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Burger King
Posted on June 28, 2016 by David M Willis
As with the previous featured worship song, here's an embedded YouTube video for music to accompany the lyrics.  Also, you know, in case you have a pressing need to see Bill Murray circa What About Bob Rich Mullins perform a song he wrote that was incredibly important to me when I was 12.   The song is more memorably performed with the hammered dulcimer, but I felt like leading with the live performance. Rich Mullins died in a car accident on September 19, 1997, which was just nine days into my first webcomic, Roomies!.  Sometimes I wonder if this was the catalyst of my descent into depravity and squalor.

395 thoughts on “Burger King”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “Did you go to the bathroom… HERE?”

    “W-what”

    “because I’m starting to think some of the people here deserve it”

    “oh… then yes”

    [sorry I got nothin’]

    1. Ana Chronistic

      as kids, we called what would eventually become my family’s church “Weight Watchers”

      …I still don’t get it

      (it’s kinda shaped like the Nike swoop)

      1. butts

        We always called the big Catholic church in our town “Our Lady of the Airplane Hangar.” Because… it looked like a big… airplane hangar.

        1. nobodybasically

          We never had a nickname for our church.

          Is it a common protestant thing?

        2. butts

          Wouldn’t know. Jewish.

        3. Jack Stamper

          We…
          …actually, nobody in my village really visited church regularly enough for a nickname, especially the youth. Heh, it’s Europe…

        4. Binky

          No-one in the UK really talks about church outside of church so not being a churchist I didn’t really church enough to church churches.

        5. Meme

          You have won the interwebs

        6. begbert2

          Church church church church
          church church church church
          church church cancer church.

        7. Loiterer

          In my town there’s a church called Silo of the Souls.. because it looks like a huge tower silo.

        8. Kirkybobz

          That sounds so fucking metal. It sounds like a raid in a fantasy MMO. I want to go to the Silo of Souls!

        9. Jezi

          I think that was actually a boss in the last World of Warcraft expansion…

        10. legobil

          Somehow this made me think of http://www.wowhead.com/zone=4809/the-forge-of-souls in wow. That is not the last expansion however.
          Bronjahm

          was such a cool boss 🙂

        11. legobil

          Godfather of Souls***

        12. NakedDumblydore

          My friends and I refer to one of the big megachurches in town as the Church of Mordor.

        13. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          We have one here with a huge complex of buildings on the side of a hill. We call it Fort Jesus.

        14. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          (Note that “we” here does not include any members of it, as far as I know.)

        15. Charlie Spencer

          There’s an independent Baptist church near us that squeezes ‘fire and brimstone’ novellas out on the front sign. My wife and I refer to it as the “Church of the Pithy Epiphany” and “… the Depressed Congregation”. I don’t believe in much but if I were looking for a house of worship, this one wouldn’t get a test drive.

        16. Ragingagnostic

          When I was a young girl, I was driven past this small white church shaped like a shoebox. Other than the color, there was nothing remarkable about it. You’d never even have known it was a church if it didn’t have the words “One-Stop Home of Jesus”. Because of that and it’s prosaic shape, I always thought of it as a roach motel for the ungodly. Sinners check in but they don’t check out.

      2. slicey

        It looks like the lobbies of Mormon churches, I use to hide in the mother room (a room of the women’s restroom where nursing moms could go for privacy and still hear the sermon) or on the stage over looking the basketball court.

      3. Raza

        There was a church by my old house called “Lady of Perpetual Sorrow”
        I always wondered wtf you’d name your damn church that!

        1. No Name

          The same reason you’d name your daughter Delores.

        2. pyrpyr

          Or Deirdre

        3. zoelogical

          or Mary, come to think of it

          association now is with the virgin Mary, but it means bitter

        4. Floyd

          Because you have a poor understanding of spanish, where it’d be Dolores?

        5. Ana Chronistic

          because Puritans were a miserable lot

      4. maxyai

        We always saw the statue up on top of the Mormon temple and called it The Angel Macaroni.

        1. Whirlwitch

          Brigham Young, he came to town,
          Riding on a pony,
          Stuck an angel on his church,
          And called it Macaroni.

      5. OvertonSquarehead

        Memphis has the Thumbtack Church. It used to be Baptist, but the Baptists built a bigger building somewhere else and it got bought by a really, um, *unique* non-denominational (like, built a giant Statue of Liberty with a cross instead of a torch, has ungrammatical ranting billboards everywhere that make as much sense as a Dr. Bronner’s bottle).

      6. TachyonCode

        Are you sure it was not spelled “wait”? Because “wait watchers” is a phrase I would associate with some denominations of churchgoers…

      7. RabidLitMajor

        We have one of those HUGE churches in our town…big enough that it’s where we took the PSATs and rehearsed graduation there in high school (with a class of 550ish).

        My grandpa always called it “Six Flags Over Jesus”

    2. Dana

      Because maybe people are looking at that, not the wrist brace.

    3. zoomer296

      You should’ve said “Christianity: Have it Yahweh!™”

  2. Mr. Mendo

    Oh, I have a feeling Joyce is about to go full Pixy Misa!

    1. JoyceParty

      Hooooly reference, Batman.

  3. Leorale

    Thank you for being honest, Joyce, this is a conversation that needs to happen, and without Carol there.

    1. Woof

      Agreed, I’m sure Joyce will always try to see eye to eye with her mom, but I can’t help feeling like that one’s a lost cause. Joyce is evolving (ironically), and her entire worldview is shifting. Carol either has to adapt to this, or, sadly, she may end up falling out of Joyce’s life for a time.

      1. Cerberus

        Yeah, and her mom’s response to that shifting is being extremely inflexible and setting her beliefs above her daughter’s humanity, trying to bully Joyce into abandoning who she is and this change and instead staying what Carol wants her to be.

        Which, unless Carol is suddenly able to change, I don’t see that relationship ever being salvageable and I see Joyce starting to pull more and more of a Jocelyne, finding whatever excuses possible to interact with that part of the family the minimum possible amount.

      2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Now I am wondering if the dinosaurs were evolving ironically or unironically when they changed into birds.

        1. ganymedeanoutlaw

          I’ve been working on a beak, you’ve probably never heard of it.

        2. Lovely Monsters

          “Actually, we had feathers as a thing *before* the birds did.”

    2. Troqu

      She needs the conversation and she needs her dad to just give her a hug and say she’s not wrong to be upset I think.

      1. maarvarq

        she needs her dad to just give her a hug
        Yep, particularly given how sad she looks in panel 5. *Sends virtual hug to Joyce*

  4. LuniasM

    Aww, poor Joyce.

  5. taran47

    This is definitely a uniquely designed church, at least compared to any churches I’ve seen or been to.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      I think Willis said it was a converted school.

      1. David M Willis

        That part of the building was an addition, I believe. It had that solarium area facing the church offices, with some additional classrooms over both on a new second floor.

      2. tim gueguen

        A lot of small churches end up in funny places. There’s at least one in my city that’s in a former pawn shop. Another is in a strip mall beside a Mexican restaurant. The most ironic one to me is that the former Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall a block from my house is now an Ahmadiyya Islam mosque. The Ahmadiyya are seen as not true Muslims by many other Muslim sects, just as the Witnesses aren’t considered truly Christian by many other Christians. The building itself isn’t much bigger than a large duplex.

        1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          In the bad old days, religions would steal each other’s holy sites and convert them. Now we just use strip centers.

        2. Lan

          There’s one that used to be a Walmart out here. Now it’s quite literally a den of mongrels. Overran with feral animals and weird hobos.

        3. Rusty

          So, what changed?

        4. N0083rP00F

          Strip centers? How about a strip club? I have seen at least three different clubs on my daily and former daily commutes change hands/names before eventually becoming a place of worship.

          I liken it to hotels and motels slowly spiraling down and ending up a days inn and eventual demolition.

        5. Dorje Sylas

          It’s either reuse existing buildings or build new ones. It’s not past/modern religious leaders faults that it was/is cheaper to just use pre-existing structures already custom built for hosting large masses of people. Pragmatic, and as a bonus more tithes for the religious hierarchy.

          When global society collapse in a fit of neo-great-depression and isolationism, I fully expect stadiums to be converted into mega-churches, after all, they kinda already are places of pagan worship to individuals and meta concepts of “team”.

        6. Killahkakes

          Honestly i remember my dad actually went to this huge worship night hosted in an outdoor stadium, it seemed pretty cool cause there was a concert and people were sitting on the lawn and stuff. So i mean they already have been used, its not too far off to see these in use, but i cant say the same for the setting you’ve placed them in.

        7. WaytoomanyUIDs

          That’s not quite the whole story. Cristinanlty while it was taking over europe
          had a bad habit of building brand new churches on pagan holy sites.

          Although the Parthenon’s conversion to a church at least saved it from being demolished for it’s stone like most of the temples in Rome. And then there is the other church in rome whi ewas originally a converted Roman brothel, IIRC.

        8. WaytoomanyUIDs

          That should be the Pantheon, although the Parthenon was also converted into a church, and later mosque before being used as a gunpowder store and then blown up by the Venetians during a siege of Athens IIRC.

        9. Gandalf007

          It’s already happened – the old Houston Summit, where the Rockets played (so an NBA arena, capacity 20-something-k), is now the Lakewood Church, home of Joel Osteen.

        10. BP

          “It is written that this should be a den of thieves, but you have made it a house of prayer”?

        11. Tawdry Quirks

          In my old neighborhood, there was a church that belonged to a black Baptist congregation, but they outgrew their building and moved their services elsewhere. An Ahmadiyya group bought the building and turned it into a mosque. It’s poetic justice that a former white flight neighborhood now has a mosque.

        12. Charlie Spencer

          A congregation rents out the auditorium of a high school near me. I see it as a win-win-win. The congregation doesn’t have to maintain a building, the school district gets an extra source of income, and I don’t have to subsidize another piece of property that’s not on the tax rolls.

        13. DRA2840

          Lol. In my city, there was a “adult mall” with many sex shops, porn cinemas, and was a point for sex workers at night. They also had normal stores ~low budget ones~, but were not famous for those (a few exceptions: the biggest comic book and music stores in the city).

          Internet came, and pretty much all porn cinemas close (I think there is still one, but I’m not sure), and most people buy their sexy toys on-line. Sex workers moved from there (not sure why, but I guess the movement fell after the cinemas closed). And since the location is pretty good (right in the center of the city), but the price is low because of the mall’s fame, many low-budget churches moved in.

          Time passed, and a few of these churches grew, buying their neighbors stores. And of course many of these neighbors were porn cinemas, sex shops, lingerie stores, adult bookstores…

        14. Benjamin Geiger

          The biggest church around here was once a mall.

          Not a strip mall. A mall.

          One in my hometown took over the neighboring grocery store strip mall complex.

    2. Troqu

      My mother goes to a church with an area like that. I go for her peace of mind when I’m in her area every couple years. She understands my situation with religion, but has always preferred company to going alone so I don’t mind going for her sake.

  6. Amanda

    Oh Joyce… 🙁

  7. Andr3wtime

    “Stigmatas are the only hand injuries that matter here.”

    1. Anonymouse

      “Stigmata *is* the plural form sir. Bad grammar is a sin here.”

    2. brionl

      Anyway, that’s more of a Catholic thing, than a Protestant. Protestants do Speaking in Tongues.

      1. Inspector Hound

        Technically that’s true, although a lot of Protestants would be surprised that they got lumped in with the Pentacostals.

  8. miados

    you hear a lot when you are away long enough to notice people talk upon your return

  9. Stephen R. Bierce

    So where’s Herb?

  10. Bicycle Bill

    That face in panel five — makes me just want to hug her and cuddle her and never let anything bad happen to her ever again.

    1. -Sentinel-

      Yes. But that’s how I feel about Joyce in every single panel where she appears.

  11. Jay Eff

    *reads alt text*

    So– the House of God was also the Home of the Whopper?

    1. Doctor_Who

      The Burger King of Kings.

      1. Kris

        Let he who is without sin have a whopper with a side of chicken fries and a cold drink.

        1. Jon Rich

          I love it.

        2. Neeks

          Let he who is without sin have it his way.

        3. Ed Rhodes

          Oh, now I’m hungry!

      2. JustCheetoDust

        Have it Yahweh.

        1. figureaddict

          Ha!

        2. Lieutenant Dan

          Brilliant!

        3. Orion Fury

          I think I got a solid 30 seconds of laughter out of that.

        4. AUnicornNoOneAskedFor

          OMG you win. That was an outloud cackle from me.

        5. Viga

          Best one!

      3. Dara

        Here, this is for you.

        1. Dara

          (This is really a case where I wish I could embed an image 😀 )

      4. qman

        Hail to the King, baby.

    2. Emily Crowe

      Just wait for the Lord of The Onion Rings.

      1. magicallady

        chronicle of funyuns

      2. Ana Chronistic

        Better yet: Sneak King of Kings

      3. inqntrol

        King Salmon’s Mines

  12. miados

    well i would say it is huggable as in it makes me want to hold her close and let her know it can get better

  13. Kris

    The people at this church are kind of a bunch of assholes.

    1. Leorale

      B-words. 🙂
      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/avoid/

      1. inqntrol

        “What a bunch of bongos.”

      2. Kris

        This just reminds me that there hasn’t been any Sierra in fhe comic in forever! Willis fix that please!!

        1. David M Willis

          gotta wait until august

        2. Woobie

          Comic time or our time?

        3. inqntrol

          Our time. If it were comic time, we’d have to wait like 1-2 decades.

        4. Needfuldoer

          DoA will probably need another 20 years to get through Freshman year at its current pace.

        5. HeySo

          Last day of freshman year, Willis will end the comic on a “do they all die” cliffhanger. And probably throw in some random soggies reference.

          True story.

        6. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          Should I start practicing now how to yell “Damn You Willis!” while shaking my cane?

        7. Reltzik

          Better not. By then we’ll have replaced cane technology with hover-support. Just practice flipping the bird, that works at every age.

        8. Strangeshapes

          So, Dumbing of Age meets Game of Thrones? I’d watch that.

        9. HeySo

          Huh. Yeah, so would I. Willis either writing a goofy slasher-horror, or taking a darker, more serious approach to the original Walky storyline would definitely make for interesting reading.

      3. Stairmasternem

        Huh, forgot about that. I guess maybe Joyce’s family will be switching churches again.

        I mean even after Becky and Joyce return to school, the parents are gonna have to deal with going to the same church as someone who pulled a rifle to their child.

        1. Cerberus

          I think one of her parents is more okay with that reality than the other.

        2. Stairmasternem

          More okay with it sure, but I doubt she’ll like the whispering and side glances. Besides, if they are a typical Christian family unit, the father tends to have more weight in the decisions.

        3. Reltzik

          And that’s a good thing.

          … in this case.

          …. maybe?

          … crap. I iz conflicted.

        4. zoelogical

          yeaaah but that doesn’t make Carol a pushover. like. you know the saying “if mama ain’t happy nobody’s happy”

          because mama’s not allowed to make her own decisions or own her own feelings as a grown adult and has transference as the only emotional option open to her

    2. David

      Fun fact: in the original Greek, the Holy Spirit is ἅγιον πνεῦμα (“hagion pneuma”), with pneuma being the root of pneumatics. All it requires for progress is inspiration in the same direction.

      Or, as the Germans say: Have a good Fahrt!

      1. DonDueed

        God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spare Tire.

      2. HeySo

        Pneuma originally meant breath [though with a bit more complex associations], got poeticized by the stoics as breath of life, and transitioned into meaning spirit when the Abrahamic religions took hold of it.

        Haigon is “a thing which is sacred”, ie “holy”.

        It’s basically a literal translation, going to Holy spirit from Haigon Pneuma.

  14. Kernanator

    Every time someone is an asshole in this comic, I’m surprised, even when I shouldn’t be.

    1. HeySo

      Because it’s just like real life?

      ..I’m not being facetious, this comic understates my own experiences by quite a bit. Most fiction is idealistic, self-censored, or underdeveloped- which leads to a rather unrealistic contrast to reality.

      Not that the idealism or innocence can’t be nice, but it’s also refreshing having something more identifiable to work with- and to hope that, unlike so often in real life, things will work out in a positive manner. And if not, well.. that’s something worth reading, as well.

      1. Cerberus

        Totes.

        A lot of works that include stories of marginalized folks or rough stuff like this makes the bad neat arcs about one specific individual being a dick, not a culture and so either convincing that one person to overlook that bigotry or getting them to go back off screen into background character hell is presented as “what it’s like” to be X.

        And the reality is that there’s dicks, but it tends to be the accumulation of dicks, a general feeling of culture where it’s just coming from everywhere and when the one specific dick who’s scarier than the others or the latest form of the worst (Toedad, Mary, Blaine), it’s awful because it’s drawing on this pool of cultural support.

        And that’s the reality of bigotry and assholery. Toedad was built by this church culture that would backbite and snipe at someone who dared get shot at by one of their own because she makes them think about their beliefs.

        Mary was built and feels supported by a general culture that feels comfortable policing what spaces trans people can participate in and hits harder because she’s not remotely the first person to harass Carla about her identity.

        Blaine was built and feels supported by a general culture where children are the property of their parents to be used as they see fit and we see in Amber/AG that escaping an abusive parent physically is basically just the start of the battle as far as recovery from that goes.

        The culture is harder to punch out and doesn’t just go away because you get that one triumphant “win”. And I feel that’s the realest part of this comic.

        1. davidbreslin101

          It’s like how we have this cultural icon of The School Bully. Looking back at my actual school, there was no designated Bully but there sure was a lot of bullying. It was just a thing most kids DID, out of habit, to kids lower in the pecking order. Go ballistic and punch out a (lower-case) bully, as I sometimes did, and there’s several hundred to take his place.

  15. CleverTrousers

    That’s a bit predatory.

  16. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    But isn’t there only one King?

    1. Silly Name

      And his name is Elvis!

    2. Deanatay

      Apparently, his name was ‘Burger’.

  17. Vince

    I always feel bad for Rich Mullins when I think about how he died. He was in a car accident on a highway, was ejected and was ran over by a semi that swerved to avoid the wreck. When I was into the whole church thing, I really liked his music.

    1. Vex Godglove

      The irony is he had one of God IsMy Copilot bumper stickers.

    2. OvertonSquarehead

      I’m just going to leave this here:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9FkWlBuls8

  18. magicallady

    i think i was a little younger than joyce the first time i would walk out of church

    1. magicallady

      no wait i was definitely much younger than joyce was. i think i was….15

  19. Cheebs

    This brings back memories…anytime someone outside the clique stood up to ask for prayers or came to church in a cast or brace, it was sneered at as “attention-whoring”. “They don’t even put money in the plate every Sunday.” Etc. So glad to be away from there. Absolutely toxic environment.

    1. Cerberus

      *hugs* That really sucks and I’m also glad you managed to get away from that toxicity.

      Ugh, “attention whoring”. It is such a noxious little statement that really just gets more awful the more you think about it. I mean, there’s the anti sex worker language, but it’s also just so fucked on every level.

      Whether it be the treatment of attention as some precious finite resource that others are stealing from you by existing in a physical space. The not-at-all subtle way it is frequently wielded as a club to bully out marginalized community members or those who’ve been victimized in some fashion and imply that their existence is somehow doing you a wrong. The way it is used to justify stalking and harassment because the disproportionate attention they pay you is used as proof that you were trying to get them to fixate on you and thus steal the precious attention bitcoins out of the aether.

      The way it treats attention as a universal good, when it is so obvious that attention in large doses is toxic (I mean, how many celebrities have had meltdowns because constantly being surveilled fucks with their heads?). Fuck, just getting the massive number of death stares from being visibly queer is enough to exacerbate massive social anxiety problems.

      And the way it is frequently wielded specifically against women to justify misogynist language (and I don’t believe that’s an accident, nor is it an accident that people are called “attention whores“).

      It pretty much only serves as a signal that the person using it is a victim-blaming piece of shit.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        It sounds like conflating attention with status, which is a finite resource in a zero sum game, and the most precious thing in the world to a lot of people.

        1. Leorale

          Closely related to “they’re just doing it for attention”. You know, if somebody asks for attention, maybe they need some damn attention, how about we give them some.

        2. Cerberus

          What would our species be like if we weren’t so obsessed with hierarchies, with viewing everything as a zero sum game with winners and losers?

        3. Reltzik

          BONOBOS! … wait, they’ve got social hierarchies.

          …. Mmm… maybe some sort of solitary species that never interacts with each other at all?

          Something like jellyfish, maybe?

          I’m kind of thinking that being at least somewhat obsessed with social hierarchies is part of what it means to be human. Not that that’s a good thing, but it is a thing, just like our mortality. The question what would we be like if we weren’t so obsessed with hierarchies doesn’t make sense to me. It’s like asking, what would humans be like if they weren’t humans.

        4. Cerberus

          Fair.

        5. butts

          And yet I find myself asking that on a daily basis.

        6. HeySo

          except striving to overcome our flaws is our greatest virtue and hope as a species. striving to overcome our morals, by contrast is.. uh, definitely going the other direction. :X

          In other words, if we know it is a negative and take a “that’s how it is” stance..
          ..well, think about that in any other ethical context.

          Idealism is a powerful thing- it’s our hope for not only our world to be better, but for us ourselves to be so.

        7. Reltzik

          Okay, fine, but social hierarchy is so entrenched in pretty much all of our social systems. If we could somehow get rid of it… we’d have to start over from scratch, and there’s no way to tell what that would look like. All the assumptions would be out the window. It would be something completely different.

          I think the trick is adjusting existing concepts of social hierarchy to disincentivize this type of predatory behavior. Like if you do this sort of thing, you move down the ladder. People stop respecting your opinion (which is a doubly good thing because if this is the sort of thing you say then your opinion SUCKS) and start viewing you askance.

          YES! THAT’S THE SOLUTION! LET US BECOME THE EVIL WE OPPOSE!

          mrrrrfle.

        8. zoelogical

          is this otherwise known as judging people on the content of their character? because if that’s what you mean i LIKE IT

          idk i guess…i don’t think that social hierarchy is necessarily all bad…but i think that your social model has to start with the acknowledgment that a) all people’s lives have tangible worth and b) all people’s rights deserve protection and c) all people have differing strengths and weaknesses which deserve acceptance. if it doesn’t, then you run the risk of making decisions about whose lives are worth more than other people’s, or valuing one more than the other when that value isn’t intrinsically there.

          of course then you have to decide what those rights are, which is where this gets hairy. like, everyone has a right to fair treatment, and everyone has a right to live their lives however they choose – the pursuit of happiness. there are a lot of things that seem really obvious but just aren’t until you hammer them all down and out.

          like idk i guess i think that hierarchy is necessary just to keep everyone organized, but that hierarchy isn’t going to work positively unless everyone’s rights and personhood are consistently acknowledged and affirmed.

        9. Strangeshapes

          But the bonobos seem to have a lot more fun with their hierarchies than we do. Less fighting, more playing and sex.

        10. Rukduk

          Well, if we weren’t obsessed with hierarchies and didn’t view everything as a zero sum game, we’d probably be more like insects. Probably ants or bees. We already have created a type of subtle hive-mind if you think about it, and just because we wouldn’t obsess about hierarchy doesn’t necessarily mean that hierarchies wouldn’t exist. We would just, unconcerned with our place in the hierarchy, simply and ignorantly accept the hierarchy as the natural order. Furthermore, by no longer thinking of life as having winners and losers, we would most likely become focused on the collective whole instead of our one individual success. Instead of seeing each other as competitors for resources, we would instead view ourselves as cooperative. Of course, at this point we would most likely cease to be truly human, personal freedoms could disappear, and the possibility exists that society would develope a type of caste-system, with evolutionary forces and genetic engineering creating specific breeds or subspecies of humans to complete certain tasks more optimally. Or we could have surpassed our obsession with hierarchy and the idea of life as a zero sum game by the creation of, and uploading of ourselves to, a collective digital consciousness. Both are scary possibilities. Sorry about the wall of text, I saw the question and felt free to wander with my answer.

        11. thejeff

          Short of such drastic changes in human psyche, I wonder how different it is in societies that actually have strict class structure and formal hierarchies. Of course there are all sorts of problems with being assigned a place by birth & parentage, but I wonder if there’s less obsession with the hierarchy and jockeying for a place in it when you know your place and there’s no way to change it.

        12. zoelogical

          i feel like India and Great Britain would both be excellent places to start investigating that

        13. Rutee

          That’s not really how either of them work (And the caste system was partially superimposed by honkies trying to make sense of a place they ran and didn’t understand)

        14. zoelogical

          if you say so. that’s why i said they were places to start. how do they actually work?

        15. Reltzik

          I’d question whether that sort of social immobility would be likely to bring about the positive changes we’re talking about when we dream about a world not obsessed with social hierarchy. If not… what’s the point?

        16. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          Ants and other social insects are also political, like humans. They even have internal civil wars, and will throw a queen who is being too much of a problem either into an isolation room in the hive or straight out of the colony.

        17. Strangeshapes

          I remember being really freaked out at the concept of ant “slaves.”

        18. Ardie Bea

          @cerberus, we know what happens when someone rejects hierarchy and upholds ‘little people’ as models – they get crucified. Church as power-trip is the most satanic thing ever. Which is why I’m loving Willis’ undermining of it.

        19. tangled_z

          Cerberus: This guy has the answer to your question

        20. tangled_z

          Erm, by that I mean look up Robert Sapolsky “Are humans just another primate” video on youtube!

      2. The Gorram Batguy

        I think these things just boil down to:
        1) I don’t like that person, for some reason.
        2) That person has something about them right now that I am naturally inclined to sympathize with.
        3) I don’t want that sympathy to manifest. It might force me to rethink my views and actually humanize and connect with this person, who I don’t like, for some reason.
        4) I dismiss their pain, and thereby annihilate my burgeoning sympathy, by blaming them for their pain and the “attention” it demands of us. Therefore, their pain is just a sinister stunt, devoid of any positive or redeeming significance. Thus, my original biases are reinforced, I can abort having to rethink, and I now have another reason to not like that person.
        5) Profit

    2. Kris

      I have to ask if this is a common church experience? My memories of church (which was not a traditional fundamentalist church mind you) were more positive than this. They really tried to foster a community and family enviroment. I don’t know how to describe it better than your cliche “black” church. Lots of singing, dancing, and potluck barbecues every Friday that doubled as a feed the homeless event. Even though I’ve not attended in years me and my family are still welcome there. If you showed up in a cast they’d start a collection to help pay your medical bill! Not this behind your back, staring, gossipy, highschool bullshit! So I’m asking again is this a common thing.

      1. zoelogical

        idk i was never enough into the social world of the church long enough to really grasp it? i just know that my mom was constantly petrified of what people might say about this or that. we tended to attend predominantly white churches

      2. SunshineTheif

        It was at my Roman Catholic church. It was very gossipy and people actually got angry when the one mentally I’ll lady would come in because she would sometimes make uncontrollable noises. I got to hear lots of things about how she totally did that “for attention”, not because she couldn’t help it or anything.

        1. SunshineTheif

          ill* My autocorrect doesn’t believe ill is a word apparently

      3. Tom T.

        I wonder if it may be more common at non-denominational churches, where membership may be defined more fixedly around a few charismatic attitudes and ideas. In mainline churches, there’s less of a need for zeal in justifying oneself as a member of the community, and more room to relax the social space.

        1. zoelogical

          i d k like

          it seemed to be pretty common in what i was reading about the mars hill church. it got tied in with “keeping people accountable”, where people actually got expelled from the church for being sinful and nobody from the church was allowed to talk to them anymore

          but like that also ties in with the structure of a church where it’s based around the power of a highly charismatic leader who’s under a ton of stress bc he feels like he needs to be personally responsible for everyone’s well being while not acknowledging his weaknesses as a person because no one is allowed to hold him accountable for anything

          baptist churches tend to be the same flavor as nondenominational, somewhat, because while they’re under an umbrella i don’t think they have an actual structure? or at least not a single unified one

          …i would theorize that maybe whispering behind people’s backs about things you want them to later hear about is a phenomenon that exists when people feel like they can’t be explicit. or that the only way for them to get the power for what they want is by that kind of quiet influence. i.e. an atmosphere in which they cannot be sure that their opinions are respected

          in which case here those opinions are clearly not worth respecting but there’s no acknowledgement that, while you can have whatever opinions you want, you’re not entitled to having people listen to them. or to have them respected over the legitimate needs of other people

          …idk i would be very surprised if there were not an open prayer section with some person making a very long and obnoxious passive-aggressive prayer about the state of our country and how LGBT are destroying morals

      4. Bruceski

        My synagogue was definitely a family (the good kind) first and a religion second. I think it’s because we were a small town, so there wasn’t anyone you *only* saw in synagogue, and also the congregation was non-denominational Jewish out of necessity. (relatively) orthodox standing next to ultra-reform, because the next nearest synagogue is 60 miles away and you’ve lived down the block from them for ten years so why get picky now.

        1. Silamy

          My family attended two synagogues I feel comfortable commenting on socially. One was very much a family first congregation, -kids were precious wonderful resources (old congregation dying out, so we could get away with a lot as long as we were generally quiet and respectful, because we were a hope for the future), rabbi would walk over to the house if a regular was sick, everyone knows everyone, people are accountable for themselves, but everyone’s always ready to lend a hand without comment if they’re needed, but that’s what happens in a small congregation of a largely extinct denomination (meaning CAN’T pick another option without going to another tradition) that’s been together for eighty-some years -everyone who’s going to leave already has. The other was… it wasn’t as bad as Joyce’s/Willis’s church, but the whispers and comments… I was picking up on them as an oblivious five year old, and they trickled to the kids VERY quickly. The ones that got to the children tended to not be too bad, but… they’d focus on OTHERness and why “we don’t talk with the people with those accents”, and stuff like that -it felt like the community defined itself by exclusivity and income, rather than….. anything else.

      5. Cerberus

        The churches around me were very much of this structure. Lots of back biting, nasty whispers that were just a little too easy to overhear, displays of righteousness by putting others down, basically everything we’ve seen so far.

        But then the churches I grew up surrounded by were very similar to Willis’s and borrowed heavily from being in very conservative white suburbs.

        And that culture tended to trickle down to the school level pretty frequently, which made life just great for my “queer, but didn’t realize it yet” ass.

        1. CJ

          If destroying is the only power people (feel they) have when do not see a way to shape a positive future (which was the explanation this article https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2016/06/25/a-sociology-of-brexit-what-motivated-the-leave/ gave for the success of Brexit and Trump and I’m rather sure it applies to AfD, too), maybe fundamental religion does create the same mix of not having agency and no respect and breeds hatred that way?
          If everything happens as god decrees there is no agency, the acts are inscrutable, and you are supposed to be thankful for whatever life throws at you. There are parallel, aren’t there?

      6. David

        Oh come on. Start a collection for someone hurting her hand punching out a father trying to save his daughter from yielding to the clutch of the devil’s unnatural desires? You might as well turn the holy water basins into hamster baths.

        1. Thulcandran

          Holy water basins? You might as well turn the communion grape juice into wine.

      7. pyrpyr

        The Roman Catholic church of my childhood was not outwardly like this at least, but still unfortunately participated wholly in the “love the sinner hate the sin” bullcrap, so there was a lot of passive-aggressiveness being delivered in creepily kind tones of voices.
        Still counts though.

      8. Ardie Bea

        Our small-town Kiwi Baptist church is much like the one you describe, Kris. For which I’m profoundly grateful. Cheebs, I’m glad you got out. Toxic religion is the worst.

      9. Stairmasternem

        Honestly it depends on the community. I’ve gone to a couple different churches over the years, mainly due to changing locations. I’ve found the smaller the church and the less community-focused programs (Free oil changes, dinners, social gatherings, etc.) the more they seem to be full of gossipers and judgers. When I was at college, the church I went to was actually an off-branch of ANOTHER church because they were sick of the gossip and whatnot.

      10. HeySo

        Yes. Churches are toxic, social-status-obessed cesspools with all the spirituality and morality of a money-worshipping drug kingpin.

        Brushing aside that dramatic emphasis: every Christian church I’ve ever been to has been absolutely horrible- and I’ve been to many.

        There’s indubitably quite a few out there that don’t fit that mold- but from my experiences, they’re a minority.

        My experiences with non-Christian centers of worship have been far more positive- though that could just be a factor of Christianity being the majority religion, and it thus being directly tied into social structure and expectations. ie, those concerned with or caught up in social structure would be overwhelmingly associated with it.

      11. Shiori Tsumi

        Your mileage may vary. For the most part, I’ve pretty much always had a pretty good experience in church. (We ended up leaving the Salvation Army due to personal problems, however. There was this one family that….well, I won’t get into it, but they had their fingers in every pie in the church, and yelled at people who complained about it. It was difficult.)

        I know the Nazarene church I’m currently attending has been pretty much nothing but kind and welcoming to us. And virtually everyone who’s come into it since. We’re currently struggling for membership, but that’s a complicated story that has very little to do with the actual attitude of the people attending. I can’t imagine anyone in my congregation acting this way towards Becky and Joyce. Our media technician married a woman he met online, and he was constantly worried everyone would be mean to them bc of how they met, since the congregation’s on the older side. Nope. Everyone welcomed her and loved her immediately. (Tall pretty black woman with lots of braids who likes wearing white dresses and fancy hats. We were more impressed she got him to actually wear dress clothes to church.)

        So, really, as far as I know, it’s not standard for…anything. People are people. So your mileage may greatly vary, because people vary. Lots of churches may have this issue, but it’s actually strongly dependent on the people in that church and how they’ve built their community.

    3. Bruceski

      Oof, that’s an odd feeling. At my synagogue when people stood for kaddish it was “I’m curious, but there are some things even a kid knows not to ask about. Grief is personal unless they choose to share it.”

    4. Kernanator

      As far as I’m aware, that was not standard procedure in any church I attended. Maybe I just had the luck to find the churches that believe being an asshole isn’t Christian. Or maybe it was happening where I wasn’t aware of it.

  20. Synnerman

    Come on Hank… don’t let me down.

    1. Jeudi Violist

      Don’t worry. He’s never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down. He’s never gonna run around and desert you.

      1. Orion Fury

        Never gonna make you cry, or say goodbye. Though he did tell a lie.

    2. -Sentinel-

      Yeah, I want to believe he’s decent at heart, if a bit misled.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Please don’t let him be misunderstood.

    3. Needfuldoer

      He’ll tell you once more before you get off the floor.

      *Overdriven but catchy bass line*

  21. JessWitt

    Aww, dad-and-daughter heart-to-heart talk.

    Hank has overheard his fair share, too, Joyce.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      She inherited his overly sensitive hearing…

      1. pyrpyr

        Who knew that along with those baby blues came super-hearing as well?

        1. JessWitt

          And all the dotted-eye Browns end up being insensitive jerks.

  22. Yotomoe

    “There is a LOT of moaning in this church. Why aren’t these rooms soundproofed,dad? Why would they do this in the house of the lord?”

    “Worship makes some people really horny, Joyce. I-I have a lot to tell you about how your mother and I met.”

    1. Mr. Random

      Nine years later,

      … So mom was just kinda your rebound girl except you two had dated before?
      And that means all of my siblings are technically my half-siblings?

    2. Willoughby Chase

      I don’t think we have to tell Joyce about horniness and churches. She admitted to stalking her fav in the church service 🙂

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        I’ve been wondering how things were for Becky, having all these thoughts about girls that she couldn’t admit to herself.

  23. Shiro

    Oh, honey baby :C Now the question is, are we going to leave quietly with a minimum of fuss, or are we going to go all Nazarene all up ins and flip some tables?

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      I thought Amber was the table-flipper in DoA.

      1. Orion Fury

        I wonder if Willis anticipated our desire to see a table flipped? And if he did, then not do it, thus as to feast on our sorrow?

        1. The Gorram Batguy

          “Surely Willis anticipated our desire to see a table flipped. And then
          chose not to do it, thus as to feast on our sorrow.”
          FIFY

        2. Orion Fury

          I thought something seemed wrong with it.

    2. Undrave

      And if there is no tables you can just flip the bird. Or flip MArcus. No one cares about Marcus.

      1. Shiro

        In absence of tables, chasing people *coughcoughMARCUScough* with a whip is also a fine choice!

    3. Stairmasternem

      My guess is quietly. Raise a scene and all you do is feed the gossipers and judge-ey people. It’d be better to have a private conversation with the church leaders, then let them correct their “flock.”

    4. Willoughby Chase

      Last scene of The Graduate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzcWgtb1ERo

  24. Reltzik

    Sooo much trouble interpreting Hank’s face in Panel 4.

    1. Retrikaethan

      i think that is worry and remorse.

      1. Reltzik

        Okay, having stared at it for a while, I’m pretty sure it’s either Hank knowing that Joyce isn’t giving him the real reason and is giving her a sorta “don’t bullshit me” look….

        … OR it’s a 3d picture of a parrot.

        1. Orion Fury

          [Insert Racist Joke Here]

        2. inqntrol

          Does that joke include a ” walk into a bar”? If yes, then I know what joke you may refer to.

        3. Orion Fury

          Seeing a space after the first quotation mark makes me think your comment got filtered. And I wasn’t thinking a fully fledged joke, more a reciprocal slur. Which in hindsight, not much of a joke. S`what I get for posting on an empty stomach.

        4. inqntrol

          I don’t think it got filtered. I probably pressed “space” when I shouldn’t have. I don’t remember to have written something offensive.

        5. Lawzlo

          Are you referring to the term “parrot-head”, which, as we all know, is a slur for a fan of Jimmy Buffet?

        6. Orion Fury

          Less Buffet, more ‘parrot snack’.

      2. pjeseb

        I took it to be worry/pity

  25. Shiro

    That’s…that’s kinda creepy, dude. She looks hurt and vulnerable and upset.

  26. carms

    Is Becky ok? Where? Alone in that snakepit? Becky are you ok, are you ok, are you ok Becky

    1. Shiro

      She’s probably safe for now at least, people are occupied singing.

      When we get to the sermon, well…we’ll see.

      1. Cerberus

        I think even if she wanted to curl into a ball and weep, she might be of the mind where she refuses to let these bastards see her cry.

        1. pyrpyr

          ^
          THE MASK REIGNS ETERNAL

        2. Reltzik

          SMOKIN’!

          ….

          …..

          No one gets that reference, do they? Crap, I’m old.

        3. Deanatay

          We get it. You can have it back, tho.

        4. Lovely Monsters

          It might be time for another en-pointe-out-of-the-room-flipping-the-double-bird exit soon.

      2. Shiro

        …dude, what? Ew.

    2. Portland

      SHE’S BEEN HIT BY
      SHE’S BEEN STRUCK BY
      HER DAD WITH A GUN

      (sorry)

      1. Reltzik

        You gotta sing it in a squeeky kid-walky mouse voice.

      2. Orion Fury

        Don’t feel too bad, I was planning on making a similar joke.

    3. Leorale

      She’s not alone, she’s probably right next to Carol– oh.
      Becky will be okay, though, she’s resilient as anything.

      1. Undrave

        Or at least pretends to be. Really she just has to survive one more day then she can be back in Dina’s arm and starting to work someplace now that she has her info!

        1. Reltzik

          And also kicked out, because that’s the deadline that Ruth gave Billie.

        2. Cerberus

          So, shall we start taking bets on whether Becky’s ending back up on Joyce’s floor, Dina/Amber’s bedroom, or Sal’s bed because it’s not like she uses it at night?

        3. Reltzik

          Oh, she can always go to the Salvation Army shelter until she gets her first paycheck!

          /sarcasm. Except not, because they’ve officially stopped turning away… except yes, because… except… look, it’s complicated.

        4. Cerberus

          Hey, that box under the bridge might still be open…

    4. Bagge

      Ooooooooh shit

    5. LooksLikeDaniel

      I don’t see why Becky wouldn’t be alright. She doesn’t need Joyce to chaperone her. She has proven time and time again that she can roll with the punches better than most and is perfectly capable of standing up for herself. Given what she’s already been through, I don’t know what anyone in that snake pit could throw at her that she wouldn’t be able to handle.

    6. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      They do the snake-handling thing too?

      1. Reltzik

        Probably not. Snake-handling churches are not very mainstream.

    7. zoelogical

      :((((

      becky don’t drown in a sea of unnecessary malicious comments

    8. trlkly

      Snakepit? Luckily, I don’t think it’s quite that type of church.

    9. Stairmasternem

      Becky could be stuck in a crowd of gay-bashers with picket signs and be fine. She’d just give them the bird, then walk away.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        You are TOTALLY wrong here.

        She’d give them two birds.

        1. Stairmasternem

          I…actually meant to say she would give two birds XD yes, she would. I mean if it’s good for her dad, it’s good for total bigot strangers.

        2. Reltzik

          It’s hard to give two birds when you’re holding a sign.

          It is, however, possible to hold a sign consisting of paired one-finger salutes, and then flip a THIRD bird with you spare hand.

        3. Silamy

          https://www.reddit.com/r/gif/comments/3s5nqt/triple_bird/ -alternative option for triple birds. Have more by wearing them on your shirt?

  27. DarkoNeko

    I climbed so steeep to loooose it allll
    but in the end, it doesn’t even matteeeeeeeer

    1. Koms

      Haha

    2. pyrpyr

      This song just keeps coming back around doesn’t it…

    3. NinjaNick

      I put my trust in Hank.

  28. Retrikaethan

    think of people like this: they’re only as nice as how badly they talk about people behind their backs or otherwise when they think they won’t be overheard.

    1. pyrpyr

      It’s that whole “what would you do if you knew you would never be found out” test all over again
      Mr. Cassidy is failing that test

    2. Strangeshapes

      The sad thing is, I’ve known people like this and they WANT to be overheard, just with plausible deniability–i.e., “you misheard me, and why were you evesdropping anyway?”

  29. Detective Boomwolf

    Mr. Cassidy sounds like a tool.

    Also, Becky is alone in there. Which is kind of a problem, the same way leaving a toddler in a bobcat’s den is a problem.

    1. magicallady

      i mean…he does have the word ass in his name…

  30. zoelogical

    :((

    screw mr. cassidy honestly

  31. Arianod

    OK Hank. Do your job.

    1. Undrave

      Go punch that Cassidy asshole for disrespecting your daughter!

    2. David

      Do you have any idea how attention grabby it will look if both are wearing wrist braces?

      1. Arianod

        I shouldn’t be laughing at that X’DDDD

      2. Willoughby Chase

        Father-daughter bonding over wrist-braces!

        1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          Does this explain why Mary wears wristbands so often?

          Maybe they symbolize a pledge to her father?

  32. DarkoNeko

    I gotta say, Joyce’s suit is pretty classy.

  33. Mr. Random

    It looks more like a “What the heck is that?” face.

  34. Rukduk

    C’mon Hank. Don’t let Joyce or us down. Be honest and say something along the lines of: “Yeah. I’be been over-hearing things too. If you and Becky feel uncomfortable, I can take you back to the house.” Or: “Yeah. I’ve been thinking lately, and… I think we might try finding another church. That ok with you?”

  35. Bagge

    This is horrible, but it is also heartwarming that they manage to reach out to each other. It really starts to sink in for Hank how his daughter is shamed and othered for the crime of standing up to her friend…

    …Crap, where is Becky? Is she alone with Carol???????

    1. inqntrol

      Alone with Carol and a few dozen people who don’t like what she became. Sure nothing can go wrong if she’s left alone for a couple of minutes.

      1. inqntrol

        Maybe I should stop tempting fate, only bad things come out of this.

        1. Reltzik

          C’mon, what’s the WORST that could happen?

        2. Dean

          Faintly from inside the church, ‘HEY EVERYONE, I’M A LESBIAN!’

        3. Bagge

          And that’s one of the BETTER outcomes.

          It definitely beats “Leeeeeet’s gather to praaaaaay awaaaay the gaaaaaayyyyy”

        4. Reltzik

          Especially since (I hope) that isn’t actually a hymn that they’ve sung often enough to be practiced in. That would mean either half the church would be off-key, or that it was a CHANT.

        5. pyrpyr

          You ask that question when *WILLIS* is the creator???

        6. Reltzik

          Well, YEAH. Because I’m honestly questioning whether there even is a “worst” case scenario that cannot be topped.

        7. 3-I

          Kidnapping and conversion therapy.

          I’m not even joking, that is exactly what can happen. Terrified for her right now.

        8. Lovely Monsters

          Spontaneous nonconsensual exorcism. Outing and public shaming from the pulpit. A chorus of people surrounding her telling her she’s the devil and she’s bound for hell. Those are all fairly realistic options for a somewhat-mainline but fundamentalist church.

        9. David

          No need to worry. Fate is fixed till August.

      2. Orion Fury

        I’m gonna lay odds that they won’t start a lynch mob during a hymn. Collection, maybe.

      3. Stairmasternem

        In fairness, this is during Worship time. After that is the message of the day. Becky’s stuck, but she’s relatively safe at the moment. Like high school, people who get up to harass someone in the middle of class is heavily frowned upon.

    2. Cerberus

      Yeah, it’s poised to be such an important father-daughter bonding moment if he doesn’t screw this up.

      I’m actually hopeful he’s not going to screw this up.

      1. ScarvesandCelery

        He’s approached it right so far. When she lies/ half truths about needing to go to the bathroom, he doesn’t become accusatory, just says “So I see” in a way that acknowledges Joyce clearly has more going on here. And he doesn’t push her to say more than she’s comfortable saying, just listens to what she does have to say. And he isn’t delegitimising her feelings, and doesn’t seem like he intends to – he genuinely seems to want to hear what she’s got to say. Heck, he’s probably starting to make the connection between her needing to get out of the service with her going AWOL with the car yesterday. Particularly after she’s mentioned “overhear[ing] a lot of things” – something of an admission to hearing some of her parent’s conversation the previous morning. If he does recognise the connection between Joyce’s behaviour in Church and with the car, he may start to feel a little remorse for being a little passive aggressive with Joyce the previous night.

        I think the “CoolDadTM” interpretation of Hank is more than a little overstated – he’s learning to respect his daughter as an adult while questioning his own assumptions about the world and his beliefs, and is slowly getting there, but with stumbles and visible flaws. But this has the potential to be one of his better moments on that journey.

        1. Cerberus

          I agree. This is a moment where he can really shine and show those better traits and already he’s showing a lot of positive signs by being willing to listen and by noticing that there might be more going on than just the surface.

  36. Ettel

    Not. Cool.

  37. Dr. T

    I don’t know how the progression of a mass in this church goes, but I bet they haven’t actually gotten to the sermon yet. I predict it will either be about straying from God’s chosen path, honor and obeying one’s father, giving into the temptations of sin. I predict some angry, red-eyed Joyce when she hears it.

    1. hof1991

      In a Mass (also many mainline Protestant churches), the reading of the day is set and inflexible. In churches like this, the reading (and therefore the lesson) is flexible and can be anything the pastor wants it to be. This is going to end in Hank, Joyce and Becky walking out.

  38. Makkabee

    She has a life-threatening encounter with a gun-toting lunatic, gets out of it with physical injuries light enough that she only needs a wrist brace, and someone accuses her of milking her injury for attention/

    That’s a special commitment to douchebaggery. A lot of people would be so focused on being dicks about big social issues th they wouldn’t think to be dicks about the personal stuff, too.

    1. Orion Fury

      It’s that level of dedication that you can only get in a small-town church.

      1. zoelogical

        lissen if ya aint willin’ t’ make ya neighbor pay for the next fifty years in bad jokes about how his cow can’t milk right then you might as well just admit that you’re aimin t’ shame the last three generations of family that lived in this house and the last three generations of family who lived in this here spot before their house burnt down and the last three generations of family before that who fought and died in the muck t’ prove that they weren’t city slickers in this here town

        anyone who uses a newfangled contraption like a hand brace or a non-push mower is clearly someone with Newfangled Ideas and should be stared at until they learn how to behave themselves i reckon

        1. Orion Fury

          I don’t think I was going to go that far. Eh, it’ll do.

        2. zoelogical

          one time i had a teacher who would tell the same round of jokes about working in a chicken factory where he had to kill chickens like, multiple times in a month to his class a.k.a. captive audience. he expected to get the same reaction to each of his jokes every single time he made them.

          the generational thing is a bit of an exaggeration but not by much

        3. Orion Fury

          Had a teacher who liked to say he was a professional boxer, as in, he put items in boxes for a living at one point. I think he could barely go a week without saying it.

    2. Reltzik

      Nonono. Mastering being dicks about the personal stuff is how you get into the serious big-league dickery. By surrounding and immersing yourself in a culture of dickitude, you get pissed off enough to be a dick to the entire world!

      …

      I know that’s not all there is to it, but THERE’S SOMETHING TO THIS THEORY I’M SURE OF IT!

      1. zoelogical

        -stares at Great Britain- i’d buy it

        1. DarkoNeko

          for a pound ?

        2. Reltzik

          Or for a euro?

        3. podian

          Why so cheap?

        4. zoelogical

          im cheap let’s do it

      2. Cerberus

        This, kinda.

        Douchebags don’t tend to stop being douchebags when they’re fully in that sort of toxic space. If they are being giant fuckbags about social issues, and sneering at lesbians, and all that, they tend to also be the kind of dicks who make extra effort to sneer at the black family dining next to them or harass the woman who dared have an opinion online or mutter some slur at the trans person walking the street next to them.

        I’m thinking of Toedad a lot here. How he fed and nurtured all sorts of douchetastic behavior simply because that is who he was. That was his way of interacting with others. And it’s true to a loud minority of folks who find their purpose in life in harassing anyone with less power than them.

        I’m thinking the various hate movements dedicated to finding vulnerable kids or folks who’ve admitted to mental health issues like depression and get their jollies obsessing and stalking them and trying to drive them to suicide. The hate groups that try and research a million things about people who could not matter less in the world, who have no power. The shitlickers who go after powerless bureaucrats or receptionists or the like and flood them with lies and hate and make them the Emmanuel Goldstein of the moment.

        The small cruelties are the seeds by which the big awful is bred.

    3. ischemgeek

      Trufax: Less than a week after I tore my MCL, there were people both in my immediate family and at my school who were gossiping that my knee – which was swollen enough you could see the swelling through my pants – wasn’t really hurt and I was just doing it for the attention.

      People who want to be douchebags about stuff don’t need an excuse. They’ll make their own.

  39. Yotomoe

    It’s pretty tone deaf given the strip we’re on but someone brought up DOA bust sizes, which tempted me to draw my personal headcanon for the larger ones.
    http://i.imgur.com/UD7clwq.jpg

    1. inqntrol

      Carol is just jealous because she’s the last one on bust size.

      1. Yotomoe

        To be fair they’re not in order. Joyce would be last if that’s the case. They’re more in order of…relevance. Although Billie is first because hers is the most canonically established ones.

        1. Kris

          “canonically established” for boob size! XD. That chest has a whole backstory…and character development! Totally different from the chest we saw at the start. They’ve learned, grown, and become better in the process.

    2. Bagge

      Heh, Billies smile. “Yup, here are the ‘Billies’ all right. I’m awesome like that.”

  40. Orion Fury

    I mentioned odds earlier, and it got me to wondering, what’s the over/under on someone today saying they don’t like Cerberus’ critique?

    1. Yotomoe

      Realistically, you’ll get some backlash, and maybe some accusations of bigotry. There’s also a chance of getting really long paragraphs to read.

      But there’s also a chance they’ll say “That’s fair, Cerberus’ critique isn’t always great”. I literally have no idea.

      1. Reltzik

        Nonono, over/under is a betting system, not pro-or-con.

        …. though actually, you wouldn’t use over/under for a binary outcome.

        …. crap, now I’m confused.

        1. Yotomoe

          Yeah, I misread it and am far too shy about my blatant saltiness to draw attention to it.

        2. Rukduk

          Don’t internalize the saltiness. It’s bad for your kidneys.

        3. Orion Fury

          Well, at least I didn’t make you go cross-eyed.

      2. DarkoNeko

        I kinda assumed most people just TL;DR anything that was over a page long.

      3. Spencer

        Considering the last guy was “making long analysis posts is dumb”, I can’t see why that backlash wasn’t completely deserved.

    2. Reltzik

      Probably pretty low. Well below 50%. It’s not that common of an occurrence. If there is someone doing that, I’d say better than 50/50 odds it’s the same person or a copytroll.

      …. of course if we actually start betting, the odds would go way up, because people would then have financial incentive to rig the outcome.

      1. Spaz

        but…….it’s practically impossible to fake being a new person on this comment section!

    3. Cerberus

      I dunno, with my luck?

      1. thejeff

        OTOH, if there is one, it’s about 100% certain there’ll be 20+ comments right underneath complimenting you and telling them to piss off, so that’s got to mean something.

  41. Bicycle Bill

    OK, what happened to the earlier comments about Joyce’s facial expressions?

    1. Shiro

      Was that the creepy one about her expression in the last panel?

      1. Bicycle Bill

        Yes, but I didn’t realize it had gone creepy enough that Willis needed to delete it.

        1. Shiro

          I was surprised it was deleted but I don’t disagree with the modding choice. The comment was a pretty predatory and gross one to make given the context.

        2. David M Willis

          It did, in fact, fly in the face of Posting Rule #8, which is essentially your second sentence.

        3. Shiro

          Fair call! I will add that it was a nice surprise, I’d rather have creepy shit like that not tolerated.

        4. Orion Fury

          I think I missed that one. Both curious and glad of it.

  42. Teddae

    hug her hank, pls she needs it bad

  43. transgressingwaffle

    This is giving me a sad. Why you give me a sad Wiilis?

  44. Mav

    It’s much harder to pass instant judgement when you’re directly face to face with a person for a long period of time, and you’re not an inflexible jerk. Much like how things we say on the internet, we don’t tend to say to people’s faces (like we still would communicate a message, just not as harshly or frankly or mean).

    I think because Joyce was away, it was easier for Hank to distance himself from it, but now that she’s here, it may be getting harder and harder for him to reconcile being both the “i’m always there for you” parent AND being the “well the Bible says so, so I will forsake you” parent.

    But you cannot do both those things. You cannot abandon your own kid who rightfully needs help and call yourself righteous. It’s like a deadbeat parent getting pissed when the step-parent wants to adopt despite not being there for how long. Plus here he can see the direct effect this stuff is having on Joyce.

    An issue with the strictness in organized religion is the stringent doctrine keeps people in line to the point where very important issues don’t get addressed because no one wants to rock the boat. I think Hank wants to help Joyce, but for it to be in a meaningful way, he must let go of the fear of being thought of as an inadequate parent, worshipper, etc by other people – even his wife. Which in this context takes a tremendous amount of strength and trust in his INNER faith, the faith that his heart speaks to right at this moment, not the kind the church has indoctrinated him with. Sometimes those two faiths can be very different.

    Perhaps it’s even more so because this is one of the few times since the incident they’re actually alone together, if I remember correctly.

  45. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    It’s mostly just a panel, hell, not even a full one.

    Like there’s other stuff, like the thematic nature of the song and how distant it is as if to emphasize how her quest for righteousness pushes her farther and farther away from the faith of her upbringing or how unbelievably terrible Joyce is at lying to authority figures.

    The pressure to conform and hide reality and suffering so as to better emulate what others want you to be and the parallels Joyce’s wrist brace have to Jocelyne’s gender in terms of wanting to avoid the stares and condemnation that comes from being genuine. Or the cliffhanger moment where Joyce hints that she overheard their argument and Hank has a chance to prove he is a father worthy of his strong beginning this weekend.

    But for me, what resonates deeply is that single bit:

    “Say I was playing up my injury for attention”

    That’s what hits like a freight train. And it’s not just because that’s the calling card of victim blaming at the center of every harassment movement, every victim-blaming hit piece about a survivor, every nasty muttered bit of hate at an individual noting the shitty things they’ve been through being marginalized.

    Too many of us have to go through a bevy of those sorts of accusations, that frame violence done to us as things we somehow conjured into existence to steal the shockingly rare attention resource from more deserving cis straight white men in the world.

    But the personal resonance with that phrase is embarrassing for me. Hard to talk about. Because, I was targeted by a harassment movement, a scary one with a really popular figure deciding that a little random thing I did for a friend was worth mocking because of several identities of mine. And in response, I ran. I stopped using support networks I had cultivated for years, stopped writing as much for my site as I used to. I was too vulnerable, I fought too hard to rebuild my life, so I ran far away and decided to do without support network.

    And as I shuttered major parts of my life, not daring to engage with the group targeting me, they traded all manner of nonsense about how I was an “attention whore” and “just trying to be special”. That I deserved my targeting because I had done this movement wrong by existing and thus stealing that valuable attention from the world.

    And I’ve only just started rebuilding support networks, reaching back out to identities I completely shied away from, lest ill-defined bad things befall me or those I cared about.

    And it fucked with my habit of already shying away from reaching out when I am in pain or crisis. Like, I already felt that I was imposing on others with my stuff if I spoke out about it (just like Becky in that way, I s’pose) and that just cranked it to 11. Still I worry about being too public. Still I worry about attracting the bad sort of attention. Still I worry about showing my emotional scars lest they be used to dismiss me and my experiences and value. Still I worry that these “long-winded paragraphs” actually are doing people harm somehow or imposing upon them. That even reaching out to loved ones in crisis moments is a cruel imposition on their good days.

    And I’m not saying this to solicit hugs or well wishes or the like, but just, my thoughts right now are super scrambled and I guess I’m trying to say that these moments of resonance hit and help me heal a little and I’m grateful for that. I’m working hard to talk about stuff like this, reveal my scars in a space, seek out support network, talk about and process some of the damage I’ve accumulated going through all the fucked up shit of the last couple of years.

    And to note just how thoroughly it just fucks with your whole sense of self to be subjected to that nonsense day in and day out, made to feel that simply participating with the world is “seeking to be special”, that being injured is “just for attention”, and so on…

    Also, attention sucks. Specialness sucks. I should know, growing up with a lot of marginalized stuff, a lot of non-normative stuff. Like, the overprivileged jackholes that say this shit have no idea what it’s like to be deathglared everywhere they go and have to avoid most trips out because your social anxiety is causing crippling back pain, to have hypervigilance from PTSD from nearly being killed multiple times, to have to worry about talking about the time a harassment group targeted you for fear that they’ll somehow find you again and ruin the life you worked so hard to build back up from shattered pieces.

    To be so publicly visible and hated that it burns and you presume that marching for an identity was going to be a death sentence.

    All my activism is in service for all my things to one day just be treated as whatever, like “normal” instead of things that make one targeted and hunted and given all that toxic “attention”. To make it less shitty for the generations of those like me that come after me.

    Fuck that whole shitty Mr. Cassidy worldview in all its incarnations and the twisted victim-blaming at the heart of it.

    And sorry for the wall of text everyone, but I wrote and rewrote something about 5 times and I feel I need to get this out of my head and onto something before I chicken out again and just pretend to be fine.

    1. pyrpyr

      You’re not asking for hugs but I’m gonna offer one anyway.
      *hug*?

      1. Cerberus

        *hug*

        1. Charles Phipps

          *hug*

    2. Orion Fury

      [Insert Hugging Action Comment Here]

    3. Rukduk

      I just want to say that if you need a support network, I think that most of the time the community here is the proper area to find. I’d be happy to help in what few ways someone can in the comments section of a web comic. And I know this probably doesn’t mean much coming from some random guy from the Internet. If you even remember my username it’s probably as “that one guy who tries to be goofy but will sometimes be serious and can’t make up his mind.” But I just want to say, I do think you’re “normal”. And don’t feel the need to apologize for the “wall of text”. Being able to express yourself is important, being able to do so in a (relatively) safe space even more so. It’s one of the reasons I do try to be goofy a lot of the time, because I feel like I can here, and I think you’re part of the reason why. And a lot of the time I would say that you help others understand some issues better with your comic reactions and general responses to comments. If anything the “long winded paragraphs” are, I would say, helpful. And I understand the idea that specialness or attention sucks. I spent most of my life not getting help with my problems because I felt like I was being imposing. I would always think “There are tons of people with worse problems than me, why should I complain or take time away from those who need it more.” Jeez I’m rambling now, but I guess what I’m trying to say is…I don’t think that you need to be worried here, that you aren’t imposing on anyone, and that you can express your thoughts without fear. Like I said earlier, this probably doesn’t mean much coming from me, but I wanted to share my thoughts as I way of showing support.

    4. Bicycle Bill

      Yeah, it is a wall of text.  So what?  Sometimes things can’t be expressed in two or three terse sentences.  And should anyone not care to read what you wish to say, there’s a scroll wheel on just about every mouse made these days.

    5. Mav

      Ditto to the poster below. you’re not asking for hugs, but I’d like to hug you still. You have every right to feel what you feel.

      And it’s okay. I won’t pretend to have experienced your exact experience, but I definitely understand that very shitty people who say things like that obviously missed the lesson about understanding the difference between Positive and Negative Attention. And it takes a tremendous amount of strength to be vulnerable and live in the truth.

      And those especially nasty jackasses tell lies. They think that they are the ONLY ones that deserve ALL the attention. To the self centered and self-absorbed person, the mere positive existence of another is enough to shake their fragile ego. If they cannot convince that person to give up their precious and unique Soul-Self, to assimilate to their narrow standards, to make that person make them feel Special. I was/am in a similar circumstance where I felt like a weirdo among my “normal” friends because I didn’t realize that many things I was ridiculed and punished for as a child were actually normal things.

      Simply put, if they cannot make it about themselves or benefit in some way, they simply seek to squash or outright destroy. it is the only way they feel at ease, to continue the lie they are fed and happily swallow about needing to make someone else feel terrible or needing to outright destroy someone in order to feel good about themselves, in order to exist. Their success, to them must come at the expense of another group or person. They must feel superior at all costs. If that lie were not true, then, they would have to look in the mirror and confront themselves with the truth of the pain they have internalize and turned on others with and the utterly ordinary humanness they share with everyone else.

      Again, hugs. And for the record I appreciate your input in this comic. Willis chooses to go in a serious direction, it’s unusual to me to be shocked when people post serious responses. And isn’t that the definition of art? Something which evokes emotion and experience in others?

      1. Mav

        I meant to put attention in quotes – sad is the person cursed to never understand their own blessings.

    6. Shiro

      I’m so, so sorry that happened to you. All my hugs. And I feel you hard on the things that resonate, the things that really hit home and I can point to and go “that’s me”…those are the things that help heal.

      It’s late and I’m sleepy and words are hard, but if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. I left my tumblr url in the website field, just in case.

    7. Bagge

      Yup, this is exactly the shit John was going on about. The ills that has befallen her are somehow her own fault, and anyway they are probably not that bad, and anyway what is the use going on about it now when it’s all over, please don’t cause a scene, and you have to realise what he has been through the poor man.

      What? Becky still needs help? …nah, the ills that have befallen her are somehow her own fault and anyway they are probably not that bad, and…

      All the hugs to you, Cerberus.

    8. Spencer

      Those feelings belong out in the open. They deserve to be heard and validated, and you deserve to get them out of your head.

      It’s not whining, it’s not attention whoring, it’s not making yourself into a victim, and it’s not every shitty one-liner total douchebags throw to marginalize how you feel. It’s valid and real and keeping it bottled up in the name of being a better victim never fucking works. You will never be a burden to us, you can’t be. Let alone if we all knew you personally, we’d still all want to do it, but this? We’re all a bunch of dorks on the internet. We read through your incredible analyses and your outpouring of your feelings because we know you deserve it. And we tell you how awesome you are when your brain wants to screw with that because we know it’s true.

      I hope this assortment of internet dorks who all think you’re the most awesome thing since sliced bread helps in some way. You’re always wanted here.

    9. LordHaw

      Better out than in Cerberus. Hugs to you.

    10. ischemgeek

      … the “playing it up for attention” thing got to me, too.

      It’s right up there with various expressions of disgust for you being a person who has negative feelings about being treated badly – “OOOOHHH, here come the waterworks!” or “Are you going to cry again? You know that doesn’t work on me.” or whatever.

      It’s just. Hard to articulate, but yeah. I can’t word it this morning. But it’s a thing.

      1. Cerberus

        Huh, I never thought about the connection to that form of bullying, but it really is the same sort of thing. Just a way to blame the victim of your bullying for reacting to your bullying, because they know that if their victim internalizes and remains stoic then they’re less likely to get blowback or pushback for their actions.

        Someone weeping gets attention from those who are sympathetic. Someone punching back often gets punished but can lay some blows on cowards who don’t want to pay a physical cost to their awful. Pointing it out loudly makes it likely others notice it and respond negatively or continue to do the thing they want to silence and shut up.

        And it just makes me more angry at the advice we as a culture give young bully victims to “never let it show they bother you” and “ignore” them, because that so rarely works in getting these types of bullies to leave you alone.

        Because in their heads, simply existing, simply being human, responding like a human, existing in their spaces, you have somehow wronged them and deserved your treatment. Because in their heads there is a “natural hierarchy” that must be reinforced with harassment and abuse.

        And it really emphasizes that bullying never really ends, it just changes the language it couches itself in. Accusations of attention seeking replacing “you gonna cry”, hostile laws and passive threats of violence replacing beatdowns in the hallway. “Both sides do it” replacing “he swung first, everyone saw”.

    11. My1DigitIQ

      Dear Cerberus,

      Although I may not always agree with you, I cannot deny that I find myself looking for your long comments time and time again. I appreciate your ability to articulate your thoughts and through them you tend to help me understand the comic on a deeper level. While perhaps small in the grand scheme of things, your contributions have had a positive effect on me and presumably others.

      May fortune smile upon you,
      Random internet person

    12. zoelogical

      a lot of people here have said anything i would have wanted to say better than i could possibly say it.

      i strongly hope that there will be a day when you get to feel normal, and i would like to offer hugs, if you’re still in need of them.

  46. BenRG

    There’s not much I could say and do that would make Joyce feel better at this point. Suffice to say that she’s learning that all these people in her community (who she knows by name, let us not forget) never were really Christian in any true sense.Their rresponse to this situation proves that.

    Another part of Joyce’s childhood has been exposed as a shallow lie covering up thu usual mess of exaggerated self-piety and hate.

    1. zoelogical

      what makes someone a real Christian?

      1. Huttj509

        Endeavoring to live by Jesus’ teachings, presumably. The whole help the downtrodden, judge not, don’t be a dick thing.

        1. zoelogical

          these people think they’re living by Jesus’ teachings, though. they may not live by all of them, but why does that mean their faith isn’t genuine? have you met perfect Christians who do everything they ought to do a hundred percent of the time? if you have, give me a holler. i’d like to meet them.

        2. Brian K. Pittman

          A man can think he’s doing God’s will by eating live kittens, but that’s doesn’t make it good. Faith isn’t an excuse to be a terrible person.

        3. zoelogical

          nope! no it is not! although that eating live kittens example seems pretty extreme, i’d wager that the person doing that has some mental issues they need to process/get help with.

          but, like, one of the basic Christian tenets is that we’re all terrible people, isn’t it? but God still loves us. all you need to do to be saved is believe that Jesus is God and that he was raised from the dead, according to Romans 10:9. that’s a really low standard. even the kitten-eating dude can get in based on those prerequisites.

          but that’s not my actual question here. My question is this: why do we act like Christians aren’t “real” Christians when they sin in ways we can’t approve of?

  47. Richard Kettlewell

    The solarium is for worshipping Sol Invictus, yes?

    1. Fwip

      If only I could be so gloriously incandescent…

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Ra!

      2. Spencer

        I actually just finally beat Dark Souls after like three years of trying.

        I accidentally killed Solaire when I set my controller down and hit the right trigger. That was fun.

    2. Guairdean Beatha

      “Deus Natali Invcti Solis” (the birthday of the invincible sun) has a familiar ring to it, especially if you change sun to son. Oddly, I can hear the cheerleaders in the atrium: “Here’s to the Sun God. He is the Fun God. Ra! Ra! Ra!”

  48. Needfuldoer

    *Plays that sappy heart-to-heart background music from Full House on the hacked Muzak*

  49. Miffed Mab

    I hate it when people dismiss injury or illness and accuse people of faking. As if being unwell isn’t hard enough.

  50. TheGrammarLegionary

    Guys, I think Joyce is finally figuring out subtlety! That last line, about overhearing a lot – does anyone else think she’s trying to imply that she heard the conversation between her parents about pulling her out of college?

    1. BenRG

      Yeah, and I think Hank caught that too.

  51. Reltzik

    Okay, here’s a long-term scenario that’s been playing out in my head for a while.

    Joyce’s journey… with Hank supporting it and Carol opposing it… might cause the two to divorce.

    I don’t think the religion makes it all that unlikely. If she can paint his actions as walking away from God, as I understand it that’s one of the few ways a divorce can be justified. I don’t necessarily consider this scenario to be the most likely, but it’s still a possibility I’ve been considering.

    Mostly I’m thinking about how that would impact Joyce… particularly (A) the guilt she would feel for (in her mind) causing her parents to divorce, and (B) how the end of her parents’ marriage, and in particular how it was rooted in her father loving her more than his wife, would redefine her notions of love and family.

    1. BenRG

      I strongly suspect that Joyce and Carol are going to have a falling out to the point where the lethal words “no daughter of mine” are uttered. There may be a reconciliation but it won’t be for years and years and I suspect that some words will be said that can never be taken back.

      Consequently, I suspect that, at the time of the divorce, Joyce won’t be in much of a mood to feel guilty. Any blame directed towards her would just slide off; she’ll feel that she’s doing Hank a favour by freeing him from Carol.

      1. ScarvesandCelery

        Joyce may have changed enough to feel that way about a Hank/ Carol divorce, but she’s learnt to internalise guilt pretty well, I think she’d blame herself (even though she’d have no reason to) even if she’d fallen out with her mother, especially if she still got on with Hank and empathised with his pain.

        That’s the other thing – Joyce is all kinds of empathetic, it’s why she’s been able to question her deep rooted beliefs when confronted with Atheists and LGBT people who are genuinely good, that she can see don’t deserve to go to hell, as she’s been taught they must. Even if she didn’t blame herself, she’d feel Hank’s pain watching him go through a divorce.

      2. Reltzik

        I dunno. Joyce has a very… IDEALIZED notion of marriage and love. As in, fairy-tale level. I think her parents getting divorced would most likely shatter that, and since a lot of her dreams revolve around finding the perfect husband, it will shatter most of her hopes for the future with it.

        And sure, Joyce would recognize that the divorce is not her fault and come to the reasonable and measured conclusion that it’s her mom’s jerkiness at work, because she’s perfectly rational just like EVERY person whose parents get divorced.

        /sarcasm

        Yes, that would be a perfectly reasonable way for her to view her parents’ divorce, I agree completely, but I think a more emotional and less logical response would be more likely.

    2. Guairdean Beatha

      You could be quite correct. If Hank stands up for his daughter, the church leaders could see them as “unequally yoked” and push for a separation. It would be an insidious process, subtle hint and remarks and gentle pressure, but Carol doesn’t have the strength to go against the indoctrination she’s received. Hank will either cave to the pressure and abandon his daughter, or grow a pair and walk away from the cult. Hopefully, by that time, Joyce will have come to terms with her parents past and will be able to accept either option. Her eyes have been opened, now her mind has to catch up.

    3. zoelogical

      i feel like it would be Hank leaving Carol. idk at gut i feel like Carol married Hank because she wanted to stay in the tradition where the man is the head of the household and Hank was one of the few people who wasn’t a jerk?? i feel like she felt like because he wasn’t a controlling jerk she could control him, somewhat. and she has, mostly, especially in regards to their children’s education. Hank stands up to her, but mostly by lying his socks off. And he lies because he doesn’t want to inflict authority the way a disturbing amount of people in the Christian community think husbands ought to with their wives.

      honestly i kind of think that Hank is, in some ways, a benign continual liar. like: he has his own opinions, and i don’t think he lies to himself, but he does what he thinks he has to in order to keep the peace. because he’s so privileged he’s never had to examine the gender norms of his society. they seem to follow a husbands, love your wives/wives, obey your husbands paradigm. and like the screwed up thing about that is that where you have control it’s really hard to have love!! Hank can love Carol all he wants, but at the end of the day Carol still has to obey him – she doesn’t have the freedom to be herself in opposition to him, except passive-aggressively.

      Christian gender norms separate the wife’s role from the husband’s role very clearly, so I feel they never really had to come in contact on the issues where they would probably differ. Hank just had to show up with money, where Carol was doing all the on-hands work of raising a family of four kids. Hank’s privilege gives him the luxury of not being as hardcore as Carol is, whereas Carol has had to bite her tongue and sacrifice pieces of herself in order to be the person she thinks she has to be – and she sacrificed all the pieces of herself that could be open-minded or kind, if she ever had them.

      thing is, because of this interior vs. exterior split, Carol never got to see herself clearly as reflected by other people the way that Hank did. I think because Hank probably worked with people outside the faith doing whatever it is he does, he’s had the space to cool and adjust. Carol’s so insular that she lives in a feedback loop of what’s appropriate according to this toxic community that she’s gathered. idk it feels to me like – when you have an itch, and the only thing you can think about is that itch, so you keep scratching and scratching and the itch doesn’t go away but you can’t think about anything else so you keep going. forcing your kids into this mold of who you think they should be, and not having any exterior outlets to get away and breathe and be a person who isn’t a mom.

      I mean, like, these are all choices they made; Hank could have been the one working in a Christian organization, while Carol was the one with outside friends. but I think that’s why Hank could be the one who decides to divorce Carol. He’s the more emotionally healthy one, and he has a life outside of her. She really doesn’t seem to at all.

      …Divorcing, I think, is not going to be great for her. She has a long, long working gap, and she’s not prepared for it. I don’t even know whether or not she graduated college.

      1. Cerberus

        Joyce said both her parents went to IU, so presumably she has at least an Associate’s Degree to fall back on if not a BA in Education:
        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/socialized/

        For the rest of it, I think all of that is spot on and it’s a pattern I noticed a lot of with a lot of my fundie friend’s families. Because of the structure of things, a lot of times, dad’s were a lot less strict, because they were allowed to have lives outside of all church, all the time. So often times they’d be the ones making excuses to get out of Church, running off to nurse hobbies and just trust their partner to do all the raising of the kids and the disciplining and come in as the “more reasonable” “fun” parent during points of disagreement.

        And a lot of what undercut it was a lot of the stuff you note. That because the woman is supposed to obey and be solely responsible for keeping a godly enough house to keep her children from getting corrupted by liberalism and homosexuality and to keep her husband from straying, the wife ended up stuck in insulating culture that encouraged more strict moral behavior, especially if there was any signs their children or husband was “slipping” from the “moral order”. And since their sole support network and friend circle and entire life is their church and the church families that lived near them, often times this would harden them into a more inflexible flavor of the religion based on that being their whole world and the fear that losing it would leave them with literally nothing and that it was their responsibility alone to prevent that.

        And the men, while being the “cool dads”, nonetheless expected the benefits of the system. To have their wives cowed from contradicting them. To have their house kept, their children cared for, dinner on the table at 7, and all their sexual needs met in the bedroom on their timetable and schedule. And they all were capable of revealing a nasty streak when they genuinely felt their power challenged, either by their wives or children.

        These forced patriarchal structures tend to be toxic to genuine relationships and force people into roles that fit poorly and obscure and ignore deeper problems until it gets to the level of nasty passive-aggressive arguments about what “God” wants and a greater investment in the exact system that makes them unhappy.

        1. zoelogical

          thank you for remembering better than i did!! I bet it’s a BA in education, if it got that far. idk, John is kind of suspiciously older than the other kids. makes me squint a little. o.O

          re: Hank, with that kind of privilege, I don’t think you have to be malicious. you can genuinely not want to control people but still be in a situation where it’s expected that you do. you still benefit from all of it even if you don’t realize it. I think we saw about as far as Hank’s nasty streak goes the other week when he blamed Joyce for the situation with her mom. He wanted to punch Toedad, but he didn’t. his flaws have a greater impact, though, and this whole situation is awful.

          in order to love Carol I think that Hank has to lie to her and make it so that neither he or she has to do the things that she expects they should do. I think that Jocelyn takes after Hank, that way; heck, I kind of wonder if Hank helped Jocelyn do some of the more “girly” things she wanted to do as a kid behind Carol’s back – maybe even taking Joyce along as an excuse.

          I feel like Carol would probably expect Hank to be the disciplinarian when he got home, if there was a situation that she couldn’t handle or feel like she could expect the kid to respect her. I bet that happened a lot with Jordan, actually. and then probably Hank would be more lax than she’d like, mostly, because that’s who Hank is; so maybe she’d have to arrange consequences before he got home and then get him to back her up? because they’re supposed to be a team, but there’s not really a whole lot of teamwork involved in this system.

          there’s this really poignant Faulkner quote from A Rose for Emily: “we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will”. and that’s about the best description for so much of this, I feel. between Carol, Toedad and Bonnie, you’ve got three people who are clinging to the things that devastated them. idk: maybe Bonnie was just trying to escape, we don’t know enough to really know at this point, even though she’s the one who got the most thoroughly wrecked.

          that, um. that burden of having to be everything emotionally, though. it wrecks a lot of people who just aren’t prepared or even suited for it. but for Carol, it worked out pretty well on the whole. she has a gorgeous home, four beautiful healthy children, and a husband who lets her do whatever she wants for the most part. Hank doesn’t seem to rely on her emotionally the way that he could. if she’d wanted a job, I don’t think Hank would have said no. she’s in a place where she’s financially stable and can do literally just about anything she wants, and instead she chooses this bullshit lmaooo.

          but then Carol’s also pretty insecure about her place with her kids? Joyce had to resort to superlatives about her “perfectest mother” in order to reassure her mom that she still loved her. she takes her kid’s “rebellions” and “defiance” really personally, like their choices are a statement on her. and they were her life’s work; it was supposed to be that you train a kid in the way they should go and when they’re old they won’t depart from it. so like, that’s entirely accurate: it’s a statement as to how toxic her entire system is. but she still can’t manage to let go of it even a little. she puts her expectations of what should be over the people actually in her life, and that’s what drives them away.

          …i dunno, to go back to the original question of how this would affect Joyce: it’s hard to say how much impact it would have on her perspective on divorce/family because we don’t yet know how much insight she has into her family dynamics. but I don’t think that it’d be a question of Hank choosing Joyce over Carol. I think, probably, when they get to that point, divorce would be the healthiest option for Carol. she’d have to live with her life and her choices and where they’d led her, which is alone. getting consequences is like the most horrifying and rewarding thing there is. but then the question is whether she’ll rebuild herself to be better or…cling to the thing that robbed her.

        2. Cerberus

          Oh very much so, benefiting from privilege, even horrendously toxic privilege doesn’t inherently say something about a person’s moral character. And even in flavors of accepting toxic privilege there’s notable differences between the shades of awful of a Toedad versus say pre-fountain Hank.

        3. zoelogical

          oh god yes

          idk it’s weird looking at them and trying to figure out how exactly Hank held himself back from punching Toedad. liiike. THAT DUDE. that dude has so many red flags it’s practically an army camped on his jacket and gun

        4. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          I am of the opinion that Toedad didn’t really go off the deep end until his wife died.

        5. zoelogical

          that’s a super interesting theory. i guess i come from the place of seeing him as always an abuser? and for abusers what everything comes down to is control. so while he may have gotten significantly worse after Bonnie died, i don’t really think he was that much better before she did. at least, that’s not the impression i’ve gotten.

        6. Cerberus

          Well, abusers tend to hide the worst of themselves from others.

          There’s definitely been some folks that set off my creeper red flags but were otherwise sociable that I only found out afterwards (long after they were still in range to punch) were doing fucked up shit to friends of mine.

        7. zoelogical

          …that’s true. okay this comment was Subpar and Ill Thought Out and unworthy of Zoelogical, Inc.’s sterling quality output. send all copies back to the manufacturer and you will be recompensed for your time and effort

        8. Reltzik

          And there’s a world of difference between punching the guy who is creepy and putting out a lot of red flags, and punching the guy who just kidnapped your best friend at gunpoint and needs to stay the hell down until the cops get there.

        9. zoelogical

          that is true! depends a little on where on the scale of wackiness the story falls, but honestly there’s not much about Toedad that is either fun or wacky.

    4. Felgraf

      Well, given that Joyce’s journey is meant to somewhat mirror Willis’ own (if I recall), at least in some ways, and given the church is based on the church he grow up in, and the Browns are (loosely) based on his family…

      … Yeah. I’d say they’re gonna divorce somewhere down the road.

  52. Stigmartyr762

    That’s church folk for you. They act like their your bestest of friends offering to help lend a supportive shoulder (for a price) and as soon so they think you’re not paying attention, that’s when the knives come out.

  53. Crumplepunch

    “Mister Cassidy loves goats, honey. He’s a goat-lover.”

    1. Reltzik

      “But… but…. I thought as Christians we were supposed to love sheep, and not goats.”

  54. Stairmasternem

    I can understand the Burger King comment there. My church just recently did an addition too. It reminds me of a coffee cafe for a college town.

  55. Zach

    This comic hit me harder than it should have. I know those couches and benches outside of the main hall, I know them well.

  56. BenRG

    It occurs to me that Joyce’s hand isn’t hurting; rubbing her wrist like that is her nervous/traumatic repetative behaviiour when she’s being triggered.

    1. Capricila

      I’ve had injuries like that before, it doesn’t HURT hurt but if you don’t wear the wristband for prolonged periods of time you end up moving in a bad position and then it goes CRACK all over again.

    2. Cerberus

      Yup, it’s her trauma hand and she tends to worry at it when she’s in a bad trigger space. I identify a lot with that because one of my trigger points involves a section of my body and when I enter into it, I start to worry it in a similar way to create a tactile separation between the flashback and the now:
      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/sweetie/

    3. Bicycle Bill

      “I’ll probably be OK without it.”
      ———————
      Oh, and where did YOU go to medical school, Joyce?

      Been there, done that myself.  The hand probably isn’t hurting (much), but the brace is still necessary therapy to stabilize it and prevent one from moving it in an awkward manner while the effects of the sprain or hairline crack in one of the carpal bones heals.

  57. Willoughby Chase

    I was brought up in a church built in the 1850s. Every service, I was watched over by a stained glass window with a British Tommy circa 1916 (abt 10′ tall) mourning the death of Christ.

    In the background was a cave with the stone rolled away.

    Given a choice, the BigMac architecture isn’t so bad. Less forbidding.

  58. Victor Riley

    Mr. Cassidy is clearly a jerk-waffle. Let’s have someone chase HIM with a shotgun, and see what he does “for attention”.

    1. 3-I

      Or at the very least, someone needs to punch him.

    2. Bicycle Bill

      Have we even met Mr. Cassidy yet?  Or is he the untagged church member who was talking with Hank and Carol about the ground squirrels?

  59. QWERTY

    Oh Joyce…

  60. Firedaws

    3:

  61. Mystrana

    It just hurts so much to read today’s comic. That feeling of realizing people you had known all your life are still so ready to judge. The moment you realize their kindness and courtesy were conditional.

    1. Cerberus

      *hugs*

      Yeah, that feeling is awful and it’s worse when it’s with people you previously trusted. Like, the person got you to believe that they were safe and then it turns out that safety and love depended on being a very specific thing.

      1. tangled_z

        Hey Cerberus, in regards to what you posted about looking for a support network, Zinnia Jones has just started a new facebook group which is:

        “A community for sharing transgender-relevant publications and findings in medicine, sociology, gender and queer theory, politics, law, and any other areas. The research group is intended as a place for discussion and collaboration on these topics”

        Would you like me to add you there?

        1. Cerberus

          That sounds kinda amazing, what would I need to do to join in?

        2. Bicycle Bill

          <abbr title="(pun intended)“>Go straight … to their website.

        3. tangled_z

          Erm, how can I contact you? I don’t want to post the group name in a totally public place.

        4. Felgraf

          Hrn. Emails are needed/used to comment, but aren’t publicly visible-
          Is Willis able to see them and ferry messages? (If that is acceptable)
          Otherwise, one or both of you could create a quick throw-away email account?

        5. Bicycle Bill

          If Cerberus wants to follow up on this, why couldn’t he go to Zinnia Jones’ Facebook page, or to her website (ZinniaJones.com) and use one of the links there to contact her directly?

        6. tangled_z

          Oh, yes, that is totally a thing that Cerberus could do.

  62. Kyle

    Responding to the about page:

    1) Knew it.

    2) I think healthy discussions can sometimes SOMETIMES include words such as “idiot”, but yes, I agree that words such as “dumbass” are too far.

    3) Then I’ll just make my own website and you will have to deal with it. *puts on sunglasses*

    4) Ok.

    5) Ok.

    int i = 6; ) Ok.

    i++;

    cout << i; ) Thanks for expanding my vocab.

    8) Yeah, agree.

    9) … ?! … ?!!! … … … Ok, agree.

    10) MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

  63. Willoughby Chase

    I’ve tried to listen to the music but man, teeth-grindingly saccharin and just awful. Sorry, Willis.

  64. tangled_z

    Wow, massive feels for Joyce 🙁

  65. K128

    I just want to give Joyce a hug and tell her everything will be Ok.

  66. EvilWriter

    Thank the gods I don’t believe in that Hank went after her, not Carol.

    I’ve got… I’ve got nothing. Just… Joyce beginning to see the brace that SHE NEEDS TO HEAL as part of the oppression and judgment all around her, and…

    No. I’m broken. This broke me.

    1. zoelogical

      the evil writer has been broken…what horrors of plotting and deconstruction will arise

      all kidding aside I Get Your Pain

  67. Lorien Inksong

    This sort of thing is why I don’t go to church anymore. I’m still Christian (the kind who finds nothing wrong with being LGBTQIA and thinks religion has no place in government) but it only takes a few nasty people to make what should be a safe place of worship toxic. Something I witnessed firsthand when I had a falling out with my family shortly before my wedding.

    I invited one of my Dad’s friends from church because I vaguely knew her and thought it’d be nice for him to have another person he knew well at the wedding (most of the invited people who came were from my spouse’s family or college/ high school friends) and it might be an olive branch to try to fix things. But instead of accepting or declining she took the time to write me a long nasty letter about how selfish and awful I am. Despite not knowing anything about my situation.

    However the Pastor who married us was one of the first people, aside from my SO, to listen to what I had to say about my family. He was also one of the first to call it what it was; abuse, and suggest I limit my contact with them. But on the other hand I was so afraid of being condemned for being asexual (like it or not I’m straight/ cisgender passing) that I didn’t dare mention it.

    Don’t really know where to go with this, other than ‘gosh this is familiar’ and wishing it wasn’t. And also wishing it wasn’t so familiar to so many other commentators today.

    1. zoelogical

      congratulations on your wedding! otherwise, im so sorry that so much of the surrounding has been so awful for you.

  68. Rotunda

    “I overhear a lot of things” refers not only to things she’s overheard at church, but also to Hank and Carol’s conversation on Saturday morning. She’s getting ready to talk to Hank about this.

  69. Oberon

    Mr. Cassidy is an asshole. The perfect example of the hypocritical churchgoer, bearing false witness against his neighbor in the exact place where he was taught not to do shit like that.

    And don’t get me started on the traffic to get out of the church lot after a Catholic mass! I’ve seen more courteous drivers while driving a minivan in the midst of a Hell’s Angels bike convoy.

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