235

Ultimately
Posted on March 6, 2019 by David M Willis

235 thoughts on “Ultimately”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    The best part of waking up is existential dread

    1. jeffepp

      And, I thought it was incest in your cup.

      1. Doctor_Who

        Only around the holidays.

        1. StClair

          *beams and puts a bow on the Doctor*

        2. Dana

          I guess I need to catch up on holiday specials. Or am glad to be behind.

        3. AustSakuraKyzor

          There’s a really old Folger’s commercial (home for the holidays, I’m pretty sure), that’s really incest-y. There’s so much implied that there’s an entire fraking section on Ao3 devoted to it.

        4. Ana Chronistic

          Dang, I only know the best part of waking up is Scott Bakula in your bed

        5. Freezer

          There’s an “extended version” where they actually start snogging… And their parents walk in on them.

      2. MatsuoTanuki

        “I understood that reference!”

      3. Dark

        …What?

        1. Freemage

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Ir6CzxKl4 This is a rather infamous commercial for Folger’s.

        2. Dark

          …Right. Yeah, seen that. I don’t see what’s incestuous about it. Brother comes back from a really long time away, sister is happy to see him.

    2. Electriccombines

      More like existential DEAD!! Haha!! It’s terrible!!

    3. Marsh Maryrose

      [music notes] Good morning, nothingness,
      The earth says hello!

      1. Reltzik

        Eat at Arby’s.

    4. Ana Chronistic

      Dang, I joked about this, but while I didn’t wake up to it, today I got hit by a feeling about the size of what hit Joyce and I can’t even talk about it bc it will get back to the very people I can’t talk to about it, without any of the nuance

      It’s ultimately a good thing but smashes some of the Certainties in my life wide open (specifically about family)

      I’m better at, or at least more used to, accepting the lack of a conscious deity in charge of everything (at the moment; perhaps fam will reassure me that things will work out)

  2. Doctor_Who

    The sudden disappearance just further cements to me that Rich Mullins is this universe’s Ronnie.

    1. Foxhack

      Or maybe Rich Mullins is Batman.

      1. DarkoNeko

        Batman lives on her floor tho

        1. 1 2 2 50 in Roman numerals

          But then it was a dream and that dream was a dream and that dreamm was a dream and its the same strip of jouce waking up repeated for 42069 days so willis can finally have a break

        2. Zach

          That’s 130 years of break.

        3. Ninjabuttocks

          Perfect!

        4. Chris Phoenix

          So, 9 days in-comic.

    2. Dean

      Joyce gets up and finds Rich Mullins in the shower.

  3. Woomy

    Damn, so close to lucid dreaming!

    1. Doctor_Who

      If the alt-text came true it would be Lucy’d dreaming.

      1. jeffepp

        I ship it.

      2. Clif

        Groans and kudos.

  4. Stephen Bierce

    Good Morning Good Morning Good Morning Good Morning Good Morning–AH!

    1. Stephen Bierce

      Today’s strip is brought to you by Inspirato.

    2. Deanatay

      Good Morning Good Mor-GLK! GKKK! KKK..

      *Joyce groggily wonders why she’s wearing Sal’s gloves*

    3. Marsh Maryrose

      She’s got nothing to say, but that’s okay.

      1. Geneseepaws

        Got up, got outta bed, dragged a comb across my head…

  5. Nono

    “I’m just… talking to myself. You’re not my mom.”

    “I’m not?”

    “This is how I want you to be.”

    1. Doctor_Who

      “Well, the important thing is family and friendship, honesty, values, and no one got arrested!”

      (Air Guitar)

      1. ValdVin

        I get that reference.

  6. AnvilPro

    No! No! I wanted this to be the Rich Mullins comic from now on. Is it too late for Joyce to realize this is also a dream and then he’s the one that wakes up

    1. Jess

      jesus christ

    2. Marsh Maryrose

      “Am I Joyce Brown dreaming that I’m meeting Rich Mullins? Or am I Rich Mullins dreaming that I’m meeting Joyce Brown?”

  7. TrueVCU

    And so the seed of doubt germinates at last

    1. AntJ

      It’s been germinating for quite awhile now (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/amazinglove/), but the shoot is finally poking out of the ground

  8. BBCC

    Are you talking to Mullins or God, Joyce?

    1. lilyliv --> ian livs

      Oh gosh, hadn’t considered that yet. Now I wanna hug her even more.

    2. Undrave

      I was thinkin’ the same thing…

    3. Kamino Neko

      … It never even occurred to me that she wasn’t talking to God.

      1. Rex Vivat

        Same. Especially after last strip, it doesn’t really make sense otherwise.

    4. BarerMender

      It was my take she was talking to Mullins, but Mullins was a stand in for God all along.

      1. John Smith

        Isn’t the real God the friends we made along the way?

        1. Zach

          Your friends are objectively better than mine, or perhaps infinitely worse.

        2. Kamino Neko

          Certainly more powerful.

        3. Delicious Taffy

          I think that user may actually be a certain Keyblade wielder. I mean, come on. Nobody’s called John Smith.

      2. Dafydd

        No, silly, that’s Alan Rickman’s job.

    5. DarkoNeko

      Yes.

    6. Marsh Maryrose

      Is the dress white and gold, or is it black and blue? Or can the same dress be in two states at the same time?

      1. Schpoonman

        “I TORE Schrodinger’s Dress!” -Becky McIntyre

      2. Spaz

        The dress is Laurel, obviously.

    7. Lingo

      What if God was one of us
      Just a slob like one of us
      Just a dulcimer-playing wuss
      In your dream without a comb

    8. Tan

      Neither. She’s talking to herself. She says so very clearly right there.

      1. Needfuldoer

        I took that as symbolic; Rich Mullins is the God avatar in this dream, and she was just conversing with him. Now she’s not sure if she’s been talking to him or just herself the entire time.

    9. Felian

      Like yesterday, i can so relate to her… it feels very awkward and empty to consider the possibility that you have been talking to yourself all along….

    10. Vulcanodon

      My thought as well.

  9. DailyBrad

    Very interesting. So she’s in crisis of faith mode. I guess we will see how her faith defines her, and how she defined her faith.

    1. Reltzik

      Very much so. But we’ve also seen how her faith DOESN’T define her, the way she’ll jettison it (or at least the minimum amount of it) to stand by the people she loves.

      1. Buggman

        Joyce has never jettisoned her faith to stand by the people she loves–in fact, she’s defended putting the people ahead of the strict division she was taught growing up on the basis of her faith at least once, e.g., putting “love your neighbor as yourself” in the top priority (as it should be).

        1. thejeff

          She hasn’t jettisoned her faith. Yet.
          She’s dropped various aspects of it as soon as they came into conflict with real harm to real people. In some cases she’s found Biblical justifications for doing so, but those were after the fact excuses to cling to the rest of her faith – proclaiming that Becky comes first and then going to the Bible to find reasons not to condemn homosexuals as her teachings demanded.

          I can’t actually think of a case where she did it on the basis of her faith. Is there a particular example you’re thinking of?

        2. BBCC

          They’re probably thinking of Dorothy and her parents at Freshman Family Weekend – but that too was after the fact, when she’d already befriended Dorothy.

        3. Reltzik

          But she did so by jettisoning the PARTS of her faith (hating atheists, hating queers, etc) that conflicted with that.

  10. ShinyNeen

    Who doesn’t enjoy waking up with a ridiculously sobering realization that potentially changes everything forever, honestly >.>

    Hell of a way to start a storyline. Kinda nervous about how this is gonna pan out!

    1. Geneseepaws

      potentially changes everything forever,…. Well, certainly for the next 80 years or so.

  11. Achallenger

    Hahaha… Crap

  12. brionl

    They say we’re young and we don’t know
    We won’t find out until we grow…

    Uh-oh , it’s Joyce-hog day.

    1. StClair

      I’ve got you, babe.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Okay campers, rise and shine! And don’t forget your booties because it’s COOOOOOLD out there!

        1. goggleman64

          Feels like a good greeting for someone who’s just rejected the concept of an afterlife 😉

  13. Bryy

    The upcoming Joyce vs. Carol is not going to be pretty.

    1. Reltzik

      Joyce is hanging out with atheists, being accepting towards sex-weirdos, and going to a Catholic-esque church. It was never going to be pretty.

      1. abysswatcher1993

        And now she is going to eventually read a dinosaur book.

        “Huh. It seems Pteranodons arent even dinosaurs.”

        1. Inahc

          Oh, I bet that’ll make for a great silly storyline. It’ll start with shenanigans to gather dinosaur information without telling Dina why, and somehow end with her stealing Fuckface again 😀

      2. Marsh Maryrose

        And Joyce’s best friend is a lesbian who — even worse — defied her father.

      3. BBCC

        And the girls she’s come closest to idolizing were an atheist with Catholic and Jewish parents and a rebel who drinks, smokes, dresses in ways I’m sure they’d deem ‘inappropriate’, questions authority like she breaths, and is hard to intimidate or bully. And worse….she went to a CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL.

        May Carol have a heart attack when she finds out.

        1. Needfuldoer

          I’ve been looking forward to seeing the Carol version of the Joyce-freaking-out panel. (She had to get it from somewhere…)

    2. BBCC

      It’s for the best.

      If Carol’s god demands that the community be heterocentric, ciscentric, sexist, anti-learning assholes*, then Carol’s god is evil.

      * = I don’t believe that Christian necessarily demands any of these things, but Carol does, so I’m commenting about her understanding of God specifically.

      1. jmsr7

        Carol’s branch appears to be Southern Baptist. That branch of christianity had things like compassion, social justice, sympathy for strangers, deviants, outcasts and concern for the downtrodden scorched out of it long ago because those concerns were not compatible with a slaveholding society.

        And if they’re also Calvinist then they just double down on the meanness and toss in “why bother fix anything, god’ll burn it all anyway” attitude as well.

        It’s possible to be a good person despite all that – “Joyce’s dad” types really do exist – but “Joyce’s mom” types are more common, being what the religion generates.

        1. Bryy

          Joyce’s religion scares me because it comes off as a cult more than anything else.

        2. Drunk Mike

          ‘In a cult there’s a guy at the top who knows it’s all bullshit. In a religion that guy has been dead a long time.’ – George Carlin

        3. jmsr7

          That’s a great Carlin quote (praise be to the man!) but like most sound bites, it’s too simplistic.

          The “cultishness” of a religious group (or any high control group) is variable and exists on a spectrum of the things about your life they want to control. The B.I.T.E. Model lists notes about how they control your Behaviour, your access to Information, what you are allowed to Think, and what Emotions you are allowed to express and feel. It’s here if you’re interested: http://old.freedomofmind.com/Info/BITE/bitemodel.php

          jmsr

        4. BBCC

          The Cult Test has a good list of questions. The site seems to be gone, but the questions can be found here – http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/cults/cult/the_cult_test.html

        5. BBCC

          I first saw this list from a friend who was a cult survivor. I (accidentally) joined a different cult run by the same guy after the one she was in fell apart, but I left before I realized it was a cult and only found out years later when I first read her statements about him.

        6. Deathjavu

          I remember having this exact conversation about this subject and the range of “cultishness” of various things, in this comment section, but I don’t remember anyone busting out actual research.

          That’s actually really cool, thanks. Other than the fact that a site like that needs to exist, which is decidedly uncool.

        7. BBCC

          I’ve never seen the BITE model either. At a glance, it looks really helpful!

        8. thejeff

          Officially they’re “nondenominational”, which is usually essentially a fundamentalist denomination while pretending to just be Christian and above all the petty bickering between denominations.

        9. Marsh Maryrose

          My impression is that nondenominationals tend to be people who think that Southern Baptists are insufficiently Christian.

        10. Bathymetheus

          With respect, that’s a pretty low bar.

        11. thejeff

          I get what you mean, but that’s not what they mean.

        12. Bathymetheus

          Oh, I know. I was just drawing attention to the awfulness (not to be confused with awefulness) of Southern Baptist churches. So I was actually agreeing, just in a rather sarcastic way.

  14. Lanie

    It’s always a fun day to wake up and truly realize the very foundation of your beliefs appear to be crumbling….right?

    1. BarerMender

      I don’t think her beliefs are crumbling. They’ve been crumbling. Now they’re dust.

    2. Reltzik

      It’s even more fun to wake up and realize that those foundations never existed at all.

      1. SillyGoose

        You may now curl up into a tight ball and cry your heart out, Joyce, honey. Sorry, love. Look, it’ll get better, I promise. Your values and core beliefs aren’t gone, only the trimmings.

  15. ValdVin

    When’s the last time Joyce had a unalloy good dream?

    1. Wizard

      Just last night. We just didn’t see it because where’s the drama in that?

  16. Alfredo Jorge Hesse Garcia Neto

    “You were never really here.”

  17. Aelfwine

    Atheism unlocked.

  18. Speedball

    “…SNAAAAAKE EATERRRRRRR~~~~~”

  19. Nono

    Orange and purple. Dexter and Monkey Master.

  20. Jess

    Poor kid D: I hope she’ll be okay in the end.

  21. DarkoNeko

    Lucy, no.

    1. Keulen

      Lucy, yes!

  22. BarerMender

    Joyce, the good news is, now you can do that orgasm thing Ruth was talking about.

    1. Reltzik

      “But without God, what’s the point???”

      “Orgasms. I just told you.”

      1. BarerMender

        Lol!

        1. ValdVin

          You can have both: “Put a lot of nerve endings down there. I want them to be saying My name when it happens.”

          (I think this is a George Carlin bit.)

  23. Warren

    You see where writing smutty web fiction leads?!

  24. abysswatcher1993

    Another explanation would be pantheism: Joyce is an extension of god, which is an allegory for the interconnected universe we all live in, and Baruch Espinoza is beating the crap out of Rich Mullins.

    In a more realistic explanation, Joyce discovered nihilism. Can I present her the Optimistic Nihilism video by Kurzgesagt?

    1. Reltzik

      I think you lost Joyce at “another explanation”.

  25. BarerMender

    The last frame. Joyce staring into the void. Brilliant work.

    1. Roborat

      She is actually staring up at Fuckface.

  26. Keulen

    That dream definitely went better than the previous one she had.

    1. Dana

      The previous one was probably a good dream. Willis skips the good dreams.

  27. Tom T.

    Tomorrow Joyce realizes that she’s still dreaming, and then she wakes up again. And then the next day the same thing happens….

    1. Needfuldoer

      We did just have a guest appearance by someone who looks suspiciously like early 90s Bill Murray…

  28. Reltzik

    Well, we all know and love red panels.

    NOW we get introduced to BLACK PANELS. Just imagine how much more delightful THEY will be!

    1. Reltzik

      (Yes, I know we’ve had nighttime black panels before. But this feels different.)

  29. Tenzhi

    And that’s why Revelation is the end.

  30. Meagan

    Shit, Joyce. This is a bit like the time I took mushrooms and then “dreamed” that the universe folded back in on itself and actually had never even existed, everything and everyone I had ever known and loved was all a hallucination I was having – like existence was the dream and nothingness was the reality. She is handling it better than I did though, since I woke up literally screaming in terror.

    1. SillyGoose

      But if nothing exists, who’s doing the dreaming?

      1. Kryss LaBryn

        “Cogito, ergo sum.” -Descartes

        1. Marsh Maryrose

          “Poto ergo sum.” -Billie, if she’d studied Latin

      2. thejeff

        The butterfly.

  31. HeySo

    Well, that’s certainly one of the more terrifying mental images induced by Willis’ alt-texts thus far.

  32. Walky_Talky

    “I thought I was talking to God, but I was just talking to myself the whole time. Therefore, I must……be…….God.”

    1. BBCC

      Hell yeah! Fuckin’ bow, mortals.

      1. BBCC

        I believe this makes the comments section a pantheon.

        1. nobilis

          “I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.”
          Psalm 82:6 and John 10:34

          So, yes.

        2. BBCC

          I repeat – Hell yeah! Fuckin’ bow, mortals.

    2. Chris Phoenix

      Michael Valentine Smith would agree.

      1. thejeff

        Thou art God.

    3. MatthewTheLucky

      But still just a bug to the Mothaeffin Goddess of Pranks.

  33. JohnF

    Who gave Joyce ketamine? That’s an awefully good depiction of the K-Hole.

    Are we about to revisit Roofie-party and scar-face, now that Amber’s even flakier and Sal has been outed as the Gas Station Bandit….

    1. kitty

      how do you know that

      1. Delicious Taffy

        What do you mean? It’s all in the comic.

  34. newllend(henryvolt)

    Now back to reality and more pressing issues…Such as that Sal might actually lose a popular poll for once to Dina. This has actually got my attention since her win record with these things is like the freaking Undertaker streak.

    1. BBCC

      Actually, Dina historically wins this poll consistently.

      The ones Sal wins are the badass one and the hottest lady one.

    2. Dana

      I don’t understand all the love for Sal. Hell, I’ve picked Malaya some years, IIRC.

      1. jmsr7

        The difference is personality and character. Sal has depth and is a good person under the scabs. Malaya is shallow, trending towards awful. They’re both hot, but sexiness isn’t everything. Malaya is one of those beautiful people i wouldn’t touchy with a ten foot pole.

        1. SillyGoose

          We haven’t really seen anything of Malaya’s back story, so I’m assuming she does have depth until proven otherwise. It’s just that she’s a distant acquaitance and Sal’s grown into a friend.
          She does act awful onscreen though, I’ll give you that.

        2. Nono

          We’ve seen plenty of Malaya’s back, though.

      2. BarerMender

        I’m with you, Dana. Sal doesn’t come higher than fifth or sixth on my list. And I’m surprised Dorothy and Sara score so low.

        1. Inahc

          I’m kinda wishing I could change my vote to include Dorothy.

  35. Reltzik

    Joyce, Panel 5: “That is the last time I drink two liters of water before bed.”

  36. plasticwrap

    Cue: depression.

  37. Meagan

    I was just looking through some comic history and realizing that Joyce, on her current trajectory, is in fact going to have “premarital” sex at some point. And THAT is going to be BIG. Granted, at the rate this is going we will all be 15 years older or so…

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      You know at this point I think I don’t mind waiting.

      1. Rabid Rabbit

        So long as we get the Slipshine. It may be the funniest Slipshine of all time.

  38. Tacos

    Alright you know what alt-text? I’m headcanoning that happening.

  39. Pl0x

    RE:poll
    Resenting Dina now. Sal deserves the #1 rank! Just for once, ok? Jeez.

    1. BBCC

      Sal’s been neck and neck the whole time though. Regardless how it turns out, I am proud of her.

      1. Leorale

        As I’m reading it right now (2:10am), Sal and Dina are tied.
        And 16 people voted Nash just to be difficult.

        1. Leorale

          (typo: 13 people.)

        2. Marsh Maryrose

          People voted for Faz and for Mary, but the Nash voters are the difficult ones?

        3. Leorale

          Hypothesis: They’re all difficult, and they love it.

    2. JoeCovenant

      I think my vote just put Sal in the lead! 🙂

  40. Ryan

    Thank maybe-no-god that Joyce is having a crisis of faith that will hopefully allow her to make some decisions so monumentally bad that they will strain even Slipshine’s sense of propriety. I’m talking Mike-sobbing-clutching his-knees-to-his-chest-in-a-cold-shower type bad decisions.

    1. Schpoonman

      I was gonna try to make a joke around Jacob’s line about her snapping and sucking a billion dicks, but he’s honestly one of the most healthy people that Joyce could hook up with (both just sexually and in a relationship) given that he’d (hopefully) let her set the pace, and I’d love for that to happen.

      1. thejeff

        The problem with Joyce is that it’s all internal. Her setting the pace will be as big a problem for her as basically anything else. Anything non actually rapey, of course.
        If she dates someone who pressures her, she’ll likely push back and avoid sex. That’s the pattern she’s been taught. Someone who lets her set the pace will bypass that and probably have her jumping them pretty quickly – followed by all her guilt kicking in.
        I mean, she pretty much threw herself at Ethan once and he wasn’t giving her any positive feedback.

        1. MatthewTheLucky

          Yeah, we already had the ‘Turns out Joyce is completely okay with sex after all’ twist in the other universe, so I’m expecting some more drama (although that was a great resolution to that character arc).

  41. Bagge

    Huh, I expected Sarah to hover over Joyce as she woke up. Oh well.

    1. thejeff

      Still could be. We’re in close up. Sarah could be just out of frame.

  42. stoodmuffin

    WOOF

  43. BenRG

    No, Joyce, you weren’t talking to yourself like in a dream. It was a dream and, like most dreams, tells you a lot about where your mind is going right now. Beyond that? Well, deciding whether your current fears and neuroses have any bearing on objective reality is the hard part!

  44. Heather Flowers

    God dreams are always fun. I had a dream a little over a year ago about killing God. He’d accepted his fate, that he was to die at my hands, and just kept apologizing, saying he’d done everything he could to make the world good but it was just never enough. Woke up sobbing. Fun times!

    1. Valerie

      Your dreamself is hardcore. I’m impressed.

    2. Rabid Rabbit

      I… really want to read a story based on that dream.

      Actually, if it wasn’t for the fact I’d be stealing your dream, I think I’d want to write that story.

  45. newllend(henryvolt)

    You know at times I think the biggest terror to be worried about isn’t that there is no God or that he’s dead, but that he made the universe and all of existence in it of itself to be one big joke. The war of nation, the diseases and plagues, the madness of Society and our awareness of it. All the suffering so the big guy up stairs can have a laugh.

    1. Kat

      “What is my purpose?”
      “You pass butter.”
      “Oh…god…”

      1. newllend(henryvolt)

        At first that joke had gave me the bigger laugh I had ever had in my life right before I realized how sad it was.

        1. Clif

          So basically, God is Mike?

        2. newllend(henryvolt)

          No Mike is Rick and Ethan is his Morty.

    2. thejeff

      We’re all just one giant complicated game of Sims.

    3. Buggman

      Frankly, I find the argument that God either doesn’t exist or is evil based on the fact that human beings are assholes to be incredibly vapid. The problem of “natural evil” (e.g., earthquakes, diseases) is a more reasonable objection, but when you look at how many civilizations have been destroyed and their knowledge lost over the millennia, it’s pretty clear that we could have reached the point of mitigating or eliminating that suffering a very long time ago if we hadn’t wasted so much effort on killing each other.

      1. John Smith

        How so? If god made us to be assholes, doesn’t that make him an asshole too?

        1. newllend(henryvolt)

          That’s the terrifying possibility nobody wants consider.

        2. thejeff

          Puts Zappa on the hacked Muzak

          ‘He wrote this book here and the book says, “He made us all to be just like him”
          So, if we’re dumb, then god is dumb and maybe even a little ugly on the side.’

    4. Bathymetheus

      God is an iron.

  46. Shane Wegner

    Now that Joyce has seen this view, can she UNsee it? Convince herself it was a trick? It was her reaching her own conclusion. I’m curious what she does next!

    Which makes this a good story.

    1. BenRG

      Well, she’s complained to Sal that no-one seems to notice that she’s changing as a person. What she does next is figure out who she’s changing into, whether she wants this and, if she does, how to make her new self plain without being silly about it.

  47. Architex

    So is that platform + steps piece the little stage a church band would play at, according to Joyce’s memory?

  48. Lone Duck

    Realizing that the altar is an empty stage isn’t easy.

  49. JediMB

    For the love of dog, someone please offer Joyce a hug!

  50. Nym

    Yesterday’s comic felt really sad, but this one feels almost bittersweet in a way. I’m interested in seeing where this goes.

  51. BarerMender

    This is my new favorite DOA strip. Subtly done but powerful. Using Mullins as stand-in for God was effective and kept it from being on the nose.

  52. Solenoid

    oh shit

  53. Bobvankay

    Hey Joyce, welcome.
    Here’s your complimentary “Orgin of the species” and “The God Delusion” copies, Baby eating at 5pm, bring your own fork.

  54. Latona

    I guess I am a little sad, because what first drew me to this comic so strongly was that Joyce was able to maintain her faith while also becoming more accepting of people. You actually rarely find media that encourage one without demanding you sacrifice the other.

    until now, I’ve liked the struggle she has had to balance the two. I don’t even mind that she doubts it, but I’m worried that this comic is a definitive indication that the thesis of this arch will be “people are dumb and wrong for believing in God and the world would be better off if everybody woke up from faith” and why of course the author is entitled to having that is the point of their media, just a little bit sad this will be presenting a more balanced view as I first thought it would be. As a liberal Christian, it was nice to see myself reflected in media for once

    1. thejeff

      It’s not. It won’t be. There are other Christian characters here. Becky seems to have no problem holding on to her faith, for example. Or to adding new information and perspectives to it.

      But Joyce’s breaking out of a particularly toxic version of Christianity. It’s not at all uncommon for people doing that to lose faith entirely. That doesn’t say anything about Christianity in general.
      Also, Joyce’s faith has always been presented as fairly brittle and shallow – focused more on the trappings than anything deeper. Jesus with a blue sash, grape juice, etc.

      1. Valerie

        This. Obviously good Christians exist, and there are some characters in the comic who are kind, smart people who are Christians. Becky was already mentioned, but we also have Sierra and Jacob. It’s just that the (most) main character has realized she doesn’t believe— that maybe she never believed— and it’s been building up to this realization for a long time.

      2. Sam

        This. There are other characters who have faith that are a lot less likely to lose it. Most of them in other branches of Christianity that are not as toxic or at least not like a cult like Joyce’s one. Joyce is likely to lose her faith *not* because ‘Christianity is stupid’ but because she was practically raised in a cult and once a few pieces fell apart as false and lies… everything else starts to look like lies too.

        1. BBCC

          That’s the way with a lot of cults tbh – whether religious or secular.

          You have to be ready to see the lies for what they are, but once you’re just so done that you will not swallow anymore, the next lie makes it all come crashing down. A lot of people leave at that point.

        2. BBCC

          Joyce isn’t in a cult (at least, to general understanding) but it’s also true in a lot of religious fundamentalism – once you can’t swallow more of what your religion gives you, the next bit cause a big crash.

      3. Buggman

        I sadly agree with you. It’s interesting that the kids in my old youth group who went to a private Christian school and were completely isolated from the world during their upbringing were more likely to lose their faith in college than those of us who were given more leeway in our friends and activities. In a lot of ways, I think that it’s like what we’re learning about our immune systems: If you don’t expose a kid to germs and dirt early on, they’re more vulnerable to a catastrophic infection down the line.

        Having said that, there are three ways this could go: One, Joyce just loses her faith and goes wild permanently. Two, Joyce loses her faith and goes wild temporarily, but eventually settles back into a comfortable, liberal faith that doesn’t want or require evidence. Three, she actually confronts and wrestles with her doubts and learns that just because the world isn’t as simple as she was raised to believe, that doesn’t make atheism the default position, and her faith comes out stronger as a result of being willing to look for real answers to her questions.

        Unfortunately, I don’t think Willis is likely to write the third path, since he doesn’t (as I understand it) believe that. Which will be a shame, because it was Joyce’s character journey which attracted me to the comic in the first place.

        1. Lori

          ….It is VERY possible to lose your faith without ‘going wild’, and it’s… confusing to me that you completely dismiss it as an option.

          Joyce does not seem to me like the type to… have unprotected sex? Start drinking? What are you meaning when you say ‘go wild’, actually- just not being religious? People who aren’t religious lead happy healthy and stable lives every day.

          Maybe she’ll say a couple swears? Maybe she’ll struggle for a year and a half to scrape together an identity without the pseudo-cult she was raised in, become inordinately obsessed with transformers as a coping mechanism, slowly come to accept the fact that the pseudo-cult she was raised in was false and manipulative and harmful and that she is better without it, while still dealing with the quiet pain in her heart that the things she believed in so wholeheartedly aren’t true, and were never true, and were actively hurting her and the people she loves- many of whom still Believe, and who are actively harming themselves and others because of this Belief.

          Oh, wait, that last one was actually me.

          Please reconsider your biases, maybe? This story may not be what you want to see, but it resonates with me, and is told with a thoughtful accuracy I deeply appreciate.

        2. thejeff

          It’s actually fairly likely that Joyce will “go wild” sexually. Or at least several characters in canon think she will: Jacob’s “snap and suck like a billion dicks” and Ruth’s “bang half the town like a frenzied Tasmanian Devil”.
          And for her it would be both necessary to break with religion and a likely consequence of it – though I do suspect lots of frenzied sex with one partner would be more likely, ala Joyce and Walky in the Walkyverse.

          But yes more generally “going wild” isn’t really tied with atheism. Maybe slightly with breaking with a particularly repressive faith?

        3. Lori

          Like I said, I escaped a pseudo-cult, and there was no going wild involved.

          Joyce definitely needs to come to terms with sex, and maybe she’ll have a bunch of it but like… it’s not a dichotomy between sex and faithfulness. She can do both, or neither. The world is vast.

        4. SillyGoose

          It’s Joyce we’re talking about so obviously “going wild” = “eating a non-deconstructed pizza and maybe after some adjustment a whole taco”.

        5. Roborat

          Ands then she will progress to going out in public without a sweater vest, until finally, she progresses to leaving the top button of her blouse undone.

        6. Apostate

          Atheism does not mean being amoral. One does not need a skydaddy to loom over them to be a good person.

        7. Apostate

          Oh, and casual sex is p normal if that’s what you meant by “going wild”

        8. thejeff

          Sucking “like a billion dicks” and banging “half the town like a frenzied Tasmanian Devil” is kind of a little more than casual sex though.

        9. Dana

          It’s not casual, it’s a calling.

    2. Josh Spicer

      Thank you for sharing my opinion on this.

    3. RaisonDetriment

      I’m right here with you in all of this.

    4. timemonkey

      Joyce didn’t have faith, Joyce had brainwashing. Her entire life she’s been told exactly what to think, what to feel, what her life would be, what her afterlife would be. And what we have here is Joyce coming to terms with that, that she never really truly believed she was just repeating what she’d been taught.

      Now comes the part where she breaks free of her conditioning and decides what she really wants and what she really believes. She may very well choose to embrace religion again under her own terms, this time with a genuine belief.

    5. Luna

      While I understand being disappointed that Joyce’s arc isn’t going in the direction you were hoping, I think it’s not quite fair to say that Joyce losing her faith completely would mean the point is ‘all Christians are stupid for believing in God’. Especially since there are other Christian characters in the comic who have healthier relationships with their faith.

    6. BBCC

      There’s non-Joyce Christians here. Sierra, Danny, Billie, Becky, Jacob, Amber, Marcie, Roz, and Lucy all off the top of my head. Mary too, but Mary sucks.

      If you want non-Christian religious folks, Ethan, Joe, and Raidah all come to mind too.

  55. Joe Moose

    I’m glad she realizes this before it reached Deacon Vorbis levels of faith.

    1. BenRG

      As Pratchett rightly pointed out, the only thing Vorbis really believed in was Vorbis. It just suited his ego to believe that his own desires and ambitions were divine in origin.

      1. abysswatcher1993

        Or the Brethren. Those guys summoned a dragon through sheer spite of the people they hated.

  56. Kimberly

    Ooof. This one hits close to home.

  57. Greylurker

    I love how her clothing kept shifting as this story progressed, each outfit being a little window into her mental process

  58. Scubasteve0209

    Oof. Somebody enroll her in a sociology class & fast-track her into the section about “Anomie.”

    1. Roborat

      She will misunderstand and end up studying anime.

  59. Enzo mazzini

    Poor kid?

  60. Ridtom

    On the one hand, I am sad it appears that she’s losing her faith.

    On the other, maybe it’s the best considering where that faith sprouted from?

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      Na, it’s even worse she’s realizing that for all these years she might not had her own real faith in God in the first place. It’s common for most kids to have only picked up Christianity because their parents force into and having that name of childlike ignorance they just take it at face value for a good portion of their upbringing. But eventually everyone gets to a point in their adolescence they skeptical at everything and the World At Large, that includes the the way the world works, the Guardian that raised, and even the religion you grew up with. I’m just surprised Joyce just went until college before she had this realization.

      I had a similar experience myself at my teen age year and so I had to break and drew my own conclusions and it was mostly around the scientific question I had, don’t really think that the world was 6,000 years old. I was still able to believe that their is a God and their some purpose in life but I’m not particularly clear what it is yet, but existence of a higher power aside their were also times when just one question alone can raise up so many others. I heard the story of Adam and Eve so many times before you stop and ask yourself ” if God didn’t want them to eat the fruit from a specific tree then why put it there in the first place, it’s not like he was testing them or anyting because since he’s all going he should have known that they were bound to fail” then that was the moment I realize that maybe God just pulled a Batman Gambit on Adam and Eve and he was planning them bringing sin and evil into world because he intended that would teach the difference between good and evil through a long unforgivingly harsh learning that spans the generations

  61. Sazazezer

    Days like this i feel Willis needs a hug.

  62. Clif

    How come the last panel got moved to the alt – text?

  63. C.T Phipps

    I spent years researching miracles, physics, science, and philiosophy to get my answer. In the end, I decided that everything I viewed as Good was Godly and everything evil wasn’t and went from there. Consciousness is something that is fundamentally holy and the only way to keep it that way is to treat it as good and just.
    –Random ramblings of a religious person

  64. motorfirebox

    Last night while sitting by the stair
    I talked to a god who wasn’t there

    1. Bagge

      Clever!

  65. hapax

    Happy Ash Wednesday, everybody!

  66. Vulcanodon

    Frame five, OM… damn. no G. I can so relate to this and also thinking about Willis thank you thank you thank you this is so good.

    I don’t know if Joyce is going to become an atheist or not – there are many possibilities – but this is going to be really difficult and she is going to need consoling and support. Still wondering if Jocelyn will be the one to give it.

  67. Nazmazh

    Oh Joyce…

    Poor girl’s whole belief system, the armour that’s she’s worn all her life, found her comfort in, never had any reason to doubt… it’s collapsing around her. And she’s not sure how to deal with it all.

    It must be crushing, overwhelming – and the people she would turn to to help with this, she’s not sure she can safely turn to them anymore necessarily. Maybe her father – but something this huge, an entire loss of faith on this level – that’s so scary that she probably can’t imagine admitting to something like that. Maybe not even overtly to herself, let alone to someone who believes and has such an important role according to the structure of their faith.

    Plus with all the expectations placed upon her, and worries that sending her to a secular school would have been the catalyst for this “corruption”, and admitting to starting to doubt might get her dragged home and cloistered away to bring her back into the fold…

    All I can really say is, poor girl needs a hug and a trusted friend (or a few) so badly. And probably a really good therapist to help her process all of this safely and without judgment.

    I say all of this as a third-generation atheist who has never really had to grapple with issues like a crisis of faith. Being from a family like that, religion was basically a non-issue, never discussed at all – positively or negatively, other than the occasional “Bah! Wish they’d just leave us alone!”

    Several years ago, I might have been more inclined to be all high-and-mighty “Aha! Look she’s seeing the light of reason and shedding pointless superstitions!” But I left that sort of atheism behind as it got more and more toxic – as the anti-feminists and out-and-out racists got more and more vocal, and the jackasses got louder and louder, dunking on any show of religion or faith, regardless of how benign or genuinely benevolent. I drifted more towards the humanistic side of atheism, and I’m so glad that I did. Letting compassion and empathy serve as the foundation for a philosophical system, rather than smugness and self-satisfaction has led to a lot better of a place, in my opinion.

    *****

    Sorry, I was getting a bit off-topic there. Anyway, I used to know a girl who was so much like Joyce in so many ways. She was the girlfriend of my roommate. Very sweet girl, had grown up in a -very- religious family (was homeschooled until grade 12, IIRC) in a small town, so her going off to university (at a religious university in the same city as our university) was a big change for her. When another roommate and I were casually discussing how the sun was going to expand and destroy the Earth in oh-5 billion years or so, she flatly said “No it won’t.” Caught us both very off-guard for a second, until she followed up with “God wouldn’t let that happen.” and it was like a brief “Oh, right” glance between the two of us and a quick subject change. Anyway, this girl and my roommate eventually not-so-amicably parted ways, and she very quickly got engaged to a different guy (like, within a few months of the breakup – I believe a major wedge was that my roommate didn’t want to get married and start a family so young, but she was dead-set on it).

    She seems content in her godly stay-at-home-mom life, hawking MLM sex toys [yeah…], whenever I see facebook posts from her (yes, we’re still facebook friends, mostly because I never clear out my facebook unless someone is actively toxic). I guess, to borrow a phrase from Frank Turner. “If that’s your road, then take it, but it’s not the road for me.”

  68. Old Fart

    For people who want to talk or seek information about the issues around leaving or changing faith, Recoveriing from Religion is an organization that’s there to help. They have a live hotline, online chat, references to resources and therapists, and a podcast.
    https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/ 1-844-368-2848

  69. namadings

    Wow. Ouch. ._.
    Thank you for one more powerful slice of life. ._.

  70. Griffin Raynor

    I lost my faith a long time ago, and yet this sends me back to the pain I felt then. Joyce is in for another rough period, I expect.

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