229

Social goal
Posted on March 16, 2025 by David M Willis

229 thoughts on “Social goal”

  1. darkoneko

    charisma beyond her means, she say.

    1. Rose by Any other Name

      Oh shit. I didn’t realize we were using point buy.
      Sorry everyone – these are rolled stats. My bad.

      1. John Campbell

        She just picked up a lot of background Flaws to pay for her raw stats, and she’s been gradually buying them off with experience over the course of the campaign.

        1. Thag Simmons

          What I’m hearing is Joyce is a min-maxer.

        2. jeffepp

          No, quite the opposite. Most never pay off their Disadvantages, and even pick up new ones. And, she was smart enough to take Weirdness Magnet, which is the absolute best Disadvantage for adventurers, because it brings the adventure to you!

        3. morleuca

          Love weirdness magnet. Once linked it to teleportation. So much fun

        4. Opus the Poet

          I have that IRL. Not much fun out here in the real world. It does a number on your love life, not to mention how much weird stuff tends to hurt.

        5. Needfuldoer

          “I took a variety of low impact flaws to maximize my disadvantages and minimize my powers!”

          – That 8-Bit Theater parody by the Disaster Labs guy way back in the day

        6. Andrusi

          Speaking of which, she should really be talking in beeps right now.

        7. John Campbell

          It’s OOC!

    2. Steamweed

      Yes! The Mizz has Rizz!

      (i totally made that up…now i got charisma, too, amirite?)

      1. Getes

        Aurizztic

        1. Steamweed

          Oh yizz, my bizz is rizz; I got the tizz.

  2. butts

    Joyce might be able to convince her you’re not poison, but she definitely isn’t gonna convince her that you’re cool

    1. clif

      As a resident of Houston, I am firmly convinced that anyone whose breath is condensing to fog as it leaves their mouth is way too cool.

      I mean, how do people live like that?

      1. Steamweed

        I’m a former Houstonian. I hear ya. Yet I know hundreds more who wonder howinhell people can live in the fetid swamp that is Houston for 8 months yearly.

        1. clif

          Mostly indoors with the air conditioning working. No problem. The occasional short steam bath doesn’t make my joints hurt.

        2. elebenty

          I used to live in the Midwest, so I’m no stranger to humidity that disappears only for the duration of a storm, returning hours later.

          Left the water-breathers for grad school in the PNW. Much later, en route to a conference, I left the cool safety of IAH… and was instantly hammered by the pressure. It felt like stepping into an oven. It wasn’t even 90° yet. I definitely lost my tolerance.

      2. butts

        well the secret is to bathe yourself in the lifeblood of a wild caribou on All Hallows’ Eve, so as to absorb its resistance to the bitter chill of winter for another year

        1. Taffy

          A wild caribou? In this economy?

        2. clif

          Hey! Some of us are trying to drink coffee in front of the keyboard here.

      3. Needfuldoer

        They’re called “jackets”.

        1. clif

          Do these “jackets” keep the hairs in your nose from freezing between classes?

      4. staszu13

        It’s in Indiana. It gets cold there. Willis is using the famous sliding timeline, wherein it’s been winter since….ummm, last winter I think?

        1. thejeff

          It’s been winter since the timeskip. Which was 2020.

          Always winter and never Christmas.

  3. Thag Simmons

    I don’t think I believe Jennifer would say that line in Panel Two but I like it anyways.

    1. butts

      ehh i believe that billie would meme sarcastically in this context. she’s a secret nerd, remember

      1. DailyBrad

        Yeah, a girl who loves Kit Fisto as much as she does isn’t above knowing this meme.

    2. Rose by Any other Name

      Weirdly, I do believe she would say it, but I don’t much care for it.

    3. Yumi

      Well, it doesn’t exactly sound natural for her, but pulling memes like that often doesn’t… it was relevant enough that I could see her going to it.

    4. Effie

      Dumbing of Age Book 15: The Bad bongo You Pulled

      1. Effie

        Wow… I did NOT know that comments are censored here.

        Somehow that’s even funnier.

        1. Taffy

          Far as I can tell, it’s just the C-word and B-word, but I’m not about to type a bunch of slurs to stress test that.

        2. Thag Simmons

          What’s the censor for conga?

        3. Thag Simmons

          Yeah, that tracks.

        4. Rose by Any other Name

          Personally, I would have gone full Shakespearian and made the censor “country matters”. But conga is pretty funny in its own way.

        5. Throwatron

          Congay Bongo is actually my queersona.

        6. mindbleach

          Coward. Go full Pomni!

        7. Taffy

          What does being an immensely sexy jester have to do with anything?

        8. Miafillene

          That’s what I find weird about Pomni…she isn’t that sexy. And yet …she IS!

        9. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Kindness, personality, and has a nice voice.

        10. Steamweed

          bongo. [beet-chah]
          Damn. [river dam]
          Fuck. [f(riar t)uck]
          Shit. [sh(uck)it]

        11. Steamweed

          Ha! Three made it through; only the classic ‘bongo’ remains.

        12. Thag Simmons

          Honestly it’s the best one.

        13. Mr D

          Beet-Chan is a funny way to say it, lol

        14. Deanatay

          The bongo censor is old enough to have become part of comment section lore, at this point. People use bongo here instead of the b-word, intentionally. It’s kinda comforting, really.

        15. thejeff

          Some of us have been using it on other sites as well. Hoping to spread it.:)

      2. Yumi

        This series truly is full of autistics (or at least characters where that’s probable) and the bad bongoes they’ve pulled.

        1. morleuca

          Same with the comment section

    5. butting

      Raidah’s influence, tho.

    6. Needfuldoer

      Yeah, she isn’t the type who’d be hooked into the latest (as of writing) memes.

      “For example, here comes the hunk you somehow managed to land” would have worked better for her.

    7. Mturtle7

      I am 100% committed to believing that Jennifer never hard of that meme, and just happened to say it fully by coincidence.

  4. Charles Phipps

    Would Joyce sing U2 or is that Catholic demon music?

    1. TheSkrilla

      Fun fact, in 2003, a bunch of contemporary Christian Artists did an album of U2 covers. It was called In the Name of Love: Artists United for Africa

    2. butting

      Uh… why would U2 be thought of as Catholic music?

      1. Charles Phipps

        That’s part of the joke.

      2. thejeff

        Irish?

    3. Disastroid

      She moves in mysterious ways.

    4. zee

      You think Joyce would’ve ever been into twenty one pilots? Particularly like their older stuff and Tyler Joseph’s solo stuff which is more explicitly Christian?

  5. MAC089

    I’m not sure Jennifer thinks that even Joyce’s charisma will achieve with the bridge between her and Alice which Alice has made clear has not only been burned, but nuked.

    1. Nono

      You’re forgetting that Jennifer’s super power is delusion.

      1. Needfuldoer

        “Am I such a bad person? No. It is Alice who is wrong.”

        – Jennifer Skinner

    2. Charles Phipps

      Obviously Jennifer thinks Alice will realize she’s changed and they’ll get back to being best friends who occasionally (daily) have sex.

      Normal best friend stuff.

      Oh and they can put that stupid drunk driving thing behind them.

    3. Thag Simmons

      I do think Jennifer could probably mend fences enough that Alice would still be a part of her life, but that would require some self-awareness on Jen’s part about both what their relationship actually was and what her actual character flaws that made Alice cut contact are, and neither of those are likely to happen.

      1. Leorale

        I don’t think Jennifer could mend fences, even then. Alice is DONE, decided, outta there. If Jennifer fixed everything, that would be very nice for Jennifer, but Alice still doesn’t want to hear about it ever. That self-improvement would just have to be its own lonely reward.

        1. Charles Phipps

          I mean that’s possible but it might be different than Alice thinks.

        2. Thag Simmons

          Very possible, and even at my most optimistic I don’t think they’ll ever be as close as they used to be.

        3. Charles Phipps

          I’m not even sure they were that close.

          Jennifer didn’t seem to know Alice was in love with her.

        4. Laserbeaks Fury

          I have to imagine she did, but acknowledging that would necessitate being open to the concept she might also have those feelings.

        5. morleuca

          Though twould be interesting if we find out a certain dill hole at prom somehow spiked Jennifer’s flask or a drink she had at her table….

  6. IntangibleMatter

    Being autistic means that you almost certainly have some “trigger phrases” that will cause you to talk/sing about something no matter what the situation is.

    For example, one of mine is that if someone mentions any SCP around me I will go on a minimum 15-minute-long rant about various niche SCPs that I think are interesting and don’t get covered in the “popular” SCP media.

    1. Amós Batista

      I’m glad I’m not the only one who knows about SCP

      1. Yumi

        I was introduced to it by an eleven year old in my class a couple years ago. I haven’t looked into it much, but my main point is that it is at least somewhat being spread among the youth.

        1. Throwatron

          dude i had a couple nights where SCP hit like crack when I was in my early 20s. i think if i found that shit at 11 i woulda been ruined somehow

      2. Thag Simmons

        I feel like it’s a relatively well known thing, at least among the terminally online? Like I wouldn’t call myself a fan but I’m casually aware of it and I’ve read a few

    2. Taffy

      I like the one that’s just a drawing of a woman and you can draw her new stuff to keep her occupied.

    3. Mano308gts

      Didn’t they just get absorbed into the larger body of creepypasta?

      1. Taffy

        No, but that’s technically one of the proposals for SCP-001.

      2. IntangibleMatter

        I think technically speaking it’s an offshoot, considering it originated on 4chan around 200…9?

        That said, yes a few are heavily exploited in the whole “spooky videos aimed at kids” youtube sphere, but even if there’s 100 SCPs that are popular in that sphere, that’s less than 1.25% of the total amount of SCPs

        1. Jeremiah

          Yeah there a while universe of stuff at the site, with different canons, organizations, stories and all kind of stuff beyond the earliest “spooky monster that kills you” stuff that is mostly what the content farms focus on.

        2. IntangibleMatter

          Hell, there’s even SCP-TTKU-J, a joke SCP whose entire concept is that it’s a Thing That Kills You. Some of the better SCPs are based around subverting/critiquing early SCPs for all being Yet Another Murder Monster.

          That said, one of my favourite canons, On Guard-43, which is probably most well known for SCP-7000, doesn’t seem to ever get coverage from the content farms because it’s almost purely antithetical to what they aim for. It’s a site with a lot of queer people, a focus on non-standard methods of containment, and a lot of odd happenstance which is either somewhat tied up in politics, or is otherwise not actually dangerous.

        3. Jeremiah

          Yeah! That and S & C Plastics are some of my favorite canons. It really is a shame that they get so little attention outside the site. If anyone want to get into SCP I recommend the exploring series channel, it covers lot of stuff, not only the most popular mainstream ones and it is a good way to learn about the different factions.

        4. True Survivor

          It has been a very long time since I was really into SCP’s – it just got to big for me (not in the sense that it was too popular but in that the site had so many SCPs and stories that it become a tad bit overwhelming). It was a victim of its own magnificent success I suppose. Anyway, as I was gone for a while, can I ask what are cannons?

        5. Jeremiah

          So bassically, in scp site “there is no canon” meaning there is no single unifying “true” version of the seeting, they are guidelines to writing but there is also plenty of wiggle room to just explore things as you see fit without worrying as much about contradicting other stuff. Then there is specific canons, interconnected articles and tales in a single consistent version of the setting. There is also alternate dimensions out of the whazzo,, so bassically any version you can think of the foundation universe could real in some way.

        6. clif

          Plus it’s integral that there are false reports mixed in almong the actual ones for security reasons.

          Not that I would have the slightest idea of what you’re talking about.

          Or who Kit Fisto is.

    4. Thag Simmons

      Is it the big lizard that can’t die?

      1. Taffy

        That’s one of the least interesting ones, along with the murder guy who respawns in a coffin when you kill him, the demon that kills you if you look at so much as a pixel of him, or the random chick who has to suck off a priest every day.

        Gimme the pizza box that has whatever kind of pizza you want, the vending machine you have to be really careful with, the snacks that shove themselves down your throat, the glue that fuses stuff into other stuff, or the magic disk that takes you to the land of headless giant babies. Those are fun.

        1. Thag Simmons

          Nah, I’m pretty sure it’s the big dumb lizard that can’t die.

        2. Taffy

          I wonder what happens if you hit 682 with FV5…

        3. Thag Simmons

          I’m certain there’s fanart of something like that.

        4. Mr D

          My personal fav is 999, the happy little thing that looks like a DQ slime and everyone appears to absolutely love.

        5. Jeremiah

          Oh, the chick one was rewritten as while ago because the moderators starting finding it distasteful and not in a horror kind of way but a “creepy fetishizing” kind of way, so the sexual stuff is not longer part of her character.

        6. Felgraf

          My knowledge is mostly in the 1-2000 range (I remember back when it BREACHED 1000’s!).

          I do still love the improving machine. I have a theory that that damn thing has some concept of what the inputter ‘wants’ or it’d always be outputting hyper-improved bacteria and viruses.

        7. Andrusi

          I’m a big fan of the wireless router that makes wolves

    5. Masumi

      Hm, I don’t think I have something like that…

      Oh look, a bat! *stares at the sky and makes clicking noises, then proceeds to give a 2h lecture on echolocation*

    6. Layn

      oooh please do tell though!

    7. eh, whatever

      Are you that extroverted?

      1. Jeremiah

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/snacks/
        Not necessarily.

    8. Felgraf

      I really should get back into that sometime. It’s *wild* to me that I still have a sub-1000 one up.
      (but there’d be SO MANY to catch up on now to make sure I’m not retreading ground…)

      1. Jeremiah

        Good thing that you really don’t gotta read them all to “catch up” most of them are either self contained or part of a specific canon, you can just browse around checking whatever catches your eye and go from there, it is really good for rabbit hole searches.

        1. Felgraf

          There DO seem to be some new categorizations though, past the old “Safe/Euclid/Keter”, so I would still have some catching up to do. =)

          I more meant, if I were to start writing SCP’s again, I’d probably *need* to read them all just to make sure I’m not retreading ground.

        2. Jeremiah

          They are plenty of writing guides that explains all the new you might had missed. Reading them all to try to get them is really impractical, there are thousands of scp articles, plus takes group of interest formats.

      2. IntangibleMatter

        I’d be curious about which sub-1000 one you wrote!

        And there’s a lot of new ones that have come out over the years, but I honestly have found a reliable source of interesting ones to be r/dankmemesfromsite19. Personally, though, I absolutely adore the On Guard-43 hub, because of its much more story-focused angles, while also being funny and unique in how it goes about things.

        Aside from that, I think the best way to “catch up” would be to check out all the SCP-[X]000 and SCP-[X]999 articles, especially SCP-5000 because of how many other SCPs it links to. (tho SCP-3999 and SCP-7000 get honourable mentions for being brilliant pieces of horror and dramedy, respectively)

        Of course, as mentioned in my original comment, I have a lot of ones that I can talk about and if someone wanted I could post a “short” list of about a dozen ones I recommend to people getting started these days.

        1. Felgraf

          SCP-522, the carpet. I think I decided for my first SCP I wanted something that was ‘safe’ (I.e., not necessarily a world-destroying threat) but still odd.

          Not my best work, but, damn, it’s been a long time since I wrote that. XD

        2. Jeremiah

          Damn that is an oldie.

    9. Regret

      SCP? Sane Clown Posse?

      1. Jeremiah

        SCP foundation, organization that contains anomalous objects, entities, locations, etc.

    10. morleuca

      I find I always have to bring up SCP-113, because I have an obsession.

      1. IntangibleMatter

        I know what you are (because I am too :3), but I’m personally more of a fan of SCP-6113.

    11. Benjamin Geiger

      My absolute favorite (not because of the entity itself, but how it’s presented) is 2317.

      1. Benjamin Geiger

        + ⚫⚫/⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫/⚫⚫/⚫. (⛔?️!)

    12. Casi

      I can’t remember my favorite Anomaly. I know i’ve seen videos on it, and read at least 55 articles, but i just cannot remember what it is.

    13. NGPZ

      wait you too?

      yippee!! always pleasing to find other autistic folk out there, especially autistic game devs ^^

  7. NGPZ

    “Bad bongo you pulled bt being autistic” ??? :0

    1. True Survivor

      Joe is wearing a leather-looking jacket, has stubble, a long list of sexual conquests, and is remarkably snarky when wants to be. He also loves Joyce just the way she is, and she wouldn’t be exactly who she is without her autism.

      Therefore that comment makes sense in a round-about “if you squint you can see it sort of way.” For Jennifer that is actually a rather impressive improvement.

      1. Reltzik

        Jennifer’s sot of seeing things ways while squinting since she stopped wearing her glasses.

    2. Steamweed

      Billifer is saying Joe is Joyce’s beetch.

      1. clif

        Joyce didn’t argue.

  8. Nono

    Panel 2 Jennifer’s statement is kinda asshole, right? It’s not just me who thinks that?

    1. Yumi

      I don’t think it is.

    2. Taffy

      No, and other words exist to describe behavior you don’t like.

    3. Thag Simmons

      While I don’t think it’s unreasonable to interpret it as such, I don’t think that’s how it was meant and I think most people in the intended audience will recognize that.

    4. Eclipse

      It’s a meme phrase that is not used in a derogatory way. Look up “Me and the bad bongo I pulled by being funny,” which was the original variation that got shifted into “…by being autistic” and used a lot on places like tumblr. It’s generally a self-referential joke made by autistic people, along the lines of “I don’t know why my partner likes me and my autistic behaviours but they do and that’s awesome.” Maybe it could be taken in a rude way when used about someone else instead of yourself, but, eh?

      1. apricot

        I’m sad at how many people don’t recognize the meme haha

        1. StClair

          I’m old. Even the memes I know are old.

    5. Fireprincesslily

      Jennifer/Billie: -breathes-
      Comments section: Can you believe what an absolute asshole Jennifer/Billie is being right now???

      1. Taffy

        Suffocating children in Africa could have breathed that air. She’s such a selfish cretin.

      2. Reltzik

        She’s inhaling. That’s suction. She sucks.

        1. TGS

          And she exhales. So she blows just as much.

    6. Charles Phipps

      I mean as a neuroatypical, I’d love for autism to be the new sexy.

      But is it?

      No, absolutely not.

      1. Proxiehunter

        It’s a very common meme though. I usually see it with “(character either headcanoned by autistic fans as being autistic or who is autistic in canon) and the bad bongo they pulled by being autistic (either their canon signifigant other or a charcter they’re being shipped with).”

        Like Dina and Becky. Looking back at that storyline she definatly pulled Becky by being autistic.

      2. Yumi

        Aside from being a meme, it’s generally just one bad bongo being pulled by the autism, and it’s always possible that a trait strongly connected to autism could have major appeal to at least one person around.

    7. Throwatron

      I mean, I would think how shitty it is would be directly correlated with the recipient’s awareness that it’s a common joke phrase in autistic meme circles.

      If I hadn’t seen thousands of people personally invoke it many times before, my gut instinct would be that it might be read as mean! But it’s honestly just a common thing that’s said in certain circles.

  9. John Campbell

    tbf, it’s not “unpromptedly” anymore.

    1. Risky

      Prompted. We all saw it.

  10. Rolf of Many Doors

    That might circle around to making Jennifer more endearing and/or cooler by comparison

    1. Yumi

      Maybe it will show her growth by demonstrating how she’s more tolerant of nerds now

  11. Taffy

    Hehe, she said the meme. It’s perfectly okay for her to say that thing she said.

    1. NGPZ

      Wait this is one of those earthling memes? Do tell!

      1. Taffy

        Yeah, the “pulled by being autistic” thing is absolutely a meme. All my autistic Final Fantasy 14 friends (which I know is a tautology) and I send each other that kind of thing all the time.

        1. NGPZ

          Heh lol I didn’t know being autistic *pulled*, and I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember XD

        2. Joy

          ❤️

        3. Yumi

          It was first “Me and the bad bongo I pulled by being ____” with the last part being variable, but then “by being autistic” became a pretty popular ending for it (at least on tumblr).

        4. NGPZ

          yeah that tracks for Tumblr, thanks for clarifying further ^^

  12. Sirksome

    It’s not about being normal. It’s about establishing that Jen can form long term friends. Trying to be “normal” or “popular” or ‘adults” or whatever the arbitrary description is, is how Jen got in with Raidah, and we all see how that worked for her.

  13. Marsh Maryrose

    But if I can’t swim after 40 days
    And my mind is crushed
    By the crashing waves
    Lift me up so high
    That I cannot fall

    1. clif

      I am compelled to totally ignore the poetic imagery and point out that there is no such so high you cannot fall. Though of course high buys you time. Not falling is more having the proper velocity for your height and the high is mostly helpful at avoiding atmospheric friction that would steal your velocity. Or as Arthur Dent might explain it, the secret to not falling is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

      1. deliverything

        It may depend on how you define “high”. Would one of the Lagrange points count?

        1. clif

          I suppose maintaining velocity by falling in two different directions at once should count. Though arguably it’s a matter of position and not just how high you are.

  14. Amós Batista

    It’s nice that Joe is keeping contact with Jocelyne, but do he knows she’s dragging him next a protest, right?

    1. Amós Batista

      Not like I’m complaining about that. I would like it

    2. HueSatLight

      Joe might not follow the news very closely, but he’d likely have picked up that there’s a protest. Dunn Meadow is a park-like area and it’s cold and snowy. Joe (and us) don’t know whether it’s a protest the administration mostly ignores, or a protest they have state police snipers overlooking.

      1. HueSatLight

        implied sentence: too cold and snowy for someone to just hang out in for no reason.

  15. toby

    whenever joejoyce interact im just like :3 yay!!! they are so precious to meeee.

  16. RassilonTDavros

    I know it’s just a meta-reference to the year Roomies! started but now I’m just imagining the Browns banning all post-1997 Christian pop music out of the fear that it might potentially be Satanic.

    Which will be even funnier come 2040, when (if my math is right) 1997 will be the year Hank and Carol met. (Until September 10 of that year, when the third time skip will temporarily push the year of their meeting back to 1996.)

  17. Laserbeaks Fury

    This is absolutely going to end with Alice being “No, I don’t want anything to do with Billie. But hey, you seem cool.”

    1. Sirksome

      I think that would be the most heartbreaking thing to happen. I don’t think Jennifer’s plan will actually work so I wonder if that will happen.

    2. Taffy

      “Hey new best friend Joyce, do you know if Walky’s single? I’ve always wanted to rock his world in a 7-11 parking lot.”

      1. Thag Simmons

        From what little we’ve gotten from Alice makes me think she’s on the gayer side of the scale, but her being into Walky would absolutely break Jennifer’s brain in a way that her being into Joyce would struggle to compete with.

        1. Astariel

          Seems unlikely, last time they ran into her she not only got Walky’s name wrong, she got it wrong again five seconds later, after he corrected her.

    3. sigh

      ngl i wouldnt be too suprised, she seems to atrract lesbians by the droves

  18. ValdVin

    Did anyone else’s mind insert “unironically” in Joe’s last panel speech balloon?

    1. sultryglebe

      No, but it would also be totally unironically.

    2. clif

      ValdVin’s question lingered briefly in the air, and then there was a long deep silence.

      1. clif

        Joke destroyed by ninja.

  19. Anonymouse

    Why does joyce know the lyrics to a thirty year old song?

    1. Yumi

      As a twelve year old in 2007, I memorized all the lyrics to “American Pie,” which came out in 1971.

    2. Taffy

      What the fuck kind of question is that? Her name is Rio, and she dances on the fucking sand, dude.

      1. clif

        That brings back memories.

      2. Taffy

        Like, even just taking the 30 literally and going to 1995, you can’t tell me you’d be surprised if somebody knew the lyrics to fucking “Gangsta’s Paradise”, “Another Night”, or “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. This is a complete piss take. “Turn the Beat Around”? “Cotton Eye Joe”? “The Rhythm of the Night”?????

        1. Mr D

          My younger sister knows the lyrics to several Beatles songs. That is way longer than 30 years let me tell you hwat

        2. Taffy

          Hell, I’m only 31 and I can sing a couple of their albums from start to finish. When I was a kid, our local library had ’em available to borrow on CD, and I genuinely think the librarian started getting annoyed at how often we’d take out Magical Mystery Tour.

    3. Thag Simmons

      It’s partially a sliding timescale thing, but it’s not that weird for kids to pick up music tastes from their parents, and the availability of music streaming sites means a sufficiently invested listener can develop some interestingly esoteric taste

      1. Li

        This is what I was going to say.

        Claims that it’s unrealistic for Joyce to know songs from 1997 will have to take it up with my child-of-the-90s self, who loved Motownp. And Big Band (Frank Sinatra, etc).

    4. StClair

      Thirty-five years ago is roughly when I stopped listening to (most) new music.
      And when I was her age, I knew several songs that were 20-30 years old at the time. Someone else has already mentioned the Beatles, for example.

      1. Taffy

        That, and Rick Rolling never stopped being a thing. 1987. Almost 40 years old, that song, and I know elderly people who can sing it. 60+ years, not that bullshit 30+ fake “old” shit.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Rickrolling has been a thing since 2007. In two years, Rickrolling will be just as old as Never Gonna Give You Up was when the first Rickroll happened.

    5. Tan

      Out of curiosity, I looked up Wikipedia’s list of Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of , and I’m not going to tell you how many of these started playing in my head as I read the titles, but it was more than one.

      1. Tan

        Ah, that’s supposed to say of (10 years before I was born).

      2. Taffy

        BARBIE GIRL, for fuck’s sake!

    6. Risky

      Well, she started college in 2010 and it hasn’t even been a full year, and it was definitely suggested she listened to them throughout childhood, so… your quibble should be more “why is this one school year 15 years long and rising”?

      1. Needfuldoer

        DoA has a floating timeline. She didn’t start “in 2010”, she started “last year”.

    7. Da Boy

      I know and love songs that were made before I was even born so nothing strange about that.

    8. HueSatLight

      Songs her parents let her listen to.

      1. HueSatLight

        That being said, none of the songs anyone’s listed in this thread are Christian pop music. They’re all catchier music. “But that’s not what Anonymouse said”, a pedant might say. To which I’d up the pedantry, “Anonymouse didn’t say ’30 year old or more recent’.”
        Why does Joyce know the lyrics to a song that is only 30 years old? Knowing Motown and Big Band and the Beatles and “American Pie” lyrics would not be unexpexcted.

        1. Yumi

          And neither would this, is everyone’s point.

        2. Li

          Sure, but Joyce’s parents would still have listened to specifically Christian pop music from 30 years ago, so the point still stands… It’s not like Joyce had non-Christian parents, who wouldn’t have been exposing her to Christian pop music.

        3. Yumi

          And her community in general, and probably any preferred radio stations. (For me, “American Pie” wasn’t something my parents really listened to, but I heard part of it on the radio one day when in the car with them and got curious.)

      2. HueSatLight

        anyways, just wanted to give an explanation instead joining in on a dogpile, and I didn’t think it was apparent.

    9. zee

      See over the years we’ve invented methods of recording things, methods of archiving those recordings in physical ways that can be kept and now digitally and made publicly available with the advent of the internet.

      Songs don’t just stop existing after 10 years dude, her parents heave CDs and stuff :/ When I was 13 I carried around the booklet from my parents Queen Greatest Hits CD in my backpack bc Queen was the only music I listened to at the time. That was like 20something years after Freddie Mercury died

      1. StClair

        There’s a part of me that grew up with cassettes and CDs (and my parents’ vinyl records and even a few 8-tracks and reel-to-reel tapes) and is slightly sad that we will likely never see a new form of physical media for audio. It’s all data now.

        1. Yumi

          I miss when burning mixes onto CDs was a regular thing. I still do it occasionally, but if I want to give one to someone, it’s less certain if they’ll actually have a way to play it.

    10. Kyulen

      I know the lyrics to several songs that are many years and even decades older than me. I assume lots of people do, and that’s not just an autistic thing, right? And why would you limit your music tastes to only songs made after you were born anyway?

  20. Steamweed

    Panel 1 Jennifer: Look, I don’t understand it any better than you do. Nonetheless, here we are.

  21. BBCC

    Jennifer knows the risks of asking Joyce for help.

  22. Suet

    We’re gonna need a rizz check. This might not end well.

    Apparently Joyce has charisma beyond her means, while Dorothy has limited charisma. There is no balance.

  23. Charles Phipps

    Anyone want to bet money on whether or not Joyce will explain that she was involved in a school shooting, attempted SA, stabbing of the SA, and then kidnapping that involved a double homicide? Because Alice thinks that Jennifer doesn’t take a DUI seriously.

    How will she react to her friend being involved in this?

    Jennifer: “Oh yeah, that happened too. Joyce is a tough egg. Hardboiled even.”

    1. Taffy

      If Joyce claimed to be involved with the stabbing of the phoneboy, she’d be a liar. She only heard about that after the fact.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Yeah, Joyce slashed him. That’s an entirely different form of violence.

      2. Charles Phipps

        “Yeah, there were two different incidents with Rape Guy.”

        “Rape Guy?”

        “It turned out it wasn’t his actual name according to Robin. Also, he was in the news trying to sue Amber.”

    2. Thag Simmons

      Joyce having been drugged and nearly assaulted at a party she went to with Billie is something that probably would hit pretty close to home for someone who (it has been implied) was drugged and assaulted at a party she went to with Billie which ultimately required her to get an out-of-state abortion.

      The small mercy for Jennifer is that this is not information that is likely to come up organically, but given that she’s shown a remarkable aptitude at saying the worst possible thing when Alice is involved I can’t rule it out

      1. GholaHalleck

        “Remember when I punched the shit out of your abusive boyfriend at the senior prom?!”

        “Actually no, I have memory loss issues from when you drove us into a tree.”

        1. Charles Phipps

          “One of us took a blow to the head and might legitimately have memory loss so maybe you should be a little more sympathetic to why I don’t remember it.”

  24. Jasla

    BABY, DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAAAAAAAKES
    THAT I MADE

    Honestly some very pertinent Jaci Velasquez lyrics if Joyce belts them at the right time

  25. bwooom

    That last panel is gonna get funnier and funnier the further we go down this sliding time scale.

  26. Layn

    oh. OH. I’m Joyce. I mean I was, before reality ground hope out of me over the past decade, and whenever I disconnect from my internal goings on. Autism assessors always get so hung up on how I have friends, a long-term partner, and manage conversations well, that they make me forget that autistic people CAN be like that.

    This comes hot on the heels of my realization that all those times where I did a social really well and had all this confidence and energy doing it, it’s just been adrenaline, not me secretly actually being an extrovert.

    1. Layn

      Okay, getting Julia Grey as a gravatar is ridiculously appropriate

  27. Aquila

    Just as a point of reference, in the DoA continuity, how long ago is 1997 ?

    1. Jeremiah

      Same as whatever time it currently is.

    2. eh, whatever

      Sliding timescale. DoA is always set in the current year. This year it’s in January 2025, last year it was in January 2024, next year it might reach February 2026.

  28. Chaucer59

    Why would she think Joyce being autistic attracted Joe?

    Also, Joe is rapidly becoming the smartest guy in the cast.

    1. Jeremiah

      It is a meme.

    2. Da Boy

      “The bad bongo I pulled by being autistic” is a meme. Basically saying “this person was attracted to me because of my unique behaviour”.

      1. Steamweed

        Unique behavior, and her jugs, too.

        (jugs courtesy of carla, of course)

        1. Da Boy

          Her jugs were the bait to reel him in XD

  29. AnonGrouch

    There is no way Joyce isn’t a swifty 2 years from now.

  30. Mr. Random

    Is it really unprompted if you prompt her like that?

  31. Yarrr

    What’s the money that Joyce accidentally charms Alice?

  32. DashWallkick

    Yes, Jennifer, it’s because she’s autistic. And not because of what that autism shapes about her personality — ie, her outgoing, sincere, warm nature. It’s not like you couldn’t do any of that at any moment, and you simply pretend you aren’t able.

    1. Jeremiah

      It is a meme

  33. Jdorr

    Unfortunately for what you want Jennifer, autistic charisma is achieved by embracing and accepting our weird. So exactly opposite to the type of charisma you have been trying (and failing) to use

  34. Kyulen

    I hope we get to see how Jocelyne is doing at the protests. Hopefully not too badly.

    1. clif

      Personally I hope we never see the protests because there is always the possibility of things going really south in really unpleasant ways. Unfortunately, it is Chekovs protest.

  35. Crytter

    I’d love to see Joyce’s reaction to the full backstory.

  36. Joy

    Say what you will about Jennifer, she’s very very cute looking in panel one.

    1. Joy

      Lmao Jennifer is funny in panel two, I love that meme.

    2. John Campbell

      I wasn’t big on the bangs at first, but they’re growing on me.

      Or technically they’re growing on her, I guess.

  37. John Campbell

    I’m just wondering if Jennifer even has any idea how to find Alice. Both of their encounters so far have been Billie just randomly running into Alice, and that Billie hasn’t run into her in the cafeteria again may suggest that that caused Alice to stop frequenting those places.

    1. Li

      Well, we now know Alice lives in Forest Quad, so it should be easier now…..

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