After having a thick, curly beard for a few years in college, I shaved it. One of my college friends didn’t recognize me at all, but a friend from high school stared at me for a minute with a somewhat confused look and asked if I got a haircut.
Kamu
To be fair you did get a haircut… just not the hair that’s usually referred to when people ask that question LOL
I feel like Joyce’s beliefs at this point, or her level of self-honesty regarding her beliefs is best expressed by her 1st panel speech bubble if you crossed out the “You’s” and penciled in “I’s” instead
Gigafreak
Put in an I for every crossed-out U?
Wouldn’t it be funny if this were all taking place in a university abbreviated IU, whose logo is an I crossed with a U!
milu
I did not know that! Good catch! Also now that im commited to reading Way Too Much into this, the IU logo looks as much like an I crossing out a U as it does a U crossing out an I, *and* the Greek letter conventionally associated with the discipline of psychology. And what does so much of psychology tell us time and again? That projecting our worldview onto others is a basic mechanic of our minds, while integrating outside influence is a fundamental way we relate to ourselves. Wow I am so clever thank you
I mean, she’s demonstrated that she is doubting god and her previous faith, but she still seems pretty adamant about sticking to the anti-science teachings of her previous faith, at least for the time being. I just find it funny that she is beginning to accept the possibility that there might not be a god, or at least in a form recognizable from her youth, but the idea that the horribleness of her church’s teachings extends into academia as well is a step too far.
Once you mention it, yeah. Honestly I don’t consider ‘lies by omission because you’re too anxious to admit anything’s up about this’ in the same boat as other lying due to my brain being REALLY GOOD at bottling things up and masking, but that is a pretty odd position when I think about it. (starts with ‘acting more neurotypical to try and avoid commentary in day to day interactions.’ Continues to ‘no one wants to hear about the amount of pain I’m in on a daily basis, don’t bring it up unless it’s crushing.’ Extends then into things like ‘you’re having an anxiety attack but no one needs to know’ or other such ‘yeah no, I’m fine! (She was not, in fact, fine)’ circumstances, and those tend to come with some self-denial as well. Usually comes bubbling up eventually, almost inevitably worse than if it had been brought up before, but of course they do. I actually am fairly decent at keeping low-stakes secrets as a result if I don’t have to do more to conceal them than say ‘oh, nothing much’ or the like.)
Given how much similar neurodivergency to myself I read off Joyce, does make sense I just lumped that into the same territory: refusal to acknowledge and unpack that mixed with holding the anxiety in because if no one knows, it’s not happening. Fun times.
Hopefully this leads to a realization that neither of them needs to hide from the other, what with them both pretending for everyone else at the moment…
Delicious Taffy
Hmmmmmmm that seems vaguely familiar.
Mordecai
Oh, is this referring to another Walkyverse webcomic? I’ve only read Dumbing of Age.
dralou
I would say that it’s fairly reminiscent of the garbage roof, and its two founding members.
milu
Also the Ruth x Billie dynamic.
Though in their case the partaking in mutual honesty was in good part about being alcoholics so that was not 100% healthy
Vegetalss4
To me it brought to mind back when Joyce went home and texted with Joe for support and comfort about things she didn’t feel she could say out loud.
Which he then honestly gave without spending effort on his usual playful horndog image.
She has told Sarah already. I don’t remember if it’s clear whether she’s told anyone else. She could probably use more than just Sarah to talk to about it, though, if my own experience with big, identity-related secrets is anything to go by.
I hope Joyce tells someone else soon, and I don’t think Joe would be a bad choice to tell since they seem to get along pretty well. And while Becky’s her childhood friend, I worry that Becky might not take Joyce’s atheism so well because they’ve known each other for so long and were raised in the same fundie Christian background.
Oh, Becky will DEFINITELY be peeved when she finds out (she doesn’t presently see Sarah as competition, but she’d still be hurt not to be Joyce’s first confidante). Moreso if she’s the last to know.
Keulen’s also got a point, though – the fact that Becky was comfortable with being selective about what beliefs she kept from her upbringing will mean she’ll have a very hard time understanding Joyce’s point of view. Unless, of course, she’s just been avoiding confronting the rest out of fear that it would hurt her relationship with Joyce, but I kind of doubt it.
I like to think that every other student has long since paired up and sat down, these two are loudly having this conversation in the middle of class, and Professor Brock is glaring at them wondering why he never developed the ability to make people die just by wanting it.
Oh jeez, they’re still in Brock’s classroom, I didn’t pay too much attention to the background and thought those clear things were sneeze guards in the lunch line.
(This is my third Gravatar since the last reset, I haven’t changed my personal info at all)
Doctor_Who
Oh, the newest version of Gravatar has the ability to assign you one based on your current mental and emotional state, musical tastes, and the last meal you ate.
It’s mostly javascript based though, so bugs are common and if you’re not careful it may assign you a mental and emotional state based on your gravatar.
Loki
That explains a lot, actually.
Chrissy
Haa!
milu
Damn you person who codes for Willis!
Spencer
I thought it was that adding new gravatars in caused them all to shuffle around. We got a slew of new ones but then Professor Doc and I want to say another one got added in.
Regalli
Glasses Joyce, since I think Booster was added with Semester Two models.
I get the feeling that Joyce is going to open up to Joe about her newfound lack of faith. While I am glad she is going to talk to someone about it, I’m not sure Joe is the best choice. That being said I have been wrong before.
So what could go wrong when/if she talks to Joe about this?
She’s been talking to Joe about important stuff for a while now – we saw them texting about her parents before, and presumably she has continued to do that. Hence the “name one thing I don’t know about you”
Well, one advantage of Joyce talking to Joe is that, unlike some other people in her life, he’s not invested in her faith or lack thereof. While the last strip seems to suggest he acknowledges the scientifically-determined age of the Earth and the process of evolution, IIRC he hasn’t identified as an atheist (like Dorothy) or as a fundamentalist. He *actually* might be a neutral person with whom she can discuss her ideas about science and faith.
I’m sorry I missed that! I have a fair amount of Jewish heritage but I’m not Jewish. However, I’ve been trying to learn about my heritage (especially because my smartstrongwonderfulbeautiful niece’s father (my brother-in-law) is half-Jewish. One thing I’ve learned (and everyone please correct me if I’m wrong) is that asking questions is a cornerstone of Judiasm. So IMHO that aspect of Joe’s identity could be very enlightening for Joyce.
Rabid Rabbit
Asking questions and arguing, as I understand it.
At least, that’s what I always got from the story of the time these two or three rabbis were heatedly arguing about something in the Torah, and God showed up and said, “Look, guys, it’s simple, what I meant was…” and they all yelled at him to stay out of it and mind his own business.
Jaime
LOL
But questioning and arguing…yup, sounds a LOT like me and also my niece. ?
Leorale
That story is so good! Another layer: when they tell God to stay out of it, they do so by quoting God’s own words, out of context, AT GOD. In response, God laughs, “my children have surpassed me”.
(It’s written by these same rabbis, who are totally self-aware of all the levels at play here.)
So yeah. Arguing (productively) is fine. If you’re really having a good one, then we’ll write down the whole dang argument and happily study (and argue about) both sides for the next few thousand years.
Another Jewish saying: “The good student knows the answers. The *great* student asks the questions.” Questions are definitely strongly encouraged always.
DrunkenNordmann
I like the one where four rabbis are arguing, God backs up one of them and the rest goes “So what? It’s still 3 against 2”
Here’s how I see it: Joe creates the Do List which he uses to numerically rate women, and Joyce gets a zero. This was treated as boyish fun for a while before we all realized it was super creepy but is important because it informs us how Joe views his relationships with women.
Joyce starts texting him freaking out because Joe is the only friend(?) she has who’s gone through a divorce, much less conflict with their parents, and then he starts responding with no problem offering helpful advice based on past experience. Joe does not have to worry about ruining his Big Chance with Joyce because Joyce is a zero and he will never, ever sleep with her, meaning he immediately sidestepped the system he has in place that caused him to treat his interactions with women as purely transactional affairs “for a mutual good time.”
Joe has established a rapport with Joyce where she is neither a potential hook-up or Danny, who really should stop sticking his neck out for feelings because feelings are dumb and get you hurt. He just accepts the things he tells her, and I think the subtext to this strip (because Joe does not *literally* know every factoid of Joyce’s life) is that Joe intimately understands what kind of person Joyce is (that being someone who is constantly trying to improve from who she was yesterday and one day she’ll be perfect and how could you not see it Jo- I mean Jacob?) and will, consequently, accept her newfound lack of faith as something Joyce is going through, rather than the presumptions and judgements, good or bad, of the rest of the cast.
144 thoughts on “What I believe”
Ana Chronistic
Joyce giving away all her secrets like Valentine chocolates
Pablo360
to be fair, if she were one of my friends, there’s a decent chance I wouldn’t have noticed the glasses until she pointed them out
Doctor_Who
“…Do you have more face than usual? I remember less face.”
Difflugia
After having a thick, curly beard for a few years in college, I shaved it. One of my college friends didn’t recognize me at all, but a friend from high school stared at me for a minute with a somewhat confused look and asked if I got a haircut.
Kamu
To be fair you did get a haircut… just not the hair that’s usually referred to when people ask that question LOL
Regalli
Bless this ball of cheer and lack of subterfuge.
Reltzik
Who everyone assumes is still a YEC, and who isn’t correcting anyone on that point.
If anything, her inability to convince Joe that she has secrets makes her secret even more secure.
milu
I feel like Joyce’s beliefs at this point, or her level of self-honesty regarding her beliefs is best expressed by her 1st panel speech bubble if you crossed out the “You’s” and penciled in “I’s” instead
Gigafreak
Put in an I for every crossed-out U?
Wouldn’t it be funny if this were all taking place in a university abbreviated IU, whose logo is an I crossed with a U!
milu
I did not know that! Good catch! Also now that im commited to reading Way Too Much into this, the IU logo looks as much like an I crossing out a U as it does a U crossing out an I, *and* the Greek letter conventionally associated with the discipline of psychology. And what does so much of psychology tell us time and again? That projecting our worldview onto others is a basic mechanic of our minds, while integrating outside influence is a fundamental way we relate to ourselves. Wow I am so clever thank you
Psychie
I mean, she’s demonstrated that she is doubting god and her previous faith, but she still seems pretty adamant about sticking to the anti-science teachings of her previous faith, at least for the time being. I just find it funny that she is beginning to accept the possibility that there might not be a god, or at least in a form recognizable from her youth, but the idea that the horribleness of her church’s teachings extends into academia as well is a step too far.
Regalli
Once you mention it, yeah. Honestly I don’t consider ‘lies by omission because you’re too anxious to admit anything’s up about this’ in the same boat as other lying due to my brain being REALLY GOOD at bottling things up and masking, but that is a pretty odd position when I think about it. (starts with ‘acting more neurotypical to try and avoid commentary in day to day interactions.’ Continues to ‘no one wants to hear about the amount of pain I’m in on a daily basis, don’t bring it up unless it’s crushing.’ Extends then into things like ‘you’re having an anxiety attack but no one needs to know’ or other such ‘yeah no, I’m fine! (She was not, in fact, fine)’ circumstances, and those tend to come with some self-denial as well. Usually comes bubbling up eventually, almost inevitably worse than if it had been brought up before, but of course they do. I actually am fairly decent at keeping low-stakes secrets as a result if I don’t have to do more to conceal them than say ‘oh, nothing much’ or the like.)
Given how much similar neurodivergency to myself I read off Joyce, does make sense I just lumped that into the same territory: refusal to acknowledge and unpack that mixed with holding the anxiety in because if no one knows, it’s not happening. Fun times.
Jay
Bless this couple
Pablo360
I mean, he still doesn’t know she’s atheist, but I doubt Joyce wants to spill that to him when she still hasn’t told Becky.
LiterallyJustSomeGuy
I think Joyce will open up to Joe about it, but not with Becky in the room, just off panel
Mordecai
Hopefully this leads to a realization that neither of them needs to hide from the other, what with them both pretending for everyone else at the moment…
Delicious Taffy
Hmmmmmmm that seems vaguely familiar.
Mordecai
Oh, is this referring to another Walkyverse webcomic? I’ve only read Dumbing of Age.
dralou
I would say that it’s fairly reminiscent of the garbage roof, and its two founding members.
milu
Also the Ruth x Billie dynamic.
Though in their case the partaking in mutual honesty was in good part about being alcoholics so that was not 100% healthy
Vegetalss4
To me it brought to mind back when Joyce went home and texted with Joe for support and comfort about things she didn’t feel she could say out loud.
Which he then honestly gave without spending effort on his usual playful horndog image.
Sporky
I think it’ll actually be way easier for her to tell Joe than Becky.
RacingTurtle
She’ll have to text it to him
milu
“I’m an… A-word”
“No no not that A-word”
“Nope the other one, come on you know what I mean”
“What? Ew no! gross! A-word Joe focus”
Deanatay
“Asshole”?
“Abnormal”??
…
“Aroused”???
I am Nothing
“Antidisestablishmentarianism”????
Demoted Oblivious
Too commited. I think she’d more of a protoantidisestablishmentarianist.
Reltzik
I think Joyce needs to tell SOMEONE, and Joe’s the least likely to tell it to Becky. Or tell anything to Becky.
Jenn
She has told Sarah already. I don’t remember if it’s clear whether she’s told anyone else. She could probably use more than just Sarah to talk to about it, though, if my own experience with big, identity-related secrets is anything to go by.
He Who Abides
She hasn’t told anyone else yet.
Keulen
I hope Joyce tells someone else soon, and I don’t think Joe would be a bad choice to tell since they seem to get along pretty well. And while Becky’s her childhood friend, I worry that Becky might not take Joyce’s atheism so well because they’ve known each other for so long and were raised in the same fundie Christian background.
ktbear
OR Becky is going to be really peeved when she discovers she’s the last one to know.
Taellosse
Oh, Becky will DEFINITELY be peeved when she finds out (she doesn’t presently see Sarah as competition, but she’d still be hurt not to be Joyce’s first confidante). Moreso if she’s the last to know.
Keulen’s also got a point, though – the fact that Becky was comfortable with being selective about what beliefs she kept from her upbringing will mean she’ll have a very hard time understanding Joyce’s point of view. Unless, of course, she’s just been avoiding confronting the rest out of fear that it would hurt her relationship with Joyce, but I kind of doubt it.
Doctor_Who
I like to think that every other student has long since paired up and sat down, these two are loudly having this conversation in the middle of class, and Professor Brock is glaring at them wondering why he never developed the ability to make people die just by wanting it.
StClair
Because Lamarckism is bullshit.
milu
Oh surely Professor Brock would never be so lamarckian as to expect to be able to transmit his death glare to his offspring.
Cattleprod
Oh jeez, they’re still in Brock’s classroom, I didn’t pay too much attention to the background and thought those clear things were sneeze guards in the lunch line.
Cattleprod
(This is my third Gravatar since the last reset, I haven’t changed my personal info at all)
Doctor_Who
Oh, the newest version of Gravatar has the ability to assign you one based on your current mental and emotional state, musical tastes, and the last meal you ate.
It’s mostly javascript based though, so bugs are common and if you’re not careful it may assign you a mental and emotional state based on your gravatar.
Loki
That explains a lot, actually.
Chrissy
Haa!
milu
Damn you person who codes for Willis!
Spencer
I thought it was that adding new gravatars in caused them all to shuffle around. We got a slew of new ones but then Professor Doc and I want to say another one got added in.
Regalli
Glasses Joyce, since I think Booster was added with Semester Two models.
Lars
Professor Brock cannot mak people die. To die, they have to live first and life doesn’t exist.
Deanatay
True, what he wishes for is the ability to halt all biological metabolic activity with a single glare. Much different than a death glare.
Nono
Joyce is flirting by reminding Joe that yes, she wears glasses. Aren’t they cute and make her look smart?
Stephen Bierce
*plays “Your Secret’s Safe With Me” on the hacked Muzak*
Yup
Joe having a sad that Joyce isn’t happy they’re that close?
TheKelliestKelly
“Well, I bet you didn’t know I have blue eyes!”
“They’re the same color as your glasses that I can see.”
“DANG IT!”
LiterallyJustSomeGuy
“How could I miss them? They’re the size of hubcaps!” — Walky’s response to the same prompt
Doctor_Who
“Also, your irises are the size of teacup saucers and can be seen through walls.”
He Who Abides
“And they glow in the dark.”
Kyrik Michalowski
I get the feeling that Joyce is going to open up to Joe about her newfound lack of faith. While I am glad she is going to talk to someone about it, I’m not sure Joe is the best choice. That being said I have been wrong before.
So what could go wrong when/if she talks to Joe about this?
Kyrik Michalowski
Once again, no, not Joe.
Deathjavu
She’s been talking to Joe about important stuff for a while now – we saw them texting about her parents before, and presumably she has continued to do that. Hence the “name one thing I don’t know about you”
Kyrik Michalowski
Oh hey, that’s a good point I didn’t think about.
Jaime
Well, one advantage of Joyce talking to Joe is that, unlike some other people in her life, he’s not invested in her faith or lack thereof. While the last strip seems to suggest he acknowledges the scientifically-determined age of the Earth and the process of evolution, IIRC he hasn’t identified as an atheist (like Dorothy) or as a fundamentalist. He *actually* might be a neutral person with whom she can discuss her ideas about science and faith.
(And BTW I *totally* ship them. Sorry.) ?
Cass
He’s Jewish, which is just about the first thing she ever learned about him: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/clipboard/
Jaime
I’m sorry I missed that! I have a fair amount of Jewish heritage but I’m not Jewish. However, I’ve been trying to learn about my heritage (especially because my smartstrongwonderfulbeautiful niece’s father (my brother-in-law) is half-Jewish. One thing I’ve learned (and everyone please correct me if I’m wrong) is that asking questions is a cornerstone of Judiasm. So IMHO that aspect of Joe’s identity could be very enlightening for Joyce.
Rabid Rabbit
Asking questions and arguing, as I understand it.
At least, that’s what I always got from the story of the time these two or three rabbis were heatedly arguing about something in the Torah, and God showed up and said, “Look, guys, it’s simple, what I meant was…” and they all yelled at him to stay out of it and mind his own business.
Jaime
LOL
But questioning and arguing…yup, sounds a LOT like me and also my niece. ?
Leorale
That story is so good! Another layer: when they tell God to stay out of it, they do so by quoting God’s own words, out of context, AT GOD. In response, God laughs, “my children have surpassed me”.
(It’s written by these same rabbis, who are totally self-aware of all the levels at play here.)
So yeah. Arguing (productively) is fine. If you’re really having a good one, then we’ll write down the whole dang argument and happily study (and argue about) both sides for the next few thousand years.
Another Jewish saying: “The good student knows the answers. The *great* student asks the questions.” Questions are definitely strongly encouraged always.
DrunkenNordmann
I like the one where four rabbis are arguing, God backs up one of them and the rest goes “So what? It’s still 3 against 2”
Reltzik
“So if you’re not a fundie Christian any more, does that mean you’re on board for a banging?”
*death glare*
“Not with ME! You’re still a zero-minus on my do list!”
*death glare intensifies*
Needfuldoer
Talk? No.
Text? Probably.
Spencer
Here’s how I see it: Joe creates the Do List which he uses to numerically rate women, and Joyce gets a zero. This was treated as boyish fun for a while before we all realized it was super creepy but is important because it informs us how Joe views his relationships with women.
Joyce starts texting him freaking out because Joe is the only friend(?) she has who’s gone through a divorce, much less conflict with their parents, and then he starts responding with no problem offering helpful advice based on past experience. Joe does not have to worry about ruining his Big Chance with Joyce because Joyce is a zero and he will never, ever sleep with her, meaning he immediately sidestepped the system he has in place that caused him to treat his interactions with women as purely transactional affairs “for a mutual good time.”
Joe has established a rapport with Joyce where she is neither a potential hook-up or Danny, who really should stop sticking his neck out for feelings because feelings are dumb and get you hurt. He just accepts the things he tells her, and I think the subtext to this strip (because Joe does not *literally* know every factoid of Joyce’s life) is that Joe intimately understands what kind of person Joyce is (that being someone who is constantly trying to improve from who she was yesterday and one day she’ll be perfect and how could you not see it Jo- I mean Jacob?) and will, consequently, accept her newfound lack of faith as something Joyce is going through, rather than the presumptions and judgements, good or bad, of the rest of the cast.
Needfuldoer
“Churchy blonde” wasn’t always a zero-minus on the Do List. That was after the date at Galasso’s under Mike’s supervision.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/corrupt/
(Wow, I forgot how much Joe’s toned it down since book 1…)
LiterallyJustSomeGuy
Some other student in the class: “The newspaper has an opening for a comic strip? Maybe I’ll apply, too!”
AbacusWizard
And that student… was named David Willis.
RacingTurtle