GMOrganism
I mean, the updates are scheduled. So, arguably he has.
Crow
Yeah I mean they’re probably not going to prison for life for a college protest. The more likely consequence is that having a record will cause some inconveniences in their future career pursuits.
Steamweed
Well, there ain’t no screwin’ as of yet. Right now, it’s running-back-into-the-fire-to-save-the-bestie. BUT! If they get out of this free and intact, yeah, there might be some passionate activities.
Wack'd
wherever you gay, i will gay
HueSatLight
Ruth tag missing
Slartibeast Button, BIA