231

Just that
Posted on May 23, 2022 by David M Willis
The Dumbing of Age Book 11 Kickstarter has 2 days to go! I Excised All my Anxieties into Cartoon Characters Who Definitely Don't Have Feelings for Each Other will collect "Year Eleven," spanning the five storylines that start on September 10, 2020, and complete on August 26, 2021. This includes new commentary, 24 Patreon bonus strips, behind-the-scenes artwork, and new character designs into a 224-page tome with luxurious glossy paper all bound up into a sturdy presentation.   12 character magnets are unlocked!  Pick one, pick three, pick five, or pick them all!

231 thoughts on “Just that”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Jennifer: “You love Ruth so much, why don’t you MARRY her”

    Joyce: “because I want her to marry YOU”

    Jennifer: ?

    1. Yotomoe

      “Kiss her, not me!”

      1. RassilonTDavros

        “UGH, let’s try something else.”

        1. Taffy

          Now, watch and learn. Here’s the deal.

        2. someone

          She’ll slip and slide on this banana peel?

      2. Sirksome

        Gotta ask if this is a reference to the anime?

        1. Yotomoe

          o3o I didn’t know it was an anime but yes, It was a reference to the manga.

        2. Psychie

          What anime/manga?

        3. Yotomoe

          Kiss him, not me!

        4. Reaver

          Yotome stop avoiding the issue and just tell him the name of the anime?

        5. Spencer

          What’s the confusion? Kiss him, not me!

        6. Reaver

          I don’t want to kiss Yotomoe!

        7. Some Ed

          私がモテてどうすんだ

          Cue people switching to Japanese to continue the Abbott & Costello routine…

      3. Spencer

        I saw an announcement for a manga recently that’s about a comet passing by the Earth that makes everyone gay except for the main character, who sobs “just as I thought, I’m heterosexual…!” and it was probably the most I’ve laughed at a thing in recent memory.

        1. Thag Simmons

          On the one hand I’m super curious what sort of tone they’re going for with that but I also refuse to go look it up

        2. butting

          That could make for one hell of a Jack Chick parody.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Joyce just wants the gossip

    3. ButWhyASpoon

      Jennifer: This isn’t about me, Joyce!

      Joyce: “Now Kiss!!!”

  2. The Wellerman

    ???

    That face…

    Just like Becky’s “not betrayed by Christ Bestie” face…

    ???

  3. Yotomoe

    https://i.imgur.com/JVptal1.png (NSFW)
    https://i.imgur.com/p2uM9W9.png

    This came to me on a walk. Billie’s got a lotta grabbable bits.

    Story so far…
    https://imgur.com/a/9Ob1cy3

    1. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

      hee hee heeh hee hee

      1. The Wellerman

        ????

    2. Proxiehunter

      Wait, was that supposed to be a threat?

      1. Yotomoe

        Quite the literal definition of threatening someone with a good time.

        1. Taffy

          Sometimes that’s what a gal’s gotta do.

    3. Bagge

      ?

    4. The Wellerman

      ? ?
      The first and last panel are absolutely the BEST ?

      The dialogue, the energy i read off it is almost exactly like Willis does in the comic, you could absolutely convince me HE wrote this ?

      Also, like, Walky being caught off guard by the suggestion to take the lead,
      an expression of his ADHDemon energy, I love that ?

    5. Decidedly Orthogonal

      Be careful what you squish for!

      1. milu

        Surprised Jennifer didn’t have a gut feeling this wasn’t a good idea.

    6. Rose by Any Other Name

      **chef kiss**
      As others have noted before me, beautifully characterized. Love it.

      Also, while perfectly in character, I think Walky needs to look up where love handles actually are. Billie is in the correct ‘grab the lovehandles’ position, so his instinct was correct even if he chose the wrong spot.

      (Before anyone asks – it’s the sides of the abdomen, not the front.)

      1. Yotomoe

        I’ll actually take the blame for that one. It was supposed to look more like it was on the sides but probably came out a little off.

        1. Rose by Any Other Name

          I mean, given how you had Billie react, the image of Walky grabbing her belly instead of her flanks makes more sense.

          If Walky grabbed her sides at that point, she wouldn’t have been complaining. That’s where the penetrator is supposed to grab the penetratee.

          That’s what love-handles are for – to gain leverage for firmer, more powerful thrusts. Or to assist with balance so that the rider can lean farther back and grind harder into the G-spot (in the case of a more passive bottom).

        2. Yotomoe

          I see. I have a very sensitive waist so I would react just like Billie had mine gotten grabbed so I just assumed it was universal. Whelp I’ll have to take this knowledge with me to further porny endeavors.

    7. Icarus

      “Personally, I prefer to take the load”
      – Jennifer Billingsworth

  4. Sirksome

    Can’t wait for Joyce to reinvent herself and changer her name to “Joy” and start hanging out with losers like Cher and I don’t know…..Paul I guess.

  5. AGV

    Jeniffer? Projecting? She could never

    1. True Survivor

      If you put a slide on her tongue, does it display out of her eyes on the far wall?

    2. Yotomoe

      Of course she can’t. She’s not a piece of AV equipment.

  6. True Survivor

    If you pretend that the pieces of hair running just in front of their ears are giant sideburns this comic is a lot funnier.

    1. Doctor_Who

      If you squint you can imagine that Jennifer has a sort of Elvis pompadour, but with a mullet.

      1. woobie

        It’s Ethan’s old style but longer in back.

        1. Sirksome

          Ethan’s old cut was way worse than what Jen has.

  7. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    ? I agree with all sides of this conversation and don’t know how to react! ???

    1. Thag Simmons

      Sometimes the centrist position is the correct one! I mean, it usually isn’t, but very occassionally it is

      1. Spencer

        In all things in life exists a healthy middle ground.

        Except politics.

        1. RassilonTDavros

          Hear, hear.

        2. milu

          disagree. i believe there is a healthy middle ground to be found between the extremes of anti-tech eco-anarchism and queer cyborg transfeminism. I’m confused why people keep pretending like this isn’t the most pressing political debate we need to be having rn

        3. Nova

          Queer cyborg transfeminism is the only moral position. If you’re anti-socket just gtfo my face.

        4. Spencer

          Maybe the queer cyborg transfeminism empire can have a little anti-tech eco-anarchism. As a treat.

      2. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

        I’m not sure if “centrist position” describes how I feel. It’s more like I’m everywhere on the spectrum simultaneously and don’t know how to coalesce into a position, if the spectrum analogy even applies here.

        I think Becky is overbearing, Dorothy is judgy, and Sarah is distant. I believe they care about Joyce, and I believe their behavior is forgivable, but I also think that behavior is causing issues with their friendships. I think a rift is growing between Joyce and Becky, particularly evident in the ways they are keeping secrets from each other. Dorothy almost seems to care more about being the savior than about Joyce herself. Dorothy can also be controlling, but given the way the toenail incident resolved, I’m not sure how to feel about that; I think that stance should probably change given how Joyce is changing, though. I’m not sure how the issues will shake out, but friendships being “ruined” is a real possibility.

        Sarah has trouble with people in general and sees parallels between Joyce and Liz. I think that relationship has mostly resolved okay and the main reason Sarah has been “distant” in recent storylines is because she was not physically on-campus.

        Mind, I am certainly not saying Joyce is perfectly without fault, either. I still think Joyce could benefit from finding additional friends. If she does, though, she may end up drifting further away from her current friends, and I’m not sure how to label that a “good” or “bad” thing.

        Becky is still overbearing and controlling in a similar way Joyce was back when Joyce forbid Walky from breaking up with Dorothy. I really want some character development there, but it might be a bumpy road or a long way away.

        I also want to know what happened with Ruth. I don’t want to pry, and I don’t think Jennifer is okay talking about it, but I still want to know what the heck happened between Billie and Ruth!

        1. Needfuldoer

          We know they broke up on Halloween, so we’ll probably find out next chapter.

        2. Ed Callahan

          You’re reading this in a comic strip. It’s OK to pry.

        3. Spencer

          Yeah. Reading a comic is like being the cast’s mind goblins.

          Commenting is like going “I told you so” to people who don’t exist.

  8. Raen

    Her grin is a catenary! She really is changing.

  9. Stephen Bierce

    *plays Thomas Dolby’s “Quantum Mechanics” on the hacked Muzak*

    1. Stephen Bierce

      Time Marches On

      1. The Wellerman

        wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, stuff

        Say, I just had an idea!!!

        Similar to how a sine wave looks like a line from a far enough distance, quantum probabilities over a large enough distance even out to give us classical physics behavior of everyday things.

        Could that same principle also apply to TIME itself at the quantum level, like on the scale of Planck time?

        1. FGarber

          You don’t even need to go that small.
          Think about.. NOW!
          ok, that was then. Now, NOW!
          NOW! and NOW! NOW! Repeat that until you get bored.
          And that was maybe a minute? In an hour, you’ll remember the now now now thing, but in a week? You might not even remember how many NOW!s there were.

  10. Thag Simmons

    Have I mentioned that I’ve really been enjoying Jennifer as a character lately? Because I’ve really been enjoying Jennifer as a character lately

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Yeah, this storyline is the most invested I’ve been in her since the time skip.

      1. Thag Simmons

        There’s some real interesting stuff happening with her, and “Billie” is my new favourite individual strip from this comic.

  11. Johan

    Seems like they’re getting the conversation they both need.

    Idk why but Joyce Jennifer interactions seem so genuine.

  12. Spencer

    I like it when there’s a panel that just says the things I would (though with less uttering of “Joyce’s friends are the actual worst” and “neolib”).

    I’d like it more if Joyce didn’t then rationalize their emotional abuse of her as caring, but baby steps.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      No joke my initial thoughts on that panel were “Everything is proceeding as Spencer has foreseen”

      1. Spencer

        Please don’t say that, I can’t subject myself to another self-inflicted, hubris-fueled gravatar bet again. I won’t survive.

        1. milu

          Spence, Jennifer just vindicated your last six months of hard work.
          Take the win!!! \o/

          (also what are you doing, start writing fanfic already <3)

        2. Spencer

          My only fanfics are Danny and Sal coffee shop AUs except Sal still fights aliens.

          … but now that you said ‘fanfic’ I’m shipping Jennifer/Joyce. Joyce needs a girlfriend who’ll bully everyone around her and also her, specifically.

        3. milu

          WRITE THAT SHIPNIFESTO
          YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO

    2. Sombrero

      I like Willis version better, but I suppose you do too.

    3. Emmy

      Is it really abuse?isn’t that a bit of an overstatement? They are teenagers. They are all still learning. To me, abuse implies intent and it seems like most of these kids have good intentions. And Joyce is no angel. I’m sure we’ve all done similar or worse when we were 19. Hopefully, we become better people as we grow.

      1. Spencer

        It is, yes. Their good intention is that Joyce be who they want to be.

        Becky has such an acute need for control over Joyce that she’s entitled to track her down using someone else’s social media on the grounds of confronting Joyce’s new Christian friend Liz, and then chose to do this without just shooting Joyce a text that she was popping over. After discovering Joyce in a private and safe conversation she is now intruding on, Joyce is forced to justify by everyone around her that her own opinion on growing up in a death cult is stupid because it makes Becky sad.

        Becky is then so sad that Dorothy (who also hunted Joyce down using someone else’s social media) declares that Joyce is now the Worst Kind of Atheist who is as bad as the Worst Kind of Christian (an extremely sane and normal comparison made by an extremely sane and normal person) and she is destroying her friendship with Becky, and also that Joyce is only allowed to be mad in specific circumstances and that she can’t make her own theological decisions because she’s a virgin, and thus should settle on a nice deism. After Joyce has made all the emotional labour in reaching out to Becky, as she exclusively had to, Becky then tells her that she has been lying to her all their lives (unlike Joe, who tells her that she’s still real even if God isn’t) and then whines about needing a buffer because Joyce isn’t really a person, she’s Becky’s dad punching emotional support teddy bear. Becky, who has returned to a status quo of ripping on Joyce whenever she feels like it but it’s fine when she does it because she’s funny and kooky and her parents are dead so you’re not allowed to be mad at her, is now currently or at least made an attempt at secretly indoctrinating Joyce back to her old worldview by playing Rich Mullins music in her presence after Joyce made it clear that leaving her death cult behind was like tearing her organs out.

        Sarah’s doing what she always does and makes Joyce earn the slightest shred of decency, and now that she needs Joyce to exist in her preferred state (one that Sarah and Jacob joked about how she’s an outrageous moron who believes things so stupid you can just laugh about them without phrasing it as a joke and that she’ll snap and suck a billion dicks), begins expressing that she loves Joyce but only after she tells her that Joyce now is worse than she used to be. When it came time to express the slightest decency in her direction and help, Sarah threw her hands into the air and said she can’t help Joyce ever.

        All of those are things that textually happened in this strip so if someone wants to tell me it’s not a sustained pattern by three people who need Joyce to exist in a specific state at her discomfort and distress for their own indulgence, if I swapped Carol’s name in there for Becky and Dorothy’s then this wouldn’t even be up for debate, then they need to explain to me why it’s not a prolonged case of emotional abuse and manipulation. Someone has to square with me why this isn’t merely wrong (it is), but why these idiots get to keep pretending they’re good people.

        I don’t know what Joyce is “being no angel” about in this circumstance.

        1. Manuel

          Sorry, but if that’s abuse then everything is abuse. Friends with more or less obnoxious traits are not the same as cult-brainwashed mothers.

        2. Taffy

          Two things don’t have to be identically bad for both to be terrible or abusive. Right now, I don’t see any reasonable objection for Joyce cutting a lot of her so-called “friends” out of her life as much as possible and trying to start over in a dorm where nobody expects certain behaviors from her. How very convenient that this is exactly what Billie tried doing, except instead of wanting to be a Head Cheerleader-type, Joyce just wants to be Herself Minus Jebus, which has much lower chances of being a problem.

        3. Spencer

          Describe to me, specifically, in as many words as you’d like, what is merely obnoxious about “trying to indoctrinate your friend back into your preferred theological beliefs because you’re emotionally dependent on them never changing from what you want them to be.”

          That’s one thing of the list, it should be simple enough.

        4. Emmy

          Clearly you put a lot of thought into this and I do see your point. It’s just, this is how teenagers behave. Pretty much all of them. And sometimes in much worse ways. They are still learning how to be people. It’s totally different with Carol who should know better. And obviously this is a comic where everything said is written in stone and we can use the archive to back up arguments. I dunno, perhaps some real teens will read this and improve their behaviours, but not if we label normal (if unpleasant) teen behaviour as abuse.

        5. Spencer

          Lots of normalized behaviours are abusive, the specific behaviour of being so possessive of another person that you dictate which thoughts they are allowed to have is abusive and not even particularly normalized outside of their fundie death cult.

          Maybe I had a better stock of friends or something because at no point in my life have I ever experienced this degree of possessive control over another person. I’ve definitely gotten the “you have to behave like this and never hold me accountable” shtick, but I got it from some deranged boomers, not my friends.

        6. Emmy

          I think we’re gonna have to agree to disagree on this. Clearly we are coming from very different places. I’m a high school teacher so I guess I see situations a lot worse than this between friends and I have a responsibility to see both sides. I never meant to be antagonistic.

  13. Laura

    “quantum”? Not sure I understand what Willis means in the alt-text.

    1. Laura

      Quantum, as in, either all on or all off, no in between? Or Quantum as in, it exists in all possible states at once when you are not observing it?

      1. The Wellerman

        I think he means quantum as in all possible states at once before observed, instead of the nature of energy levels of electrons.

        Say, are you a STEM major too!?!? ???

      2. Nono

        Essentially, Joyce ships everyone with each other, though not necessarily simultaneously as in a polycule.

        1. The Wellerman

          Ah, maybe it’s more akin to the Holy Trinity, where God is somehow one but also three beings all at the same time.

          Or maybe like her food neuroses? I dunno.

        2. Laura

          Makes sense. Thanks, Nono and The Wellerman!

          To answer your question, The Wellerman, well… kind of. It was an interdisciplinary major that had a little engineering in it. But just grew up listening to the Feynman lectures on physics as bedtime stories.

          Had a lot of rotten heroes, growing up. Bad role models.

        3. The Wellerman

          Bad role models? Just who are you referring to?

          I LOVE Feynman lectures, really good job of explaining things! ?

        4. milu

          i don’t know much about Richard Feynman, but I see he was part of the Manhattan Project. But please elaborate Laura, if you so feel like =)

        5. Laura

          Thanks, Milu.
          Feynman was a misogynist.
          So was Asimov, another childhood “hero”.
          I’m starting to think that maybe most “great men” and male celebrities were. Maybe I’m wrong. Just seems like it sometimes.

        6. milu

          ugh. I feel you.

          I think we’ve all grown up admiring men who “turned out” to be massive phallocrats. i was more of a hollywood and rock music enthusiast as a teen, so i have no shortage of problematic faves myself =/

          i wish i would have been educated to expect to have to deal with that, at least.

          anyway, as far as big names in nerd culture go, how about Carl Sagan? Was he a hero of yours? Not that i’m all that familiar with his work either, but having recently read Contact, he seems alright.

        7. The Wellerman

          ???

          I know how you feel. But as far as I know, Feynman’s misogyny never made it into his physics lectures, and that’s what matters I guess.

          Einstein himself actually wrote letters to Madame Curie telling her to ignore haters. Isn’t that just the sweetest thing ever?

          ??? ??

          Einstein also being an open supporter of the socialist and pacifist movements is also cause of happiness to me.

        8. milu

          …But also, regardless of which of the hyperfamous straight white men are or aren’t barf-out-loud misogynists, sexism is structural and it shows not only how freakishly lenient our culture is of “great men”‘s misogyny, but in how few great non-men there are to go around.

          Who do geeky girls get to turn to, aside for a measly handful of odds-beating (but almost invariably upper-class) badasses, for the inspiration to enter STEM fields? IANAscientist, so, not sure what the answer is, but as with the rest of society, the road is no doubt still long.

        9. The Wellerman

          You said it Milu!

          I really love Curie and Goodall and all the others my ADHDemon brain can’t quite remember right now

          Yeah we really need more woman scientists and bad-ass bookworms as STEM inspiration if you ask me (which is one of the biggest reasons why I fucking LOVE Dina)

          ??? ???? ???

        10. Laura

          Thanks, Milu. I appreciate that perspective.

          The Wellerman, I’m sorry, I can’t separate out the “art from the artist,” especially when misogyny influences the “art”. I have the same problem with the Beatles — so many of their songs express possessive and abusive attitudes toward women. And it’s a much longer conversation than I want to get into right now, so — I do mean no offense to anyone in this forum or to anyone for their personal choice of heroes. I’m just talking from personal lived experience and how that kind of predation has affected me and the people I care about.

          Milu, you’re right, it’s so important for us to seek out the amazi-gals in our chosen fields. We need a rainbow of role models.

          I have a germinating theory, though, that there’s a specific type of neurology and personality — a high dependence on “success” and external validation, for example — that spurs people both to seek and achieve celebrity and greatness, but that also spurs people to controlling and abusive behavior toward others in their lives. It’s the idea that one needs to be “the best” all the time, even in relationships.

          Just an idea.

        11. milu

          Yep. i’m convinced we have a huge problem with celebrity culture. I was also thinking about that but not wanting to go into it as something of a separate issue, but i completely agree.

          There’s this novelist character in Sally Rooney’s novel “Beautiful World Where Are You?” who’s going through some kind of serious mental breakdown. (She’s probably a bit of a stand-in for Rooney herself and her own precocious rise to fame, although i don’t know whether Rooney has had mental issues herself.) Anyway she writes this in an email to a friend:

          “People who intentionally become famous–I mean people who, after a little taste of fame, want more and more of it–are, and I honestly believe this, deeply psychologically ill. The fact that we are exposed to these people everywhere in our culture, as if they are not only normal but attractive and enviable, indicates the extent of our disfiguring social disease. There is something wrong with them, and when we look at them and learn from them, something goes wrong with us.”

        12. The Wellerman

          Re: success,

          Personally, i really don’t buy all that stuff with a million books about it that “success depends on the ****right mindset**** or a certain personality and other pseudo-psych and self-help bullshit.

          The cold hard truth is that most REALLY big success or failure depends overwhelmingly on random chance or being born into groups with established power that have had the cards stacked in their favor thanks to past centuries worth of violence, indoctrination and censorship whose effects we still feel today.

          And in the “Edison ***invented*** the light bulb” vein, a lot of rising to success by making it look like you were the “first” largely depends on being able to keep a handle on media, who guess what are also just another instrument of the established interests and collections of people who live to kiss the asses of the bourgeois.

          TL;DR, you know about “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”?

          There’s another part to that phrase that I think is very much relevant here.

          “Great Men are almost always bad men.”

        13. milu

          I think Laura wasn’t merely talking about success but rather about fame (which is a specific type of success).

          you’re right, socio-historical factors cannot be discounted, but i think that doesn’t preclude a contribution from psychological factors. (leaving aside the many ways in which psychological and even neurological features may themselves be the product of socio-historical forces)

        14. The Wellerman

          Eh, I guess that’s true, but in general I tend to take popular psychology and even “professional” psychology material out there with a HUGE grain of salt at the very LEAST.

          In a capitalist society, it is rather wise NOT to take advice from people who give advice for a LIVING.

          “Sell a human a fish, you feed them for a day. Teach a human how to fish, you’ve wasted a wonderful business opportunity.”

          — Karl Marx

        15. Laura

          Thanks, you 2. 🙂

    2. Thag Simmons

      It’s a callback

      1. Laura

        Ah. Thank you, Thag. Makes more sense now.

    3. Needfuldoer

      Quantum is a data storage manufacturer. Joyce’s ships are thoroughly backed up to LTO tape following the 3-2-1 rule.

  14. newlland(Henryvolt)

    I had my Suspicion but I wasn’t going to pry, fortunately enough Joyce is there to do it for me.

    Also I feel like the order of things are a bit different this time, Dorothy is the overbearing one and Becky is the judgy one and Sarah- wait no actually she got Sarah right.

    1. Spencer

      Eh, I think it fits. Dorothy’s judgy because she’s trying to force Joyce to live up to specific standards out of her coward-ass spineless white moderate people pleasing nature and more broadly that she thinks she’s Joyce’s life coach. Becky’s overbearing in that Joyce’s feelings aren’t even allowed to matter to herself, they need to exist for Becky’s sake and Joyce has to do all the emotional labour and be sure she coddles Becky through her own religious trauma.

    2. Nicoleandmaggie

      Dorothy is judgy because she won’t let Joyce be judgy of Becky’s Christianity. People really hate it when you do that.

      1. Spencer

        Their Christianity. Joyce was in the same death cult and suffered the same way.

        1. Nicoleandmaggie

          That’s not Becky’s current Christianity. Joyce was being a jerk about anyone who believes in God.

        2. Spencer

          Joyce is barely even cognizant that relationships with God exist outside of the crushing, stifling, abusive authority she grew up under and made this painfully, textually clear in her fight with Becky. Her indulgence in being mean to that thing that signed Don’t Say Gay into law out in Florida lasted 24 hours and maybe the lottery winners in a cultural oligarchy can tolerate a victim lashing out at the thing that tried to kill her a whole bunch.

          Becky only gets to have her current Christianity because that big ol’ edgy atheist fought everything they ever knew for her, which, in hindsight, sure is a perfect summation of how this rigged carnie game’s been running.

        3. JBento

          Becky’s current christianity is very super keen and manipulative on not letting Joyce leave christianity, and therefore Becky’s current christianity is incredibly shitty.

    3. Sombrero

      Well, Jennifer is just shooting in the dark, so she’s just describing the main trait of each character (and of course, she hits).

  15. Bagge

    THIS IS NOT ABOUT JENNIFER!

    1. Spencer

      Why in the world would you suggest this is about Jennifer?

      It’s the least about Jennifer. It’s so least that she loses, which means she wins. That’s how not about her it is.

      1. Bagge

        I explicitly said it’s not about Jennifer. Wherever could you get the idea that it was about Jennifer. I told you.

        1. milu

          Quit saying it’s not about Jennifer, that makes it sound like it might actually be about Jennifer. When, actually, it’s not.

    2. Mendel

      and the chapter isn’t “cant-stop-billie-ving”, gotcha

      that said, Joyce has always avoided facing her own issues by meddling with other people’s, and it’s frustrating to watch

      1. eh, whatever

        It isn’t. It’s “don’t stop Billie-ving”.

    3. Needfuldoer

      Everything is fine! Nothing is the matter!

      1. milu

        Especially not this comment section’s frustration about what happened between Ruth and Jennifer! Lack of frustration that is! Complete apathy! Anyway!

    4. Sombrero

      What are you saying? This is all about Biile.

  16. BBCC

    GIVE US THE TEA, JENNIFER.

  17. drs

    Interesting insight from Jennifer.

    “caring too much” in the context of Joyce made me think of her mother. “I would *die* for you.”

    1. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

      No joke, my mother said that line to me once, it still makes my skin crawl, and I still do not have the context to know how I “should” feel about it.

      1. Council

        It’s one of those things where context makes or breaks the whole thing. If a life or death situation is implied to be a precursor to it, it’s a powerful gesture.

        That, however, can easily be twisted into a thin veneer. Something you tell yourself when you would rather die than face the consequences of your actions, framing it as martyrdom to feel better about it. This comic shows at least one example of that with the late Toedad. Likely Mrs. Brown, as well.

        At best, dying for someone is an act of desperation, or cowardice. At worst, it’s a bizarre facade. There is nothing admirable about it if you itching for the opportunity.

        1. ischemgeek

          I didn’t get that from Carol.

          What I got was a guilt trip and emotional blackmail.

          The way I read it was with an unspoken second half of the sentence, “so you should be willing to do the same for me, and if you’re not you’re a terrible person who doesn’t care about me.”

          You remember that Bruno Mars song from about 10 years ago, Grenade? Same thing except he said the quiet part out loud at the end of the song. I’m willing to sacrifice my life for you, but you won’t do the same. The whole song was an emotional abuser’s guilt trip. And that’s how I read that line.

          Cuz the thing is, people who are willing to die for others don’t go around proclaiming it from the highest mountains and towers like Carol. They just do it if it’s needed. (Think like Becky sacrificing herself for Joyce or news reports about people shoving others out of the way of oncoming traffic, etc) People who need to make a huge show of how self sacrificing they are usually have an ulterior motive IME.

          Lastly (and this is one part speculation, one part projection of my own family history, I admit), that someone like Carol *says* they’d sacrifice for another doesn’t mean that they will. Often this sort of guilt trip isn’t something they’d back up with action if the opportunity to stick their own neck out for another came along. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if , should Carol be given a choice between sticking her neck out to protect Joyce or self preservation, she chooses self preservation. IME folks like Carol are usually full of shit with all their claims of heroics and sacrifice, and under the surface they’re just self serving cowards.

        2. ischemgeek

          To me, this sort of shit is just one step removed from threatening to hurt yourself if the other person won’t do what you want. It is very emotionally abusive IME. YMMV, but I’ve never not seen it used to basically the same end as taking oneself hostage to a loved one, and I don’t for a second believe Carol was sincere, she was just trying to get Joyce under her thumb again.

        3. milu

          well said ischemgeek.
          +1

          ps how do you pronounce your pseud it’s been lowkey bugging me

        4. ischemgeek

          is-chem-geek.

          Chem like the first syllable of chemistry.

          I am not creative haha

        5. milu

          aaah well i was pronouncing it right, but hadn’t realized that’s what it stood for ^^

        6. Joyfulldreams

          I’m pretty sure what the line really meant was that “dying for you” specifically meant “I am willing to sacrifice my immortal soul for the sake of yours”.

          i.e. “I am willing to hurt you like Toedad did Becky, because our cult has convinced me that if you ever dare step too far out of line, you are literally better off dead. I am being a martyr for being willing to kill you for the ‘greater good’.”

      2. Council

        1. if you’re itching*

        2. Closing thought. Next time someone comes to you with that line, tell them to try living for you first. The reaction can be telling.

        1. Taffy

          Dying is easy. Anyone can do it. Everyone is going to, even. Saying you’d die for someone is like saying you’ll piss for them after drinking a gallon of water.

          Living is hard, and it takes effort, which means nobody really wants to do it for somebody else. It has more weight to say you’ll live for somebody, because living is inherently more difficult and demanding.

        2. milu

          but? that’s not what people mean when they say they would die for someone or something, though?

          (yes i am defending Carol, obviously) (/s)

        3. Opus the Poet

          Dying is not easy. It’s painful, but being dead is pretty good as far as pain is concerned. Being dead is like the least painful thing there is. And then I came back to life and Gawd almighty did that hurt! Well, considering all the damage I took when I was killed there’s no surprise that it hurt when I came back. But yeah dying really hurts.

      3. ischemgeek

        My parents used to say that a lot to me, always in the same sort of way Carol did: it’s an emotional blackmail tactic when used like that.

    2. Peep

      I’m glad someone else immediately went to the “I would die for you” context for caring too much. That was what I immediately thought of and got a little accidental tonal whiplash with the next two panels being Joyce grinning manically ?

  18. Kelli217

    How convenient that this topic I find really really interesting is also an effective distraction and deflection from the current course of the conversation!

    1. Taffy

      A special interest or hobby as a deflection tactiv to avoid things getting too intense? Never heard the like.

  19. Juanoku

    Billie Ruth shippers (me) rejoice

    1. Juanoku

      HAH, pun. Just noticed

    2. jackiedu46k

      One day…

  20. Glacidea

    This storyline with these two is so cathartic after the past few with Joyce. The Willis is a good planner.

  21. Icalasari

    Oh thank god somebody in universe called the others out for how they’ve been to Joyce. Also this suddenly makes Joyce’s nastier moments make more sense – She’s getting frustrated and trying to FORCE them to accept she changed. Something has to give eventually

    I hope Jennifer can be Joyce’s outlet so she can get herself away from bursting

    1. Nova

      Re: Joyce’s more obnoxious/awful moments in aggressively announcing her atheism to people…

      No one seemed to disagree with Becky nuking the closet from orbit, even if they found her personality or methods obnoxious and rude. I found it really interesting how the comments section was filled with people who thought that Joyce nuking her religious cult from orbit was some completely terrible and without-reason situation.

      I hope Joyce begins setting healthy boundaries with her friends and letting the ones who can’t respect those boundaries do so in a different room.

      1. Nova

        To add:

        My suspicion about WHY it bothered people is the same reason it’s bothering a lot of the in-comic characters. They liked Joyce as a doormat and comic relief, they liked her as a people pleaser and didn’t enjoy her being aggressive about anything.

        1. Spencer

          Joyce didn’t even get to nuke her closet Becky and Dorothy hunted her down into it. Prior to, Joyce was entirely accommodating to Becky’s faith, kept the lie up, and all her anger and confusion was directed at herself. Exclusively, Joyce got open about it for 24 hours and then Dorothy browbeat her into groveling to Becky, which she did, and now she’s quiet about her death cult.

          Your second post is correct, by the way. Joyce was more loved when she was a Funny Jesus Girl who did bad things and tried to be good. Now that she’s not a member of the cultural majority she has to slavishly beg kindness and civility or she’s Just As Bad.

      2. Cerusee

        Oh that’s an interesting parallel! In-universe, everybody was fine with Becky’s loud, fervent, and frequent declarations of her lesbianism except her father and the people from her church, who were all visibly uncomfortable with it and expressed many, many sentiments along the lines of “it’s sin/you’re not right with God/this is attention-seeking/why do you have to be so….blatant and SHOWY about this/your father’s attempts bring you home for conversion therapy were the act of love/good parenting/him just trying to raise his child right and oh! any one of US could be demonized the same was he was, for trying to raise our children right; we’re the real victims in all this”. If there were any folks in the *audience* who agreed with Joyce and Becky’s church, and felt that yes, Becky should tone it down in order to be an acceptable gay, I’m fairly certain they rightly got shouted down over that, because “it’s okay to be gay but only if you keep most of it in the closet” is homophobia, pure and simple.

        Joyce was FAR more circumspect about her atheism, and only talked about it to a very few people in what she thought were safe, closed environments, until some of the people she *didn’t* feel safe to talk about it with forcibly intruded themselves onto one of those conversations, and immediately reacted with judgment and hostility, forcing her to either retreat or defend herself (and she chose “defend” because Joyce always stands by her beliefs, when it comes to it). The hostility has tapered off, but not the judgement. And in the audience….there’s a wide, although not universal, sentiment that Joyce is at fault for her extreeeeeeeeeeemist anti-religious beliefs, which are offensive to all the NICE religious people (real and fictional) and that she is bad for thinking these thoughts and worse for ever expressing them aloud where someone might hear them and be offended by them. Atheism is okay but only if it’s the nice friendly atheism that is course 100% only a personal belief that is in no way rooted in or linked to broader criticisms of harmful religious beliefs or religious institutions even if you happen to have extensive experience with both of those things. Don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s your job to manage your beliefs and your identity in a way that never makes other people uncomfortable!

        1. JBento

          No, see, the only form of atheism that is acceptable is the one that is extremely apologetic about existing in the face of absolutely shitty people because they happen to be christian:

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/repeat/

          That whole meeting (seriously, use the tags and find the strips where both Dorothy’s and Joyce’s parents are present) is a fucking shitshow, and the Keeners apologetic manner makes my blood pressure spike. People being like this is why christofascists keep running roughshod over everyone’s personal life.

        2. Spencer

          It’s a very simple formula!

          Is there a cultural expectation of civility towards something where there is tangible consequence for not considering its feelings? Congrats, it’s the bad guy.

        3. Bathymetheus

          I feel like that must be an over-generalisation, but I can’t think of a counter-example.

  22. Wraithy2773

    Folks understand that, while what Beck, Dorothy and Sarah have been doing is quite shitty in terms of them struggling to adjust to who she is now, that this is an incredibly normal thing as well?

    She has changed pretty sharply over six months. They’ve all got their own shit going on too, they want to be supportive friends, but they’re fucking it up a lot because people are really good at doing that.

    They need to get better. Just as Joyce needs to get better about a lot of things too. They’re teenagers, they’re still figuring out how to handle shit and they’re fucking up all the time. Joyce’s attitude of “I can forgive them that” is a good and healthy one, provided it is conditional on them getting better about it.

    Remember, there’s a wide array of moral states between “Saintly Divine Being” and “Scum of the Earth”. They’re in “kinda shitty and oblivious friends” territory, that’s some pretty mild blips on the malev-o-meter…

    1. Taffy

      They’re basically as bad as the Evil Dad Squad, let’s not keep sugar coating this.

      1. Wraithy2773

        …going to assume this is sarcasm.

        1. milu

          what with Taffy being a known advocate for the legalization of puppy torture and the privatization of sunlight, not to mention their rampant hobby of dumping LSD in water supplies of major metropolises, i wouldn’t be so sure

        2. Taffy

          Hey, that’s a rumor and you know it! ?
          I don’t dump LSD in water supplies, I pay to have LSD dumped into the supplies. Much different, you see, because I don’t have to get my own hands dirty and the chumps I’m paying don’t even know what it is, since the barrels are marked like unassuming purifier chemicals. Just wanted to set the record straight.

        3. JBento

          Delegation is the key to success of any world-dominating venture.

        4. Taffy

          Idk about domination, I just think it’s funny to fill the streets with tripped-out citizens and watch masked vigilantes round them up.

    2. darkgloomie

      The comment section isn’t allowed nuance, you should know this by now

      1. Ed Callahan

        I don’t know about nuance, but maybe a sense of humor?

    3. Needfuldoer

      Yup. Telling your best friend they have no right to complain about their problems because yours are worse (and you’re doing Just Fine by willfully ignoring them therefore they should Just Get Over It) is Healthy and Good.

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/beeessin/

      1. Nova

        No, don’t you know Joyce was The Worst for not continuing to update Becky on her blossoming atheism after being called a “bummer” and told it was “a phase she needed to get over” by her best friend?

        Don’t you know that Joyce should have chosen Becky’s Dead-Mom’s Birthday to tell her about the atheism again (despite Becky’s frustration at it coming up on HER birthday last time) and damn the consequences or the respectfulness of saving your own issues for a time when your bestie isn’t dealing with something incredibly hard?

        1. JBento

          Not bending over backwards to accommodate christians regardless of any personal cost is The Worst Crime (TM).

        2. Taffy

          [This is what the Republican Party actually believes]

        3. JBento

          [Unless the personal cost is money. Well, rich people money anyway]

    4. Spencer

      I have never, in my entire life, struggled with a friend over whether or not they and I are allowed to think certain things or must behave in certain ways, and then took efforts to alternatively cut them out of my life for a problem I caused until they came groveling back, whereupon I begin to secretly indoctrinate them to my preferred state. I’ve never felt the need to dictate what level of anger they are allowed to express or whether or not the fallout of repeat traumatic events should be solved by finding a nice deism. I’m fairly open about my affection for my friends, but I feel like even if I were the kind of person to make everyone around me earn the slightest bit of decency I still would not start dispense the “I love you” only once I decided it would get me something from them.

      I know this is going to end with Joyce saving Becky from another car chase or whatever so Becky can go “bazingas! You actually love me!” because Becky’s never had a struggle that a more interesting character didn’t solve for her and Dorothy will go “maybe, Joyce, it’s Problematic of me to selectively interfere with your life dictate your feelings at my leisure” and then she will resolve to Be Better, I’m saying this eventually development would be easier to swallow if they were not being absurd monsters right now over a problem that has no actual weight to them on the grounds that the terminal collapse of Joyce’s worldview is a real drag to them.

      I talked about redemption yesterday, that it really is as simple as Joyce puts it here; people do wrong by you, and you need to decide if they matter more than their wrongdoing, but that doesn’t feel like it’s coming across here. I don’t think I could love someone who, as soon as I fall out out of line, they do what these douchebags have freely and gleefully inflicted onto her. Jennifer takes one look at her, declares her as chafed and hurting even beyond the debilitating menstrual pain they ignored and then yucked it up about how she’s a dumb puppy and then instantly deduces how each of them is acting to Joyce when she needs them in a crisis. Joyce still can’t even criticize them for this. She can’t even say it’s wrong. She hasn’t even had the luxury of being mad at them because god forbid they ever let her.

      What the hell kind of friends do you people have that this seems like it’s within a normal capacity for doing wrong by someone you love?

      1. JBento

        “What the hell kind of friends do you people have that this seems like it’s within a normal capacity for doing wrong by someone you love?”

        I dunno what’s up with these people, but adding to this how much so many people were (and still are) so enamoured of the Ruth/Billie absolutely toxic and abuse-founded relationship, psychiatric therapists should be getting a lot more customers than they do.

        1. milu

          hm. i doubt the present comment section can be held responsible for any therapist going out of work.

          let’s take a quick poll!!!

          if you read this, raise your hand if you’ve never undergone some form of psychiatric or psychological care:

          (*does not raise hand*)

        2. JBento

          *raises hand*

        3. milu

          woah *0*

          …i’m sarcastically reminded of a quote from Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For, which i sadly can’t remember verbatim (or locate online) where one character has a new girlfriend, and when her flatmate learns the girlfriend hasn’t done therapy, she’s like “Don’t come crying when she tells you she had a happy childhood” Ahahahaha

          …i can’t tell if that’s still funny out of context.

        4. JBento

          It is. 🙂

        5. jackiedu46k

          Ruth / Billie may be a terrible and toxic mutually destructive relationship BUT BY GOD is it entertaining! The drama is something you just can’t get anywhere else.

      2. Wraithy2773

        “What the hell kind of friends do you people have that this seems like it’s within a normal capacity for doing wrong by someone you love?”

        Ones that fuck up but, and this is the important part, come to recognize that they have fucked up and stop fucking up and then apologize for fucking up.

        Right now we’re stuck in Part 1 of all that. The “Fucking up” part. And yeah, if they don’t work to realize that they’re making mistakes, or insist that their mistakes aren’t actually mistakes, then cutting them off would be a healthy option for Joyce, but we need to remember the decompressed time frames here. One month of real-time is maybe a day in-story. If things are moving quickly.

        It can take some time for people to realize that they’re fucking up, lets not demand that everything get solved quickly and easily…

        1. Spencer

          8Right now we’re stuck in Part 1 of all that.

          This part’s true but my objection is more that the sheer lengths of their fuckups stopped being the kind of thing an honest conversation about feelings could address a long time ago. This isn’t just a good person falling low, the relationships Joyce values most have for the past six months of real-time proven to be entirely conditional and over whether or not she’s allowed to think outside what they want her to. I know they’re going to fix this, I don’t think the people they are right now deserve the opportunity to fix it until they seriously, profoundly, and most importantly of all on their own time address that they’ve done absurd wrongs at this person they love, except the person they love is someone who can barely admit they’re hurting her and that she’ll forgive them. I don’t even know what a “Becky/Dorothy/Sarah starts being better” arc is supposed to look like because they’re redeeming themselves for shit they never should have started doing in the first place if they had an even slightly functioning moral compass. Ruth does fucked up bullshit to Billie because of her own baggage and then attempts to meaningfully confront it, I don’t know what kind of person has to confront the idea that they aren’t allowed to control Joyce’s being, other than if we were talking about Joyce’s actual mom.

          Like “we’re in Part 1” was my exact argument about the idea that The Narrative was against Joyce on the grounds that no one had called her friends out yet; if The Narrative, however one wants to define it, did that, then Part 1 would be over. Dorothy is currently being a timid useless coward, presumably once she realizes this she will make an effort to do the right thing because “do the right thing” is Dorothy’s modus operandi.

          But that they did this much wrong, this quickly and without the slightest ability to consider it when it’s about Joyce’s own ability to express resentment at the thing that destroyed her life, that every single interaction with them Joyce has had since October has been getting browbeat and lectured and told to sit down and shut the fuck up while the adults talk, that Joyce gets fucked up hard enough that she loses her faith and the most immediately relevant part of the main character doing the thing she was always going to is that it makes fucking Becky sad, it’s absurd. I don’t know what value these people have to each other, because it mostly seems to be Joyce being their idiot puppy.

          I don’t even know why they are friends, or why they’d want to be.

    5. Cerusee

      That conditional is important, but yeah. Forgiveness is always a choice; Joyce has said more than once that she will always forgive people if they let her. I think (and maybe this is wishful thinking, but maybe not) that implicit in that “if you let me” is “if you stop doing the thing that requires forgiveness in the first place”.

      Not everybody is Joyce; not everybody finds it so easy to forgive. But she does, and that graciousness is one of her strengths (especially coming, as it does, in tandem with an incredible stubborn streak and a willingness to fight for her principles).

  23. Rabisch

    So Jennifer and Ruth breakup was really about Ruth wanting her to be healthy and more reasonable and Jennifer decided to run away from that… Jennifer!!!! That’s stupid!

    1. Wraithy2773

      Might be reading a bit too much into it. Could be Ruth being unable to let any apparent slip go to the point where it felt like she was hounding Jennifer, could be that they both became so obsessed with trying to manage each other’s issues that they each flirted with relapsing from the stress. It was… pretty clear that the relationship pre-timeskip was not healthy and rather self-destructive (or mutually-destructive maybe?)…

      1. thejeff

        It certainly had been, but it also showed a lot of signs of getting better and immediately pre-timeskip was about the healthiest it had ever been.

        We can speculate about what changed and how it all exploded and whose fault it was, but we really don’t have much to go on.

      2. Rabisch

        Dunno. Pre timeskip (and after Carla destroyed their suicide pact) their relationship were pretty good. Except when Billie seemed to be unable to understand that Ruth wanted to never drink alcohol anymore and tried to trick her to drink with her. But we have no idea about what happened during Halloween.

        1. thejeff

          Which was their last big hurdle. After that Billie tried to push her away so she wouldn’t destroy Ruth and after that failed dramatically is when she started therapy and stopped drinking – as well as bringing Ruth to meet the Forrest crew and dropping her pretenses of popularity.

    2. Ike

      I read it as Jennifer actually doing the work to help herself, and Ruth not, and Jennifer cared too much about Ruth to keep seeing her like that, so she broke up with her.

  24. Mendel

    give Joyce a chance to meddle, and she perks right up!

  25. Darkoneko

    In 5 minutes the Doctor is gonna be like “uh I’m gonna come back later once you’re done bawling”

    1. Taffy

      It’s an American hospital. In 5 minutes, the doctor still won’t have arrived, and if they ask anyone where the doctor is they’ll get looked at like they grew an extra head and that head also started spouting slurs at high volume. Give it another few hours.

  26. Lone Duck

    Jennifer is still talking about herself, and it is so obvious, Joyce is catching on.

  27. Plaaaa

    Caring that your boyfriend is probably a rapists getaway driver is caring too much!

    1. Needfuldoer

      [Tim Allen grunt of confusion]

      Gonna need a link to the comics hinting at that.

      The silhouette in this one doesn’t look very Asher-shaped:

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/ryan/

      1. jackiedu46k

        I’m more worried about him pulling the fire alarm that got em kidnapped.

        1. Spencer

          He did it after Blaine threatened to expose him for stealing money on his way out of his grandfather’s mob (because even if you want to leave the criminal enterprise you were born into, you’ve still got bills to pay that you now have no means of covering) with the explicit assurance that whatever was going to happen, no one was getting hurt.

          Can we stop treating Asher as some dangerous criminal when everything we know about him thus far is that he really very much wants not to be.

        2. JBento

          No, because redemption exists but only for queer girls, dontcherknow. And Sal.

        3. Spencer

          I mean I know you’re kidding but I’m half-convinced that Asher’s Dark Evil Criminal Past gets relitigated so often because if Asher sucks then Billie can run back to her ex-girlfriend.

          Just imagining Asher hitting her and then Ruth breaks the door down, hockey stick in hand like Mjolnir, and heroically proclaims “only I get to do that to her!”

        4. jackiedu46k

          Redemption isn’t just a passive thing that happens over time like there’s just an expiry date tagged to whatever you did wrong.
          Like you don’t go “Eh well what can you do, timeskip’s over, wipe away the slate”
          To my knowledge he hasn’t really come out to anyone about the kidnapping / potential murder of blaine (??) thing and jsut like sweeps it under the rug. I don’t see how he’s redeeming himself.

        5. JBento

          Again, killing Blaine was great and somebody should’ve done it sooner. Also, Ruth continually physically abuses people. She might not be OJ Simpson in waiting, but she sure as hell comes close to Chris Brown.

        6. jackiedu46k

          I have no idea who chris brown is other than he got slkapped by will smith.
          And killing blaine here accomplished literally nothing except covering mobster asses.

        7. Wraithy2773

          @jackiedu46k That was Chris Rock.

          Chris Brown is an American R&B/Pop singer who violently assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna in a highly publicized case, complete with horrifying images of her bloody and bruised face after the assault.

          It completely destroyed his career and any chances of making money ever again aaaaahahaha, no, fuck, cancel culture would be fucking nice if it occasionally actually had an effect, no, he’s released six albums since then because there’s nothing American society loves to forgive more than a guy with a modicum of talent who beats women but gives token and insincere apologies afterwards.

        8. JBento

          Wraithy already told you who Brown is, but lol at the idea that killing Blaine accomplishe nothing. If you classify “no longer able to physically, emotionally, and psychologically abuse two different families and attempting to kill Amber” as nothing, that is.

        9. jackiedu46k

          I mean he’s not Jack the Ripper and he might not *want* to be a dangerous criminal but like. He’s still not a precious angel who never did wrong.
          And Ruth isn’t OJ Simpson in waiting.

        10. Spencer

          Every single word of this post fills me with a primal disgust and I need to commend you for tapping into every single classist, scared white person argument used for the benefit of the for-profit prison complex.

        11. jackiedu46k

          Is this a joke ? Are you ok ?

        12. milu

          Spencer isn’t the subtlest but i think he was referring to the “no angel” line. you may not realize it (i think you might be a native french-speaker?) but this is like THE classic talking point used to legitimize police brutality and penal racism. You may want to look it up.

        13. jackiedu46k

          I am native french how did you guess 😮
          Ah that makes sense, sorry about my phrasing!

        14. milu

          allez, c’était pas dur, j’ai même une petite idée de ton département ^^

          plus, you (or your autocorrect) adding a space before interrogation marks.

        15. Needfuldoer

          He’s no angel.
          He’s no stranger to the streets
          He’s got his label
          So he won’t crumble at your feet.

        16. jackiedu46k

          Quel département tu pense? :O Et pourquoi?

          [SPOILER: Le québec]

        17. milu

          ah raté alors. y a pas mal de pseudos de français (surtout des gens qui les ont choisi à l’époque de MSN genre) qui sont sous la forme “Prénom-du-XX” où XX représente le département. auquel cas tu aurais été du Lot, dans le sud-ouest de la france =D

      2. JBento

        Not only doesn’t it look like Asher, Asher drives a motorcycle, not a car.

    2. milu

      …Is that you hiding under a new alias, Taffy? always with the fresh shenanigans, that one.

      1. Taffy

        I don’t have the capacity for focus required to use multiple screen names at once. My shenanigans are all committed with my own name and face. Idk where they got the idea that Asher and Ryan are connected in any way, but if I was gonna accuse Asher of something Ryan-related I’d say that he IS Ryan, who either has a mask on now or regenerated.

        1. milu

          well, you do have the focus to switch grav every other day. what’s this one supposed to be pray tell?

        2. Taffy

          Oh, the current one as of [timestamp] is some abstract art I made while I was stoned off my ass, depicting a creation myth from a fantasy setting I’ve been working on. The six spheres are the primal elemental forces, the pillar of light is the “top God”, the empty void behind them is the chaotic forces that eventually become the Daedra-equivalent, and the white platform is the blank canvas they use to shape the world.

        3. milu

          wow that was a lot less whimsical than i expected.
          six elements? we know Leeloo Dallas is the fifth, who’s the sixth?
          and this fantasy setting is a setting for… a story? an RPG?

        4. Taffy

          I went with the Final Fantasy mainstays, no idea what a Leeloo Dallas is though.
          Ideally, I’d use the setting for an RPG, but I’m not a good DM and it would be weird to have somebody else run a game in it, so it’s probably gonna just exist until Income up with some stories of my own beyond the starting points.

        5. milu

          …speaking of problematic faves, (@Laura)…

          Leeloo Dallas is a character from 90’s space opera The Fifth Element, starring Bruce Willis and the then-no-longer-underage director’s wife Maiwenn (who said director left during production for the lead actress Milla Jovovich). It was directed by certified creep and alleged rapist Luc Besson.

          It was a childhood favourite and remains a source of family jokes. It’s cringy as fuck. *sigh* I kinda still love it though.

        6. JBento

          Do yourself a favour and watch The Fifth Element.

        7. Taffy

          Oh, it’s from that? I can never make myself sit through the whole thing. Last time, I made it up to the part where there’s a babbling Mila Jovovich in a glass tube and I had to shut it off. Not my cup of tea.

        8. jackiedu46k

          How come there’s six of em?

        9. Taffy

          Why wouldn’t there be?

        10. jackiedu46k

          Usually its like earth water air fire ! maybe a third one that’s “energy” and then one for the girl character.

  28. jackiedu46k

    The first Classic Joyce Smile in a while!!! Nature is healing.

  29. Rabisch

    Dunno. Pre timeskip (and after Carla destroyed their suicide pact) their relationship were pretty good. Except when Billie seemed to be unable to understand that Ruth wanted to never drink alcohol anymore and tried to trick her to drink with her. But we have no idea about what happened during Halloween.

    1. Username Taken

      I never loved that relationship. It was built on a foundation of abuse: verbal, emotional, and physical.

      1. Sam

        Most people would not advise to have stayed to real people. But they were also both committed to working on it which is usually where most toxic relationships fail and why most abusive relationships never change – one doesn’t seek improvement or change no matter how the other asks or pleads and you can’t salvage or change it if only one of you cares.

      2. Spencer

        It was, yeah.

        To defy what I probably usually sound like, though, I’m warming up to the concept of messed up people making it work, just maybe not those two specifically where we left them off. There’s something reassuring about knowing that weird, broken people don’t have to settle for weird, broken endings, that things can improve and you don’t have to be beholden to your problems forever until you appropriately atone for them, or for having them inflicted onto you.

        Ruth’s a messed up person because of her grandfather and then went to be messed up at someone else. It’s not okay, but then maybe there’s more to her outside of it? I don’t think that really carries over, specifically, to her romance with Billie, I think that was just Actually Bad And Wrong and if they ever reconcile it’d have to be after they stop enabling their worst aspects, but below that level how I think is that you can still be happy and fall in love and go do good things even if you’ve got emotional problems, Sal’s allowed to have her cute ukulele boy even if Sal’s got issues about trust and honesty and those issues’ll probably cause problems. You aren’t, actually, barred from happiness until you sort your problems out.

        I probably feel it like that because when I see stories about weird broken people being sad in a specific, almost Kafka kinda way that feels the most real to me, they never really get to end happily, and I hate that. I’m not a happy or stable person, I still want to find some kind of fulfillment that an unhappy, unstable person can achieve.

  30. Keulen

    I’m hoping we get a flashback or something soon that shows how Ruth and Jennifer actually broke up.

    1. alongcameaspider

      It’s implied to have happened over Halloweeem, the next storyline is called “this was Halloween”

      Do what you will with that information

      1. The Wellerman

        Any number of things. Things humans do. I don’t know.

  31. Amelie Wikström

    No one can escape patterning!

    Unless you avoid having a group of friends but rather individual friendships where you spend time one one one. Secret psychology prostrat for developing your individuality.

    1. Taffy

      It probably would be pretty good to have friends outside of The Designated Social Circle™.

  32. Sombrero

    It’s all about context. Joyce and Becky are long-time friends, one wrong-headed try seems to be within the slack Joyce’s willing to give Becky, who should’ve learned from the experience not to try it again. I see no evil desire for control or coercion here, more a clash of personal flaws (Becky’s over-the-top emotional states, Joyce’s excessive desire to accommodate others).

    1. Sombrero

      This was intended as a reply to Spencer above. Somehow it finished here. Sorry.

    2. Spencer

      It’s not one wrongheaded try, it’s the inevitable endpoint of Becky’s absurd possessiveness over Joyce and what was always going to happen if Joyce ever stepped out of her box. It would happen in any circumstance, Becky’s just got some backup now who also want Joyce back in her box.

      And then that wrongheaded try has lasted six months realtime and we’re at the point of Subtle Indoctrination (that Good Christian Lucy thinks is completely unworthy of comment or question when Becky discusses it with her), so I don’t know at what point we get to acknowledge that Becky should not already think of her lifelong best friend who saved her life over and over as her personal attack dog and, once confronted with this knowledge, kept trying to force her back into that role.

      1. Sombrero

        I believe Becky has already reached that acknowledgement herself (if grudgingly), and what we still have to see is how she acts on the basis of such acknowledgement. (Sidepoint: now she has a personal dinosaur she doesn’t really need a personal attack dog).

        1. Amelie Wikström

          No see Becky must suffer every moment of every day in real time until she grows up past Joyce and can explain to her that it’s possible to believe in God while also rejecting bigoted church teachings so Joyce can stop believing her, Becky’s, beliefs make her too stupid to have a conversation with. And also until she knows how to show proper gratitude when people make sacrifices for her.

        2. Sombrero

          Not sure if I get your tone right, but some things got me interested:

          1. Becky has suffered so much that I don’t know what more suffering can add.
          2. Does Becky believe in God? She is convinced she believes, but this is so mixed with her identity issues (she sees herself as a Christian Lesbian) that it’s complicated.
          3. Joyce explicitly rejected some forms of gratitude, so once again it’s complicated.

          Disclaimer: most of the time I can’t stand Becky as a character, but usually not for religion/Joyce related issues. Of course, YMMV.

        3. Spencer

          I have taken in a homeless friend in the past, I would be deeply nettled if they attempted to indoctrinate me into something I recognize as harmful to myself and would do so even if I were not sheltering this friend at risk of my own person being expelled from college and sent home to my fundie death cult.

        4. Sombrero

          Both Becky and Joyce seemed to mostly ignore the indoctrination perspective and chose to focus on the “remembrance of past things experienced together”. This allowed Joyce to avoid alienating Becky further without biting the nostalgia apple. The “I will not be back to that” message was so clear that I doubt Becky will go for a second try.

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