263

Miss us
Posted on May 22, 2022 by David M Willis

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263 thoughts on “Miss us”

  1. The Wellerman

    ???

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Agreed.

    2. Nicoleandmaggie

      That last line. Brilliant.

  2. Sirksome

    Joyce and Jennifer. New best friends! The galaxy brain JJ ship we didn’t know we needed!

    1. Yotomoe

      Jokes on you. I ship Jennifer with everyone.

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        Even with Galasso?

        1. Doctor_Who

          Jennifer craves popularity and attention, so why not hook up with the future ruler of the world?

          There will be parades in her honor, statues everywhere, etc. It will be ALMOST enough for her.

        2. AbacusWizard

          Head cheerleader. Problem-solver. Empress.

        3. Yotomoe

          I am willing to believe Billie would date him for the Pizza.

          That’s outta character for her but that’s what I’d do. Granted I feel like she’d probably get with his daughter if she just wants free dining.

        4. Opus the Poet

          There might be an ego feedback that could destroy the world, do you really wanna risk that? Plus Jennifer might reject Galasso because of the age difference.

        5. DrunkenNordmann

          If anythign Galasso would reject her because he’s married and loves his wife.

        6. Clif

          In what universe?

        7. Needfuldoer

          The Walkyverse, definitely. Just re-read the drama tag arc.

          We haven’t seen them interact on-screen in the Dumbiverse, mainly since he’s a tertiary character and Pamela’s been in two strips so far.

        8. Ryan

          IIRC, his wife was in an alternate universe in which the Drama tag had kept her alive. Her being alive was a defining difference from main Walkyverse.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      I really hope these two become besties again, whether in a shippy way or not.

      1. Yotomoe

        A friendship is a kinda ship in my eyes.

        1. The Wellerman

          Ah, Power of Friendship, one of the coolest powers ever. ?

        2. Miri

          It’s in the name – friendSHIP ?

    3. drs

      Joycifer.

      1. Deanatay

        Browningsworth.

    4. BarerMender

      I think Joyce and “Jennifer” would make a fine couple. They’d be good for each other. Yeah, I know, Willis has said Joyce is explicitly straight. He’s also done everything he can to convince us — and all the other characters — she’s implicitly bi.

  3. Suet

    we all remember… only because of the archives.

    if not, it’s just like any other person’s day, some memories may flee, some stay

  4. The Wellerman

    Hey sorry if this is a bad place to ask, but

    Does anyone have like a floor plan or footage of the inside of Mama Bear’s Pizza on IU Campus?

    I’m making a DOA game with Galasso’s Pizza (and Subs) as a level, and I wanna make the interior as close to the comic as possible!!! ???

    1. jackiedu46k

      Oh a game? what kinda gameplay loop are you going for? sounds cool 🙂

  5. Stephen Bierce

    I’ll go along with this charade until I can think my way out
    I know it was all a big joke whatever it was all about
    Someday maybe I’ll remember to forget    –Bob Dylan

  6. Cattleprod

    “My parents split up because they disagreed on whether or not murdering me was bad” carries the same weight as “sausage on pizza”.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Anchovies would be about on par with World War 2.

      1. alongcameaspider

        I actually like anchovies on pizza

        1. Doctor_Who

          I do too, although maybe only once or twice a year when the craving hits.

          But you’ve got to admit, for someone who seems as adverse to her food being in any way “weird” or “complicated”, Anchovy pizza would be a pretty big hurdle for Joyce.

        2. Clif

          Anchovy piza would be a pretty big hurdle for me.

        3. The Wellerman

          what about green onions or narutomaki or bacon?

          Yeah, I know, I like my pizza how I like my ramen ??

        4. Van Jealous

          Only if it’s served by Booker T. and The M.G.s!

        5. True Survivor

          I don’t mind unions; I had look up what narutomaki was; bacon is like the forbidden fruit – delicious beyond description but I know I really shouldn’t have it.

        6. BarerMender

          You can have my share of the salty, greasy stuff.

        7. khn0

          a true unionist thought

        8. Arian

          Definitely.

        9. Clif

          Shallots of the world, unite!

        10. anonymsly

          The Wellerman, I like my pizza (sometimes) like I like Thai food – peanut sauce, grilled chicken, spinach. Ramen pizza sounds delightful.

        11. True Survivor

          Fish on pizza sounds interesting, but I don’t think I could it looking at their little fish faces. I still get the heebby gibbies remembering the time my parents and grandparents went to this seafood restaurant with me and they ordered a lobster. It came whole. I spent the whole dinner trying not return the star from its single dead compound eye. It was solid black, like the void where its little crustacean soul used to be.

        12. Doctor_Who

          The canned anchovies they put on pizza are without heads, you just get little fish fillets. It looks like this.

        13. True Survivor

          Thanks for the tip, but I think it still looks too much like a complete animal for my tastes.

        14. Nono

          If you can’t eat anything that looks a bit like a complete animal, roast chicken must be tough.

        15. PirateTawnee

          Dinosaur nuggets are probably also bad.

        16. Agemegos

          I make a pizza topped with onions, fresh dill, capers, shrimp, anchovies, and mussels. It goes over very well. But I don’t eat fish myself.

    2. Reltzik

      Nonsense. You can’t weigh parents splitting up. That registers as 0 pounds on a scale. A pizza with sausage on it obviously gets weighs MORE.

    3. saltchocolate

      Is this bit about her parents being separated news that Willis just casually slipped into a passing remark, or did I somehow miss it earlier?

      1. JBento

        There was a previous mention of the Browns getting divorced, but it was also mostly a passing remark.

      2. Needfuldoer

        She hasn’t been confronting the situation head-on, but she’s dropped mentions of it this way a few times.

    4. Daniel M Ball

      The personal things always have greater weight.

  7. Gash

    Seems like miss Billie found common ground with the weird church girl that has large, well-drawn eyeballs

    1. Jenn

      Joyce isn’t a weird church girl anymore. That’s kind of the point.

  8. Yotomoe

    https://i.imgur.com/CIINZTR.png (NSFW)

    Alright. I am officially just making this up as I go. I have no plans until literally the very end. So with that said, if anyone has a suggestion of what they’d like to see, I’m open to prompts.

    Story so far…
    https://imgur.com/a/9Ob1cy3 (NSFW)

    1. The Wellerman

      that first panel, Billie’s face and arms are PERFECT ?

      you like boobs, right? how about nipple play or nipple suck? ?

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        I agree with this comment, both the praise and the nipple play/suck. I’m not particular about small or large boobs or big or little butts, either one works for me.

        1. Opus the Poet

          Wait until you get injured by an errant breasticle, then you’ll be singing a different tune. My current size preference has Dina as an upper limit. I used to have an girlfriend with F-cups, she was the one who injured my neck turning too suddenly and caught me across the face with a boob. I couldn’t turn my head that direction for a week, and another 3 weeks before it didn’t hurt.

        2. Needfuldoer

          That must have made for some awkward conversations at work.

          Co-worker: “Can’t turn your neck? What happened, you crash your bike or something?”

          Opus: “… Yeah.”

        3. Yotomoe

          I’ve got a preference for larger ones but I appreciate boobs and butts of all sizes. I always say that every body type has an appeal to it

    2. Deathjavu

      The characters are pretty clearly making it up as THEY go, so that vibe seems on point.

      So, I guess next is whatever Walky would want to do? He must have considered this at some point…

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        I concur with this comment, both the analysis and the character suggestion. (And yes, I intentionally referenced Kyrik’s comment above in the format here cause I like that one too).

        But yeah. I could see Walky just leaning back and concentrating on touching Billie while she rides him.

        Or, if you’re looking for a new position to draw, and if Walky is advanced enough to know it, one of my favorite ‘stall’ moves during sex is a position where the penetrator lays on their side and the penetratee lays on their back and they connect in a sort of L-shape. It allows for very slow and sensual thrusting and works fine with breast play, but prevents kissing due to mouths being perpendicular to one another.

  9. alongcameaspider

    This single strip has Joyce getting more respect then she’s gotten in the past several storylines

    1. MisterJinKC

      Because in the last several storylines she was an asshole.

      1. Username Taken

        Damn that Joyce, lying in bed while Dina sat on her and refused to get off of her while she was in pain. What an asshole undeserving of respect.

        Ugh, remember Joyce extending an olive branch to Becky after their faith-based argument only for Becky to purposely play Christian music at dinner in a low-key aggressive move? Respect not earned or deserved.

        I remember when Joyce had the audacity to bash her fundamentalist upbringing within earshot if Becky, who had stalked her because she felt possessive of Joyce as a friend/emotional buffer. Utterly shameful of Joyce.

        (Just food for thought, IDK)

        1. Taffy

          But she said the fuck-word, which makes her literally Satan.

        2. anonymsly

          Oh man, remember Joyce putting a ton of work into a thing she felt passionate about and stealing that low-paying job Walky had called dibs on and fully earned by existing? What a percussionist move!

        3. Opus the Poet

          “percussionist” reference to the word Willis used to cover for the “b” word he got tired of finding in his comments section.:)

        4. Nono

          She did basically play hardball when Daisy offered to split the slot, though. ‘Give me all the strips or nothing.’

        5. Nova

          So? She worked for it, she gets to ask for what she wants. Let’s not shame women for being assertive in the workplace, thanks.

        6. Rose Red

          And Walky’s reaction was, “I’m happy to do less work”, not “I’d rather have half a comic strip than none”, or “Joyce(‘s comic strip) is cool and I’d be happy to split it with her” or “I’d rather have the full strip, but I’m happy with half” or “hey when one of the other comic artists graduate can we move from splitting the strip to having a full slot for each”… He wasn’t rejected for trying to be accommodating, he was rejected because he basically told Daisy “I want to do as little work as I can get away with”, and she had another option.

    2. Spencer

      It helps when Joyce is interacting with someone outside of the Bad Friend Squad, as they don’t rely on Joyce being their idiot fundie puppy and treat basic acts with a smidge of decency as the carrot to keep her in line.

      1. Sirksome

        That seems a little harsh. Sure her normal friend group has had a bit of a bad showing lately but in general they’ve hit more than missed.

        1. khn0

          plays Turbonegro – All my friends are dead

        2. anonymsly

          Have they? Have they really? One would think, if that were true, Joyce – who as two ‘best friends’ in Dorothy and Becky and a ‘big sis’ in Sarah – wouldn’t be getting her best and most consistent emotional support from someone named Joe.

        3. JBento

          And Walky. “So you’re not going to church on a Sunday morning, who gives a fuck?”

        4. Spencer

          I don’t know what it means to be a good friend when emotionally manipulating someone back into a status quo they loathe is a moral failing you can engage in.

        5. Spencer

          Like I know this is going to play out with the Bad Friend Squad going “maybe I was wrong” but I don’t know how to square a moral development like that where they get to do all the wrong and then just be friends again because Joyce is like that.

          Like I don’t know if I’m going to feel the swell of emotion as Becky tearfully declares “wowzers Joyce it’s okay for you to be an atheist and maybe I shouldn’t try to brainwash you and make you exist in one state for my emotional stability!” That Joyce can have feelings outside the pre-approved ones doesn’t feel like something a cast of characters who are meant to be her devoted friends should go through, it feels like something the Evil Parents would have to consider as they are kicked into an exploding volcano.

          Like I don’t know why I’m supposed to like those three right now when they’re emotionally abusing her for being traumatized by her death cult and if anyone wants to argue that, then you gotta tell me why dictating the thoughts of another person on the grounds of making sure they stay something they hate being for your emotional gratification isn’t emotional abuse.

        6. Sirksome

          I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. It feels like the worst possible read of the situation, because their recent actions and events are still the freshest in everyone’s minds.

          Joyce’s friends have been huge sources of emotional support and without them she might literally be dead. They just kind of suck right now, I think.

          Becky for example was Joyce’s source of unquestioning, unconditional, cathartic friendship and support. Every other friend, including Dorothy would judge, criticize, or roast Joyce for her fundamentalist beliefs except for Becky. Until just now, which is about a week or two ago in comic time, things changed. So now she seems like an asshole.

        7. Nova

          What you just said boils down to:

          “Becky was a good supportive friend to Joyce as long as Joyce agreed with her. Now (since Becky found out Joyce no longer agrees with her) she’s mysteriously turned into an asshole.”

          It’s easy to support people who agree with you. Harder when they’re no longer your emotional-support christian.

        8. Sirksome

          Maybe I didn’t articulate it well. My point is that we’re still seeing the fallout of a very recent change in status quo. That doesn’t mean it invalidates everything we’ve seen in the past. It’s being claimed that Joyce is receiving emotional abuse from her friends, but to me they’re all just struggling to adjust to a new change. It doesn’t have to be something you like. I personally am rather disappointed in Joyce’s friend group too, but I think that’s just life. Sometimes that means you act like passive aggressive, jerks because you haven’t taken the change in your friendship dynamic very well and clearly that’s what some of them are going through.

        9. Seralyna

          You do understand that like, no person is perfect right? It’s pretty wierd the standards that no person could live up to. Declaring every miscommunication and wrong assumption as ’emotional manipulation’ is just, kinda absurd.

          Nobody in real life can be fully aware of how their actions are impacting others, and we all constantly make small mistakes and misjudgments that can lead to hurting our friends without even realising it. To attribute malice, or to make out these characters as having been secretly Abusive People based on that is not only disingenuous, but also cherry picking.

          Literally every character in this story has had moments that have made their friends feel bad and almost none of them were intentionally done with that in mind. Sometimes they realised this and apologised, sometimes they didnt. that’s just kinda how people work.

        10. alongcameaspider

          Ok except Becky is 100% trying to manipulate Joyce into going back to being Christian, she’s admitted such, on screen

        11. Spencer

          Ethan made Amber feel bad about Mike last they talked. That doesn’t make him a bad person, he definitely would be if he started waking her up every morning by telling her Mike is dead before going on with his day.

          Or: there’s a large and tangible difference between doing wrong in the immediate moment and a sustained pattern of wrongdoing born from a specific view of how another person you claim to love is expected to act and even think.

  10. True Survivor

    Joyce needs some stability in her life. Also a hug.

  11. RassilonTDavros

    It’s funny how this comic, about Jennifer feeling like she can’t live people’s memories of “Billie” down, honestly feels like the first time I’ve seen “Billie” since the time skip.

  12. Yotomoe

    I sure hope people don’t remember how I used to be. Past Yoto sucked.
    Current day me ALSO sucks but like in a completely different way.

    1. Josh Spicer

      Current Yoto gives us porn.

      Clearly they’re the better form.

  13. Nono

    I mean, it also sounds like Joyce is always going to keep using her past as an example of who she is, now.

    At some point, as you make more new friends, the trauma of your past is just gonna be that – your past. People aren’t gonna see your past and what you grew from, they’re just gonna see… you, your present.

    You don’t have to let your past be your vantage point.

    1. Miri

      But making that switch – working out who you are now and where you are aiming for, rather than who you were and what damage you’ve clawed your way out of – does take a perspective shift. It took a friend explicitly stating that I was doing it and asking whether that’s how I wanted to define myself going forward to stop it.

      And Joyce is talking to somebody who knows who she was but may not know the details of what she’s been/is going through. Making the point that she has changed too, more so than just wearing glasses now, does seem valid.

      1. wereg

        Dang, dude. You just described my current situation fare better than I ever could.

    2. Nicoleandmaggie

      This comment also explains Liz’s situation. So many connections!

  14. Kyrik Michalowski

    The second to last panel cuts deep, especially when Joyce is trying hard(perhaps a little too hard) to be a different and better person. Yet despite all that, there are some who won’t let her grow.

    I can’t think of any example other than her mom, comment if you have other examples that I’m forgetting.

    1. Nono

      Becky and Dorothy think that they have to trick her into taking birth control like a dog to fix her issues with her period, because Joyce used to have issues with food touching.

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        That’s an excellent example. It treats Joyce like a child who can’t be trusted to do the smart thing.

      2. Edwin I Callahan

        They were doing a bit because Joyce tends to be iffy about any kind of sudden change – her getting glasses is a recent example. But the biggest issue, they assume, is that The Pill = sex, even if it would be used to treat a medical issue. And sex is the Big One, as everyone knows Joyce is a walking definition of self-thwarted sexuality that sooner or later is going to reach uncontrolled fusion. Ruth told her once that when she went off half of Bloomington would be at risk. And it frightens her even as her religious upbringing wears away. Now in this storyline Joyce may be feeling too miserable to make that connection yet, or she may not even know that birth control pills can be used to treat her condition. Or maybe she’s just giving in. Anyway, the Willis will reveal all.
        Or not.

        1. Cerusee

          That’s the angle on this birth control storyline I’m most hoping we’re gonna see explored! How this impacts Joyce’s *personal* fear of her sexuality, which is almost certainly going to linger despite the deconversion from Christianity.

          There was a preview panel on Tumblr recently of Joyce with drawing pad and an easel in an art class, looking uncomfortable, so…..odds on naked model in a life-drawing class? Perhaps a naked MALE model? I hope! If Joyce is sitting in on an art class (I doubt she’s enrolled in one, we would have heard about by now, but she might be auditing, or just sitting in on one to see if she wants to audit or take it properly next semester), it seems likely it’s with the aim of improving her comics art. That, along with going on birth control to manage her unmanageable periods, would a very interesting way to approach Joyce’s issues with her sexuality from the side, if that’s where Willis going with this! She’s looking at a NAKED MAN with and he ISN’T WEARING A FIG LEAF. But it’s for art! She can make herself uncomfortable for that! She’s on birth control that would make it feasible for her to have sex without risking unwanted pregnancy! But it’s not for sex, it’s for her physical health. She can ignore the sex stuff!

          (I also still want Joyce to end up talking to Joe about all that, but I decided Ethan would also be a very satisfying candidate for her to entrust with some of these feelings, since he represents safety to her on multiple levels, and she knows he was dealing with issues of his own in this area a few months ago, and seems much more comfortable with them now. He has OTHER issues now, but hating himself for his sexuality no longer seems to be one of them.)

        2. ninja_jesus

          We may see the return of the Whiteboard Ding-Dong Bandit!

    2. Cerusee

      Becky literally told Joyce that she can’t accept change in Joyce because Joyce remaining exactly the same is Becky’s emotional buffer against all the bad stuff in her life.

      1. Slarstorm

        Later on she also said she was glad she did change.

        1. Deathjavu

          Actually she said that *earlier*, iirc – when she was just starting to hide out on IU campus from Toedad. Becky does not know what the hell she wants from Joyce.

        2. alongcameaspider

          The only change Becky wants to allow in Joyce is change that benefits Becky personally

        3. Spencer

          Like this isn’t even a particularly rueful read it’s just actually canon.

          Joyce was just supposed to focus on the Important Stuff.

        4. anonymsly

          And by Important Stuff, Becky means what she personally regards as important, because Joyce is not allowed to have free will or opinions of her own.

        5. Cerusee

          Becky told Joyce was glad that she was glad “this place changed you” right after she ran away from Anderson, and instead of throwing her out on her ass for being a yucky gay, Joyce told Becky that she loved her and Becky would win out over her own beliefs every time.

          The conversation where Becky told Joyce she was not allowed to be an atheist and that Joyce was not allowed to change because it didn’t support Becky’s emotional requirements of Joyce happened about three days ago in comics-time.

          The only change Becky is cool with when it comes to Joyce is “no longer parrots the homophobia of the church we were both raised in, now that you know I, Becky, am a lesbian”.

    3. Spencer

      Sarah’s gotten on Joyce’s case a whole bunch about it where Joyce now is worse than the idiot fundie who’ll snap and suck a billion dicks.

      1. Opus the Poet

        I for one am glad Joyce didn’t snap, but instead bent a little. She has only changed a little, not a lot. I mean that “little” change is still huge, but deep down Joyce is still the basically decent person her parents wanted her to be. No, not like that, and not like that either, but a person that respects what a person is deep down inside, unless they’re like Toe Dad.

        1. Spencer

          Joyce is fundamentally the same person and the only difference now is that she’s cutting up her genocidal death cult instead of being in it so she lacks the benefit of the doubt of being a Good Christian Girl since, now that she’s outside the status quo, she has to grovel and slavishly consider the feelings of the people who are really perfectly okay with certain kinds of people being subhuman in a legal sense instead of just the culturally enforced moral one.

          Everyone here was willing to cape for Joyce when she was an idiot fundie who dated a gay dude to make him straight and had to double check her bible to make sure it was okay for Becky to be a lesbian. This is because we value a cruel majority dispensing kindness at its leisure than the truth from the marginalized.

    4. june gloom

      I think it’s obvious that Becky and Dorothy and Sarah have all been treating Joyce like a child because she’s not acting like the innocent pollyanna they want her to be.

  15. DailyBrad

    This really does make some more sense of both of their motivations. I can’t say I’ve never been there, wanting a clean slate.

  16. Jabberwocky

    Cry me a river Billie

    1. Marrow

      I laughed out loud reading this ^

  17. Yotomoe

    Joyce’s father actually remarried. He ran away with the Bear with the Enormous rack that used to be in front of that restaurant.

    She’s actually really nice.

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      At least we know now that he has a chance at a better relationship. Where do you think they ran to?

      1. Yotomoe

        Well she was a bear so I assume a cave. Mama Bear is still a Bear after all. But she does make homemade Pizza.

        1. The Wellerman

          Or a Big Blue House. ?

          I really wish I had a bird’s eye view of Mama Bears.

          Why do I tease myself like this? I might as well wish for a chicken and a keg of beer for all the good it’ll do me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

        2. Deathjavu

          It’s a real place you can look up on google maps tho? And they have a website?

          https://www.google.com/maps/search/pizza/@39.1641382,-86.5156917,20z

          I just searched for pizza places near IU and BAM, easy. Don’t think I can get you the chicken and beer though, sorry.

        3. The Wellerman

          Thanks bruh, I appreciate your efforts.

          But what I’m after more specifically is like a floor plan that shows how all the tables are arranged and where the bar and bathroom is and stuff.

          Gonna be a level in a DOA game I’m making! ?️

        4. Deathjavu

          Google maps result has 834 photos, some of which show the interior layout at least to some extent. Plus there’s street view to show how it’s oriented relative to the outside. You’ll have to use creative license and level design principles for the rest. Not like the actual layout is necessarily a good game level.

          If you want better than that, I think you’d have to Willis it and drive there and take reference photos.

        5. The Wellerman

          Way ahead of you, have lots I already got from google, thankfully there’s tons of grafitti there to serve as landmarks for reconstructing the interior the hard way.

          At least if I knew how high and wide the building was, I could get a head start on figuring out what game mechanics would make sense.

        6. Deathjavu

          Street view should be more than adequate for estimating the height & width of the building?

          Sounds like you’re on it though.

        7. The Wellerman

          I guess so.

          I sure hope it’s not this difficult finding a voice actor for Dina tho

        8. Opus the Poet

          That’s easy, you want the quiet one from Puffy Amiyumi, who I don’t remember because I don’t know which one was Puffy, and which one was Amiyumi. Never did figure that one out. I had a hard enough time with the Beetles cartoon and I was a kid back then, Ringo and George were easy but John and Paul in the cartoon were hard to figure out. They had basically the same hair.

        9. BBCC

          Neither is puffy. The girl with pink hair is Ami and the girl with purple hair is Yumi.

        10. Yotomoe

          It would’ve been pretty cool though if the show was about the trio of Ami, Yumi and Puff Daddy going on misadventures.

        11. Arian

          I thought that Bear was male, but I guess I could be wrong. It’s also possible that other Bears also live in Big Blue Houses.

          Either way, if Joyce’s new stepmother is like that Bear, she’s onto a good thing. That Bear is an excellent person.

        12. Edwin I Callahan

          In Indiana it’s more common for them to live in little pink houses.

    2. Needfuldoer

      He’s actually in it for the pizza, but the ursine gazongas are a nice bonus.

  18. Mr. Random

    I have a friend, or I guess an acquaintence, who used to be part of a friend group.
    She came out as trans about a year and a half ago, and recently fully separated from the group. I wasn’t aware of this since I’d sorta been drifting from that group too, but we met up for lunch after a bit during that whole thing.

    One of the (multiple) reasons she was pulling away was that she said she felt like they were still acting as if she had been the person we all “knew” before she came out.

    Her essentially performing her idea of masculinity.

    She wanted to be with people who would know her as she was “now” without the idea of who she was or pretending to be diluting or affecting their concept of her.

    I feel like that’s a more extreme example, and it definitely wasn’t her only motive, but it feels relevant here.

    1. monkyvirus

      I can see why your friend did that especially if was reminding her of a performance she no longer wishes to do. Especially as it related to her gender which is a very sensitive topic.

      However, I don’t think Joyce can really blame her current friends for acting as if she hasn’t changed that much, because 1) you can’t flip a switch and completely change how you subconsciously treat a person and 2) for all they know she hasn’t changed her response to change. After the glasses debacle I’d be like “how the heck will we convince her to take medication???”

  19. newlland(Henryvolt)

    …Life is full of change because almost nothing stays the same, but even when you do want that change it doesn’t happened right a way because it can he a slow process and times almost never on your side. Not to mention to top it all off going off of what Jennifer just said when you do manage to change for what you think is for the better almost no one sees it right away and it has a way of making you wonder if you really are different than who you were yesterday.

    I myself don’t know how much I can relate, at times I think back and wonder if I’m any different than who I was years back. I like to think I am but I can never really just how much a different person I am. Life’s tricky like that and it sucks.

  20. Josh Spicer

    Hey. Boom badda boom.

    Whoop there it is and all that.

  21. C.T. Phipps

    Joyce’s problem is that she hates who she was because she feels she was enabling evil and the people she loves and trusts liked the Old Joyce just fine. Threading that needle is not an easy one. How can you keep the good or even acknowledge there was good?

  22. Cerusee

    OH THESE KIDS. I love this for them, I truly do. These are…some high-quality freshman year struggling-and-trying-to-relate feelings. It’s the kind of thing that can just exist in the moment, or that sometimes leads to a deeper bond. But even the just-in-the-moment version is something real that matters.

  23. Yotomoe

    o3o sometimes I hate cuz everyone else changes and I still haven’t. I kinda hope I can just disappear and be left behind.

    1. Bathymetheus

      Umm … I don’t know you, but I do know suicidal ideation, and what you said sounds like that.

      Please remember that you are a unique individual. At the moment you are making images which people like, which is a contribution to the world. How long you continue to do that, and what you do next, are up to you. But whatever you choose, it will be your unique choice. No-one else can do exactly what you do (and they have their own lives to live anyway).

      Your life is valuable, even if it is difficult.

      1. Yotomoe

        My life isn’t difficult. Far from it. Personally I enjoy drawing and junk. But I’d rather not keep living in the now. I miss being younger, I miss being in college and I miss not feeling sad all the time. I wanna go back but I can’t. All my friends are all different now and I’m still the same. I’ve never liked change all that much.

        But no worries, I ain’t gonna harm myself or nothing. I’m just gonna be all whiny and lame.

        1. thakoru

          hug

        2. Opus the Poet

          You can contact me at my blog if you need a virtual shoulder to cry on. Clicking my username should take you to my blog and just leave a comment.

        3. Miri

          Change is HARD. Rewiring your brain so new responses feel more intuitive than the old ones that no longer serve you takes time and effort. Give yourself time and space to work out what it is about what you’re currently doing that you dislike and what you would prefer. Be kind to yourself!

          Also, remember that you are comparing your complete authentic internal self to other people’s projected, edited self. Not that other people lie about who they are, but they probably filter out a lot of the irritable, worried, self-doubting, messy stuff that you can’t help but be aware of in your own life but don’t necessarily want other people to judge you for.

        4. Yotomoe

          It’s just another thing. Every day it’s just another thing. I’m so sick of it.

        5. Bathymetheus

          Well, yeah, we all feel like that sometimes.

          Anyway, I’m glad to hear you don’t intend to harm yourself. If that ever changes, I hope you will reach out for help.

  24. hazel

    I enjoy this strip a lot. This is the first time I’m clicking with Jennifer AS “Jennifer,” and I actually think this is a better version of her, for having this sort of advice and perspective for Joyce. Good for her, and good of her to help.

    I also think about this like, if people can’t let go of who you were, they keep pressing you back into that box. If you start over with newer people, they won’t threaten that growth in the same way. If that’s why Jennifer avoids the main friend group, I would empathize.

    1. Spencer

      Yep.

      I’m honestly pretty glad that Jennifer’s change so far is generally positive for her and, at worst, she’s not being any more of a jerk than she was prior.

      I’m in the audience and will naturally get sus about Billie dropping her nickname, dumping her girlfriend and then hanging out with characters I like less than I do the main cast, but that’s probably not a concern for the character themself and ykw I like how raw it feels to have someone just fade out of your social circle like that; that’s not really something that can be carried indefinitely in this series, I think, but it sure does have a comfortable authenticity to it.

      1. Thag Simmons

        It does feel like some sort of swing back is inevitable, the name change especially doesn’t feel like it’ll stick, but she has clearly improved in quite a few areas and that’s good to see.

    2. Sombrero

      Jennifer understands New Joyce is going through the same path. I hope Jennifer/New Joyce can provide mutual support to each other. But, on the other hand, the shared experiences as Bille/Old Joyce may make this very difficult. Am I imagining things, or there is a definite tension in these last strips between Billie and Jennifer? I can’t distinguish very well when it’s Billie that acts/speaks and when is Jennifer doing it.

      1. poofdepoof

        This isn’t really an Amber/Amazi-Girl level of dissociation, so why not think of it as Jennifer talking this whole time?

        1. Sombrero

          Because the whole name changing is about trying to get a new start. If you have attempted that at any point in your life, you know these are never clean. The past is always looking for ways to seep in.

  25. newlland(Henryvolt)

    Also there’s Joyce saying “I’m smarter now” constantly putting herself down. I feel like someone needs to tell her she wasn’t dumb for trusting the word of the family and community she grew up with when they kept her in a bubble only gave an idea of the world based on how they wanted her to see it. The minute she got out of said Bubble she learned quickly it wasn’t what it seemed, she’s plenty smart.

    1. Cerusee

      I get why she feels the way she does, but…she has always only been working with the information she had on hand. This is someone who was home-schooled from early childhood with the explicit agenda of filtering out dangerous ideas and influences—which is to say, anything at all that could undermine her family’s incredibly strict fundamentalist Christian ideology. She has at least one brother, close in age, who’s a total mystery to her, because he is so separated from their family, for whatever reasons. Even with the conceit of the chronology of the strip, where ten years of real time has translated into maybe six months of comics time, Joyce has undergone a TREMENDOUS amount of personal growth in a short time frame. Like this is genuinely about as fast as someone can radically alter their worldview and beliefs without the speed of that transformation being kind of a red flag in some way.

  26. BBCC

    Nope. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. You can change and move on and eventually, a lot of people will adjust and move on with you, but you’ll always be the person who acted however you used to act and some people won’t forget that ever, for a variety of reasons, some benign and some not so much. That’s what happens with relationships – some are fleeting, some leave before the change (again, for a variety of reasons), some stick around as the change happens and either adjust with you or go their separate ways, and some only know the new you and only know whatever they make of who you are now. That’s not always fun, but unfortunately, that’s how it works. You can’t go back and undo things.

    1. khn0

      Still possible to take a break with people and knit after a while (time depends) a new relationship on a new basis that doesn’t erase the past but acknowledge the changes enough.

      1. BBCC

        Of course! Sometimes the people who leave come back to you, for good or ill.

    2. Agemegos

      The other thing you do, especially when you are at college, is mingle with a lot of other young people and make new friends.

      You don’t drop the old ones down the memory hole. But you do move away from the other kids who happened to be near you and towards the other kids who happen to be like, and to like, you. You end up not talking a lot about the past because if basically isn’t as important as the future.

      1. Taffy

        Eh, some people you do wanna drop down the memory hole. Even old best friends.

      2. BBCC

        Of course, but like I said, the ones that drift don’t automatically forget you they’ll always know who you used to be, whether they still think of you as that person or not.

        1. Agemegos

          Yeah, but if your paths don’t often cross if doesn’t matter much.

        2. BBCC

          Not really. You’re just a blip in their story at that point. Maybe a very large blip but a blip nonetheless. 99.9% of the time, all parties move on.

    3. ischemgeek

      & some people seem to have the ability to get you to revert back to old versions of you that you don’t want to be anymore so you separate from them for your own sake. Because you don’t like who you are around them.

      (Or maybe that’s just how dysfunctional families work.)

      1. BBCC

        Yuuuup.

    4. Opus the Poet

      I changed my name about the time I was killed in 2001, and there are still people calling me by my deadname (the name I went by before I died, not that I transitioned) who never met me before I died but knew people who did know me before I died. Those people who knew me before I died are allowed to use my deadname because I know how hard it is to think of a person by a different name after you learn one name for them. Everybody else has to use Opus (they don’t have to use the title, the mononym is sufficient unless there’s another Opus present, but in 21 years since I was killed I have yet to meet another Opus).

  27. Dafydd

    I feel ya, Joyce. I was cautious about sausage on pizza too, but one I tried it it was not so bad.

  28. Throwatron

    holy crap this was unexpectedly bittersweet

  29. Lingo

    Way to make me feel OLD, alt-text!

  30. Mr D

    She also ALMOST tasted Jacob’s sausage

  31. Amós Batista

    Again I’m on a strip, still hating it.

  32. brute

    kids it’s been like two months, and those changes were hidden from several of your friends until like a week ago. of course no one’s forgotten who you used to be, got dang give people time to catch up

    1. Yotomoe

      It’s been almost half a year.

      1. BBCC

        Not for Joyce. They found out she was an atheist three days ago.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Her internal conflict has been going on a lot longer than that. It just finally boiled over in front of them in a form they couldn’t stomp out three days ago.

    2. Taffy

      Consider, however, the following:

    3. Luna

      This is kinda the problem I’ve been having for most of this arc. I get the emotional/thematic points it’s trying to make, but the actual time span has been so condensed it winds up feeling like everyone’s overreacting for the sake of hitting those beats.

      1. Yotomoe

        I do think that is kind of a weakness of DOA. I get having the story take place very slowly is part of the appeal, but in 10 years we’ve gone through half of freshman year. Meanwhile enough events have taken place that it feels like the characters should at LEAST be sophomores now. I feel like when a lot of stuff happens to characters over a short time frame it feels less poignant?

        Walky has had 3 different girlfriends in the space of 6 months, Billie went from having a crush, to having a self destructive love pact, to changing her identity and dating someone new in the same space. Amber’s dad went from showing up on parents day to antagonize his daughter to kidnapping everyone and murdering them in the space of a month. This isn’t even just their freshman year. This is merely the first SEMESTER of their freshman year. Every event seems super significant cuz y’know, we have to wait years for them to develop. But for the characters a lot of this developed over days…weeks maybe. Most relationships in the comic haven’t lasted more than a month. Makes it harder to take the emotional beats as seriously when you think “oh wait, they’ve known each other for like a week” I had plenty of people I was great friends with my freshman year in college I don’t even remember the name of.
        Like I’m picturing the characters at like age 30 looking back on their lives like “damn, that freshman year of college was a doozy”.

        1. Spencer

          It’s really more comic book time than it is the most absurd first six weeks of college ever.

          Stuff happens on September the 13th but that September the 13th was depicted over the course of three months means it matters more than an individual day would. Stuff happened yesterday, but the gap between then and now is two whole chapters told over six months.

          Walky’s relationship with Dorothy still matters even if it only lasted six weeks because six weeks doesn’t really exist in the same way here.

        2. Yotomoe

          I think that kinda thing works a bit better in something like Garfield or the Simpsons, where I kinda realize time will never progress so nothing really matters. But time in DOA does progress, just super slowly. Shows that take place in a short time span like Phineas and Ferb tend to be more episodic comedies or like Gravity Falls/Amphibia which are short and have at least a definite end goal in mind. But with the story as it is now, I can’t help but think of the characters experiencing the events in real time, bouncing from traumatic event to powerful emotional response and I think “damn, this would drive someone insane going through this every day”

  33. Jon

    This is reminding me of a great recent strip in Order of the Stick, where the guy who used to be the team’s asshole wild card that nobody liked is talking to a new member of the team who only sees him for his new personality.

    She tells him a great line about “from here on out, the only version of you that new people will know is the version you’ve decided to become” and I really like that mindset!

    Jennifer and Joyce are really sweet in this interaction. Some big, deep feelings and worries here, explored tenderly.

    1. Beef

      Damn Belkar turned a new leaf? I should really get back into oots I haven’t read it since the counterfeit dwarf was hanging out with them lol

      1. BarerMender

        I’ve tried to get back into oots, but I can’t find them. I’m probably too big for them, now, anyway.

      2. Taffy

        I had almost forgotten about the counterfeit dwarf. Was that really so long ago?

      3. Jon

        You definitely should! It’s in the final book now, and the conclusion of the vampire arc was the best of the series so far, in my opinion.

  34. Robbie

    Hashtag big mood

  35. Arianod

    Actually, everybody is kind of more pissed off by who Joyce has *become*(although I trust it’s temporary)

    1. Taffy

      Yeah, but only because Who Joyce Has Become™ isn’t a 1:1 scale replica of Who We Got Used to Joyce Being™, and their innate fandom urges are leaking through over it. “Ribb not munky”

  36. Darkoneko

    ooof. So they have that in common

  37. Clif

    Jennifer, just who are we talking about?

  38. Heather

    Further confirmation that Joyce when calling Christian’s stupid was talking about herself??

    I’d ask when we get confirmation that Becky is convinced of her own superiority but that was probably covered in the wrapping pills in peanut butter discussion with Dorothy.

    Though I also wonder if we’ll get further insight into the problems inherent in a religion where the deity is supposed to be morally perfect and how the hell that is even defined (as in either by the individuals or the culture of said individuals).

    The idea Becky might be seriously thrown that Joyce doesn’t think having sex is bad anymore will also be interesting if it happens and I find it very possible. Honestly I think Joyce will be jealous if she does have a negative reaction. Not jealous that Dina got her Becky but that Becky can do that so easily in her eyes (but imagine Becky misinterpreting that partly because Carla accidentally planted that seed, amazing drama).

    1. thakoru

      Frankly, I think Becky’s less worried about Joyce being upset about her having sex and more worried about Joyce having an “I told you so” moment.

      1. StClair

        Agreed.

      2. Heather

        Very possible. Honestly could also have Joyce questioning how Becky judges what to throw out and what to keep in her religion because honestly it kind of baffled me at points. Granted back when I was a Christian and my moral feelings didn’t match up with god’s I didn’t think it meant god actually thought I was right, I thought there was something wrong with me. Because the Christian gif is horrifying.

        Becky’s ability to edit is interesting but also confusing. Like I get why it can bug people but I’m interested in a further dive into it. Like Becky thinks what she thinks is morally right matches with what god thinks. Which is almost logical when you believe in a morally perfect being. Bur what a potential can of worms.

        1. thakoru

          The way I see it, as an atheist, is that all religion’s made up, so if you realize that the one you’ve been following is kinda messed up, there’s nothing really contradictory about just ignoring the bad parts – no more so than, say, still enjoying Harry Potter despite the flaws of its author. You can believe in God and Jesus without treating the entire Bible as infallible; you can use scripture as one source of wisdom and guidance among many rather than THE source of truth and morality. Again, this is all from the perspective a former Christian, now atheist, and if I’m being honest, what it comes down to is that I believe in religious tolerance even as I don’t believe in any particular religion, and all of this reasoning is mostly just to resolve the cognitive dissonance created by that.

        2. ischemgeek

          Becky, like a lot of religious folks I know, seems to decide what her God believes based on what she believes.

          The Bible isn’t a coherent text on morality or anything else – damn near any moral position in it in one verse can be contradicted by another. So it’s less guideposts to one’s developing morality and more mirror to people’s existing morality.

          Becky chooses what to add or subtract from her own beliefs based on what she currently believes (regardless of whether she lives up to said beliefs).

          Which isn’t to say I think her beliefs aren’t sincere, more that many relatively free thinking Christians and Christians in leadership form their beliefs first and go to the Bible for justification for their beliefs because the reverse isn’t really possible. Even if you try, you’re probably just substituting a religious leader’s or your family’s beliefs for your own, like Joyce did. Which I think is part of the reason Joyce’s faith was so brittle. Lacking a firm connection with her moral center it cleaved off her fairly quickly when she felt her worldview get shaken. Metaphorically, Becky’s faith is like motorcycle armor: tough and flexible. It’ll mold itself to her, and exists to protect her. Joyce’s was the oversteepened flank of a volcano, always unstable and brittle, distorting her form, one wrong earthquake away from collapse.

          John’s faith is a weapon he uses to attack people he doesn’t like. Carol’s is a chain she uses to tie down and limit both herself and others. Not sure yet what Hank’s is. Or Jocelyn ‘s.

  39. thakoru

    Joyce, Jennifer was around when you started swearing. Unless your swearing has escalated since then, in which case I’m going to need you to SAY THE WORD “FUCK” RIGHT NOW.

  40. AGV

    *puts “everything stays” on the speakers*

    1. thakoru

      I was just thinking that. Well, okay, I was singing it. Even though it’s like 4:00 in the morning and other people in my house are asleep. I really like that song, okay?

  41. BarerMender

    I’m getting peeved at the popups on this site that cover most of the screen and can’t be closed.

    1. BBCC

      Hiveworks is pretty good about removing those in my experience. You gotta report the ad in question to them though.

    2. Taffy

      I just got tired of dealing with them and downloaded Firefox. It’s got ad-block plugins and even a permanent dark mode. There are better ways (I assume) to support the creator anyhow, so I do those.

  42. ischemgeek

    I wonder how Jordan will feel when he finds out that Hank split from Carol for Joyce but not for him (in his view, of course the audience can see it was for both of them but Joyce was just the tipping point). I feel very sad for him right now, much as I’m glad to see Joyce grow and develop and own her growth.

    Like, I wanna see Jordan and what’s happened to him more than ever and I really hope Joyce reaches out to connect with him now that she’s apparently taken on (or been assigned by Carol) the “problem child” role in his absence.

    1. thejeff

      While we still don’t know what happened with Jordan, I suspect it wasn’t as dramatic as Carol siding with someone who kidnapped him.

      1. ischemgeek

        I’m sure it wasn’t, and my point is depending on his age and how wrapped up he is in his own pain he might not be able to see it that way. Especially if Joyce is/was Hank’s favorite.

        Anecdote time: when I was 17 I injured my leg bad enough it took me 4 months to be able to walk unaided and over a year to be able to run. My sister, who’d sprained a knee mildly a few years prior got DEEPLY upset at how my folks and the school made allowances for my limitations and recovery months longer than she’d been granted. Thing is, my injury was a lot more complicated. Like odds were 70/30 I’d need surgery (I was lucky 30). When it was time in my recovery to take the aids away and push me to challenge myself, they did.

        But all she saw at the time was people babying me like they hadn’t babied her for an injury to the same body part. She’s always been very sensitive to even perceived slights so the difference in treatment, even though it was for a good reason, was seen by her as favoritism and letting me “milk it”. She acted out by gaslighting me about whether I was in pain or not (It doesn’t hurt, you just like the attention!) And purposefully taking actions to cause me added pain (“accidentally” hitting my sore leg etc).

        So, I could definitely see Jordan acting out in a similar way if he feels Joyce is getting special consideration he was denied or if Carol gets someone to feed him a distorted version. We can see more than he can, after all.

        (And in my family at least it’s not at all uncommon for the former scapegoat to be offered conditional acceptance into the fold in exchange for becoming a flying monkey to be used against a fallen golden child).

    2. anonymsly

      I want to see Jordan too, but I doubt we ever will. I’d be surprised if any of the family even know how to get in touch with him, and/or that whoever’s in Jordan’s life now would know who to reach out to if something happened to him. I don’t think we’ve had any real indication that any Brown is in any contact with the shunned/exiled/expatriate/runaway/whatever child.

  43. Rabisch

    Gasp! What is this? A bonding moment who will lead those two friends to understand they are more similar that they thought and made their friendship stronger? YAY♡!!! But the downside is that Jennifer’s only advice to Joyce would be to find others friends and any attempt to let her inside her new group will be passionately opposite by Raidah.

  44. ADLegend21

    Joyce is still the same except her holier than thou attitude is now a smarter than thou attitude

    1. Taffy

      It’ll probably take more than five minutes to get rid of that, which is definitely gonna work out smoothly.

    2. Needfuldoer

      She flipped polar opposites, from holier-than-thou piousness to holier-than-thou antitheism. Same playbook, just different keywords find-and-replaced in.

      1. Yotomoe

        I think that’s where a lot of people end up. It’s easier to change your opinions than it is to change your behavior.

  45. Pylgrim

    Not sure this is what Joyce needs to hear right now. Since she deconverted, nobody has gone “haha, no matter what you do, you’ll always be repressed fundie chick”. On the other hand, people have been trying to point to her the baby that she threw away with the bathwater.

    So this sounds like validation for Joyce to continue to be an asshole and moreover, to be angry at the people who want her to “keep being who she was”.

    1. JBento

      There is no baby. That bathwater was devoid of baby. Sarah, Dorothy, and Becky have done literally nothing but “how dare you change in this way that I don’t personally approve of, change back”.

      Again, there was no baby in that bathwater, and the bathwater was actually sewage. Radioactive sewage.

      1. Pylgrim

        This presupposes the idea that change is always good, absolutely and uncompromisingly. No, if you were a nice person AND a Christian, you don’t have to become an atheist and an asshole. Going full “nega” is not the only way of changing one bad thing about yourself.

    2. Spencer

      Joyce deserves to be an asshole to the dipshits who are trying to drag her back into who she was, yes.

      This is subtextual in Dorothy and Sarah’s case, this is just actual stated text for Becky.

      I don’t know what being an asshole means when you’re an asshole to the thing that made your parents split up because your mom bailed out the guy who tried to shoot you in the face, but then I don’t value quiet civility that much.

      1. JBento

        But have you considered that this might make people feel like someone doesn’t have to accommodate christians at every turn no matter the personal cost, and isn’t that the REAL problem here and everywhere?

        1. Spencer

          I fucking love how every time I have this argument it’s always using the vaguest nonsense platitudes.

          It’s been seven months and no one can tell me why Joyce the Edgy Atheist is such an asshole, it’s just innately expected because being mean to Christians on the internet after being personally victimized by them is exactly the same as Christians victimizing the marginalized with legal and societal authority.

        2. JBento

          It goes all the way up. I mean, the White House just came out with “Look, we know SCOTUS is about to illegalise abortion in a bunch of states and pave the way for it to be illegal at a national level, but you guys are making them uncomfortable about it and that’s what’s terrible”. Pelosi and the majority whip are actually supporting a vocal anti-choice Democrat in primaries against a progressive (because of course they are, Pelosi and the DNC have never fought anything as hard as they fight progressives).

          But oh no, the christofascists have to face the fact that a bunch of people with no power or influence don’t like them, woe is they.

        3. Keulen

          I’m definitely more annoyed by the party in power that isn’t doing jack shit despite claiming to care about abortion rights, than the party that’s never pretended to care about that. But I’ve come to realize in the past few years that both parties don’t actually care about anyone who isn’t very rich or a giant corporation.

        4. thejeff

          More annoyed by the party that “isn’t doing jack shit” than by the one that’s run a decades long campaign to strip away abortion rights?

          Especially when it’s not clear that the party could actually do anything – at least in the short term. Even had they managed to pass the legislation that nearly every Democrat in Congress voted for to defend and even expand abortion rights, it would almost certainly be struck down by the same Court that’s striking down Roe.

        5. JBento

          I mean, obviously it would, because SCOTUS is about ideology, not law. Who knew that giving a bunch of people lifetime appointments where they have unlimited legislative powers and are not accountable to anyone was a bad move? Who could have foreseen this?*

          Legally speaking, however, I’m not sure it works out that way – if I understand correctly (IF), RvW’s point is that laws that put undue burdens on getting an abortion go against the constitution of the US, but it should be totally legit to make a federal law making abortion legal. I mean, again, it won’t pass a SCOTUS challenge, because SCOTUS is ideological and fuck the law, but Dems could have done this during the early Obama years (when they held the executive and both legislatives) and could certainly do it now (when they ALSO hold the executive and both legislatives), if for nothing else to make the SCOTUS fuckers double-down. I mean, it wouldn’t make things WORSE.

          *only slightly related, but this is also why “expand the court” is a lol solution that won’t work

        6. thejeff

          My absolutely not a lawyer understanding is that Roe held that there was a fundamental right to abortion based on a right to privacy in the Constitution. The upcoming ruling promises to reverse that. With no fundamental right that the federal government is obligated to enforce, the question reverts to the states unless some other Constitutional rationale can be found to allow the federal government to act. It’s certainly a messed up system in lots of ways, but striking down a federal abortion law would be much less of a legal reach than overturning Roe was (will be?).

          Such a law would have been Constitutional under the rights assumed by Roe, but with Roe in place it wasn’t such a high priority and wouldn’t have provided significantly more protection – though it would have helped block the incremental eroding of access before they were in a position to strike Roe down completely.
          In theory Democrats could have done so in the first 2 Obama years or even now – if they were completely 100% united behind doing so. Back then, there was no will at all to kill the filibuster and Democrats used nearly every minute of their brief (and intermittent) filibuster-proof majority to pass Obamacare. Now, they’d have to kill the filibuster and they have exactly 50 votes in the Senate, two of whom are adamantly opposed to doing that.
          They did vote on an abortion bill, which easily passed the House and got 49 votes in the Senate.
          This argument only makes sense if you assume Democrats are uniform and whatever happens reflects the will of the party (and specifically its leaders) regardless of how narrow their margins are. The US doesn’t have the same tools for party control that exist in some other nations. Senators in particular have an enormous amount of power, especially with control of the Senate divided so evenly.

          To circle back to the start of this: Every Republican politician opposes abortion and Democrats overwhelmingly support abortion rights, with only one Senator in opposition, but it somehow makes sense to be more upset with Democrats. I don’t get it.

        7. JBento

          Eh, I get in the sense that when a rabid coyote is let out of its cage, breaks into your house, and bites you, sure the coyote is terrible, but you’re damn well more pissed at the fucker who let it out.

        8. thejeff

          I don’t even follow the analogy – since I don’t really get how Democrats are supposed to have had Republicans in a cage. That’s not really how democracy works, even in this screwed up system.

        9. JBento

          (apologies to rabid coyotes, who don’t deserve the insult of being compared to Republicans)

        10. The Wellerman

          ☝️? THIS

      2. ischemgeek

        Yes, this.

        And the subtextual side is probably worse for Joyce because I think based on what we’ve seen so far that’s how Carol prefers to operate, so having her friends try to apply the same manipulative pressures Carol does is probably triggering as all hell for Joyce’s (likely) cPTSD. I know if I was in Joyce’s shoes I’d be in full on avoidance mode of them most of the time and when they cornered me I’d likely be acting like Joyce (my 4 Fs go, flight > fight ~freeze > fawn) because Dorothy and Sarah are unintentionally reminding Joyce of Carol’s manipulation.

        1. ischemgeek

          Not that what Becky’s doing is OK, but more that at least she’s honest about it.

      3. Pylgrim

        Huh? Nobody is asking her to go back to “who she was”. Changing your beliefs doesn’t mean that you need to change your personality and become an “anti-you” to fully divorce yourself from your past. In fact, by implying that you’re saying that /everything/ about Joyce was bad, tainted by her religiousness, that the only way to be a better, nonreligious person is by overwriting every single thing that used to be her.

        Actually, this is not the first time that Willis has Joyce do this. When Joyce was grappling with her faith and the way people saw her because of it in It’s Walky she attempted to become, literally, Anti-Joyce, the polar opposite of everything she was. Over-compensation is a real thing for deconverting Christians.

        And addressing another of your posts, before you raise that accusation against me, no this is not about protecting the poor, sweet Christians. In all honesty, I don’t like Becky much so my heart didn’t bleed for her when Joyce gave her attitude. But I do like and respect Dorothy and Sarah and share their concerns as atheists who care for /Joyce/ and that concern is that this behaviour is ultimately self-destructive, not affirming.

    3. Mark

      Indeed, I suspect that deep down Joyce is still a better Christian than her parents, and maybe that will re-surface when she’s done scraping off all the non-scriptural gunk that eventually encrusts every religion.

      Meanwhile, welcome to the reality that reputation develops over time, so developing a new one takes time and effort and hearing a lot about the person you no longer want to be.

      1. JBento

        Joyce isn’t a better christian than her parents. She’s also not a worse christian than her parents. Her christian rating isn’t zero, it’s N/A. Like, y’know, she says in this very strip.

      2. Nova

        She’s not any kind of Christian. She’s an atheist.

      3. Sombrero

        If you mean this as Joyce has better moral principles (which in our society bear with them some Christian heritage), then maybe. If you mean it literally, no. The whole point of DOA Season 2 is Joyce facing the (for her previously ugly, but known and feared) fact that she was never a Christian.

  46. goggleman64

    Man, I would like to see more Joyce & Jenn time. I feel like they’re two steps away from teaming up to solve a mystery.

  47. vlademir1

    Man, am I the only person who read the alt text and went here?

  48. Needfuldoer

    I hope this exchange helps Jennifer realize she doesn’t have to box up and shun everything that made her “Billie”, like she has for her last few personality reboot attempts.

    1. Spencer

      Well, what made her Billie?

      Because so far the only part of her old self Jennifer is missing right now is that she’s not a bleeding heart, emotionally vulnerable, unpopular dorkface who had an alcoholic suicide pact with her abuser. When given the opportunity she Alpha Bongo’d her way through Joyce’s idiot children friends in a way that needs that rigid confidence she tries to have in herself, and now she’s being emotionally open in a way that’s genuinely introspective and knowing.

      Jennifer’s better off.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Specifically, she doesn’t have to pretend she’s not friends with Joyce and Walky, or posture for social clout.

        1. ischemgeek

          I don’t think she’s pretending. I think she’s perceived that Wally, at least, (and a lot of the others on the floor) don’t want to see her grow out of the box they put her in. See also last panel of Jennifer’s dialogue here.

          As in, she’s is good at boundaries and has decided if you don’t accept her new self she doesn’t need to associate with you.

          Note also how she doesn’t open up and get real with Joyce until Joyce calls her Jennifer and acknowledges her new self. Joyce and Jennifer are on parallel trajectories right now.

        2. thejeff

          What box did Walky put her in?

          Sure, Walky’s suspicious of this change, because he’s seen it before, but I don’t think he’s done much to even hint at it. The only box he doesn’t want her to grow out of is the one with their sibling-esque friendship. And he’s seen her push that aside to seek popularity before.

          It’s weird to me that people are accepting this change as character growth for Jennifer when it really seems like a reversion to her old problems – other than the drinking, hopefully.

        3. Cerusee

          Yeah, like, Wally is very cognizant of Jennifer’s history of self destructive behavior, and willing to name it…but I think he’s be perfectly happy to see her grow out of that stuff. He’s not invested in the idea that she MUST remain a huge mess because she’s been one in the past.

          He mostly just wants to be part of her life and he’s pushing back against being pushed away.

        4. Needfuldoer

          Exactly. I don’t think he’s trying to influence her new status quo, he just wants to be part of it (whatever it may look like).

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/comicstrip/

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/03-trial-and-sarah/sufferable/

  49. ValdVin

    I’d like to think Becky knows how (new) Joyce likes her pizza.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Well, yeah. She’s a waitress at the pizza restaurant they frequent.

      I think Joyce even told her that one time.

  50. Sam

    Well, yeah, it turns out who you were in the past doesn’t magically go away because the you in the now is different.

    When a bully says ‘I’m not like that any more’ that doesn’t matter to literally anyone. The you in the past was still you just as the you in the present is still you. Regression can and does happen where people make progress to do better then fall back into bad habits.

    Or people act kinder but their thought processes are still so self-centered, they refuse to apologise to people they hurt because ‘they’re different now’ but apparently their refusal to apologise didn’t change.

    And the old you is what sets expectations for the new you and people need time to adjust if some of your lines have majorly changed. And remembering the old you isn’t a bad thing, because it can show how much progress you’ve made and can help you show empathy and understanding to others that HAVEN’T quite made that growth yet and are still working on it.

  51. JBento

    “When a bully says ‘I’m not like that any more’ that doesn’t matter to literally anyone.”

    You’d THINK that, but that’s pretty much all Ruth had to do to have the character that called her out on it be immediately harangued by the commentariat. Spencer’s lucky she only shows up once every five blue moons, or that’d be two characters.

    1. JBento

      (that was a reply to Sam, which I managed to fuck up posting)

    2. Spencer

      I feel like there’s some kinda poetry to a character named Spencer who’s most significant moment thus far is getting on Ruth’s case for being a violent dickhead.

      She is my Dumbingsona.

  52. Lone Duck

    Jennifer is talking about herself as well as Joyce. Even though it’s a bummer, glad they can really bond like this.

  53. Polaris

    Her church tried to kill her what ?

    1. Spencer

      Her church bailed out Ross with Blaine’s assistance after he tried to shoot Joyce in the face and kidnapped his daughter, whereupon he kidnapped Joyce and her friends.

    2. alongcameaspider

      They teamed up with a mobster to bail out the guy who threatened her with a shotgun because their homophobia was more important then her safety

      At the very least they decided she was acceptable collateral damage to make sure Becky wasn’t out from under their thumb

      1. Agemegos

        It still wasn’t a shotgun. And I still don’t get the unrelenting revisionist agenda that keeps on and on trying to gaslight us about that.

    3. Polaris

      Ah, I see… So, indirectly tried to kill her (doesn’t make it better, I mean that’s why I didn’t think about it).

  54. Keulen

    I think Joyce is better now than when she was a fundie Christian, and it kinda annoys me that most of her friends don’t appear to see that. But I also think Jennifer was better when she was still calling herself Billie and was still hanging out with Joyce and Walky and the rest of their friends more, instead of mostly avoiding them all now for a bunch of jerks who are interested in “popularity” and don’t actually care about her.

    1. JBento

      Ehhhh, “the alcoholic in a suicidal death spiral is no longer drinking herself to death” is definitively an improvement in my book.

    2. thejeff

      You can make an argument for either case, based on when you pick your moment. Early Billie and early Joyce were both pretty bad – in different ways. Joyce with the full on fundamentalism and Billie in alcoholic self-destructive popularity seeking mode. Current Joyce and Jennifer are in better shape than either at their worst.
      But both grew a lot over the last semester. Billie especially seemed to be in pretty good shape at the end of what we saw: she’d stopped drinking, gone to therapy, reconnected with Walky, given up the superficial popularity in favor of her real relationships and being honest about them and herself. Now she’s hanging with shallow manipulative friends, seeming to have found the popular girl niche she’d always wanted, but at the cost of separating herself from at least one actual close relationship – Walky. (Ruth seems to be a separate issue or a more likely a catalyst.)
      Joyce is more complicated – she’d lost throughout the first season most of the fundie bigotries, even before she realized she was losing her faith along with them. She’d also lost much of the assurance that she was right about everything. It’s that she seems to have reverted to now that she’s openly an atheist – especially in that scene with Dorothy and Ruth. Not so much that she was better at the start when she was all out fundie, but that switching back to the “I know best” attitude but with atheism doesn’t compare well with the more humble attitude she’d reached towards the end of her time as a Christian.
      That said, she’ll get better. She’s got more growing to do and that’s never a linear path. Reversions are part of the process.

  55. Adept

    Let’s not forget that Billie, Jennifer was a self-destructive teenage alcoholic. She doesn’t seem ok, and has behaved in ways which aren’t nice towards her friends, but… where she was before wasn’t good either.

    1. thejeff

      Though by the end of the first season, she’d already stopped drinking and started therapy. She’s certainly better off than she was at the start of the comic, but that can still be a step back from where we last saw her as Billie.

  56. Lily

    it’s ok, you’re still in your 20s, eveyrone will move on in a decade or so (tho i’m sure some high school friends i haven’t seen in forever remember me as a cheerful teen in their hands)

    1. Julez

      They’re literally 18, it’s been like 3-4 months since we saw them pre timeskip.

  57. Taffy

    What I’m learning from the comments today is, if you used to be a shitty person, the only way you can make any meaningful, accepted change is to move away and break all ties with everyone who’s ever seen or spoken to you, because they’re all going to remember and they’re all going to try to force you back into that box. You can do whatever you want to stop being toxic, violent, a Clerith shipper, etc., But actually you haven’t stopped doing those things, you’re always exactly who and how you used to be, and it’s the job of everyone around you to make sure you’re constantly reminded of every single individual misbehavior, at all costs.

    1. Spencer

      Yeah actually. Kind of. Not in those exact words, obviously.

      Here’s the thing, or at least thing I see; Redemption isn’t real, but that’s because redemption isn’t an EXP bar that you fill until you’re redeemed and it’s all gucci. Redeeming yourself to another person is definitely not real, because that really only happens once another person forgives you, I can’t explode myself to defeat Majin Buu and thus I am redeemed for saying Candice looked fat in that outfit, my worth as a human being isn’t on hold until Candice gives me the okay, our actions are always there and what matters is the value we ascribe to them.

      if I am forgiven for a wrongdoing, there’s nothing really deeper than that. We value each other more than the pain caused. If I’m not forgiven, it’s because I’m not valued more than that pain, and I don’t think that makes either of us objectively bad, I think it means that we had a bond and I broke it, but that I did isn’t an objective metric of my worth as a person, it just means that, by this one particular person, there’s nothing left to try for.

      People are too complex and malleable to subject them to boxes like Redeemed and Irredeemable, but they are to me and my relation with them because I’m not bigger than myself. If I stop liking someone, they aren’t innately bad. A person can do the wrong thing and still deserve to wake up in the morning, and, ultimately, the only person you can redeem yourself to is you, because everyone else has a choice to forgive or not.

      There is someone in my life right now that I love like he’s my father, and there will never be a day where he stops hurting me in the one, specific way he has proven incapable of changing. I’m always going to love him, I will still be hurt when it happens regardless, and I will be mad until I no longer need to be until it comes to a point where I cannot stop being mad. Then, I will move on. I hate it, but I love him more than I hate it, and it’s as simple as that.

      TLDR: The people I hurt aren’t beholden to forgiving me anymore than I am beholden to living up to their forgiveness.

      (and Clerith shippers are villainous reprobates)

      1. Taffy

        I’m gonna focus on the important part of this and mention that while there are some decent Cleriths in the world, the bad far outweigh the good and the deaths they’ve caused can never be overlooked.

    2. JBento

      Today? People have been shitting on Asher for something he did when he was a literal kid every time he shows up.

      What’s a Cler- wait, is that Cloud-Aerith? Ew. Aerith had all this power and she sat on her ass while people suffered. Tifa’s power is “I punch hard” and she spent her life taking care of orphan kids. Tifa is clearly the superior option. How is this even a discussion?

      1. Taffy

        I’ve never played the game, does Aerith have some kind of actual power? I thought she just had Special Blood™ and needed to get to a specific place to use her White Materia, not that she was some kind of FF8-style Sorceress with powerful magic as a natural ability. She can wave a big stick around, but I’ve always sort of assumed she needed Cloud and them as a sort of armed escort, or at least as backup. Again, haven’t played it, so I’m not 309% sure, but does the White Materia do more than just activate a big force field to block the Meteor?

        1. Spencer

          AFAIK she’s just vaguely mystical as the last Cetra.

          She does beat a yakuza guy with a steel chair in the remake.

  58. Victor Riley

    I’m reminded of part of Matt Smith’s final lines as the Doctor: “We all change, when you think about it, we’re all different people; all through our lives, and that’s okay, that’s good, you’ve gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.”

    1. Taffy

      Yeah, but he said it in a positive way, as a good thing.

      1. The Wellerman

        Yeah, that’s one very particular thing I notice about humans.

        It’s that they have this uncanny inability to reconstruct previous states of belief as individuals — they have to depend on external evidence (the memories of other humans, diaries, etc.) to get an accurate reflection on what they used to believe and what came of that.

        “Intelligent Design” my ass. ?

  59. Bagge

    Ouch

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