180

Best possible
Posted on January 28, 2022 by David M Willis

180 thoughts on “Best possible”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    CHECKMATE, ATHEISTS

    1. Decidedly Orthogonal

      Now King me! No wait. Sorry! er… Read ’em and weep. Ugh… Yahtzee!

      1. Chaucer59

        Bingo!

        1. Librain

          If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards.

          Checkmate!

        2. Michael Haneline

          Foolish Librarian,
          YOU’VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD!

  2. Doctor_Who

    Joyce: “I’m sure we can sit down and talk this over like rational people.”

    Sarah: (Zoop!)

  3. King Daniel

    Joyce, you really can do so much better than Liz for a “best-possible-version” of you.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Joyce doesn’t want to be an outlier or a rebel. She wants to be a conformist. She just doesn’t like conforming to fundamentalist evangelism anymore.

    2. Jon

      Literally came here to say the exact same thing. Liz is not a horrible person…but she’s nobody’s role model.

      Maybe Joyce could use some other role models, ones she’s known for longer…her sister, perhaps??

      1. Kavonde

        Yeah, if only her sister would let her KNOW that she was her sister.

        1. King Daniel

          Are we talking about Jocelyne or Sarah?

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Yes. Obviously!

        3. fudo81

          Well, for all we know, she might be trying. Joyce missed at least one call from her.

        4. Spencer

          Given Joyce’s miserable appearance in the next chapter, I’m wondering if Jocelyne’s calling to her that their dad’s been hospitalized.

        5. Nono

          That’s not a burden to be put on Jocelyne. She can come out when she wants to.

  4. The Wellerman

    Not going to church might not be a crime among her friends, but it might as well be. *sigh*

    So much for free worship.

    1. Andy

      I don’t recall Liz saying anything about her friends in previous strips, though I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve forgotten something. Still, I wonder of it’s more that Liz made being Christian ™ such a big part of who she is that she doesn’t want her friends to see her not be one, regardless of what they believe.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Given that she’s been presented as basically Joyce, it’s entirely possible her friends are mostly secular. I think this behavior would still make sense that way.

      2. Regalli

        The key strip would be this, I think: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/totallynot/

        Specifically, that second panel, and also to some extent the third. She’s not out to her friends yet, any more than Joyce was before this visit.

        1. BarerMender

          Possibly she can’t go back because she chickened out and she’s still the girl her friends will condescend to.

        2. Heather

          Yeah the worst thing about emotional abuse and bullying isn’t necessarily the insults on their own but the fact you can start to believe them about yourself. Maybe that you are worthless or stupid or ugly or unworthy of any kind of love or affection whatsoever. That’s what poisons you the most. The idea they are right about you and it would be better if you never existed.

          And like, it’s fine Liz wasn’t ready but the fact she thought she’d have been ‘ruined’ really aptly show how even when you leave religion the brainwashing still has a hold on you emotionally. It’s kind of a mess in her head there. Can relate!

          And going to church to act would be too much emotionally for her right now.

      3. thejeff

        She commented on people at Ball mocking her for being religious.
        They’ll still think I’m that dumb Jesus freak they still condescend to.

        Assuming she was honest then, which is likely.

        I think that’s kind of it. Changing that image is a big shift. It’s going to change how everyone treats her, they’re all going to make a big deal out of it, for better or worse. Here she can experiment with it, without it really mattering when she goes back.
        When/if she goes back, she’ll either have to go back into the box they think she’s in or she’ll have to deal with the consequences of coming out.

        Assuming it is that and not something like that already having led to her failing or dropping out.

        1. milu

          I think a key to why this is so complicated for Liz to even talk about is to be found in this strip: “I should be with my friends”. Part of her wants to break free of her christian conditioning, but her friend group, oppressive as it might be, still represents her emotional home base.

          Religion is not just a set of beliefs and norms. It’s also (and i think, first and foremost) a community. You’re not “just” breaking out of a worldview, you’re also giving up loving, caring bonds. It’s easy to say “it’s not real love, it’s abuse” or whatever, the emotional reality is that for most of us, most of the time, anything is better than loneliness. People literally die of loneliness.

        2. thejeff

          But the friend group apparently isn’t Christian. They’re the ones condescending to her as a dumb Jesus freak.

          See the parallel to Joyce

        3. milu

          oops lol you’re right ?

        4. Inbar Fink

          God, I really relate to the anxiety and fear around changing something about your image that you *know* other people see as ‘integral’ to your identity, even if it’s not something that either you or the people around you LIKE. The change is both stressful and emotionally exhausting. Joyce is probably going through it too atm but she’s just trying to hide it (the tummyache, wanting to sleep for two weeks).

        5. thejeff

          Yeah, Joyce has talked about it before. With Sal, I think.

          Long before coming out as atheist.

    2. Jamie

      Never heard the phrase “free worship” used before.

      1. Clif

        Worship freely and of your own will.

        1. Ryek Hvek

          and your offering is comped

        2. Clif

          Or maybe that’s vampires. I dunno.

  5. Nono

    So, Joyce wants to be someone who knocks on Joe’s door and propositions him for sex.

    1. Doctor_Who

      At least she has a healthy intake of vitamins.

      1. SweaterZach

        Damn, is this a quadruple entendre? Well played.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      …I mean, there are far worse someones to be.

    3. Rose by Any Other Name

      … yes?

    4. Nova

      There’s nothing wrong with that person, so it’s as good a place to start as any.

      It’s also nowhere near the only aspect of who Liz is as a person, and not the part Joyce sees of her. As far as Joyce is concerned, Liz is – Confident and happy in her skin, further along the path away from religion than Joyce is, and living proof that nothing horrible happens when you leave the flock (despite what she’s been told).

      Leaving religion (particularly cult-like following of religion from birth/a young age) is about as scary as testing bulletproof glass while naked. Sure the bullets can’t hurt you… but what if they can? It’s terrifying, and you’ve been taught your whole life that there’s someone who knows EVERY thought and desire in your head and is constantly judging you for it. In a way that affects your entire eternity (with one side being eternal torture for not being perfect).

      It’s not weird to strive toward the confidence of the person who just safely walked through the bullets ahead of you… It is weird to think consenting adult women shouldn’t proposition other consenting people they are attracted to for sex if that’s what everyone wants to do.

      1. not someone else

        I think this was less supposed to be a knock on Liz and more of a shippy comment, but I could be way wrong.

        (I totally agree with the shippy-comment version. :P)

    5. Spencer

      I also want this to happen but only after sufficient amounts of romcom shenanigans.

      1. Agemegos

        Hear! Hear!

  6. Thag Simmons

    Hmm, is the Liz thing going to be that simple?

    1. Ron

      Her look in panel 5 to me says more “you really don’t get it, do you?” than “wow how did you see through me?” but I may be mistaken.

      Also, Sarah, Ask, don’t assume and check only the assumption.

    2. CrazyJ

      It’s not. She wouldn’t be trying to skip first day of classes if it was. She also wouldn’t revealed to Sarah that she is still in town. She’d instead just wait a few hours and then go back to campus. Despite not having a ride, she still has options to get back to Ball State before classes start.

  7. BBCC

    Gee, why does Joyce relate so much to Liz?

  8. DarkoNeko

    Joyce’s imaginary vision of Liz is pretty sad, and that’s what happen when you comapre your normal self to what someone show on themself on social media.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      There’s a bit in the Wheel of Time (novel) where Matt, Perrin, and Rand all simultaneously think the others are better with women as well as more socially confidant than themselves.

  9. cmasta1992

    Joyce: I want to be Liz
    Sarah: I’m gonna tackle Liz
    Me: I now want to be Liz

    1. Jamie

      You want to be a version of Joyce that got tackled by Sarah?

      1. Clif

        That’s how I read it. With the important part being “tackled by Sarah.”

  10. Kyrik Michalowski

    Joyce, there are many people in this world who can help you be you best you. The list is fairly along, but Liz is nowhere near the list.

  11. Regalli

    Well, at least she’s trying to address some insecurities while tackling. Hopefully. Possibly.

    They’re young enough I expect this will eventually lead to ‘realizing they have not been great sisters to each other and taking steps to do better in the future,’ but for now, clearly a lot of work to do.

  12. StClair

    aw, and here I thought that (like Willis) she “forgot” to sign up for classes for the next semester.

    1. King Daniel

      Give it time.

      1. Clif

        Wait for it.

        1. King Daniel

          I’m willing to wait for it

        2. KSClaw

          “I am the one thing in life I can control.” – Liz probably

    2. Axel_Grease

      To me Liz’s face implies that Sarah is wrong.

  13. Endplanets

    She showed weakness

  14. The Wellerman

    Kinda sad really. Hey yall, wanna forget the world exists?

    Click here to make Joyce channel her anxieties into eating aliens and tacos and stuff:

    https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/830313

    1. The Wellerman

      Also, side note, I’m real curious. Have any Dumbing of Age games came before mine? Has Willis made any?

      1. Delicious Taffy

        There’s an old Ultra Car game or something that Willis did, a very old Flash cartoon of Joyce and Walky going to a pet store, a couple fan-made music videos, a bunch of custom Gravatars, Yotomoe’s various pictures as well as a few miscellaneous others, a handful of fanfics and a metric fuckton of hyper/inflation porn, mostly featuring Joyce and Lucy. But aside from that, I don’t think anyone else has made a game in specific. Yet…

        1. The Wellerman

          First of all, where can I find the one about Ultracar? And the Lucy blowup stuff? I don’t think I’ve seen either.

          Second, I guess that means Joyce’s Nightmare has the honor of being the first DOA game? Going once, going twice…

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Yeah, far as I can tell you’ve got that particular badge. As for where to find the other stuff, I’m pretty sure the car game was linked here a couple days ago, and I’m sure you probably know where to find Rule 34 of things by now hyuk hyuk hyuk.

    2. Mordecai

      I love this so much, thank you. Well done.

  15. Spencer

    I wanna find out that Dana was this exact kind of person too and that Sarah just habitually collects them.

    They just form around her.

    1. Nono

      We know Dana had a boyfriend and Sarah saw him at one point naked, so I don’t think ‘devout Christian’ was her deal.

      1. Thag Simmons

        She could still have come from an evangelical family.

        1. Illithid

          But Dana’s parents, upon finding out she had a girlfriend, immediately sent money for a date. So likely not.

        2. Norah

          That’s Dina. Dana was Sarah’s weed-smoking roommate and Raidah’s friend in Sarah’s freshman year.

        3. Thag Simmons

          Dana was Sarah’s first roommate, the one with the weed problem, and it has been imploed that her home situation was not great

        4. Axel_Grease

          I’m really glad someone else saw that angle, the comments about Sarah doing the right thing by involving someone who cared about her were heartbreaking.

        5. C.T. Phipps

          There was a lot of subtext there and it’s clear no one had the full picture. One of the most telling moments of that arc for me was Raidah saying, “she was getting better” and Sarah being very firm, “No, she was getting worse.”

        6. Archieve

          Though neither Sarah or Radiah had a full picture, Sarah tried to tell them Dana needed help only to be ignored and her suggestion of getting a Psychologist shot down. Id say Sarah had more of the story then Dana’s other friends who didn’t want to acknowledge a problem and take action.

        7. Spencer

          Which is why I think it’s gonna happen again here, and then we’re gonna find out that not only is it not helpful to Liz, it wasn’t even helpful to Dana.

        8. zee

          Eh, not really? Maybe I’m forgetting something but the only thing really implying that was Raidah saying Dana wasn’t happy to be home which could mean a lot of things. A bad home life, reminders of her late mother, missing her friends, etc. Sarah did literally the only thing she could in that situation so I’m not gonna say it was a bad thing until there’s stronger proof

        9. Spencer

          It’s a theory I’ve definitely been big on, but yeah as far as in-universe evidence goes it’s just that one line from Raidah like 9 years ago now.

          It’s the kind of thing I work from the conclusion mixed with a bit of that always accurate Narrative Intent guessing game: Sarah’s a character who’s never really outright headlined a chapter, Raidah and Carl are suddenly positioned next to drama bombs Jennifer and Asher, and then we just never got an answer about Dana either way, Sarah’s never had to think about that tough decision she made.

          Now we’re in a chapter called Trial and Sarah where Sarah is presented with a complex problem she doesn’t grasp, so she’s just gonna bullrush through it because “caring when it’s important” is something she learned how to do and then paid dearly for, except every time she paid for it she could at least be confident that she did the right thing for Dana.

          I didn’t think about this next part until recently, but it was for Dana’s sake, absolutely, but it was for Sarah’s too; her friends were ignoring the problem and her grades suffered, except Sarah’s only in college on a scholarship. She doesn’t have the luxury of her friends’ rich dads who can pull them out and drop them back in on their own dime.

        10. thejeff

          Maybe Willis could pull something off to recontextualize what we already know about how Dana was doing, but currently I don’t see how. It’s possible Dana is worse off at home, but the evidence we have is that she was crashing at school as well. Her home being revealed to be abusive puts Sarah in the awful place of being responsible for sending her back to that, despite not knowing anything about it and establishing the right thing to do being just to watch her spiral downward and hope she breaks out of it, despite showing no signs of doing so. (Not to mention quite likely Sarah losing her own scholarship and having to leave school herself.)
          It’s narratively putting her in a no-win situation and making her bear the blame for it.

        11. not someone else

          Yeah, I think one thing that’s getting forgotten in this discussion is that Sarah was legitimately in danger of losing a lot here because of Dana. If the wrong RA opened the door to two black girls and the smell of weed, it wouldn’t matter who did it or that one of them was rich, they’d be kicked out before the end of the day.

        12. Spencer

          I don’t think it’s blaming her acknowledging that she didn’t solve it (if that’s where things go, of course).

          Sarah could have solved it some other way, except that other way wasn’t visible, her friends were dismissing her, and if she kept dancing around for the pure best solution she was jeopardizing her scholarship. I feel like all of these can be imparted even if it turns out that Sarah didn’t help like she wanted; because “not helping like she wanted” can mean anything but “I solved it and I was the hero, history will vindicate me, and I am vindicated for not getting close to people and only caring when it matters.” It’s not binary, Sarah’s not the villain, it’s just exposing that the thing Sarah uses to justify her behaviour wasn’t as clear cut as she wants it to be.

          Sarah is a character that we don’t deep dive into as much, but it’s clear that the Dana fiasco was legitimately emotionally draining on her; she sells it to Joyce all pragmatically about her scholarship, but when approached by Billie with the suggestion that she wanted to get rid of both her and Joyce, Sarah smacks her lunch tray off the table and screams that Dana could have died and it was the hardest thing she had ever done. Joyce once ruefully brought Dana up in relation to Becky and how Sarah as being cynical about it, and Sarah legit shut down.

          I’m glad all three of us are on the same table regarding the consequences Sarah would have faced, since that feels like a pretty good place to start exploring the grey area of that problem.

        13. zee

          Just by the by @not someone else Dana was white, not black. Hell that could make it worse for Sarah. The place smells like weed, who will the authorities blame, the nice rich white girl whos dad owns a law firm, or the poor/middle class black girl

  16. tim gueguen

    And just by chance an NFL scout was walking down the same hall. So impressed by Sarah’s tackle he signed her to be the first female player in the NFL.

    1. Thag Simmons

      Sarah would not take that offer. She’s not much of a team player, football is real tough on the noggin, and frankly she seems like more of a baseball person.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        She also doesn’t strike me as the wife-beating type, so the NFL might shy away just for that.

        1. Thag Simmons

          I think the NFL is pretty good at beating that into recruits. Literally, anger issues are a well known side effect of traumatic brain injury.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Yeah, my former bestie got into a serious car crash, bonked his head real good, and boom. Instant skeezbag. So I believe it.

        3. milu

          wow, that’s real sad. reminds me of that classic Phineas Gage story. I guess it’s a self-evident fact for most of us that our personality is somehow encoded in brain synapses, but it’s still shocking and scary to find that brain trauma can absolutely alter a person beyond recognition.

        4. Delicious Taffy

          From a bit of skimming, it looks like Gage eventually somewhat went back to something like his former self. Maybe the other guy did too, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

        5. Segnosaur

          Steroids might help with that. They are mandatory in the nfl aren’t they?

        6. Delicious Taffy

          Honestly, for the Big Name sports and events, I say just actually make it mandatory to juice up the athletes as much as possible. Steroids, performance enhancers, radioactive spiders, cybernetic augmentations, whatever it takes. The way I hear it told they’re just wearing their bodies out with permanent injuries anyway, so they may as well look cool comin’ out the other side.

      2. Sombrero

        Now I have a sudden curiosity about Sarah’s basketball skills. She can bat, she can tackle, what else is she good at?

        1. Reltzik

          I could see her as a hockey enforcer.

        2. Sombrero

          I could see Ruth as a hockey enforcer. But now that I think of it, Sarah really can dunk on people.

  17. Nathan

    YOU POOR STUPID BABIES

  18. Bagge

    ah, the Sarah-solution I see

  19. Derek

    I am baffled that this is where Joyce’s train of thought goes instead of being worried or perplexed that Liz never went back home. Apparently this doesn’t remind Joyce of Becky’s situation?

    1. King Daniel

      Well for one, context clues don’t seem to be pointing to it as a Becky-type situation.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Joyce also doesn’t have over a decade of context for Liz’s “normal” behavior, so she’s not gonna see any cues in that direction.

        1. Bryy

          It’s the same reason we say that the premise of dystopian sci-fi novels could never happen.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Hubris and/or naivete?

        3. thejeff

          Well, all her experience with Becky’s normal behavior didn’t give her a clue that anything was wrong with Becky when she showed up. Not until the kiss.

          To be fair, Becky is much better at hiding things than Liz seems to be.

    2. C.T. Phipps

      I think the big thing to notice is Sarah has a good relationship with her family. Which means that Liz’s big issue is she was defining herself as the “good” and religious sister so its not that her family was beating religion into her–its that she chose to make it an identity and now hates it.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Liz mentions performing christianity to keep her stepmom happy, and Liz is already Sarah’s half-sister. I suspect Sarah’s part of the family is more on the secular side while Liz lives with a much more religious part of it.

        1. Spencer

          Yeah, Liz and Sarah’s mom isn’t actually living with either of her children, probably, unless she married Liz’s stepmom.

          Sarah and Liz both live with their dads, and at least Liz’s dad remarried, is the impression I’m getting.

      2. Spencer

        The most Sarah has talked about her parents is that she is glad they are divorced.

        Liz’s dad and stepmom are unrelated to Sarah’s mom and dad, and Liz is capitulating to her stepmom for reasons unknown, but are probably fairly clear if the subtext of “Joyce and Liz are the same person” remains ongoing.

    3. Axel_Grease

      Never underestimate the desire of the socially awkward to be cool.

  20. not someone else

    I sort of thought it would be something less serious than homelessness this time around. Glad for Liz’s sake, I guess.

    (I certainly know the anxiety of people changing how they treat you when your worldview shifts can be huge, but at least it’s not usually also physically dangerous.)

  21. C.T. Phipps

    I like that after all the build up, it’s something reasonably TINY by comparison to theories she’d been disowned and was now homeless.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Tomorrow her mom is gonna show up with a rocket launcher, just you wait.

      1. King Daniel

        And a letter of acceptance for Liz to train for NASA’s next astronaut class

    2. Sombrero

      Liz is a Role Snatcher, a tiny alien piloting a human mecha that will steal Becky’s role as Joyce’s friend and homeless campus refugee and replace her. She is still oblivious to the lesbian part, though. Alien information services are famously unreliable.

      1. The Wellerman

        Robots. Peh. Such hopelessly outdated tactics.

      2. Roborat

        Hmm, interesting theory. Although there is no screw sticking out of the top of her head that other people inexplicably don’t notice, that hair could be hiding it. We need more information, are her best friends a vampire/human hybrid, and a sexual pervert/wereman?

    3. Wraithy2773

      …maybe. This still feels like something she could’ve just said earlier without much embarrassment and just feels like severe underkill for the whole “being functionally homeless for two days” thing.

      I think there’s still something more going on here. Liz doesn’t want to say what’s going on and is desperately clinging onto any way to dodge questions, but she’s not able to bring herself to outright lie about it either. Besides, if it was just not having an alibi for going to church, well, she could head back now and already have that alibi, she went to church early here with an online friend.

      1. Spencer

        It’s probably not just about the literal act of not going to church on Sunday, no.

        Liz inferred to Joe that she has a lot of expectations placed on her by the people around her that she be a naive Jesus weirdo that everyone can laugh at, and her attempts at breaking out of that failed because her sexual puritanism still has its claws deep in her.

        She’s not just the weirdo ex-Christian innocent she doesn’t want to be anymore, she couldn’t get out of it when she tried.

        1. Wraithy2773

          Aye, fully agreed with all of that. I just want her to be willing to open up to people, particularly when she deliberately came to Susan and Joyce’s dorm room for a currently unknown reason.

          I can sympathize with the urge to know you have to tell someone that you’re in deep shit, but feeling like doing so will make you feel like a disappointment or something to them. It’s a shit situation because you’re pulled between two states, and your instinct to just dodge and hide and evade stuff only makes things worse…

          …but it’s kinda like my deal with Walky’s “bad at College” and “attention deficit issues” things: I see a lot of a younger (and subsequently dumber) me in there, and I really don’t like it, and I want to metaphorically punch that stuff in the face so that it stop being stupid!

          …this is why most writers write children like they’re mature adults: Because those writers remember being socially awkward and awful children, and they don’t want to be immersed in that crap anymore >_<.

        2. Spencer

          The problem with not writing about it is that this real thing that young adults feel ends up going unsaid, so then they keep feeling it instead of recognizing it.

          I think, broadly speaking, the feelings that matter most in a situation like this are those of the victim, and they are victims; Walky’s undiagnosed ADHD isn’t something he’s going to willpower through, he thinks of it the same way you’re describing your “younger, dumber” self.

        3. Wraithy2773

          I don’t like using “victim” in this context, exactly, because it implies a sort of helplessness about the whole situation, that there’s not something you could be reasonably expected to do.

          And, I should note, we’re dealing with some very fluid and fluctuating corners of the English Language as we continue to pull ourselves out of the horrors of the Victorian mindset, so my words are going to be imprecise (and the rum’s not helping).

          My sympathy with Liz here is running out partly because… she knocked on Sarah’s door. She came here. There’s a part of her that has to be trying here, and I want to cheerlead that part on while punching the stuff still holding her back in the face.

          It’s a lot like why I hate on Joyce as often as I do: Because I really like her, I like her sunny optimism and strong moral center, and it really frustrates me when she’s betraying that part of her. I want her to get better, so I yell at her in the comments that she can’t see…

        4. Spencer

          I don’t like using “victim” in this context, exactly, because it implies a sort of helplessness about the whole situation, that there’s not something you could be reasonably expected to do.

          I spent the last decade of my life convinced I was innately broken and anything I tried would lead to failure, because I never had the words for what was wrong with me until I came close to suicide and found out I wanted to live more than I wanted to die. A few months later I found out I had a brain that does its thinking sideways and that I, specifically, was not trained wrong in life as a joke and there were things I could do about it, which I now do.

          I was a victim of my own head, I sure as hell couldn’t be expected to process that healthily when the only person who could think about it was me.

          It’s a lot like why I hate on Joyce as often as I do: Because I really like her, I like her sunny optimism and strong moral center, and it really frustrates me when she’s betraying that part of her. I want her to get better, so I yell at her in the comments that she can’t see…

          It’s worth thinking about why someone who has been wronged has the responsibility of remaining sunny and positive in the face of the people wronging her.

        5. Axel_Grease

          Young women especially are expected to take abuse with a smile. See the Disney princess archetype where she never gets mad or fights back, and instead wins by being eternally optimistic and cheerful. I prefer someone like Joyce who fights.

        6. Delicious Taffy

          Which Disney Princesses are actually like that, though? A couple of those gals were downright pissed or even miserable when they started getting fucked with. Sometimes they start out all cheerful, but that’s usually just because their houses haven’t been lit on fire with them inside yet.

        7. Roborat

          That fits Cinderella, doubtful about any of the others, definitely not Merida. .

        8. C.T. Phipps

          It’s also possible that while everyone is looking for a repeat of Joyce or Becky there’s actually the fact it may not be about religion itself for Liz. Or at least entirely. One of the things that many people deal with in college is realizing they don’t want to be who they have previously self-identified as.

          Liz has made her entire life about being the good Christian girl and has apparently been mocked, abused, and treated as a fool by her peers at Ball State. Except for her friends who are also religious.

          EXCEPT we now know that Liz considers them to be morons and fools behind THEIR backs so she has no one she actually is friends with. The lies and attitude she put up to gain social acceptance is something that has left her alone and miserable.

          Which sucks.

          I think it’s also a good closeting metaphor but I admit, I’m reaching there. Liz needs to be open and out about who she is–which means transferring here I think.

        9. Spencer

          I dunno ’bout you, bud, but if you think Fundies Are The Worst: The Comic is gonna reveal that the character whose premise is “Sarah’s little sister, who is exactly like Joyce” is gonna be to blame for the part where she thought sex was going to traumatize her and that she has to lie to about something she doesn’t believe anymore for the benefit of her stepmother, well, good luck there.

          Except for her friends who are also religious.

          Right, ’cause Billie, Sarah, Joe and Becky could never think poorly of Joyce.

        10. Delicious Taffy

          Can we throw Sierra and Agatha in that pile as well? They’ve been awful quiet lately, and I don’t trust it.

        11. C.T. Phipps

          That is…certainly a take on what I have said.

          I mean, wholly inaccurate, but a take.

        12. Tsa

          I think you replied to the wrong comment

        13. Spencer

          Right, I’m totally misreading the dude who on this page has a post about how Liz is totally not being pressured to appear faithful to her stepmom and that actually she just chose it of her own volition.

        14. C.T. Phipps

          I think if you don’t believe that constructed identities can be horrifyingly constricting things that you struggle with then you are very wrong. I think Liz is someone that desperately wanted to please other people and it suppressed who she really was.

    4. Reltzik

      It’s a very plausible theory that Sarah spouted in Panel 3. A theory which is, as yet, unconfirmed, and which I will still count as unconfirmed even (especially) if Liz’s very next act is to confirm it.

    5. Keulen

      I think Sarah may have gotten pretty close to what’s going on with Liz that makes her not want to go back to Ball State, but there’s probably more to it than that. And I don’t think it’s a tiny thing to have friends who think and expect you to act like you believe things that you don’t believe anymore.

  22. Queezle

    There we go asking questions- well a question, and not really waiting for an answer. But still baby steps.

  23. Kaffeeteria

    As a german, I’m quite horrified about the insane pressure religious people suffer in the USA. I was religious for a few years before I realized that I wanted no part of the brainwashing and hypocrisy. Left it and never looked back. I’m glad that most people here share my view. Nobody ever even looked at me funny for turning atheist.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      America was founded on extremism and insane pressure. Anyone who tells you otherwise is One Of Them.

      1. Reltzik

        Welll…..

        (1) If we’re talking about the Revolutionary War era as the founding, then it was founded on the prospect that they didn’t want to pay for the 7-years war. Not paying for wars is our foundational value.

        (2) If instead we’re talking about the original British colonies, then Jamestown came first, not Plymouth. (Roanoke doesn’t count.) That means that America is founded on principles of colonization, racially- and class-inequitable sentencing and abuse of criminals, environmentally-irresponsible capitalist resource exploitation, and overseas military bases.

        1. not someone else

          Racist extremism (and blaming your racist actions on religion) is totally compatible with the correct answer (#2). It also blends well with the Spanish colonies that became part of the United States and the breathtaking genocides they committed explicitly in the name of their religion. (Though they’d have picked any other reason, or none, and I’m sure some of them explicitly did.)

    2. Spencer

      It’s part of a cultural expectation that Christianity is innately good, and so anything to the contrary is an attack on its American values.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        The way some people carry on, you’d think American values were the weakest thing in the universe, since every single enjoyable/helpful thing you can imagine is capable of destroying them.

        1. Spencer

          They are, yes. “American values” are a belief in your inerrant greatness and everyone else is just super jealous of your freedom, which is why its oligarchs peddle the grift that they’re rebellious underdogs against the commies, supported by an endlessly compromising moderate who preaches tolerance for evil on the grounds that you’re raising too much of a fuss.

          Every single good thing that happens in that country is someone who has very much had a bad time in the status quo pulling a brick out of the wall, because the status quo was built by the rich for the rich.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Won’t someone please think of the poor, benighted billionaires??? If we’re impolite to them on social media, they might be put off their whale steaks! /s

        3. Keulen

          I don’t seem to have those values despite being an American. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure most of my fellow Americans haven’t realized yet that we’re living in an oligarchy where the rich and big corporations own most politicians and media, and that capitalism isn’t actually making the world a better place.

        4. Axel_Grease

          A high school teacher tried to convince me that the government owned the media. The truth is much worse.

        5. thejeff

          Well, to be fair, the Republican Party and the right wing media (mostly but not only Fox News) are basically joined at the hip, though it’s hard to tell who’s pulling the strings.
          There’s no such coordination between Democrats and the rest of the media though.

    3. C.T. Phipps

      What a lot of people call “religious people” pretty much is specifically Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity that is a minority movement in the United States and very specifically related to direct cults that settled in America. Very often related to ones exiled from Europe for their extremism and the Confederacy where the South encouraged the most hypocritical, nastiest version of Christianity possible to not challenge their source of wealth.

      They do their absolute best to try to “claim” Christianity and that anything pro-social justice, pro-racial equality, anti-hierarchy, and pro-tolerance is somehow against their religion. They are pretty much the greatest threat to Christianity as a group today and determined to spread their toxic interpretation of the religion as far as possible.

      1. Spencer

        For a minority movement they sure do have absurd sway over the entire country.

        And, y’know, it’s not like “the worst of them” are the only ones who engage in a toxic culture at the expense of its undesirables, or are the only ones who don’t benefit from the oligarch status quo.

        1. Liquid Len

          They do have sway because they’ve allied themselves with power – specifically the oligarchic power that actually has been making policy over the last few decades. The deal is that he true believers will reliably come out and vote for their preferred social issues, and will be rewarded with policy. In the meantime, the oligarchy quietly gets on with purchasing the government to steal everything of value.

        2. Spencer

          Yep.

          The Texas GOP fucking with abortion as a healthcare right probably don’t care about it as a moral issue, but you know who does? Their flock, who’ll vote for them over and over so long as they hear that baby Jesus ain’t crying.

          Donald Trump has never read a bible in his life but he was still elected by the kind of person who was fine with him gassing protestors so he could go to a photoshoot and hold one upside down.

        3. C.T. Phipps

          Rich white people who abuse religion to gain power and support the worst abuses of the country are powerful? You don’t frigging say.

        4. Spencer

          It’s probably not abuse when the system is working as intended, as it as always has, repeatedly, every single time the US has needed a justification to stomp on something that’s not directly desired by those rich white people.

        5. C.T. Phipps

          I mean a large portion of the actual book they claim is specifically about how you should:

          * Hate religious hypocrites
          * Do not engage in war or vengeance
          * Do not use religion to justify your greed
          * Do not oppress the poor or sick or believe God is behind you if you are wealthy
          * Engage in charity

          How do you not view that as abuse?

    4. zee

      Yeah if you think America is bad try Jamaica, where there’s no legal distinction of church and state (i mean America doesn’t enforce it at all but at least it’s on paper). Straight up, 2 days ago i went to the passport office to get an adult passport. I was just sitting in the queue, rereading doa, waiting to hear my number. The lady next to me leaned over and said “excuse me,” and i thought she was gonna ask about the line or something.
      “I just wanted to say that Jesus is coming soon, and if you are not a Christian you need to make yourself right with god”
      Or whatever i only remember the first part before my brain went smooth. She then started talking at me about my soul or whatever. Just out of the blue. Was it because my shirt was goth? Idk.

      And that shits just kinda normal here. If you haven’t been proselytized to on the street you just haven’t been here long enough. In high school i had girls tell me “my mom told me not to hang out with people like you” , a friend refuse to talk to me for a day because i said i believe in gay rights and hit me because i said evolution is real, and a guy run up and shake me by the shoulders yelling WHY DONT YOU BELIEVE IN JESUS?! In pre university i had a guy pretend to be my friend for a week just so he could jump scare me with like, weirdo conspiracy theorist apocalypse gospel about the antichrist and microchips in our arms.
      University I’ve at worst gotten random proselytes who won’t give up and a shocked gasp at being an atheist, and that’s 100% because the pandemic took me off campus before anything more dramatic could happen.

      God I can’t wait to just live somewhere fucking normal

      1. Delicious Taffy

        I’ve never been a fan of “If you hate this, try something worse!”, even as sarcasm, but that does sound wretched though. Thing is, the USA is a massive place and there are entire swaths of it where the same crap happens on the daily. But hey, if you know someplace normal where I can also escape these freaks, please share that because holy hell are they ever unbearable. I barely go outside anymore.

        1. zee

          Sorry i didn’t mean to like, minimize, i was more just using the us as a backdrop bc Jamaica has incredible PR and everyone thinks it’s just happy people and good vibes when in reality it’s an impoverished crime ridden ultra conservative religious hell hole. Literally most churches per square mile on the planet, more churches than schools. I don’t think the us is necessarily any better (*cough* white fundies are terrifying to me. Would be nice if they’d stop sending their goddamn Mormon missionaries here, feels too colonial) but i think it’s more concentrated here because we’re so small. Since the us is so big there are places where people just don’t care, we don’t have that. Even our cities are mad religious and we’re surrounded by water so it’s hard not to feel trapped. There’s just so escape.

          I hear the Netherlands is pretty good re: lack of areligious persecution. They’re my goal for now.

        2. milu

          @zee: ugh i feel for you. best of strength and courage. I don’t know much about the Netherlands specifically, but yeah most of Western Europe tends to be fairly welcoming of atheists. Not to say there aren’t issues, but that is not one of them in most places. I’m from France, we still struggle with Christian conservatives (they pushed back hard against gay marriage, it passed anyway, now they’re agitating against gay parental rights, but they are still nowhere near as powerful a lobby as the evangelical right in the US).

          @Taffy: i think there’s a crucial distinction to be made between a white American telling you “if you think you’ve got it bad try Iran” (or wherever) and someone actually from a given country or culture describing their struggle from their situated point of view. Who is talking actually matters.

        3. milu

          like, not to put too much emphasis on you specifically but i feel like it can legitimately be hard for americans in this sort of space to understand how unwelcoming of other perspectives they are, just by default, without doing anything special. a very boring and unproblematic example is the lengthy, detailed discussions about food. i’m basically de facto excluded from these, which i don’t really care about, but like, i’m just pointing out how US-centric this space is. It makes sense, this is a US-based comic, the readers are overwhelmingly american, go off about taco bell and mac&cheese idc. besides as a white person from another colonial nation i can’t complain, like if i want to feel like part of the hegemonic worldview i can just go hang in french spaces and enjoy the feeling of being at the centre of the universe. but i really, really encourage you to welcome non-US points of view. i’m really glad people like zee hang around here, it’s so refreshing. please, please don’t push back when they honour us with their perspective.

        4. Delicious Taffy

          Yeah, you’re right. I hadn’t thought about it from that particular angle. I’m used to mostly hearing comparisons from other white people, specifically with the intent to shame and minimise, so I got a little defensive. Struggle Olympics don’t help anybody, but that’s clearly not what this was. Sorry about that, @zee, legitimately.

        5. zee

          It’s all good, i can understand the knee jerk instinct of it.

      2. thejeff

        I’m not too up on Jamaican culture or politics, but I think the scary thing about the US isn’t really the base level of religiousness or even of right-wing Evangelicalism.

        It’s the alliance between that religious right and a political party eager to exploit it for power. That leads to an increase in power for the religious right out of proportion to their actual numbers and thus to ever more extreme measures to extend and hold onto that power. And the need to reward them by legally imposing their beliefs on the rest of the population.

        1. zee

          I mean yeah that is terrifying on a world power scale like the US but the religious right has a god damned choke hold on our power structures. Religious education is a required subject in most public schools. Abortion isn’t even a question, life in prison. Gay sex is illegal. Gay. Sex. Is. ILLEGAL. The buggery law. Punishable for up to 10 years imprisonment with hard labor. Only for men though bc something something misogyny idk. We had a referendum on it a few years ago and everyone voted to keep it.

  24. Amós Batista

    Joyce Brown:
    -Strength: 5
    -Skill: 2
    -Speed: 3
    -Special attack: Uppercut
    -Disvantage: touching food.

    Liz Clinton
    -Strength: 1
    -Skill: 3
    -Speed: 5
    -Special attack: pretending
    -Disvantage: bible

    Sarah Clinton:
    -Strength: 3
    -Skill: 5
    -Speed: 2
    -Special attack: Bat swing
    -Disvantage: people

    They enter in a room, but only one will exit.

    1. Reltzik

      Liz will exit. Joyce will realize that outside the room there’s *insert almost any random neurosis here*. Sarah will realize that outside the room there’s people. Liz will realize that outside of the room there’s escape.

  25. Spencer

    Cannot wait for these two Edgy Atheists to continue saying “eff the bullshit I was raised in and the people who expect me to suffer it for their convenience” <3

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I think the subtext has become text. 🙂

  26. Rabisch

    And this explain how was possibile that grumpy Sarah become like a sister for Joyce so easily.

  27. thumb

    Yes, exploit that sibling insight to gain physical advantage! Nothing is off-limits! FIGHT!!!

    1. Delicious Taffy

      It’s true, there really are no rules in a fight.

  28. Segnosaur

    Just wondering… assuming that Sarah’s comment was actually accurate (it might not be…. Liz might be avoiding Ball State for other reasons)…

    How long has Liz been an atheist? I assume she would have lost her religion long before the end of the previous term. So wouldn’t the whole “cannot see me avoid church” would have come up a few weeks ago.

    1. Axel_Grease

      I suspect Liz doesn’t actually have any friends.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        There’s a bunch of people who think of her as a God-Botherer that don’t like her.

        And there’s the religious people that SHE secretly hates.

        1. Axel_Grease

          I think she was a super-fundie like Joyce but she didn’t badger her way into making friends with anyone, and has shown up on her sister’s campus because she’s lonely. It fits her behavior with Joe, from mistakenly thinking sex would cure loneliness to admitting that she doesn’t have a ride home. And it explains the look she’s giving Sarah in the second-to-last panel.

        2. C.T. Phipps

          Yeah, I feel like the Joe scenario is very joycelike. Less because of religious values (though certainly there) and more the realization this isn’t what she wants from sex at all.

        3. Spencer

          Notes: it was the religious values.

          “I almost ruined myself forever” isn’t something you say because of your genitals, it’s something you say when you have wrong comic book opinions.

        4. C.T. Phipps

          No, I mean that she wants to be with someone she cares about and not sex with a stranger.

        5. Spencer

          And then she vocalized this as “I almost ruined myself forever” because she was taught by something, it is truly a mystery, that her virginity is this precious jewel she must protect and that having casual sex to assert herself is something that would taint her soul.

          ‘Cause that’s what a repressive Christian upbringing does to you.

        6. C.T. Phipps

          I admit, I’ve had experiences with guys who pressured girls into sex and it ended up very badly. So, I admit I’m very biased to the idea that anyone should have sex before they’re ready. Joe did a good thing by not pushing things. There’s some genuine scumbags out there who hide their misogyny behind “sexual liberation.”

          See Joss Whedon who argued that it was “protecting their consent” for him preying on his employees.

        7. Spencer

          Okay but she’s not ready because she was raised to think she’d burn in Hell for all eternity if her vagina touched a penis.

          Because that’s what Christian sexual puritanism does.

        8. Uly

          The normal way to say that is “I don’t want to have casual sex with a stranger, whoops, I think I’ll wait until I have a meaningful connection with somebody first.”

          “I almost ruined myself forever” is not a normal or healthy way of expressing that sentiment, and it doesn’t really mean the same thing either.

  29. nightshade

    that’s all so far ? She’s spent almost 2 days on the street because of that? wow…

    1. alongcameaspider

      I suspect there’s a bit more to it then that

      1. Needfuldoer

        A lot more.

    2. C.T. Phipps

      I mean she doesn’t want to be “outed” as an atheist but she doesn’t want to live a lie either.

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