472

Plot twist
Posted on August 9, 2017 by David M Willis

472 thoughts on “Plot twist”

  1. Emperor Daniel

    But that catapult suit tho

    1. Ana Chronistic

      has found its first two test subjects

      1. butts

        patreon strip pls

    2. UniqueSnowflake2

      Even better: blowjob catapult suit.

      1. thejeff

        I see what you did there.

  2. Ana Chronistic

    of COURSE it was Peter Paul

    it ALWAYS was

    how could it NOT have been

    1. butts

      Of all the relationships to cross canons

    2. gkheyf

      ooooor…maybe they meet paul later!

      1. butts

        Dude’s name is Peter Paul

        He’s Mary’s husband in the Walkyverse

        because DYW

        1. gkheyf

          right. i forget these things. maybe every makeout counts as a threesome then?

    3. JetstreamGW

      … I had forgotten his name was Peter Paul.

      Peter Paul and Mary? Really, Willis? Really?

      1. Orion Fury

        Thank you for explaining the joke, I needed that.

      2. Van Jealous

        So, if they “do it” I guess it’s a case of “Peter Paul Mounts”…..Peter Paul Mounds…..Oh forget it…..

        1. saltchocolate

          Sometimes you feel like a nut . . .

        2. Bruceski

          They did have an album called Peter Paul & Baby…

        3. Bruceski

          Wait no, it’s & Mommy.

      3. Rheinman

        In a shocking plot twist, they will be caught puffing the magic dragon

        1. Scar Man!!!

          I know it’s about pot, but that song still makes me cry every time

        2. SgtWadeyWilson

          *Wipes away tears just thinking about it.* I know, that poor dragon!

  3. AnvilPro

    Mary’s hobby is walking down the hallway

  4. Cephalo the Pod

    Oh, wow, it’s actually Peter. Didn’t think Willis would bother with the reference.

    1. Emperor Daniel

      This is Peter’s what, second appearance in the strip? And his first speaking role.

      1. Najaru

        Plot twist: Peter’s first appearance was during a Sunday morning, when according to Toedad he should have been in church at the time! O_O

        Unless I’m missing something

        1. Ninjamaid

          I checked the strip, Dina says ‘earlier’ so it’s set a little after morning. Given the way Peter’s walking he could be returning to the dorms after morning service.

        2. Tawdry Quirks

          And a few strips earlier, Joyce mentioned that she and Becky had just returned from church. Peter probably attends the same church.

  5. shadowcell

    Faz and Wen are reborn

    1. Doctor_Who

      So it’s their second coming?

      “On the contrary, Faz has had many comings with Wen. As you can see on this chart-“

    2. Emperor Daniel

      I await the day Wen this happens with bated breath.

      1. SgtWadeyWilson

        Not too keen on it myself, but it wouldn’t really Faz me.

    3. TheAnonymousGuy

      No committing premarital coital sins in the hallway.

    4. Mitsukara

      I’m dunno, I’m pretty sure Faz and Wen are cuter than these two.

  6. Puckish Rogue

    I’ve got no issues with her making out with someone but leave that kind of carry on in private please

  7. Shiro

    Is…is this some kind of bizarre attempt to dilute the lesbianism in the wing by being aggressively heterosexual at them???? I don’t understand.

    1. Tacos

      I wouldn’t be surprised.

      1. brasca1

        I could see that as an excuse that may ultimately lead to a complication this couple experienced in the Walkyverse.

    2. Doctor_Who

      It won’t work. Balance must be restored, so like six more girls are going to wake up gay tomorrow.

      I don’t actually know if it works like that, but if it doesn’t then seeing this might do the trick.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        It may take a few days, they need to reroute the chemtrail planes first.

      2. Kamino Neko

        I dunno…the only reason Peter comes across as awful is the fact he’s with Mary… So I’m not sure seeing this could put one off dudes.

        But imagining the ball of sanctimony that is Mary in intimate embrace might serve to put one off ladies. So, producing more straight girls and gay guys.

        1. Doctor_Who

          “Nobody is righteous except you” doesn’t put you off the guy at all?

        2. begbert2

          It’s sweet talk – the guy is saying what she wants to hear. If he was serious he wouldn’t have excluded himself, at the very least.

        3. Pat

          Exactly.

        4. Daibhid C

          Except for the part where what Mary wants to hear is terrible, ergo, people who say what Mary wants to hear are terrible.

          In fact, it’s possible that people who encourage Mary’s belief that almost everyone deserves to burn in Hell purely so she’ll make out with them are more terrible than people who actually agree with her, but I’d need to check the maths on that one.

        5. Kamino Neko

          The fact that he made out with her immediately afterward is the only thing that doesn’t make that drip a thick layer of sarcasm.

      3. onetwoduck

        Exactly, they’re like frogs.

    3. Cass

      They’re attempting to inject enough white cis heterosexuality into the dorm to make sure soggies won’t rule.

      1. Mr D

        Hmm.
        I SUMMON THEE WILLIS TO ASK FOR A BOON:
        Are the soggies a multiversal constant?

        1. Orion Fury

          Well I believe the soggies themselves were from a different universe, so it’ll then come down to are they all parallel universes here, or are there up/down layers?

        2. SgtWadeyWilson

          Summoning something for a boon? Isn’t that how all the Pandemonium started?

    4. Commodore Jeep-Eep

      It could also be a case of doing it to herself.

      Or both.

    5. Delicious Taffy

      That’s a strange concept? Do they think all queer people are heterophobic, or something?

  8. Doctor_Who

    “Mike, if I run out of vomit can I borrow some of yours?” – Tom Servo

    1. Adj

      I think I am as equally disgusted by “Hobgoblins” as I am with Mary right now.

  9. Kat

    Nooooooooo

  10. Mandy

    I think I might vomit.

  11. Miguel

    Well some things never change.

  12. Shiro

    Also I cannot read “nobody is righteous except for you” in any way but deadpan sarcasm

    Is

    Is this an “Oh Anna, if only there were somebody who loved you” twist in the making?

    1. Some1

      It’s Ryan in disguise!!

      1. BLACKOUT

        Doubtful.

        He still has a face.

        1. Tacos

          Maybe he stole someone’s face a la FaceOff.

        2. Mr. Bulbmin

          Also known as the biggest cheesy hamfest ever to feature two leads who never bang.

      2. butting

        Seems more like a cross between (non-rapey) Ryan and Howard.

        Which, ewwww.

    2. Fart Captor

      I think he may actually find her holier than thou attitude endearing, somehow

      1. Some1

        There have been stranger fetishes.

        I call it sanctaphillia (it’s ironic)

    3. Pablo360

      With Mary in the role of Prince Hans.

    4. Delicious Taffy

      Christ, don’t remind me of that shitty out-of-nowhere twist…

      1. MatthewTheLucky

        You didn’t see that coming?

        Elsa literally warned her in the film.

      2. foamy

        Lets dance.

        There are a number of hints towards it. Hans’ ready, sappy agreement with absolutely anything Anna proposes is in sharp contrast to the level-headed, effective leader we see later. He’s a half-beat behind in much of Love Is An Open Door, most obviously on the line about sandwiches. As he himself points out later, he’s thirteenth in line. He could have clearly seen Anna coming and must therefore have intentionally made her collide with his horse. You can see him thinking hard on the line “just me” / “JUST you?”, presumably about how the phrasing betrays a lack of confidence. When Hans interferes with the crossbow shot he deliberately aims it at Elsa’s ice chandelier, presumably with the intent of “arranging a little accident”. He points at Arendelle when he sings the line “my own place”. When Anna confronts the Duke of Wesselton, Hans tries to take the lead, both verbally and through body language and position (i.e, he steps in front of Anna while she’s talking to the Duke). Obviously, there’s the scene where he leaves Elsa in a dungeon as soon as he realizes he can’t get what he wants from her. There’s the point, brought up by Elsa and reiterated by Kristof, that marrying someone you just met is really dumb. Olaf’s cry of “who is this Hans?” points up yet again how little any of the characters, or the audience, knows about Hans.

        1. Wraithy2773

          The main issue I have is that he goes kinda… cartoonishly villainous in the end, while apparently doing good deeds well outside of Anna’s sight during the middle of the film.

          Granted, it’s quite likely he was trying to cement his hold on power in the event of Anna’s quite-likely death. But literally going around the city handing out blankets is a hell of a step.

          Its just, sociopathic and manipulative as hell, not actually giving a damn for Anna? Totally believe that. But a slightly less extreme villainy, like a line about “All you care about is your sister, I’ve been trying to help your people ever since you ran off” or something would’ve fit the character a bit, and helped sell that his characterization a bit better…

          …but it prolly would’ve also taken focus away from the Anna/Elsa plot at a crucial point, which might’ve hurt the film too. It’s a flaw, but like a tiny hairline crack on a diamond the size of your fist: Whole thing’s pretty damn good still :).

        2. Kamino Neko

          A few things…

          1) He has no pre-existing ties to Arendell, and his marriage to Ana hasn’t been formalized, yet. He’s not getting that throne, if he looks like an asshole outsider who doesn’t care about his fiancee’s country. If she was believed dead, not just out doing stuff, he could play the mourning widower, but that wasn’t an option (and limited what he could do, if it didn’t still involve getting out and helping).
          2) There’s not much point in having the throne if the nation is devastated by an unexpected winter – crops destroyed, and people dead means no economic activity/taxes/luxuries for him. This just points to him being smarter than many despots.
          2a) There’s a very good chance he wouldn’t have it for long if he didn’t respond to the disaster this way. Peasants have a way of revolting when their rulers show clearly they don’t care for them.
          3) He’s clearly big on appearances – he’d want to look like a GOOD king, even beyond the practical reasons for that above.

        3. Eira the Forest Witch

          Another problem with Hans behaviour is that as 13:th in line he would know how lineage work and that there is litterally no way for him to become king unless he invaded the kingdom and took it in a war. So, he was never getting that throne, period. Which makes his attemted murder on Ana wholly pointless, beacuse his only shot at being a ruler of Arendell would be to kill Elsa, marry Ana and make her his ‘puppet’ so that he rules through her.

        4. Pat

          He didn’t try to kill Ana, though. She was already dying and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

        5. foamy

          Putting out the fire, aside from the visual story-telling aspects of it, is obviously an attempt to hasten the process along. Likewise locking the door so that nobody could interfere and/or hear Anna accuse him.

        6. Wraithy2773

          He wouldn’t have a legitimate claim on the throne with Anna dead, but who would? Elsa’s run off and seen as evil, Anna’s dead, the parents are dead, the regents that had been running the nation until Elsa’s coronation would have no further heirs to justify their rule…

          Hans would be the best option left: A noble from a friendly nation, popular among the people, engaged to the Princess and left in charge before her demise, apparently doing a good job during his brief tenure as regent.

          Oh, it wouldn’t be Hans’ ideal situation, he’d have to play the kind, generous ruler for a few years until he was fully accepted, but it was his best option left.

        7. Liliet

          My biggest problem with that line is that it seems absolutely ridiculously out of character. The entire movie he’s subtle and empathetic enough to be good at turning people to his side. It would have been so easy to kiss Anna, or to make some excuse. It should have been his INSTINCT to be nice to her, just in case someone else could see/hear him, just in case someone else happened to see Anna before her death and hear her opinion about him. It would have been so easy to be NICE to Anna while abandoning her to her death. It’s the entire BASIS of how he operates.

          But noooo, how would children understand he’s evil without the villainous line?

        8. foamy

          Okay, so:

          Hans, until Anna’s confirmed dead, is required to acts as though he expects her to come back alive and successful, and doing so has zero drawbacks to his long range goal.

          Anna explicitly placed him in charge. His legitimacy as a ruler stems from that. So, honouring that charge by taking care of Arendelle’s citizens:

          1. Makes the citizens favour him;
          2. Establishes trust with the other nobles, who can see him fulfilling the duty he was given;
          3. If Anna does come back, she’ll approve of his course, cementing his legitimacy;
          4. If both Anna and Elsa come back, Hans’ stewardship of Arendelle in the crisis might make the Queen reconsider her veto (if not immediately, than in time)
          5. Even if neither come back, if Hans wants to have a kingdom left to rule he needs to help hold the place together until the winter is ended anyway.

          Hans acute awareness of how his position depends entirely on Anna’s placing him in charge being viewed as legitimate is also evidenced in his conversation with the Duke. He’s simply patiently weary when the Duke complains about what he’s doing, but reacts instantly and harshly the moment the Duke tries to undermine Anna’s position.

        9. Wraithy2773

          Oh, certainly, I’m okay with every single thing Hans does before the twist being an act to secure his position on the throne once Anna and Elsa are both dead.

          I just think that the sudden swerve from “acting charming and kind while scheming and plotting” clashes heavily with his later characterization of “super evil villain”. Just removes depth from the character and the story at a kinda important point… but fidelity to the primary themes (Anna and Elsa’s story) was probably a greater concern in the end.

        10. Kamino Neko

          The charm was performative. He had no reason to keep it up with a dying Ana or a villainized Elsa.

        11. Sunny

          I heard the script was rewritten partway through to make him a villain, which is where most of the inconsistencies come from. IIRC, originally there wouldn’t even have been a real villain.

        12. Pat

          The Snow Queen is the villain in the original story. As much as a barely-personified force of nature can be a villain.

          While there are essentially no similarities at all between the original story and “Frozen,” I think Elsa was supposed to be the villain. And she is the antagonist, until the abrupt switch.

        13. foamy

          The entire movie allegedly went through a rewrite following the composition of “Let It Go”, yes.

        14. btoblake

          True enough. I think it can still be seen as consistent before and after the rewrite.

          I wonder whether the troll mind control magic was introduced before or after the rewrite?

          There’s nothing explicitly said about how the trolls wanted to handle the fixer upper situation, but they seem to alternate between ignoring humans and granting their wishes quickly.

        15. Mr. Bulbmin

          I see you too watch Film Theory.

        16. foamy

          Oh, and an addendum, Hans’ eye colour is green, traditionally associated with envy. I wouldn’t necessarily consider that significant, but Kristof actually brings it up when he’s grilling Anna about her engagement.

          And Disney’s gone to that well before. Lady Tremaine. Maleficent. Scar. The evil Queen in Snow White. It’s a handy shorthand.

          Moreover! Disney villains often have copious amounts of green in their introduction. Hans’ version is more subtle, but when he meets Anna, the background is a supersaturated, brightly sunlit, luminously green forest.

        17. Rhee

          Also, he’s wearing gloves for the entire movie, UNTIL he reveals the twist (he stands at the fireplace and removes his gloves while having his supervision monologue). In stage plays, a character wearing gloves is shorthand for a character with something to hide, and traditionally they remove their gloves when they reveal their secret. Elsa ALSO has gloves to hide her secret, until they are removed.

          Makes Mickey Mouse into a seriously creepy guy all of a sudden…

        18. foamy

          Yes, but that particular point’s been beaten to death. Anyone who knows anything about Frozen is aware of it :p

          One thing I did miss, though: When Olaf says “who is this Hans”, the scene cuts to him… accompanied by ominous music. :p

      3. Delicious Taffy

        Well, look at you folks, watching the movie more than once/paying attention during it/reading analyses.

        My ignorance stems from a single viewing, shortly after it came out on DVD, during which I was paying more attention to my popcorn.

        1. foamy

          So why blame the movie, then?

        2. foamy

          I mean if you want a movie with people’s roles signposted in neon lettering you can always go watch, I dunno, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, the Little Mermaid, etc.

  13. Foxhack

    Well now I feel like I want to puke after that last panel. Yeeeeeeeeech.

  14. butts

    oh fuck it’s a male Mary

    everyone head for the fucking hills

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Only place that will be safe, because they would never follow there.

      1. Pablo360

        Jesus explicitly tells his followers to run for the hills in a time of disaster

        In fact that might be where the phrase comes from

        1. Orion Fury

          So it’s not “Jesus, run for the hills!” but rather “Jesus: ‘Run for the hills!'”

        2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          But not to the fucking hills, the ones with the natural aphrodisiacs in the spring water.

        3. Delicious Taffy

          Are these hills real? Asking for a friend.

    2. metaceryn

      Male Mary, sucking face
      The bongo is with you
      Cursed are you among extras
      And cursed is the hellmouth you swap spit with
      Male Mary, smirk at us sinners
      Now and at the hour of your death, which can’t come fast enough
      Afuckingmen

      1. metaceryn

        …bongo. Huh. Didn’t see that one coming.

        1. butts

          They never do

          Welcome to Bongo City, population: you

        2. metaceryn

          Thank you for such gracious hospitality.

  15. pjeseb

    Looks like Mary has been blunted by her new love interest the same way water blunts a grease fire.

    1. Gaia

      Well, enough water would blunt a grease fire. 😛

      1. Orion Fury

        Man that water, powerfully wet stuff, isn’t it?

      2. Pat

        By eventually spreading it too thin?

        1. thejeff

          Depriving it of oxygen?

          Might take a lot of water all at once, but if you move your grease fire to the bottom of the ocean, it’s not going to keep burning.

        2. Pat

          It floats though. That’s the whole problem.

  16. Architex

    That leg’s pretty high up there for a dress

  17. Luzahn

    Aw man, this is my least favorite way for this plot to turn out.

    1. Wraithy2773

      Just wait a few (in-story) months. Judging by the leg, kiss feverishness and sardonic lines, good odds of comeuppance coming down the line…

  18. BBCC

    Fuuuuuck you, Mary. I hope these two fuck off into the sunset and we don’t have to deal with them anymore.

    1. Reltzik

      They’re a pair of judgemental religious assholes. When was that ever a possibility?

  19. SpruceGoose

    So…

    Mary x Peter Slipshine when?

    1. Yossarianduck

      Ironically, that would probably open up the gates of hell and consume the earth in flames.

      1. SgtWadeyWilson

        So you’re telling me there’d be a silver lining?

    2. Scar Man!!!

      Wouldn’t be her first appearance there…

      (Fucking why, Willis?)

  20. Keulan

    I should’ve expected this, I suppose. Of course Mary would date a boy who’s just as much of a judgemental fundie asshole as she is.

  21. Victor Riley

    Wow… saying Joyce is neither cold nor hot? (I’m… not completely sure what that even means in this context) But damn, Mary is even a bigger hatemonger than I thought… even a fellow devout religious believer isn’t good enough for her?

    Is Mary Westboro Baptist or something?

    1. Lingo

      Of course. Joyce has proven to be much too tolerant of the likes of Billie, Ruth, Becky, and Ethan. (I don’t think she knows Carla is trans.)

      1. Kamino Neko

        She’s…probably learned since she gave Becky the tour. I’m pretty sure all the shit that came out of Mary’s bullshit would have led to a hall meeting. Which would be a terrible way to handle things, but…

        1. thejeff

          Joyce isn’t going to learn about trans people off camera. Far too much of a character development thing.

        2. Emily

          Plus odds are its going to be some scene involving both Carla and Jocelyn

        3. thejeff

          I’m not sure where it’s going. Not sure what has the most dramatic potential.

          I’m sure Willis has it planned out though. Too much set up and too big a plot point to leave dangling.

    2. Ferdinand Rosenthal

      Joyce became tolerant. She let in the devil, obviously, though has committed no sin by her own hand herself, ergo, lukewarm.

    3. Sev

      For anyone wondering, the ‘neither cold nor hot’ thing is an allusion to the message to the church in Laodicea, found in the book of Revelations (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%203:14-22). Lots of debate on the correct way to interpret this which I can’t really be bothered getting into now, not least because I’m supposed to be working.

    4. MythDancer

      Oh, they don’t even have to be Westboro Baptist to have issues with other believers who are “lesser” in their faith. I’m Christian, and I’ve been told I’m going to hell because I enjoy D&D, that I am steeped in filth because I watch things rated other than G, that I’m not a true believer and need to reexamine the Bible and find God because I’m a LGBQT+ ally…The list goes on and on. A friend’s mom who’s pretty tolerant with whom I’m fairly close was shocked and horrified when I got a tattoo. My favorite was when I was researching asexualism and the first Christian site I found about it was a forum advocating for “corrective rape” as a way to “cure” me and my kind.
      There’s nutjobs in every group, be it religious or otherwise. It’s easier to avoid them when they all clump together, a la Westboro Baptist. Unfortunately, when they spread out into more tolerant churches and communities, it gives everyone around them a bad rep as well – even if they’re not bigoted/racist/sexist/otherwise intolerant.
      The bad ones are usually the loudest, and tend to drown the rest of us out.
      Please don’t judge all Christians by Mary and her ilk. I love Joyce and her representation of love and support, even if she’s still learning what all is in the world that she never knew about thanks to her sheltered upraising. And I hope hers is the version of my faith which people take away from this comic, rather than the awful ones like Mary.

      1. C.T Phipps

        A reminder, of course, that Billie is probably the most religious character in the strip after Joyce. She’s just private about it, which is how I handle my religion.

        1. Fart Captor

          I think Becky probably has her beat in that regard. Possibly Agatha or Sierra as well.

        2. Deathjavu

          In what context is Billie considered religious? She gave halfhearted answers about what she believes and not only has never been seen attending church, she flatly refused to go more than once iirc.

          I can’t think of a non-warped definition of “religious character” that doesn’t put other people ahead of Billie in that metric. Sierra, Becky, Mary…there are probably others as well.

      2. Wind

        While there’s no part of that ‘corrective rape for asexuality’ that’s not utterly horrifying, there’s an extra level of messed-up for a group that goes on about sex is bad and sinful and then wants to ‘correct’ someone who doesn’t want sex.

        1. Wind

          Auugh! I have Mary as a gravatar. I may need to change my username just to see if I can escape that. :p

        2. Jhon

          Just capitalize a random letter of your email address.
          And say ‘Mary, begone!’

      3. Stella

        Don’t forget Jacob!

        I’m still so, so happy about Episcopalian representation and Jacob and Joyce’s open-minded conversation. Even if it never gets brought up again, I’m just happy it was mentioned in the first place.

        Also the idea that Jacob being constantly objectified / viewed sexually is unnerving for him, even though he’s male and allosexual. Jacob! Describing a lot of my feelings about sex and religion. (I’m a woman and asexual, but Jacob’s perspective is one that I’d never heard voiced aloud despite being fairly common).

        Anyway, end of tangent.

    5. Briny

      “(I’m… not completely sure what that even means in this context)”.

      There’s a Biblical passage (Rev. 3:16) in which a region’s church is told that, from their works, they are neither hot (devout) nor cold (rejecting of the faith). And so (chasing the metaphor), they’re going to be spat out first.

      Basically, Mary’s saying (of Joyce) “she’s Christian… but she’s not that Christian. She basically owns the t-shirt but doesn’t know any of the band’s songs.”

      This is, from what I can tell of Joyce, very incorrect.

    6. Cerberus

      As the others said, it’s from Revelation 3 and is part of a giant rant as seen here:
      http://biblehub.com/revelation/3.htm

      But yeah, among the pre-millennial dispensationalist fundie set, this is often interpreted as a “I’m more pious than them” thumb-wave, a way of going oh, you think going to church on Sunday and being a generally decent person is enough, well, that faith is lukewarm and will be rejected, where as my zealous passion (for doing whatever my pastor tells me to do) will see me rewarded in Heaven.

      Among the rapturist set, the “incompletely” pious are often seen as a bigger enemy than the sinners and books like Left Behind devote a long portion of their books to how “imperfect” Christians who attended the wrong churches and didn’t spend their Saturdays protesting abortion clinics or screaming at gay kids are going to be Left Behind and all sorry they aren’t chilling in Heaven with the cool awesome saved people who got to die early… I mean…

      The whole thing is ironic of course, because Joyce believes and tries to do right by that belief and has gotten very zealous about doing right, but in that particular flavor of Christianity, it’s all about a very specific right-wing form of faith not works that matters and at the end of the day, Joyce doesn’t hate as hard as she does and thus is labeled “lukewarm”.

      This is also part and parcel of why Toedad refused to back down at any point and why Joyce’s church couldn’t fully condemn him, because he’s the end-point of that particular viewpoint.

      1. joe archer

        If one told Mary “May you spend your afterlife with the likes of you”, she might perceive that curse as a blessing…

        1. hof1991

          She doesn’t make the right heaven.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4IletJ7-Tw
          Because the Simpsons explain everything.

      2. Autogyro Samarium

        “Joyce doesn’t hate as hard as she does”, that turn of phrase smells really good and I’m eating it, thanks!

    7. hof1991

      Fundie verses. Rev 3: 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

      Insufficiently extreme in discipleship, so rejected. Favorite of extremists and those who patrol the borders of acceptable faith and actions. A real comfort to asshats like Mary, Paul and his peter.

  22. mrj

    Ahh, there’s the Mary we know and…ummm. Words fail me.

    1. Keulan

      Hate? Loathe? Feel disgusted by?

    2. butts

      Loathe?

      Despise?

      Want to punch in her smug ass face?

    3. Orion Fury

      Despise?

      Challenging?

      Eh, I guess I’ll have to accept this outcome. Oh well.

    4. SgtWadeyWilson

      Wish would spontaneously combust while screaming: “Oh, God, NO! How can this be!! I WAS RIGHTEOUS!!!”?

    5. Eldritch Gentleman

      Want to get eaten by Satan!

  23. Rukduk

    Well, shit. Now the horrible people will be able to reproduce. Here’s hoping any offspring of this unholy union somehow turn out better than the parents.

    1. inqntrol

      I kind of doubt that. Sometimes children take after their parents when it comes to their attitude.

      1. OnyxIdol

        Don’t forget that Willis himself was raised by fundies.

      2. Stella

        Er, maybe. But, one of the themes in this comic does seem to be, “You don’t have to be your parents.”

        It’s most explicit with Amber, of course. She is so afraid of being the worst parts of her parents, but despite her self-assessment, it’s clear to every single reader that she’s NOT a vicious monster like her dad, nor does she have her mom’s character flaws.

        But, it comes up in pretty much every storyline with parents. Joyce doesn’t have to be her parents, who reject Becky for being gay (in differing ways). Becky doesn’t have to be her parents, who were a violent control-freak and so despairing she killed herself, respectively. Ruth may have inherited her father’s mental illness, but she doesn’t have to be him, nor does she have to be abusive like her grandfather.

        It is most obvious to see in Ruth how difficult it is to be different than the people who were your most immediate role models when you were young. But, unlike Rachel, I believe in Ruth’s potential redemption.

        If Mary and Peter have a child, they’ll model fundamentalist extremism, judgement, and hatred. They might even be abusive parents if they judge their own child and pursue punishing tactics in the name of “Godly discipline.” But…people survive that and escape that all the time. It’s hard, and it shouldn’t have to be that way. But it is escapable.

    2. Tacos

      I’d rather then never produce offspring but going by that last panel, what are the odds that Mary will be pregnant by the end of freshman year?

      1. butting

        Maybe we’ll be lucky and she’ll make sure a condom gets used?

        (she’d probably wear it over her head. she suffocates, tears all round, oh dear, how sad, never mind, popcorn anyone?)

      2. Roborat

        Well, judging by her body positioning and the way they are going at it in the last panel, I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t already pregnant. Or at least, pregnant by the end of the week.

    3. Needfuldoer

      Word of Willis is that Mary’s parents are decent people, but she took the wrong lessons to heart.

      Maybe it skips a generation in her family?

    4. zoelogical

      i would feel so bad for any of their potential offspring

  24. ADLegend21

    …can they BOTH get punched???

  25. Larkle

    They’ll live happily ever after and start a westboro together.

  26. Passchendaele

    I did not think I could feel any worse for Roz, who now has to listen to this all. day. long. Sleep may cease to exist altogether in that room. :p

    1. Cerberus

      On the plus side, between Mary and this year in politics, she may now believe in Hell… and that she’s in it.

    2. Bagge

      Oh no. Poor Roz! She did NOT deserve this shit.

      …scoot over Becky. You’ll have to share the sofa for a while.

    3. zoelogical

      ohgod

      D:

    4. thejeff

      Maybe they’ll spend their time in Peter’s room?

  27. Stephen Bierce

    *smashes to bits a record of “Peter The Meter Reader”*
    Anybody for “Love Stinks”?

  28. Stu

    So who else is guessing that Mary will be pregnant by the end of Freshman Year? Which, granted, will be roughly 8 years from now, but still!

    1. C.T Phipps

      That seems like a repeat of Mary’s previous stories.

  29. Whatevsman

    Its like watching a someone dump grease on a dumpster fire

  30. Pigeon Pollyx

    Objectively this is the most horrifying single image I’ve ever seen, and I have seen some seriously gross images in my day.

    Sidebar isn’t premarital sex a major nono cause there’s a point here with the legs and the heavy petting that I’m pretty sure is crossing the boundaries of most loopholes.

    1. Leorale

      Maybe she’s one of those purity-raised folks who have buttsex in order to preserve their virginity…. aaaand now I pictured these two sexing it up, it’s horrible.

      1. Cerberus

        “Everyone knows it’s the sex that God can’t see”

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8ZF_R_j0OY

        1. Chris Phoenix

          You beat me to it. Those two (in the video, not Mary and Peter) are awesome.

          “We’ll find a pond, we’ll find a puddle, put your beak in mine and we’ll cuddle! It’s a feeling I can’t name, when sex with ducks and gay marriage are one and the same.”

      2. Reltzik

        She IS the ultimate asshole.

  31. Sam

    I will never understand awful people that are able to be nice to their partners but otherwise absolutely dreadful to literally everyone ever and while holding mostly horrible views still.

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      Monkeysphere. The human brain is apparently only able to recognize about 100-200 individuals as actual people. Everyone else is sorta…not cared about to the same degree.

      1. Stella

        Eh, Monkeysphere explains neutral / indifferent responses to those who are suffering far away (or in front of you but are unrelated to your sphere). I mean, it explains things like the Bystander Effect.

        But it doesn’t explain intentional aggression / insult / what have you towards people outside of your sphere. There are a lot of different, overlapping reasons, both sociological and psychological, but Dr. Robin Dunbar proposed the Monkeysphere hypothesis (aka Dunbar’s number), to explain situations in which large groups fall apart due to a lack of social maintenance (that is, positive caretaking of other group members) not groups that fall apart due to, say, violent conflict over scarce resources.

        Er, normally I wouldn’t correct someone on the internet like this or try to “well, actually,” but I’ve been increasingly worried about the game of telephone that scientific journalism has become, which leads to a lot of misinformation, which then leads to people distrusting scientists when the misinformation is revealed to be incorrect.

        I happen to have read the original publication of Dunbar’s study only because I took a Human Evolution class as one of my elective sciences. Most people have only heard of Dunbar’s number from David Wong’s comedy article on Cracked. Which, you know, it’s great that he wants to talk about science! That’s better than an article about, like, farts or something.

        But, by dumbing it down for a general audience, he’s inadvertently caused a lot of misapplications, as well as a misunderstanding of how Dunbar came to her conclusions. People already misunderstand evolution because of anti-evolution religious propaganda, and simply throwing around ideas without their cultural and scientific context makes it even more challenging.

        Anyway, sorry for “well actually”-ing. I do really like David Wong! Especially his articles about hard truths and reasons not to kill yourself. And I like his novels! It just frustrates me when his science-y articles misconstrue the science to make it funnier or easier to understand.

    2. Zach

      They associate the partner with the self, their egos merge.

    3. Shiro

      In this case the partner is probably also awful in a complimentary way

    4. Cerberus

      Often times, the awfulness eventually fades into the relationship eventually (once NRE (New Relationship Energy) glosses over or the person gets tired of wearing he mask).

      With something like this, it seems he is already well aware of how awful she is, but doesn’t see it as a minus likely because he is similarly awful himself.

      1. Sam

        I am aware. I just cannot wrap my head around the level of compartmentalisation you would have to do to be able to do that though while still managing to be awful to everyone else.

  32. gkheyf

    hmmm……
    there’s something that i don’t like about those two…i just can’t quite put my finger on it =/

    1. joe archer

      Just don’t put a finger, let alone a hand, on it – a simple disinfection won’t cleanse you after touching that.

  33. Kernanator

    Billie, you fool. You might as well have asked “What could possibly go wrong?”

  34. Ferdinand Rosenthal

    He should change his name to Joseph. Just go for it. Joseph and Mary, righteous souls in a terrible world and will bring its salvation.

    1. Rukduk

      So…wait, will that lead to him founding a cult while she slowly becomes a heavy drinker who likes screwing with guys’ heads a la “Dream Daddy”?

      1. Needfuldoer

        It will lead them to not forming a soft rock group, so there’s that…

  35. Cephalo the Pod

    IIRC, in one of the Roomies commentaries, Willis mentioned an IRL female dormmate who would try to use sex to convert secular guys to Christians. One guy ended up stopping the sex because he had converted so drastically that he wanted to be chaste, much to the girl’s chagrin.

    I can’t hell but wonder if that real story is going to influence this plotline.

    1. rectilinearpropagation

      THIS WAS A THING: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flirty_Fishing

      They put out pamphlets encouraging this!

      1. Kit

        THANK YOU! I read about this forever ago but had no clue what it was called so I was never able to find any information about it.

      2. Emperor Daniel

        I was actually born into the mentioned group which coined that particular…term for it. A good decade or so after it was discontinued, but nevertheless.

        1. Bagge

          *weak voice*

          Um… wow. That’s something.

      3. Bagge

        WHAT THE WHAT????

        “…reminded that their body did not really belong to them…”

        “…degeneration of the practice (..) to escort servicing…”

        “…the cult generally discourages birth control…”

        WHAT THE WHAT????

      4. Delicious Taffy

        Okay, but what if the guy lies about converting and goes back to his day, after the sex? I mean, what’s stopping him?

        1. Bagge

          That DOES seem to be one problem with their general scheme.

          I can think of a few more…

        2. SgtWadeyWilson

          Like… Everything?

        3. Emperor Daniel

          As someone who was born into that…I suppose “cult” would be the appropriate word to describe it – though it still feels weird typing it – new members (as opposed to those simply “saved”) would typically come to live in the communal home or property after some period of time.

          As for those who did not decide to “join”, I was taught that “once saved, always saved”, but that one would reap the best spiritual benefits by remaining in or joining the cult if you were not already in – if you were “saved” but remained in “the System”, you’d find yourself a literal pauper when you got to heaven.

        4. Leorale

          Man, it takes a special kind of person to imagine a heaven in which there is still poverty.

        5. Bagge

          Wow…

          Um…. Do you want a hug?

        6. Emperor Daniel

          Internet hugs are acceptable.

  36. WikiDreamer

    Welp, so much for my sleep tonight. That last panel is pure 100% unadulterated nightmare fuel.

  37. @zombieundergrnd

    Peter has STDs. And Mary is about to get them.
    Glorious.

    1. Vivid Grim

      hey let’s not increase the stigma surrounding STDs by thinking of them as punishments or an indicator of moral worth :/

  38. Fart Captor

    SEE? I WARNED YOU AND NOW THERE’S TWO OF THEM

  39. tim gueguen

    Here’s Peter’s first appearance. Could it be he’s secretly an agent of Ross?
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/pokeman/

    1. Cattleprod

      He’s just scowling for no obvious reason. At Dina for wearing a ‘heathen’ dinosaur hoodie, I suppose.

  40. gkheyf

    oh, man! it took me like 3 reads to get the joke with joyce’s line! i need to seriously brush up on my grammar…

    1. OnyxIdol

      I only did get it after reading your comment as well…

  41. JessWitt

    Self-righteous. FTFY, you insufferable lovey-dovey twits.

  42. NF

    Peter and Mary is pretty much exactly what I expected.

    Least. Favorite. Couple. Ever.

  43. AgentKeen

    Do they have a friend named Paul? Cause they’d probably make good nega-verse versions.

    1. BBCC

      His full name is Peter Paul.

  44. Jaybie

    Well tbh based on my own read of/interpretation of scripture including all the admonishing of the pharisees and the haughty and prideful, Mary and her new love interest are exactly the type of people condemned to hell.

    but anyway.. shame I was hoping maybe for some less horribleness for Mary.

    1. Jaybie

      Oh and Billies moving? Right. Damn.

      I hope this doesn’t mean less Billie to look at after this. She’s hot as heck.

    2. Unusually Angry Hippie

      Don’t say that! On the off-chance it exists, I’m looking forward to hell. I’ve read the books half a million times and I can’t find ANY rationale for Lucifer making the place unpleasant. Like, zero, zilch, none.

      If he’s even half as clever as suggested, Lucifer would be extremely pleased to see people winding up at his clubhouse door instead of YHWH’s, and make the place so fun they’d never regret it. Probably find some way to make the ‘winners’ up in heaven able to watch our daily Valhalla-esque blood-sport and nightly hedonistic pansexual orgies in vocal condemnation and silent envy.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Plot twist: God’s in on the whole thing. He gave people free will, gave some guidelines, and let people set up their own narrative. The truth is, everyone ends up in the same place, and all the shitty people just congregate in their own little corner, waiting for cleansing.

      2. Arian

        For what it’s worth, the idea that Lucifer is *in charge* of hell isn’t likely to be a belief held by most of these characters. The Devil’s going to be there getting his just deserts with the rest of the damned, not running the place.

      3. Rukduk

        The devil isn’t so much the ruler of hell as he is it’s most dangerous inmate. He’s essentially in hell’s version of solitary confinement until the end times.

  45. Kris

    Eh…I wish I never met Peter. Not because he’s a bad guy but because nice Mary is totally ruined now.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I agree, I was actually interested there.

  46. DarkoNeko

    Oh
    Mein
    Gott.

    1. VeryCreativeUsername

      Ich glaube, Gott ist nicht länger hier.

  47. rectilinearpropagation

    OMG, he’s been in the comic before. And in his only other appearance he’s glaring at Dina.

    I’ve hated this character since before I was aware of his existence!

  48. Seraph4377

    *Remembers what happened to Mary in the original Roomies comic, moseys away humming smugly*

  49. Harvey Janus

    I finally stop my Dark Souls playthrough for the night-

    Just in time for the judgment fetishists’ tongue dance. I’d rather go back to the blood-covered brick wall.

  50. Ridureyu

    So, they’re blaspheming? Calling themselves God? (nobody is roughteous except God) Great Christians, there. I really hope that the comic at least temporarily makes Christianity true just long enough to watch them burn in Hell.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I remember my ex-friend Chris explain to me why Mormons aren’t Christians and being genuinely CONFUSED when it turned out two of our business partners (who were MORMON) objected to this. I later found out he had similar issues with Catholics.

      1. Gaia

        How are Catholics not Christians!? oO
        Please I need to know your ex-friends reasoning here, please!!

        1. Emperor Daniel

          My guess would be something something “saint-veneration-is-saint-worship-which-is-polytheism” something something.

        2. Gojira

          The Pope is the anti-Christ, so really they’re satanists.

        3. C.T Phipps

          I think his basic argument was Catholicism had drifted so far from the Bible that they no longer qualified, never mind that his sect of Baptism was a newly created one by comparison. Then again, Catholicism has never been far from it themselves since the Eastern Orthodox have a good claim to being the FIRST Christian faith….as does the Church of Ethiopia.

      2. Cerberus

        Yup, that was super common where I was growing up. Mormons and Catholics weren’t Christians, many sects of protestants weren’t Christians. Basically as far as they were concerned, only the sects who believed in a right-wing ideology of worshipping money and believing in the Rapture were real Christians and everyone else was knowingly faking their faith in order to try and confuse good Christian folks into doubting their faith.

        And on Mormons and Catholics, often times they’ve built whole mythologies surrounding how they are Satanic cults or working for the anti-christ as well (a lot of rapturist fundies believe that the Antichrist is likely to come out of the Vatican or at least be heavily supported by the Vatican, hence why they’ve been very happy that Trump has been so transparently pissing off the Pope).

        1. Michael Chandra

          You know the guy who went it’s better to believe just in case you’re right? This kinda stuff is why apparently his argument is flawed. Most extreme religions treat the unbelieving better than the heretics. So unless you pick the right religion, it’s better not to pick any.

        2. thejeff

          I could make a pretty decent argument that Mormons aren’t Christians, based on them claiming an entire new revelation and Holy Text and all. They’re more an offshoot of Christianity in the same way Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism.

          That’s all from sort of an sociological classification perspective. I’m not Christian, so I’m not thinking of it as Satanic cult or lesser than real Christians or anything.

        3. C.T Phipps

          Eh, you can make the argument but I’d argue the people who say they’re the Christians are the people who can determine it. The Catholic Church claimed “heretics” weren’t Christians but that authority is questionable in retrospect. Mormons self-identify as Christians and that’s good enough for me.

        4. thejeff

          That’s normally my stance as well. I kind of go back and forth on Mormons, depending on which hat I’ve got on.

        5. C.T Phipps

          Mind you, I’m also of the mind “evolving” religion is a good thing rather than a bad thing so adding new books to the testaments of the past isn’t awful. I don’t agree with any of their history but neither does Brigham Young University anymore. Generally, they seem to be nice enough people if a bit conservative with all the problems that implies to a liberal nutso whackjob like myself. So, I’m more okay with them as Christians than many other groups.

        6. thejeff

          Note that, as I said, my opinion has nothing to do with “good thing” or whether they’re nice or anything like that.

          But then I don’t use “Christian” to mean “good person” or anything like that.

        7. Marsh Maryrose

          I’ve wondered if part of the “are Mormons Christians?” question is that they are non-trinitarian, and Catholics and the vast of majority of Protestants are definitively trinitarian.

        8. OBBWG

          I define Christian as believing Jesus is your savior. If you believe he died for your sins (and rose again) you go to heaven. By that definition, Mormons and Catholics are Christian.

        9. thejeff

          One could take a similar reductive approach to Judaism and define both Christians and Muslims as Jews. They all believe in the same God and all three rely on various version of the Torah. Must be the same religion.

        10. BP

          … Would that entail Trump being the Antichrist or the Pope, in that scenario?

    2. OnyxIdol

      Nothing warrants an eternity of suffering, thank you very much.

      1. joe archer

        Hence an active avoidance of any afterlife that would have to be shared with the likes of Mary sounds like a sound spiritual path.

        1. Pat

          Isn’t that exactly what makes Hell Hell? You gotta be around other people that deserve it, and they’re jerkfaces.

        2. DinaWho

          L’enfer, c’est les autres.

  51. C.T Phipps

    Damning Joyce is a impressive accomplishment even for Mary. It must be the fact she’s friends with sinners. I mean, what’s next? Hanging around with tax collectors and prostitutes? Of course, I also note Billie is ANOTHER of the few faithful Christians in the comic.

  52. Tarkara

    I wondered why he was glaring at Dina. Now I know.

    1. C.T Phipps

      She’s appropriating dinosaurs, which are the property of Fundamentalists.

      1. Gaia

        God put dinosaurs fossils on the planet to test our faith!!!

        1. Delicious Taffy

          God’s a shitty puzzlemaker.

        2. Kamino Neko

          I have never understood so-called Christians who think calling God a liar is the best way to use one of the greatest gifts God gave us (our intellect).

        3. C.T Phipps

          God has nothing to fear from science if you believe in him. Your church might but those aren’t the same thing.

        4. Delicious Taffy

          Those first seven words are so inherently wrong, it hurts. I’ve got evidence and facts to back that up, too.

        5. C.T Phipps

          How do you figure? If you believe in God then why would you fear science? Science would only enrich your belief in him because it would show you more about the universe. The only reason science would cause you to lose faith in God is if you didn’t have faith in him.

          Of course, if you don’t believe in God, that statement will make no sense to you. However, I’m sick and tired of the anti-science screed from believers who make me basically sick as a person who has a great deal of spirituality and love of learning.

        6. thejeff

          I don’t believe in God, but that statement makes perfect sense to. It was a common attitude among enlightenment scientists.

          The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand

  53. Some1

    You know, I don’t think the bible says anything about trans people, as well as lesbians, sure there are a few lines about sodomy abominations (which I don’t agree with) but the bible says nothing about anyone in this strip.

    1. C.T Phipps

      There’s a thing which John Calvin killed people over which was the fact Jesus’ ministry was in large part about asking for reform and rebudiating the harsher Old Testament business. In short, the anti-gay shit is something we have explicit permission to ignore.

    2. BBCC

      Never underestimate the power of bigots to twist anything LGBTQIAPN+ to be a sin

      1. vlademir1

        Let’s be fair, for most among that type of people if you’re doing anything sexual, or which they can (selectively) interpret as sexual, outside of very basic male dominant missionary position, and only for procreation, within their very narrow definition of marriage it’s a sin in their eyes.
        Similarly, from that viewpoint going through the process of physical transitioning is sinful to them because you are “rejecting the body god gave you” and usurping some of his authority to change it (all delivered while ignoring their own willingness to have an appendectomy, tonsillectomy, any of the various treatments of cancer, et al that should fit that same definition of usurping god’s authority to change one’s body). This then gets seen as compounding with the above sexual sinfulness whether you transition physically or no.
        On top of that add in that you’re probably coming from a different religious philosophy or, worse in their eyes, an incompatible version of the same religious philosophy which further compounds both the above.

    3. butting

      Debate rages re trans. It’s possible that 1st century “eunouchos” would include transfolk as well as the traditional reading of it as castrati (which is plausibly an interpretation via Italian culture), in which case Jesus talks about them explicitly as (QUOTE) “born that way”. (the counter argument is that the passage is about remarriage for the divorced, but that then raises the question of why the word “eunouchos” is used instead of “agamos”/unmarried.)

      Can’t help but think that the first apparently-Gentile convert mentioned in Acts would nowadays have the choice of identifying as a transwoman of colour. And that much of today’s church would be busy trying to erase that same identity…

      1. butting

        (whoops, better clarify: by “debate rages re trans” I mean over whether transfolk are mentioned, not over condemnation. and from here: anyone who thinks condemnation is in order is advertising their own need to be fenced off and ignored.)

    4. Cerberus

      Nor about abortion as well and was actively against a lot of the ways modern fundies show their faith, but hey, as long as you treat your holy book as a jigsaw your pastor pulls random quotes out of to support the overall culture, then what it actually says matters a whole lot less than the feeling of superiority they get pissing on people with less social power.

      So yeah, apparently Jesus hates abortion, believes that God made no one “wrong” and thus all people are straight and cis and just clouded by Satan and homosexuals to think otherwise and also anyone who claims to be ace is a sinner who must breed at once for not marrying and fulfilling one’s “godly” role in holy matrimony is an abomination unto the Lord.

      1. Felgraf

        And then there’s the Prosperity Gospel folk, who-
        .. I’d say it’s less “Jesus” and more “Mammon wearing Jesus’ Severed Head as a Hat”.
        (I cannot claim credit for that description.)

        1. Cerberus

          It’s a good description for it.

        2. Rukduk

          That’s a damn fitting description.

    5. Michael Chandra

      There’s several alternative interpretations as to the sodomy texts as well.

      1. Miri

        ‘One must not lie with a woman as with a man’ = ‘Experiment! Do different things with them!’ Or possibly ‘Hetero couples shouldn’t do bum stuff’?

        1. Rukduk

          I tend to think of it as “you can’t have children together with homosexual sex, so just throw everything I said earlier about how heterosexual couples have sex right out the window, except the anti-beastiality stuff”.

        2. C.T Phipps

          I had the theory that it was the late 70s early 80s and the merging of evangelical and political power into one block which created the need for “scapegoat issues” where the base could rally against abortion and gays and other “Others” because they were “safe” issues versus things which might matter like, say, “helping the poor” or “stopping wars.”

        3. thejeff

          Backlash to the Sexual Revolution and Women’s liberation.
          Tied in to the backlash to Civil Rights. Extension to the Southern Strategy.

        4. C.T Phipps

          Scapegoating is always a theme of any organized religious or government body (corporations, oddly enough, seem to be the one exception and they have plenty of it themselves). Avoiding that is one of the biggest hurdles we have as a species to spiritual development as well as ethical.

        5. Michael Chandra

          One of the interpretations is that there’s the context of ‘in a woman’s bed’, as in ‘don’t have buttsex in your wife’s bed you ass’, due to specific women rights back then.

    6. OBBWG

      I heard a genuine argument from a “Christian” preacher that “Love your neighbor…” meant kill anyone who did not believe as he did. “Neighbor” meant your fellow “Christian” (i.e. his cult). Everyone else was not your neighbor and, therefore, not worthy of God’s love. Those not worthy of God’s love need to die. Therefore, God wants you to kill them.

      If you can theologically twist a passage like Love your Neighbor that far, then there is no validity left in the source material and it can be safely ignored.

      1. Pat

        But you can’t twist it like that. Several details were pulled from nothing.

        1. OBBWG

          He claimed this was based on historical definitions of “neighbor” and that he could cite sources. He claimed it was historical, not “pulled from nothing”.

          I suspect he also believed the moon landing was fake, climate change is a hoax and the Trump is the Greatest Leader Ever (‘cept Shotgun Jesus).

        2. Murgatroyd

          Cool but even if it meant “Love your fellow Christians and only your fellow Christians,” that does not mean “Hate non-Christians.” It could mean “Like non-Christians,” “Be neutral to non-Christians,” etc. And even “Hate non-Christians” would not imply “Kill non-Christians.” Maybe God wants you to convert them, or drive them into exile, or keep them around as reminders of what you’d be like without Christianity. Leaving aside whether “neighbor” historically would imply “Christian” (I don’t know enough to comment on that), all the other details are still pulled from nothing.

          (Also, I disagree that a text’s ability to be interpreted awfully means the text is invalid — people have interpreted Darwin’s writings to support some awful ideas and social policies, but I wouldn’t throw the idea of evolution out the window over it.)

        3. (((Mkvenner)))

          And yet here we are.

      2. TemperaryObsessor

        That’s silly everyone knows that your neighbors are the people who saved your life and payed for your medical bills.

        1. thejeff

          Or possibly the reviled Samaritan and not the pious Levite and priest.

          That’s the whole damn point of the parable. Responding to precisely that kind of argument about the meaning of “neighbor”.

        2. TemperaryObsessor

          I know Jesus pretty explicitly said your neighbor isn’t necessarily the guy who follows your particular flavor of Judaism or Christianity. You need to outright ignore the next passage which is direct clarification of what do you mean by neighbor to think that it does. But if I want to I can say my neighbor is the person who helps me based on that passage.

  54. JohnnyO

    What a huge dick

    (It’s punny because he’s tall and his name is Peter)

  55. C.T Phipps

    It’s scary because Peter looks like an evil fundamentalist Willis. I wonder if in this universe he’ll become disillusioned, find a much nicer girl, and become a pornographer.

    Or maybe Mary will. She likes art.

  56. Bagge

    Mary is living Joyce’s dream for the beginning of the comic.

    Also, nice parallel to this moment.
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/introductions/

  57. Gram91

    May history repeat itself…across dimensions.

    1. Gojira

      I wouldn’t wish any child the hell that would be those parents.

      1. (((Mkvenner)))

        I hope she’s barren and he’s sterile.

  58. Aprion

    I hope they get either run over by a church bus, or both contract a fatal STD.

    1. Cerberus

      Could we not treat STIs as a moral punishment please?

      1. Aprion

        it would be incredibly ironic though.

        1. Li

          It wouldn’t really. Lots of people have STIs. They have zip to do with being a good or moral person.

      2. C.T Phipps

        Another Biblical correction: God does not punish the unrighteous in this life, he punishes the righteous and tests us with adversity. That’s one of the few things the Old and New Testament agree on implicitly.

        Or as the Buddha says, “life is suffering.”

        1. C.T Phipps

          Which again, is another issue I have with the Prosperity Gospel. It is on every single way almost an inversion of Christianity. All they need to do is add a warrior offshoot which advocates for maximum violence and retribution.

        2. Rukduk

          (Looks nervously at the Inquisition, Templars, the Flagellant movement during the Black Death, the history of several extant knightly orders, the Albigensian crusade, one way of interpreting some St. Thomas Aquinas’ work and the reconquista as a whole)
          I really hope that doesn’t happen again. We tend to be much worse when we start believing God is ordering us to take sword in hand and kill the nearest non-believer, who usually tends to actually be a Jew ironically enough.

        3. C.T Phipps

          I tend to take a somewhat side-eye view to the historical documentation of that. As much as religious wars have included some truly monstrous things, I also tend to think it overlooks the secular ones horrors. The Crusades just have more cultural verve than talking about the epic devastation of the Mongols for whatever reason. I also have the view all history has an agenda.

          Yes, my view is humanity sucks–except when it doesn’t.

  59. JessWitt

    Joyce probably fainted out of shock off-panel. I would’ve done the same.

  60. OnyxIdol

    Yes, they’re both righteous. Self righteous, that is.

    Whodathunk, Mary is still a total dickbag.

  61. Bagge

    Panel 1: Becky’s ear perks up.
    Also panel 1: Becky’s ears drop again.

  62. brasca1

    On the upshot Willis now has a new couple to feature in Slipshine once he gets back to that.

    1. Bagge

      Aren’t those things supposed to be titillating?

    2. Michael Chandra

      Insert The Office “NO!” gif here.

    3. Needfuldoer

      Mary’s personality is her least attractive trait…

      Though the venn diagram between “people who read Willis comics” and “people who want to see that” probably looks like a diagram of the Sun and Alpha Centauri.

    4. (((Mkvenner)))

      Oh HELL NO!

  63. Bagge

    Joyce was right. Love makes everything better.

    ….yeah. “Better.”

    1. OnyxIdol

      I guess it does. The question is, how much love is there in these two beyond their shared hate boners.

  64. Mr D

    You know, taking in account her earlier behaviour, I’m okay with Mary being blunted enough that her behaviour goes down from “Actively judging and harassing people” to “They going to hell, not my problem, getting laid”. She’s still horrible but at least she ain’t ruining anyone else’s life.

    1. Fart Captor

      …for now. Eventually that New Relationship Energy™ will fade and she’ll devote at least some of her time to making other people miserable again, or they’ll do it together.

      Or they’ll break up, and she’ll get really nasty

      1. thejeff

        I’m voting for “partner in crime”. She’s got an ally now.

        And honestly, today’s Mary makes more sense to me than the one in the last few strips – Happy, yes, but also getting attacks in on the side, rather than the over-friendly version we’ve been seeing. This feels like Mary again.

        Unless of course there still is something going on with her posing as nice.

  65. Trolldrool

    That last panel is going to be stuck inside my head and prevent me from sleeping when I go to bed. That doesn’t look like they’re making out as much as it looks like they’re trying to chew off each others’ tongues.

    1. Needfuldoer

      It’s going to be a clumsy mess, they probably both have the same level of inexperience.

  66. Cerberus

    So, do you think this Peter guy knows who Mary likes? Should we ask him?

    1. Bagge

      IS THERE A LOVE SLEUTH IN THE ROOM?

      1. Cerberus

        Quick find a LESBIAN… love sleuth!

        1. Bagge

          Daisy rushes through the door, hears the end of the sentence, looses interest and walks out again.

          The minute she is gone, Ruth and Billie starts to make out in an aggressive attempt to outdo Mary

        2. Cerberus

          Eh, she still would have likely walked out disappointed…

          After all, everyone knows bisexuals are invisible.

        3. Bagge

          Poor Daisy, always looking for love in the wrong places.

        4. Emperor Norton II

          Wait, wait, wait…

          So Sue Storm from Fantastic Four’s power is to be invisible…

          Same with “not at all redoing the Fantastic Four’s powers” Violet Parr from The Incredibles…

          And all this time, we thought it was cosmic radiation/superhero genes that did this!

        5. Cerberus

          Nope, just bisexuality and asexuality (I’ll let you decide which superhero is which).

        6. Rachel

          http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws-884

        7. Bagge

          I want a Joyce/Jamie crossover SO BAD.

        8. amanda

          I approve this message

  67. newllend(henryvolt)

    Sanctimonious assholes, the both of them.

  68. Yossarianduck

    So what aare the odds he also jacks off to Ronald Reagan?

    1. Needfuldoer

      Margaret Thatcher.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        That’s not a number.

      2. Yossarianduck

        From the fools who brought you the Atlas Shrugged Trilogy comes the Atlantic-crossing romance FREE MARKET, FREE PASSIONS

  69. Jordan

    Wow. Mary is even more unlikeable than before. I can’t believe that was possible.

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      It’s like that one episode of Fairy odd Parens where Vicky meets a male version of herself and falls in love with him….I hope it ends the same way.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        With the death of the series, after an attempt at revitalising it that just ends up ruining everything, causing an audience revolt and inevitable cancellation?

        1. newllend(henryvolt)

          The episode man, not the series itself.

  70. WingedBeast

    I… I…

    Is Mary spending so much self-righteous energy on showing off for her new boyfriend that she needs to relax into being a nice person when he’s gone?

    Is she just putting a nicer face on it now that she’s happy?

    …

    Does anybody else wish she was banging Danny, now? He at least wouldn’t reinforce her self-righteousness.

    1. vlademir1

      Danny, even wishy-washy constant screwup Walkyverse Danny, does not deserve to have to endure that.

  71. Synnerman

    She’s totally going to get pregnant. Then all hell’s going to break loose.

    1. (((Mkvenner)))

      I really hope they both are incapable of having children.

  72. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Panel 1: I love Carla. Because yes, the majority of the time, bigots are just bigots, rather than secret members of the community. Donald Trump is evil not because he’s in a secret gay relationship with Putin, but because both are vile toxic masculinity obsessed shit peddlers who will gladly rape and kill others just to feel for a second like they are finally man enough.

    And there’s a type of angry ignorance that weaponizes itself nicely into bigotry. After all, if you know nothing of the life experiences of the marginalized and all of a sudden to your eyes they are suddenly around and expecting to be treated like people and objecting to the words you say and the attitudes you express, then it can be easy to craft a faux-victim narrative about having to “walk on eggshells” because of the “PC police”.

    And as seen in the only people willing to still back Trump and the Republican Party, that weaponized dominant group ignorance can be powerful as fuck for the worse of our society as a whole.

    Also, I love Joyce and her accidental sapphisms. It’s like she goes out of her way to accidentally stumble into every suggestive sentence she can in ways that make everyone second-guess her heterosexuality. No wonder Becky was so confused and convinced.

    But hey, at least she’s getting better at recognizing that stuff as it arises.

    Panel 2: Ah, Billie, I love your optimism and to a degree it’s founded. Even if Mary still has plans to harm all three of them, it is clear that at least a good portion of her attention has been turned towards enjoying this new relationship and getting pantingly close to premarital hanky-panky.

    So just from a raw hours standpoint, she’s been blunted in some respect by that. Additionally, she does seem to be running high on endorphins in general from being in a new relationship. Now to just lock them in a room with a copy of Twlight and a box of condoms to agonize over using for the rest of the week.

    1. Bagge

      I actually think Billie might be right – Mary will be otherwise occupied for a while which will ease up on the pressure for Ruth, Billie and Carla.

      Roz on the other hand…

      1. joe archer

        Roz, on the other hand, is going to set up her recording gear.

        1. Li

          I… doubt it. Not for blackmail and definitely not for anything else. I think the hypocrisy of trying to shame another girl for something Roz doesn’t think she should be ashamed of would be too much.

        2. Cmd1095

          She doesn’t need to think its something to be ashamed of, because she knows MARY would be ashamed of it. Her stance might be that there’s no shame in it, but if she can get Mary to stop being quite so awful she might just do it

        3. Li

          Eh. By using it as a weapon you’re INHERENTLY reinforcing that it’s super shameful, and it would basically make Roz an equal hypocrite, considering how much effort she has put, in every on screen appearance, into repeatedly and firmly saying “sex is nothing to be ashamed of”.

          Roz has literally said some variation of that more often than Mary has claimed righteousness. I would be incredibly disgusted with her if she turned around and went, “Unless I hate you and you’ve been brainwashed by an anti-sex religion — then you should definitely be ashamed, and I will use that shame to blackmail you!”

          Mary can and will be taken down in a much better way.

  73. Cerberus

    Panel 3: I’ve gone over this above, but basically in the eyes of the sect Mary likely belongs to and Joyce definitely belongs to, those who are not as zealous in right-wing ideology and hating on queer folks are seen as lukewarm and thus as being rejected by Heaven when the inevitable Rapture that’s coming any day hits.

    And yeah, of course the queer trio she’s been trying to murder she sees as going to Hell and it’s definitely a bit galling knowing she’s made attempts on all of their lives and especially Ruth’s and this is her go-to here. Clearly she believes she’s back on top again now with a man by her side and that makes her dangerous.

    Panel 4: I’m genuinely fascinated by this panel. Like, yeah, it seems like Peter is compatibly awful to Mary or at the very least has little care as to her bigotry so long as he can enjoy the mutual chemistry they share.

    But more intriguing to me is the tone of his line and the words of Mary’s line back. Like, that little mock joke in response to her action, like, har har, you don’t think anyone but you is righteous. Like, think of it from the perspective of Mary.

    She (supposedly) earnestly believes these people are doomed to Hell and has in the past been shown very bummed out that she’s not been able to bully anyone into being her exact flavor of Christian. And in the first interaction he has with others, he turns that into a joke. Like, yeah, he’s not likely a good person in any sense of the term, but that part makes me think he’s mostly in it for the sex or at least the make outs.

    And Mary’s line back is… revealing. Like, it’s so head-over-heels in NRE and when paired with her earlier behavior, it’s clear she’s in deep and looking at this man as her proper clone and soul mate much like Joyce hoped to find early on in her own college experience.

    But it dips so far into the other end, saying, no one’s righteous but us. It makes me think she’s got total blinders for the guy and that this is very likely doomed to rip itself apart. After all, among bigots as judgmental as Mary, any slight deviation from the orthodoxy is seen as a betrayal and a war to be fought. So yeah, when the glow comes off this relationship, I’m going to guess it’ll break down into a flaming row when it turns out he doesn’t hate Catholics as much as her or the like.

    Panel 5: And this panel is interesting as well, Mary wrapping her leg around him, Peter holding that leg up intentionally as they make out. Like, yes, overflowing chemistry, but it’s also the ideal Christian couple according to the sect I grew up with.

    White, similarly fundie, judgmental, and being torn apart by hormonal desire so as to trigger a rapid courtship and marriage so they can finally fuck already in sin-free bliss.

    It’s part of why fundies who figure out that aces exist get violently angry at us. Because we’re supposed to be dying from craving to experience sex and orgasms. We’re supposed to be panting for it so hard we’ll do anything and foolishly rush any relationship to experience it. So we just end up seem like we’re cheating and in that religion, no one cheats God and gets away with it.

    1. Doopyboop

      Thank you Cerberus, because I’ve seen people insist that the religious racket don’t care about us ace people because we’re technically being abstinent but the ‘no sex’ isn’t what they care about. They do want people to have sex eventually. Just when they think it’s right and with who they think is the right kind of person (opposite gendered).

      It’s like the story I relayed yesterday, about the religious fundamentalist who came to my school and preached about how making out with women gives men boners and thus…sinful. When a male student pointed out that he could make out without popping a boner, her response was that there was something wrong with him.

      1. Michael Chandra

        It reminds me of the deconstruction of the slippery slope of marriage argument with marrying dogs, which only makes sense if you don’t see marriage as two equal consenting partners but as a man and his property.

        1. Doopyboop

          “What’s next?! A man and his car? This is a very linear path! That car is awful at doing the dishes…”

        2. Cerberus

          Yup. They get really transparent about that shit.

        3. thejeff

          You mean like traditional marriage?

          They do think of marriage as a man and his property. That’s the way it’s been until pretty recently. Thus the “obey” part in the woman’s version of traditional vows. Or the bride’s father “giving her away”.
          Marriage is a way of transferring a woman from her father’s control to her husband’s.

      2. Cerberus

        Yup, it’s something people overlook because they think that the fundie crowd are serious about seeing sex as evil. But they don’t. They see “unapproved” sex as evil and it’s almost always about controlling women as property and lashing them to a man as fast as possible.

    2. Michael Chandra

      I cheated God yesterday. For someone claiming to be all-seeing they sure missed the ace up my sleeve.

      ● I cheated God today ○ To see if they still see ○ Didn’t expect to get away ○ But I won everything ●

      1. Cerberus

        *slow clap* That was beautiful.

    3. OnyxIdol

      I’m not sure he’s joking in the fourth panel. I mean, reading your comment, it occured to me that he might not actually be serious, but he could also be just head over heels for her, actually admiring her zeal.

      1. Cerberus

        That’s a good point and definitely possible.

    4. vlademir1

      Cerberus, at times I honestly feel like it would be hilarious fun to have the chance to sit down with you, among others here, and spend a few hours chatting and comparing notes, as it were, about the obnoxious BS we’ve experienced at the hands of the really hardcore fundies. What you describe here about them realizing ace people exist is exceptionally similar to my own experiences merely from neither feeling a need to hit on every woman who crosses my line of sight nor feeling particularly bothered by those urges when I don’t have someone in my life (for reference I grew up and still live just outside Boehner’s old district, so you can imagine the number and types of these dumbasses I meet regularly).

      1. Delicious Taffy

        A podcast. You’ve basically described having a podcast, here. I’ve been considering this for months, and you pretty much just said you’re interested in one.

        1. Pablo360

          Cerberus and Emperor Norton have already made several podcasts.

      2. Cerberus

        I’d be down and yeah *all the sympathy hugs* for still dealing with that crap.

    5. StClair

      “White, similarly fundie, judgmental, and being torn apart by hormonal desire so as to trigger a rapid courtship and marriage so they can finally fuck already in sin-free bliss.”

      or, “Oh thank GOD (literally), now we can do everything we’ve spent almost a decade trying desperately not to think about, so it comes out in really weird dreams instead…”

      1. StClair

        (tw for next strip after that: blood, sexual assault, rubbing things on tummies)

    6. Wraithy2773

      …your interpretation of panel 5 is so different from mine, but it does make a shit-ton of (ugly) sense…

      That’s one of those aspects of christian fundamentalism that people like me just can’t really get. I grew up in a firm, strict, sincerely dedicated Agnostic family (aka “…yeah, sure, we’ll celebrate christmas and santa and shit, we’ve got the days off, woo…”), and while I get some exposure to christian fundamentalism through media, news and internet?

      It’s sorta like a fractal thing. I can go a few levels down, but eventually I just get fucking lost, and there’s another insane fractal of detail down there…

      1. Cerberus

        Yeah, it’s a… “fun” subculture and an extra fun one to grow up surrounded by as the kid of a witch.

        Fred Clark has a lot of good articles at Slacktivist about this subculture if you want to do a deep dive sometime.

    7. Li

      I’m wondering if they’re engaged?

      Because Mary isn’t having shameful makeouts in private, she’s lifting her legs and grinding in public. Seems kinda like they already think their lust is allowed.

      1. BBCC

        Probably not – they might be of the thought that ‘we’re not fucking, it’s fine’.

        1. Li

          I guess. They just really super don’t seem at all ashamed or self-conscious. So I can’t imagine that they’re doing anything they actually think is sinful. That’d be… hidden and not in public.

    8. Wraithy2773

      Uh, scary thought that juuuuuust popped into my mind.

      Joe’s list.

      According to a previous strip, it’s implied that Mary’s ranked pretty high: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/pissier/

      Everyone’s acting like Mary’s attitude change was very recent, like, uh, last few days, if that long.

      Dude’s one line we’ve seen so far seems to be a veiled pot-shot at Mary’s holier-than-thou attitude.

      They are… really going at it.

      I think there’s a strong chance this guy’s about as Christian as a sponge, found Joe’s list, noted Mary as an easy target and is BSing her until he can get her in the sack…

      1. BP

        I really hope this isn’t the case. Nobody deserves to be used like that, not even wastes of air like Mary.

        1. Wraithy2773

          Aye, it’s definitely a “…I hate your guts in just about any way, shape or form, but even you don’t deserve to be treated like that” situation.

          But worse things have happened to better people in this strip. And worse things have happened to worse people. It… wouldn’t surprise me at this point.

    9. BP

      … THAT’S why organized fundies hate asexuals?!

      … I’ve surpassed angry confusion, and am now just amazed that anyone can be that stupid.

  74. Danni

    if they have kids, is one of them gonna be named paul?

    1. BenRG

      I doubt it; there would then be constant suspicions that Mary is robbing her husband to pay for him!

    2. Miri

      I think they’ll go with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Jr. Unless John’s already a Jr in which case he’ll be John III.

    3. Inbar Fink

      If this is the same Peter she got with in the Walkyverse, his surname IS Paul

      1. Pat

        So all of them are.

    4. Bicycle Bill

      No, they form a folk music duo — Peter Paul and Mary.

      1. Danni

        😀

  75. Tyramisu

    Lt. Fidelis, we have a target for a KEW strike. Lt. Harmony, confirm the coordinates please. Lt. Veracity, tell the remaining fleet to prep for follow up strikes if necessary. You may fire when ready, Fidelis.
    Heard aboard the bridge of the FCS War Maiden, SD(p) Admiral MacInnes commanding, upon seeing the chance of Mary spawning.

  76. Mr. Morningstar

    So will history repeat it’s? Will she get pregnant and be forced to leave college?

    Please say yes

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Pregnant people are allowed at colleges, y’know.

      1. Andrew_C

        Yup, but her parents might pull her out, particularly as dickbag here looks sort who will start insisting that Mary was playing around on him & that he’s not the father and refuse to “do the right thing” & marry her.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          That’s what mandatory child support is for.

  77. BenRG

    Oh, goodness, what a horribly boring guy! Well, at least he and Mary can enjoy being self-righteous together.

  78. AlexDenton

    Ew. Ew ew ew ew

  79. metaceryn

    …if you’ll excuse me. I need to be gratuitously sick somewhere else.

    1. ValdVin

      Sick, yes, I can see. But in this case would it really be gratuitous, or just fully justified?

  80. NinjaNick

    Someone needs to get out the hose.

  81. Cmd1095

    Well then… as far as explanations for Mary’s attitude shift go this is probably our best case scenario.

  82. zoelogical

    i guess…it totally makes sense that mary would get with an AU her

    ….and that she would send everybody to hell

    ….
    …
    …

    i am not surprised but also mildly queasy

  83. Shariku

    Aw,, that’s sweet… kinda. Sorta… I mean, if it was anyone but Mary… I DON’T KNOW OKAY!

  84. Eldritch Gentleman

    Oh goodie, she found herself a boyfriend that ENABLES her… No wonder she is nice, she is too happy to be nasty to anyone but her thought process’ didn’t change at all. She just can’t be bothered to feed her hatred when she has love to feed.

    1. Reltzik

      Except feeding her hatred is apparently foreplay for her.

      1. BenRG

        Yeah, that’s pretty much a psychopathic behaviour trait, isn’t it? Of course, Mary has lots of those. Peter should be concerned that his manhood doesn’t end amputated and nailed to her bedpost or something!

        1. Delicious Taffy

          His *penis, though. Calling it his “manhood” implies he’s only a man so long as it’s in charge. Also, it feels sketchy in regards to transwomen, because I’ve seen plenty of “newhalf” (Japanese colloquialism) women.

        2. Eldritch Gentleman

          Considering the way he behaves it seems more likely that they will form a psycho couple…

        3. Sam

          That is not a trait of psychopaths at all. Please do not demonise or condemn psychopaths out of hatred of Mary. Most psychopaths are victims of abuse themselves and would hate people like Mary. Mary being a horrible person doesn’t automatically make her a psychopath.

  85. ValdVin

    It’s a bit lengthy but the entirety of Joyce’s panel one quote might make a good book title.

  86. JohnF

    Fornicators! Let’s hope Mary get’s pregnant, and has to decide whether to live as a fallen woman, or whether to get a termination.

    1. BenRG

      I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that Peter wasn’t a believer at all. Rather, he’s just feeding Mary’s prejudices to get her in the mood and once he has what he wants, he’ll dump her. There are guys like that out there and, unfortunately, women like Mary are suckers for their scheme.

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        If this happens shit will hit the fan at light speed and everyone will suffer Mary’s wrath and heartbreak… The idea of Mary getting dumped and going off the deep end terrifies me quite a bit…

      2. Positron

        He sounds kind of like a more convincing version of Joe’s initial approach to Joyce

        1. Wraithy2773

          Joe’s list didn’t leak out that long ago…

    2. VeryCreativeUsername

      I smell redemption-arcs. Or maybe my food is burning in the kitchen.
      Redemption smells like burned bread, right?

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        So would the Inquisition say.

      2. Spencer

        Isn’t that when you’re having an aneurysm?

    3. Sam

      Or we could not use pregnancy as a punishment or moral lesson even on terrible people because it is pretty bad to suggest that a child (if she were to carry to term) should at any point be seen as a punishment or burden on someone and the suffering of unwanted, neglected and abused children should not be minimised by wishing a potential child onto someone who would be in no way fit to raise them.

  87. Yotomoe

    I guess terrible people making out is my new fetish cuz…DAMN.

  88. Wraithy2773

    …

    …I’m not saying that I’m eagerly awaiting strips 3-5 in-story months from now, but, well…

    *looks at the height on that leg*

    *notes that Mary Mary Quite Contrary is so pro-life she probably has no idea how to buy a condom*

    …yeah.

    I’m sure they’re gonna save it for marriage.

    Totally gonna happen.

    1. VeryCreativeUsername

      I’m not sure. Mary is, technically, way to fanatically christian to do… it…
      Then again, I agree that this looks like the first five minutes of a teen-pregnancy flick.

      1. BenRG

        Mary wouldn’t be the first person whose supposed moral boundaries collapsed when put under pressure for the first time. At her age, it is all too easy to mistake lust for love and let hormones tell you that it’s forever when it isn’t.

        It’s getting ever slightly more likely that Willis is going to repeat Mary’s Walkyverse storyline.

        1. Eldritch Gentleman

          Reminds me that comment made by someone… I can’t quite remember why… Sarah… maybe Jacob. About how Joyce would finally break and suck like a million dongs. Seems like this fate might be Mary’s instead.

        2. C.T Phipps

          In THE NAME OF THE ROSE by Umberto Eco, the clergy in the monastery was a ridiculous collection of the most corrupt monks imaginable but one of the things was all of them were quite sure they were righteous and different FLAVORS of corrupt. One forced young women in the nearby village into prostitution but with all sincerity, said he was more righteous than the monk who was gay. I’m imagining Mary could find any number of ways to have premarital sex while sneering at the others.

      2. Wraithy2773

        I’m sure Mary is quite devout.

        But it’s, what, maybe 5-10 years of Mary being told and taught that fucking is wrong standing up against tens of thousands of generations of instincts telling you that “fucking is the most awesome thing ever and you totally can handle it”, because, for the most part, it was the people who got on with the fucking eagerly, early and often that had offspring.

        Not everyone has the same amount of interest in fucking, of course, genetics and evolution are a bit more complicated than that, but it’s still a cardboard sign saying “Don’t” standing up to a semi barreling down the highway at 70 mph. Especially given their… eagerness on display.

  89. Mister Gray

    I really wanna hire Mike to destroy their love life.

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      Don’t. He might join in for a hate threesome.

    2. StClair

      It’ll destroy itself, give it time.

  90. Arianod

    The righteousness is strong in these two.

  91. CianM1301

    …welp, time to get the eye bleach. Anyone else want some?

  92. Reltzik

    “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

    I’m calling this now.

    Joyce is going to do pretty much zilch when it comes to stepping up and stepping in vis-a-vis Panel 3 Mary’s casual bullying. MAYBE she’ll stutter out a few ineffective and easily-countered words, but even that much would be a surprise to me.

    On the subject of the Christian religion, I’ve come to the conclusion that the great majority are not like Mary. Many of them are nice, kind, wholesome, personable, nonjudgey people that are fun to hang out with socially. Most of them are everyday assholes just like anyone else. But I’ve also come to the conclusion that the great majority will make no move whatsoever — certainly no credible move — to bring their nastier coreligionists to heel, not unless its themselves or their closest friends and loved ones being targeted. Often not even then.

    Yes, Joyce has stood up for Dorothy and Becky, her two closest friends in the whole world… but ONLY them. Not for casual acquaintances or strangers. It was particularly telling that she only came off of trying to cure Ethan’s gayness after she accepted Becky’s gayness. She wasn’t able to reassess her faith for Ethan. It took someone closer to her to make her willing to do that, and now she’s not going to stand up for three casual acquaintances.

    Christians like Mary aren’t the majority, but they still get to wield such great and terrible influence and power against so many victims in the name of Christianity because a majority of Christians ALLOW it.

    Yeah, Joyce is wonderful and adorable in a lot of ways and doing awesome growth things. Great. But… she’s not going to step in. Not in any firm way. She’s known that Mary’s a b-word since Week 1, and she’s never once stood against her.

    I mean, if anyone ever deserved the fire and brimstone treatment, it’s someone like Mary, acting the way Mary is acting in this particular moment, deep in the hypocrisy of her belief and perfectly poised for a rousing round of hellfire hinging on “judge not lest ye be judged”. And Joyce’s background has equipped her perfectly to deliver that kind of Bible-based thumping.

    But no, calling it now, Joyce won’t make any credible effort to defend peeps from Mary. By Panel 5, it looks like she’s already absconded.

    I don’t believe the spit-into-the-lake-of-fire part, but Mary’s right on one thing. Joyce is lukewarm, neither hot nor cold.

    1. Vulcanodon

      Did you miss Joyce telling off her brother? Punching out Toedad? Having a public meltdown in class as she realized how wrong she’d been? She’s encountered a lot of people like Mary but it isn’t a battle unless there’s a battlefield.

      I don’t think she knew about the blackmail.

      1. Reltzik

        I file telling off her brother, punching Toedad, and her classroom meltdown as part of defending Becky, or in the last case as a consequence of that. And while she might not have known about the blackmail specifically, she saw firsthand just how toxic Mary was in general.

        1. Fart Captor

          When did she see this? The two of them have barely interacted since they went to church together.

          If/when she recognizes that Mary is doing something cruel, I doubt she’d just stand by and watch, no matter who the target was. The main obstacle there is that she may not understand what Mary is doing or fully appreciate the cruelty of it. She’s still quite naive and inclined to interpret other people’s actions in the most charitable light.

        2. segnosaur

          Not sure they actually showed Joyce seeing examples of Mary being evil, but there was the cartoon when Becky first arrived, and Joyce explained that Mary was “born again, but didn’t think it worked very well because she hates everyone”.

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/introductions/

    2. thejeff

      1) I think Joyce and everyone are too much trapped in shock and horror to respond to Mary here. Nor am I sure exactly what you want Joyce to do in response. (And anything she did do, you’d likely write off as just defending herself, not Billy, Ruth and Carla, since Mary goes after her as well.)
      She’s never stood against Mary, I suppose, but she’s also never really interacted with Mary, since that early church trip where she discovered Mary was a percussion instrument.

      2) As far as Ethan goes – it was an evolutionary step for Joyce and it was also something Ethan claimed to want. Not nearly as simple as wouldn’t “reassess her faith for Ethan”. She was trying to change him, but he claimed to want to be changed – or at least allowed her to think that. If Becky had come to her with the same approach, she would have gladly tried to hook her up with a boy to help her get over her lesbian urges. But Becky forced her to confront it head on, which Ethan never did.

    3. C.T Phipps

      It helps to understand Christianity is not actually a thing. I say that as a Christian. It is MANY things. I can literally point to flavors of my faith which believe the exact opposite on everything from charity, war, racism, tolerance, and more. It is a school of thought born from the writings of Rabbi Joshua ben Josef and his subsequent deification. It happens to virtually every thinker of significant influence from Confucius to Buddha to Nietzsche and Karl Marx.

    4. Reltzik

      Sigh, okay, I shouldn’t have posted this.

      I’ve been getting hit by a lot of #NotAllChristians messaging from people who place far more priority on ensuring that no one comes away with unsanctioned negative opinions due to the damage done by the more caustic elements of the religion, than on actually doing one solitary thing to fix or prevent that damage.

      I hit my quota for that crap very early this month, and, well, cue rant that was inappropriate in time, place, tone, message, and recipients.

      Sorry.

      I’m clearly not in a good headspace right now, so I’m going to take a break from, well, people, until I’ve got my shit in some semblance of order.

      1. C.T Phipps

        If it’s any consolation, I own a lot of my faith are complete and enormous tools. People who have done just about everything imaginable horrible in the name of what is supposed to be a religion of peace but isn’t by people who can come up with many Mary-like rationales for everything. You have a lot of my sympathy and don’t think I’m trying to defend my tribe.

  93. L!ghtn!ng

    Oh, well that’s… unpleasant. Blecch

  94. Vulcanodon

    Yikes. It’s like Frank & HotLips turned up to 11. But no, I don’t hope she gets pregnant. That’s actually seeing an unintended pregnancy the same way fundies see them, as punishment and damn the consequences to anyone else.

  95. Bleuryder

    I’d love it if the plot twist of this was that her boyfriend was transgender.

    Not as punishment or because something’s wrong with trans peeps, but because of her hatred of Carla. She’d find herself in a spot where she has to face her own prejudices much like Joyce did.

    OR she turns out to be another lesson for Joyce about how not all Christians are created equal.

    1. Li

      I don’t think this is any better than Mary crushing on Carla, and she’d scream about how he “lied” to her, and the comments would be full of people grossly agreeing that trans people need to “disclose” early on.

  96. Renee

    We just need someone even more religious to tell Mary all that premarital kissing and front hugging’s a sin.

    1. thejeff

      Make room for Jesus!

      (He wants in on the action.)

      1. C.T Phipps

        There’s generally two flavors of religious people and most people fall inbetween.

        There’s people for who they change themselves for their religion.

        There’s people for who they believe other people should change to them.

        Joyce is one, Mary is the other.

        I’m pretty certain Mary could buy a gun and rob a bank before explaining how it was because Christ commanded her two, let alone engage in heterosexual sex with her boyfriend.

  97. Spencer

    People here get so fucking creepy about Mary.

  98. Joe Covenant

    Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word ‘righteous’ of which I wasn’t previously aware…

    1. Scar Man!!!

      sounds more like surfer-speak “righteous” to me, even though that’s not what they’re going for

  99. Spencer

    Anyway for a less whiny post, I think this is a great Mary strip. She works best as a pre-heel turn Peridot where she’s just an unrelenting pathetic gremlin thing that starts shit with Carla and gets her shit wrecked in Carla’s swift and utterly ridiculous revenge rather than a scheming manipulative mastermind like she was with Ruth and Billie.

    1. thejeff

      I like her as a not particularly effective scheming mastermind. It worked – to the extent it did – only because Ruth was so vulnerable. But it also kind of backfired, since Ruth and Billie are now in a much more secure position and the whole floor has turned against Mary, even if they still don’t like Ruth.

      1. Spencer

        I feel she’s too pathetic to be a villain of the same calibre as Blaine or Clint. When she glowers and smirks about how Billie has something to lose, I can’t care because there’s no way she can actually hurt them.

        Contrast her feud with Carla, where she’s a fairly typical and real example of misgendering someone because they stepped “out of bounds”, I felt Mary worked well. Because she was human enough to do something that terrible, and ultimately got defeated by Carla in a satisfying way.

  100. Li

    Just gonna note that people expecting pregnancy or STIs (both bad ways to punish women for having “premarital” sex) might want to take into account how happy and open Mary is being? She’s not ashamed of her makeout sessions with this boy, or lying to everyone about how they’re just holding hands, and she’s clearly not afraid of her desires the way Joyce was.

    I think these two are engaged or something else that actually makes having sex with him basically fine, and pregnancy a good thing for Mary’s beliefs.

    Wherever her comeuppance comes, I’m personally saying now that I do not think it’s going to be here.

    1. Wraithy2773

      This ain’t a “sexually liberated woman? SHE MUST BE PUNISHED!” reaction.

      For one, unless Willis screwed up the artwork, she ain’t engaged. Ain’t no ring on those fingers.

      For two, this is a reaction based on, well, a sad truth about reality: Those that get abstinence only education are more likely to have unprotected sex and there can be heavy consequences to unprotected sex.

      Mary’s been set up as a hardcore christian fundamentalist, which means premarital sex = bad and contraception = worse… and we’ve all seen too many ugly stories where things go very, very wrong with that combination.

      1. Li

        1.) Willis literally already did that story with Mary
        2.) and he’s said he regrets it cause of the unfortunate implications.

        anyway again STIs and pregnancy as “consequences” of only (they also happen to people trying to be careful) unprotected sex is still a crummy thing to root for, and people are rooting for it. People’re saying “it’d be ironic”, they’re cackling, they’re reveling in the idea of Mary’s hypocrisy being exposed in this fashion.

        All of which makes people who have or have had STIs feel like crap, and pregnancy is of course a terrible thing to wish on both the unprepared parents and the kid.

        I agree that no one’s consciously saying Premariral Sex Is Bad, This Is What You Get, but they don’t have to be literally saying that to be reinforcing crummy things.

        1. Li

          Also, I’m not saying that people who purport to believe premarital sex is wrong don’t still have it, but I doubt they have it in public. The way they’re flaunting just makes me SERIOUSLY doubt they’re doing anything Mary would have any trouble rationalizing morally.

        2. Wraithy2773

          Yeah, the cackling… is getting a little severe. Mary hasn’t done much to engender much sympathy, but even so, simply on principle, cheering on someone’s life being permanently altered in such a way isn’t a great idea.

          Honestly, my bet right now is that this is going to dovetail into the Joe plot. Between the timing, the guy’s veiled mockery of Mary and their… visible actions… pick-up douche using Joe’s list to target an attractive woman and know what buttons to press…

        3. thejeff

          I hope not. I’m not really interested in “villain gets screwed over by random minor character” story line.
          Simultaneously makes Mary more sympathetic by having bad things happen to her, without her actually becoming a better person, and minimizes the harm Joe does by having the worst consequences fall on someone the readers despise.

        4. Li

          ^^^^^

          Being preyed on by a PUA is also one of those fates I would never wish on anyone. And it has nothing to do with Mary’s story — she’s been way more anti-trans and anti-LGB than she has been anti-sex. Just… no.

  101. hof1991

    Maybe Peter Paul is a pastor’s son? Joyce rejected all forms of hanky panky, but Mary is embracing it. Not too much of a prediction that this will not turn out well for Mary, though we seem to be headed for a follie aux deux from these two. They will be up to worse together than they could have accomplished separately.

  102. C.T Phipps

    But yes, I’m disappointed. I was really hoping for a sympathetic changing Mary story. Maybe some Mary will be redeemed but it won’t be this one.

  103. Commander Clash

    Mary has apparently skipped the parts to “judge not lest he be judged” and about the deadly sin of pride.

    1. Commander Clash

      And lust.

  104. Lulu

    Damn, she met her soulmate who has the same viewpoint on things…
    I’m gonna puke. Now just imagine how judgemental will be their kids.

    1. Commander Clash

      Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll be rebellious against their parents views.

  105. Morrison

    Peter is my new favorite.

  106. Morrison

    Also thank you for the big panels.

  107. Pylgrim

    Preeeetty sure that in the kind of Christianism that Mary practices, the kind of heavy petting seen in the last panel is heavily discouraged. Not sure, really, why am I taking the trouble to point out that Mary is being a hypocrite, as though it was something new.

    1. Scar Man!!!

      Happens to all of us. Her self-justification is probably that at least it’s properly hetero.

  108. BP

    I’m so … Happy for them … ?

    (I mean I am, but I’m grossed out as well.)

  109. John

    That middle panel, with Ruth, Billie, and Carla all standing pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in a hall that’s apparently like twenty feet wide, kind of cracks me up.

  110. Scar Man!!!

    How do I see alt-text on mobile?

    1. segnosaur

      If you click right below the cartoon, in the blank space to the left of the first comic/back buttons you should get a pop-up with the alt text.

      1. Scar Man!!!

        thank you

  111. Guest42

    You know, if you’re going to claim that homosexuality violates the epistles claims of ‘sexual immorality’ I guarantee PDA in an unwelcome and awkward should qualify.

    1. Scar Man!!!

      From what I know of the history of my own religion, Judaism, it should be even worse than quiet homosexuality. Especially if her sect is trying to be like the Puritans, who were trying to be the “new tribes of Israel”

      1. Scar Man!!!

        yah keep the hanky-panky behind the closedy-doorseys

    2. Porto

      Woah, fundamentalist Christians openly being hypocrites and not realizing it!??!?!?! WHAT A SHOCK.

      Yeah but seriously, fuck people like Mary

      1. John

        But not in public, because that’s rude.

  112. Scar Man!!!

    This explains her happiness, but I’m not sure it explains the random semi-niceness to people she hates that has suddenly been dropped harder than a cannonball on some poor gunner’s tender foot

  113. Tenchan

    Ewww, nasty! Will Mary get pregnant accidentally…again?

    1. Scar Man!!!

      i hope not and don’t think so, since Willis has expressed regret at using pregnancy as a punishment.

      But someone above put out the theory that this guy found her through The List and is just using her as an easy mark.

  114. Tenn

    *breathes a sigh of relief*

    Mary’s not scary anymore.

    Also, damn heterosexuals, shoving their heterosexing down our throats. I wish this comic would stop pandering to them. Willis should listen to what the market wants. Also, he’s just doing this for the money. I assure you this all makes sense. (I am not secretly heterosex myself.)

  115. Toes14

    It’s okay, Mary will end up pregnant by Christmas time in the strip . . .

    1. pjeseb

      So, late 2036, our time?

    2. thejeff

      To quote Willis’s Tumblr: “look no one’s getting pregnant in dumbing of age because it’d be like 2021 before they’d even notice, so cool it, gang”

  116. QueerBitch

    I hope she doesn’t get pregnant. Mary deserves misery forever – but no child deserves a mother like Mary. A big reason I could never be religious is somehow abusive people are born fertile at all…I’d honestly rather her character get sick and like die then imply she has a kid that she’ll abuse.

  117. Optimal Optimus

    I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by her labeling of Joyce, but Mary continues to amaze.

  118. strictly speaking

    Willis just wanted an excuse to draw Mary in his next Slipshine comic, didn’t he?

  119. steelbright

    never (other than Sonic the Hedgehog fanart drawn by middle schoolers) have two tongues entangling looked so unappealing

  120. MutantSentry

    Wow, these two feel like they escaped from an old Chick Track…

  121. Plume

    It’s funny that Mary’s so deluded she thinks she’s holier than Joyce!

  122. jothki

    I wouldn’t consider the ship completely dead, there’s always the possibility that Mary might insist that Carla is actually a guy.

    Okay, yeah, it’s dead.

  123. waffle

    The penuts level “good grief” faces durring this story line have been the highlight of my night

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