236

Kindness
Posted on November 23, 2021 by David M Willis

236 thoughts on “Kindness”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    are you sure you want her to do that, Dotty

    remember last time she Googled

    1. ThunderNight

      maybe she should Bing it instead

      1. Pylgrim

        Jesus, so instead of “easing in” we’re going for shock therapy?

        1. The Wellerman

          I’m not so sure how I should feel about that joke….

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Me neither. Knowing Bing’s effectiveness for image searching porn with the training wheels off, I want to quote Trent Reznor at you: “I want to violate you.”

          On the other hand, using micro soft for finding “dildo” really doesn’t sound menacing at all, unless she ends up in Conception Bay somehow.

    2. Rikunda

      So she already googled it! Or… Does she not realize a strap on is a dildo?

      1. King Daniel

        Probably that.

      2. motorfirebox

        YOU’RE a dildo

        1. motorfirebox

          HOLY SHIT I’M BECKY THIS IS AMAZING

  2. Doctor_Who

    I just assume Joyce has safe search on, so she may get some interesting results.

    1. Dave Van Domelen

      Skwizgar Skwigelf.

  3. Nono

    Well this is the most palatable Joyce has been in months.

  4. Sirksome

    She knows what a dildo is. A fun toy you use a lightsaber! And maybe stick up your nose.

    1. Sirksome

      Seems like Joyce hasn’t learned much since this moment.
      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/curlingiron/

    2. Nono

      But that was a vibrator.

      1. Sirksome

        Is there really a difference. Functionally they serve the same purpose it’s just one is manual and the other automatic.

        1. Nono

          In some cases? Yeah. Their means of stimulation are different, which can lead to different designs. For instance, some women can’t handle strong vibrations well, so they either pick low intensity vibrators or just do away with them completely. Vibrators can also mean eggs or other shapes you don’t find as dildos.

          Also, men use dildos but not vibrators. Vibration doesn’t do much for the prostate.

        2. QuixoticMaunster

          A whole host of vibrating prostate massagers would beg to differ with your generalization about which sex toys people with prostates use.

          There are also vibrating fleshlights which I would class as “a vibrator” and people with penises certainly use those!

        3. The Wellerman

          Dildos are mainly defined by their shape (phallus-like, vulva-like, or even mouth-like).

          Vibrators are defined by their mechanism of action (vibration, of course) and don’t need to be any particular shape.

          For instance, some popular vibrators are shaped like eggs and washing machines.

          Also, are you sure they don’t so much for the prostate? I think it’s just a matter of finding the “sweet-spot”, like on or around the perineum area.

        4. Yumi

          lol

        5. eh, whatever

          She doesn’t know whether there’s a difference. She’s never seen the two words in the same room at the same time!

  5. The Wellerman

    “Please google that”

    Reminds me of that one story I saw somewhere about someone using “bukake” to mean “nonsense”.

    I could only imagine the look on their face when they learned what it actually means!

    XD

    1. Stephen Bierce

      This week there were pictures online of a Japanese chain department store where somebody decided that the F-bomb was just a synonym for “really good”. So there were signs all over the place that read “F–kin’ Sale!”

      1. The Wellerman

        I hope that NEVER changes!!!

        X)

      2. Needfuldoer

        The F-bomb is a versatile word, just like the word “shit”.

        1. misanthropope

          “easy. you just use it like a comma”

          Trudeau

        2. Bleuryder

          I remember a grammar teacher in college telling us that the F word was a gift to language because it was one of the few words that could be used as a noun, adjective and verb in the same sentence.

          Ex. “F–k the F—ing F—ers in the Motherf—ing butt!!”

          I’m not even a native English Speaker and can truly appreciate the treasure that is the F bomb.

        3. Makkabee

          It’s also the only infix in the English language (well, that and its standard euphemisms).

    2. Rose by Any Other Name

      I mean, technically it just means “splash” and can also refer to a style of noodles. Which is why it’s perfectly acceptable to order the bukake in entirely mundane restaurants.

      1. The Wellerman

        Yeah, and “Hentai” means “body transformation”.

        Funny how language works like that LOL >3<

        1. LordViking

          I’ve never seen hentai to mean ‘body transformation’. AFAIK it means ‘pervert’ or ‘perverted’.

          Googling it though it would seem that depending the kanji used it can be either:

          Hentai 変態 vs. Hentai 変体
          hentai 変体 is homonym with hentai 変態 (same sound, different meaning.) When hentai is written with the tai 態 of taido 態度, “behavior,” it means abnormal or altered behavior (perversion). When it’s written with the tai 体 of taikei 体形, “form of body,” it means abnormal or altered body (physical transformation).

        2. Alris

          its one of those things i only know because of One Piece, Oda loves those kind of word plays and specifically uses it for one of the characters Franky who is a cyborg who walks around in nothing but a Hawaiian shirt and a speedo, because he is both a pervert AND can do some transformations with his cyborg body

        3. The Wellerman

          Hawaiian shirt… erotic stuff… Transforming Cyborg… play on words….

          All of this is giving me an odd sense of deja vu, but I don’t know why.

        4. StClair

          and here, for a moment, I thought you’d somehow gotten confused with “henshin”…

        5. Robin Lionheart

          Ranma 1/2 makes notable use of that wordplay too.

    3. Paradoxius

      The look wasn’t the only thing on their face.

      *exits through house, nimbly dodging projectiles tossed by audience members*

    4. Decidedly Orthogonal

      It’s delightful how Dorothy is being more worked up by Joyce’s raging ignorance, than her direct attempt at hostility.

    5. davidbreslin101

      A mistake for “bunkum”? Which sounds faintly lewd itself.

  6. Skater Girl

    I still find it impossible to believe anyone in this millennium could reach adulthood without knowing what a dildo is.

    1. newlland(Henryvolt)

      “The internet is a tool of the devil.”

      1. Regalli

        Yeah, remember that Becky didn’t have access to a cell phone until she started borrowing Joyce’s and Dina’s and Robin’s, and that Joyce only looked up Sexy Time Videos in shame and absolute terror in, like, early October or something.

        1. The Wellerman

          Wait, was that the video on Roz and Joe copulating on the epicly named ScrooTube?

        2. Regalli

          Yep, that’s the one. Which she did because her friends were telling her to get over her sexual hangups (in a way which is very unaccounting for the fact that they all knew she had some trauma from an attempted rapist, but that’s an aside.)

      2. King Daniel

        But Joyce has seen the internet!

        1. Segnosaur

          And the dark web too… From all the times she hung out in joe’s room, playing video games and smoking pot.

        2. A Red Balloon

          Does anyone else miss that shirt she used to wear, or is it just me?

        3. Decidedly Orthogonal

          If we’re thinking of the same one, Sarah only imagined it.

        4. Needfuldoer

          That’s just an orange T-shirt. There’s nothing wrong with it, but the characters’ wardrobe design has only gotten more varied and elaborate since those early strips. The planning and effort that goes into it really shows, and I appreciate that.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Her life experience has been different to yours

    3. AKP

      I did. Not that I didn’t know about sex but I wasn’t interested and didn’t care and was definitely not going to Google it. I knew peripherally that sex toys were a thing that existed, but oh boy was I not interested in knowing literally anything about them.

    4. Tunasammich

      My mom was like, 40 and thought it was called a “dildode.” To be fair, this was before the internet existed

    5. Roborat

      Really, everyone knows it is a town in Newfoundland.

  7. newlland(Henryvolt)

    …well I guess now she knows how Becky feels about Dorothy? I don’t know how to take this.

    1. Lanie

      It still just bothers me how out of her way Becky goes to be mean to Dorothy. I don’t even want Becky to like Dorothy, just to stop actively antagonizing her because she feels… threatened? Inferior? I’m also pretty disappointed Joyce knows Becky is so unkind to Dorothy and is just rubbing her nose in it right now. Just yikes.

  8. Bicycle Bill

    “You’re a dildo” ≈ “You’re a dick”.   Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Though I guess calling someone a dildo contains the added implication that they’re fake as well.

    2. BarerMender

      More like six of one and nine of the other.

      1. Jamie

        There’s a dozen. There’s a baker’s dozen. And then there’s this.

        1. Fist_of_Life

          I think we should call it a lover’s dozen. Either that or a “dozen” belonging to something at least tangentially related to “lovers.”

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Well… dozen, that is “douzaine”, /is/ French after all.

  9. Rikunda

    I still don’t get why Joyce is picking fights with Dorothy now…

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Joyce went to Dorothy to be comforted with the fact that she’s now smart and atheistic. Joyce is annoyed Dorothy doesn’t see atheism as a team worth celebrating (its just a thing Dorothy is).

      It’s not an IDENTITY like Christianity and Joyce is unhappy she’s not being supported.

      1. 0phidiophile

        Joyce also desperately wants to find someplace where she belongs. Up until recently, she knew where she belonged, she knew the group she was a part of and how to be part of that group. She feels lost not knowing who her peeps are, and how they behave. And she is behaving the way she thinks they (whoever they are) would expect her to behave in an attempt to be accepted. (Liz pretty much has the same problem, I think.)

      2. thejeff

        I’m not sure why it wouldn’t be an identity like Christianity. Not every atheist treats it as such, but then many Christians don’t place that much importance on it as an identity either.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          Well being an atheist doesn’t come with rules. It just means not believing in God or gods. You can be a Soviet atheist, a atheist who believes in Confuscianism, or a Epicurian but that’s more than just atheism in general.

        2. thejeff

          Are rules necessary for identity? Identity is often more tied to community. Or to needing to form your own community due to being excluded from the community around you due to your identity.

        3. zee

          There’s also not really such a thing as atheist community, other than like, reddit and i refuse to make reddit atheists representative of us

        4. Doki

          Reddit also isn’t the hivemind a lot of people assume. Each subreddit is distinct and has its own rules and social mores.

          Hell, I’ve seen as many conservative people criticize it for being “TOO LIBERAL!!!1!!” as I have leftists saying it’s too right-wing for their tastes. There is no single mold for ‘Reddit user’ haha (I sure as hell wouldn’t fit the assumed one!)

        5. StClair

          the best comparison this oldbie can come up with is good ol’ USEnet. Which didn’t really have a single unified culture either.

        6. Doki

          But you’re right in that there’s no single atheist community, just as ~the queer community~ is actually SUPER fractured.

        7. CorporateDronesDontHaveMissiles

          I’m leaning towards “the X community” really being a polite way to say “X people” without saying “X people”

        8. Josie

          I think more than an identity, Joyce wants a community. I am now imagining her getting deep into the skeptic community and enjoying this idea 🙂

        9. Sombrero

          All religions are alike. Each atheist is a skeptic in their own way.

        10. Josie

          That may be true, but there’s still an actual community of skeptics that has societies, holds conferences, and ‘evangelizes’.

          It might be able to provide Joyce with what she’s looking for, especially since, due to her naivete, she’s might not pick up on the sexism that runs rampant in segments of the community .

        11. thejeff

          Not picking up on the sexism due to naivete doesn’t mean not being influenced by the sexism unfortunately.

        12. Josie

          Agreed. I had a half a thought that some of it (not the violent threats) might feel “comfortable or familiar to her…but I do think that might be a stretch too far even for Joyce

    2. Andy

      One of the things about Joyce’s faith is that it was so intertwined with itself. Everything she believed was true because it was ALL true and if any of it was false, that meant any of the rest could be too, up to and including Jesus’sacrifice. So it all HAD to be true in order for any of it to be true. I think that mindset has carried over here. She HAS to be right in this moment because otherwise she might be wrong about other stuff and that would be a Very Bad Thing for her.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I wonder how much of the irony is deliberate versus the fact that the irony is lost on fundamentalists. Jesus’ ministry from a comparative religion standpoint can be summarized as, “Hippie picking and choosing which parts of Judaism to follow vs. the Fundamentalist Pharisees and Corrupt Roman aligned branch”

        Becky is very New Testament. Joyce is like, “You can’t ALTER the text!”

    3. Sombrero

      Dorothy supports Becky. Becky is always picking fights with Dorothy. Joyce wants Dorothy to support her. QED.

    4. Agemegos

      Joyce is feeling isolated and anxious, and went to Dorothy for comfort and support. She was rebuffed, with put-downs.

      1. Clif

        We read very different comics.

  10. Stephen Bierce

    Went by a Cato today for the first time in months…probably a year or more. Wondered which DoA characters would shop there. Came up dry.
    Had a thought experiment to see how Joyce and Peanuts‘ Charlie Brown would be related. Because of an accident in elastic narrative continuity, it’s different between the Walkyverse and the Dumbiverse. In the Walkyverse, the closest Charlie can be related to Joyce would be a first cousin once removed (Charlie and Hank being sons of brothers). In the Dumbiverse, Charlie could be Joyce’s grandfather, for one possibility.

    1. Decidedly Orthogonal

      That’s the weirdest thing, by /far/, that has played on the Hacked Muzac! I love it.

      1. Ed Callahan

        +10

  11. BBCC

    Okay, this strip is getting better on the communication front, I love that.

    And Joyce, you keep using that as an insult. It’s beautiful, ignore Dorothy.

    1. Jon

      Yes, agreed. Feels like Dorothy and Joyce both got through to each other a little bit, before Joyce deflected (but what’s new).

      Interesting to see Dorothy telling Joyce her anger can be a gift. Jocelyn said much the same thing…honestly not sure how I feel about that message. “Righteous anger” as a concept isn’t necessarily bad…but neither do I think it’s something I want to actually strive for.

      Anger (even “constructive anger”) has of course also been a theme for Amber & Sal, so we’ll see how that comes together for Joyce in the future.

      1. BBCC

        To be fair, Dorothy deflected a little bit too. So I think we can allow Joyce this one. 😉

        1. Imogen

          I’m glad the Ruthmind is in accordance.

        2. Jon

          All is in harmony within the Ruthmind. Join us.

      2. Doki

        Anger CAN be useful and protect people from harm (and work as a powerful motivational force to prompt them to act when something isn’t ethically right)…

        …but, personally, I’m kinda with you. I don’t get angry easily and feel like there’s something about it I just don’t GET, no matter how much I try to rationalize it haha. It’s also not always as productive as the same conversation but calmer would be? Calm =/= apathy.

  12. Derek

    Being a fan of Metalocalypse, I do think “dildo” is an acceptable insult

    1. Doctor_Who

      You have to say in in a Scandinavian accent, though.

      1. ValdVin

        And randomly put “s” on the end of words, so “You’re a dildos”.

    2. The Wellerman

      Seriously tho, I gotta watch that when I get the time!

      Tell me, if you’ve seen it, just how does it compare with SuperJail?

      1. Needfuldoer

        It doesn’t have the bright, trippy visuals of Superjail!, but still has that same late-2000s random gore.

        1. The Wellerman

          None of those LSD trip visuals huh? Well that’s too bad, but I may go check it out anyway.

          Fun fact, my avatar look was partly inspired by The Warden himself!

    3. Greebs

      Oh! I remember Dildo being used unironically as an insult by a certain subset of my online social circles back in the day. Now you mention it I think this might have been why…

  13. Vukodlak

    On the subject of dildos
    “Tom Marvolo Riddle” Is anagram for “Mr Tom a Dildo Lover”

    1. RassilonTDavros

      I mean, Joanne is a complete and utter dildo, so I suppose it fits.

      1. Imogen

        The Agathamind is not in accordance on whether Harry Potter references are still funny.

        1. Tan

          Also Zoidberg

        2. Casi

          The Council of Agatha hath spoken

        3. King Daniel

          So it is written; so let it be done.

        4. milu

          But at what cost?

        5. Decidedly Orthogonal

          6,13 francs.

  14. DarkoNeko

    People were saying Dotty gave Joyce shit while giving Becky a free reign but it looks she react to both pretty much the same

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Dorothy deals with annoying people by barely acknowledging them.

      1. Rabid Rabbit

        It occured to me recently that Dorothy may put up with Becky as much as she does because she wants to be President someday and realizes that requires a thick skin, so Becky’s good practice.

        1. Ed Callahan

          If Dorothy got burned at the stake, she’d find a way to make it positive experience for everyone. Including the guy with the match.

  15. Regalli

    Apropos of nothing but discussion yesterday, a spare thought that’s occurred to me on the Jordan situation:

    The way Joyce doesn’t seem to talk about or know Jordan suggests he left home before she remembered much of him, and given he’s implied to be between Joyce and Jocelyne in age, that suggests he cut ties worryingly young. At the same time, the most likely reason for an estrangement that young – being disowned because he was queer – seems a bit narratively unlikely/redundant since we have Becky and Jocelyne filling that niche already in the Brown family, and Leslie as the well-adjusted disowned queer adult. Could be plenty of other reasons, but given the implied youngness, now I’m wondering if Jordan helped a friend/girlfriend get an abortion, refused to back down about it when it was found out, and THAT was the breaking point argument. Who knows for sure right now, but it could explain the ‘we squeezed too hard/we didn’t squeeze hard enough’ and the part where Hank compared Joyce sticking up for Dorothy to Jordan, while also occurring while he was still potentially a young teenager. Still hard to see Hank backing down on that point if it was an abortion thing, where he does clearly regret it, but it seems reasonably plausible to me in the Grand Mystery of Jordanness. (That said, it runs the risk of the female character who’d have gone through this directly coming off as more of a prop in Jordan’s story, the way Becky had to stay in the cast after coming out so she could continue being center stage there. But if she also left the community and she’s a character alongside him, whether romantically or platonically, I could still see it working so I’m not ruling it out for that reason.)

    We’ll see whenever he appears. SOMEDAY we’ll get answers.

    1. BBCC

      Alternative – Maybe Jordan got a girl pregnant? Willis mentioned before that his church used to chase pregnant teenagers out of their homes, so that could be something that’ll come up.

      1. BBCC

        I think you have a really good theory, sorry, I didn’t mean to brush it off. It just reminded me of something Willis once said. I think yours has a strong possibility and is the most plausible theory I’ve heard. Also opens the door for Joyce and Becky to grapple with the abortion question.

      2. Regalli

        Oh, totally a reasonable addition on it! No brushoff implied. I think it’s entirely possible (as implied but not actually stated by the ‘girlfriend’ part) that he could’ve gotten someone pregnant. But the sexist double standards mean that simply getting a girl pregnant probably wouldn’t be enough for the Browns to kick him out. (But would be enough to kick her out, of course.) Refusing to marry her might, or prompt him to say ‘fuck this, I’m leaving,’ especially if he doesn’t want to marry her but DOES object to her being forced out but him being given room to recover because ‘boys will be boys’. I went for abortion as the angle specifically because him aiding someone there would be big enough that it more easily allows for the ‘you’re out forever and we never speak of this again,’ but at the same time Hank’s clear regret for the situation and still referring to him positively in the Family Weekend bit would be arguments for ‘pregnant but no (known to the Browns) abortion.’ Totally plausible alternate take. Because we know so little about Jordan there’s a lot of room for what, specifically, caused the blowup, and the age range only makes it more confusing.

        1. BBCC

          Yeah, it’s hard to say when we don’t know how old he was. I think pregnancy and subsequent abortion is a very strong contender though.

        2. thejeff

          Well I hope to hell he was at least old enough to physically get someone pregnant, cause that’s well below an age where it should be legal to kick a kid out of the house.

          My general feeling is that he was older and it was a more ideological conflict than doing something that was beyond the pale for them.

        3. BBCC

          It doesn’t need to have been when he was scary young. He could have been 18 and still tossed out for getting someone pregnant.

          The atheism thing would be interesting to see with Joyce!

    2. Sirksome

      Bah! This actually some very interesting theorizing but I say until the moment Jordan actually shows up in comic he’s just some bland loser with absolutely nothing going on. All his niches have probably been filled by other characters as you’ve mentioned. Joyce already has a queer sibling, and a douchebag sibling, plus Becky since Jocelyne doesn’t get much screen time. Jordan’s probably just a boring dude, working a boring job, in a boring apartment probably right down the street from IU and he’s never visited Joyce because he has nothing to talk about.

      1. JBento

        I’m also in the camp of “it was something that’s a totally nothingburger”, like one day he decided he didn’t feel like going to church every Sunday, or sneaked out to watch movies that “depict being happy without god’s love” or something.

    3. C.T. Phipps

      It has to be that Jordan did something that turned Hank against him (not just Mama Brown) but not so much that Hank HATES him. So that narrows it down a lot because Hank accepted Becky. He also accepted atheist Dorothy. Its possible Hank was a lot worse to his own child before Becky but I’m iffy on that.

      So Jordan is probably not gay or trans. He’s also probably not guilty of something genuinely evil like sexual abuse (as I postulated before someone pointed out Hank thinks he was too hard on him).

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I’m going to take a wild guess and suggest substance abuse.

        Because in many homes, they think shunning is a way to help them.

        1. Sirksome

          Hanks said he thinks they squeezed to hard. Maybe that wasn’t a metaphor! Maybe Hank and Carol literally physically squeezed Jordan like juicing and orange. But it was too hard a squeeze and that made things really awkward so Jordan just bounced out of the squeeze house.

        2. C.T. Phipps

          Watch Jordan just be a kind of stoner kid who went to live with his grandparents.

        3. Imogen

          I’m lowkey betting Jordan became a Shitty Atheist.

      2. justin8448

        I’m guessing that Jordan just rejected Christianity outright.

        Like, maybe he was into heavy metal music, or skateboarding with his friends or something. The Brown family came down hard on him for these innocent interests and hobbies (because of course they did), and he decided to rebel and reject their faith.

        Now as a young adult, he might work or invest his time in a cause that his parents regard as against their values, and that keeps them from ever reconciling. Maybe he’s a Buddhist, or volunteers at an abortion clinic. Lots of options there.

        With a worldview as strict as the Brown family’s, even a small amount of deviance can cause a huge conflict.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          True but the Browns aren’t unified in that either as we see with Hank and Carol.

    4. The Wellerman

      Woah. If this kilo-paragraph is a spare thought to you, then you must do a TON of thinking every day!

      1. eh, whatever

        You don’t? 🙂

      2. milu

        have you MET Regalli???

        …They have a business card that says “Indomitable Brain Monster” in Copperplate Gothic.

        1. Regalli

          Indeed. I used to joke/threaten that I’d write a thematic analysis of identity and impersonation in the third Ace Attorney game for fun. Now I spend all my literary analysis points on DoA. (I really should do that Ace Attorney paper sometime, though.)

          That and it’s really easy for a passing ‘oh hey what if’ to bloom into something bigger, especially because I am VERY wordy and try to explore every possible angle because I don’t want to miss something obvious or be misunderstood. Autism! Sometimes we’re just Like That.

        2. The Wellerman

          Fascinating! Lots of times I’ve over-analyzed the time travel in Dragon Ball Z and other shows in much the same vein. Even now and then when I’m writing, ill get carried away with lots of details for the sake of comprehension — much the same reason as you! ?

          Although recently, I haven’t felt that same kind of energy to do so; maybe it’s all going into the pixel art I’m making right now — sure hope nothing’s happening to me. I dunno, brains are weird like that I guess!

          Anyway, thank you for teaching me about neurodivergence yesterday! Honestly I didn’t even know I was neurodivergent until now!

        3. Doki

          Ooo. OOO. I would read the hell out of that Ace Attorney essay if you ever wrote it! For what it’s worth, I really enjoy the analytical comments you and other posters leave here. ;w;

          And I’m not autistic, but as another overthinker/overexplainer* I feel that SO hard LOL. Gotta explore ever possibility lest I’m misinterpreted! I know I don’t usually do huge analysis comments on here – I’m more of a lurker on DOA – but get me started on Sonic and OH BOY the floodgates are opened. Ask me about something related to Shadow, and that’s like tripled.

          * (Not that I think bring worry is overexplaining, but sadly other people seem to see it that way :C)

        4. Doki

          * being wordy (not worry dkskdkf)

    5. Needfuldoer

      Maybe he’s their Sal, and spent most of his youth doing his own thing instead of toeing the family line.

      That would leave Joyce with few memories of him, and the parents split on how they should have handled him differently (Hank saying “give him the freedom he wanted and he’ll be appreciative”, Carol on team “come down hard and keep him in line because I know best”).

      If he’s between Jocelyne and Joyce in age, he’s most likely college-aged. Maybe he didn’t want to go to college, or went into a field Carol didn’t approve of, so Carol threw him out when he turned 18 (if not sooner), refused additional support, and he severed ties.

    6. Spencer

      I’m kinda hoping that whatever it is Jocelyne was calling about it eventually brings her to IU with Jordan in tow. Maybe a Sensible Brown Siblings Reunion.

      Jordan’s age for me is really weird because he’s between Jocelyne and Joyce, except I don’t know how old Jocelyne is supposed to be. There was that brief time where it looked like Ethan was flirting with her so I think the implication is that she’s 23-24 tops, but if Jordan’s still college aged then it’s weird that Joyce doesn’t really remember him. Maybe it’s less it’s been too long and more that she was deliberately kept in the dark?

      1. thejeff

        Past a certain age, it’s pretty hard to keep kids in the dark about major family fractures.

        If the split took place while away at college, then it’s more plausible, but that gets harder to fit in the timeline. Unless Jocelyne is older then we think and there’s a decent gap between Jordan and Joyce, which our scanty evidence doesn’t really suggest.

        1. Regalli

          Yeah, making Jordan between the girls rather than older than both just raises so many questions. I dunno, maybe there were a couple years where she had A LOT of sleepovers with Becky or something so Joyce didn’t have to hear the yelling, but with how little she seems to know about him it’s hard to square things happening once she’s a teenager. God, I want answers there. Maybe he’s made contact again after he heard about the divorce and his baby sister getting kidnapped? Dare I hope?

          Dude could be in Gramps’s mob for all I care, I just want answers.

        2. Needfuldoer

          Maybe Jordan’s just short and that’s throwing us off.

    7. Sol

      Sometimes I wonder if maybe he’s dead. I *doubt* it because no matter what happened with Jordan, even if it was a “shameful death” (ie suicide, like with becky’s mother) they would at the very least mention his passing.

      Unless they’re so estranged that wherever he left to he left no way to trace him back to his family so they don’t even know. But I still doubt it.

  16. DailyBrad

    I do agree with Dorothy that Joyce can, and has, used her anger for good in the past. I’m just not keen on her being a condescending shit to everyone of faith at the moment.

    1. Jamie

      Neither is Dorothy?

      1. DailyBrad

        Didn’t say she was. Maybe I could have been clearer if it read otherwise.

  17. StClair

    This is actually the most like Becky Joyce has acted in weeks.

  18. NinjaNick

    Joyce: You get a dildo!

    1. milu

      Everybody gets a dildo!

  19. Yotomoe

    Joyce only noticed Dorothy’s shirt because she was staring at her chest.

    1. The Wellerman

      “My eyes are up here, Joyce.”

      XD

    2. RassilonTDavros

      “I love your anger” does sound a bit like it could conceivably lead into the most epic of… well, you know.

      1. Jamie

        Sorry, her name’s Jennifer now.

      2. milu

        Not to mention how last panel Joyce sounds if you take her out of context just a wee bit??

        “i was trying to make you angry but i guess you’re just too perfect, huh? sh-sh-sh-sh, you’re a dildo now, dildoes don’t speak.”

        1. Fist_of_Life

          product idea: Talking Dildos, perhaps one that can play recorded messages so you can have your significant other’s sexy talk while you use it.

    3. Miri

      “Your shirt is kinda frumpy. No cleavage! Would it kill ya to flash some of those curves?”

      1. Yotomoe

        “Your shirt is kinda frumpy. Honestly you should just take it off. Y’know when you’re back in your dorm”

        1. Tan

          when we’re back*

    4. Amós Batista

      le tension between Joyce and Dorothy get more and more evident…

    5. Needfuldoer

      Joyce slides up the Kinsey scale in relation to her proximity to Dorothy.

  20. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    I wonder how long it will take for the “your actions are hurting people” point to sink in for Joyce. She seems to be hearing everything else in the conversation just fine.

    1. Francoinblanco

      Because for her that info is mixed with “get back to your old stupid christianity self” and she refuse that.

    2. Rainhat

      I’ll call “quite a long while”.

    3. Kella

      She hasn’t discovered that morality is separate from Christianity yet.

    4. Andy

      She has to get past the idea that “I’m factually correct” means it’s others’ fault if they get hurt, since in her mind if they were factually correct they would’ve been on her side and wouldn’t have been hurt. She may also need to get past thinking that she is objectively probably factually correct.

  21. C.T. Phipps

    Note that Joyce definitely thinks her mother tried to kill her here.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Yeah, I noticed that too.

      Really, she’s not wrong. Carol is the sort of parent who would put a baby in a microwave if she thought God was commanding her to.

      1. Francoinblanco

        Isaaaac come to momma

        1. The Wellerman

          Carol’s even worse though, ’cause you can’t use a Bible to instantly defeat her ☹

      2. C.T. Phipps

        Carol is Bev from Midnight Mass except not a vampire.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Not entirely accurate, but being unrepentant about helping two other people get into a place where they almost killed your child is a similar enough failing

      1. Segnosaur

        Its also inaccurate that she said “parrentS” were trying to kill her. Carol may bear some responsibility for the kidnapping but her dad had no part (and even tried to warn her).

        1. Needfuldoer

          They’re still intertwined as a singular unit in her head, even if the actual people are separating.

    3. Rainhat

      She also still has issues distinguishing her parents as individuals and not a unit.

    4. alongcameaspider

      I mean Carol did help bail out Toedad, maybe she’s counting that as “trying to kill her”

      Carol has also implied a willingness to go to Toedad level lengths over Joyce before

    5. Keulen

      Carol may not have directly tried to kill Joyce, but she definitely supported and helped bail out of jail someone who tried to kill her and some of her friends though.

  22. Spencer

    Dorothy’s such a weird character to me when surrounded by characters who get to be ruinously terrible and antagonistic towards each other.

    It’s an endlessly ongoing comic where I constantly fall into the trap of going “okay this latest strip? Now everything’s crystalized and I know exactly the true meaning of this particular character interaction”, for all I know the “I stalked you for being a School Misser” thing will be acknowledged eventually and maybe Joyce and Dorothy both as characters wouldn’t immediately jump to hashing it out the way Sarah has gone aggro about it in every strip since because Sarah is a character who tries to solve problems through the straightest line possible and Dorothy is a character whose meting of empathy is extremely gentle and passive, and for all I know neither of them are even cognizant of it as wrong in the moment the same way Becky bragged about being possessive of Joyce. Like actually maybe it’s a Me Problem that I need the comic to tell me Dorothy Keener is Problematic right now.

    I think the issue for me is in how Dorothy never gets to be wrong with anyone else in the room, so every time she’s on-panel I just kinda look at her and go “oh cool that settles it.” Normally that’s fine because Dorothy’s victories are through being nice to people in scenarios that aren’t really complicated. Becky’s a bit of a berk because life’s chaotic, so Dorothy gently assures her. Joyce has done something comedic and silly, so Dorothy constructively explains as the straight man. That’s fine, every team book needs a Cyclops, but at least Cyclops would get really whiny about his cursed, mutant energy blasting eyes and cheat on his wife every once in a while.

    With Dorothy, it starts tripping up hard when she does something actually fucked up and that feels like the kind of thing where I’d expect a big “woah Dorothy!” bit, and I think if this conversation were with another character like say Sarah, Sal, Dina, Ruth or whoever, I wouldn’t be this ??? about it because all of them act beneath themselves every once in a while so I just process what’s happening as a character interaction. I don’t need to worry about Right or Wrong, I’m just watching two characters bounce off each other.

    (phew, I was gonna go nuts if I didn’t write a big pile of words for another couple days)

    1. Nono

      Eh, Dorothy’s done bad stuff. She shouldn’t have jumped back on Walky when she put them on a break, for instance.

      1. Jonah Sanville

        was gonna say this!! she also kiiiiinda led danny on for so long that he followed her to college. she’s also been rude to roz on multiple occasions, bordering on slut-shaming, and has snapped a few times due to stress

        i bring these up because i LOVE dorothy!! she’s one of my favorite characters, and has been for years. i think it’s important to acknowledge the strengths *and* weaknesses of your favorite characters, that’s what makes them good characters!! while dorothy is easily of the most level headed and kindest character, she has her own flaws

        1. Andy

          Did she lead Danny on? I seem to recall that she was open about transferring later, what that would mean for their relationship, and that she had no intention of marrying him.

        2. Buli-Buli

          As I remember, Dorothy and Danny were still officially dating when they left for college, but Dorothy planned on basically ghosting Danny until he gave up on a long-distance relationship.

          Then he pulled his big, RomCom gesture of lying about where he was going so he could surprise her by going to the same college as her.

          Which forced Dorothy to go through a more upfront break-up.

        3. thejeff

          They were still dating, but him going to the same school was no surprise to here. Pretty well established in their first speaking strip. They walk on stage holding hands with no indication of her being surprised he’s there.
          She later says she didn’t expect him to follow her to college, but that reads as a larger scale thing – that she hadn’t thought he’d make his college choice based on what she did, rather than that he’d been hiding it from her.

          I wouldn’t say she led him on, since he clearly knew about her plans, but she did let it drag out much longer than it should have.

        4. Regalli

          I think Dorothy was trying to let him down gently (including ‘don’t pick your school because of me, especially since I don’t intend to stay,’) but Danny was resolutely missing the hints and by the time she realized he needed a firm breakup, they were both locked into IU. Then he starts saying love is more important than stupid Yale and what could have been a firm but still very kind breakup or something like ‘if you want to stay dating knowing I’ll leave, fine, but we have a hard breakup point at the end of the semester’ becomes an angrier one.

        5. Nono

          Nah at the start Dorothy hadn’t nailed anything down to him.

  23. Golden Yak

    Betcha Joyce is gonna masturbate for the first time ever soon.

    1. The Wellerman

      Soon in the comic or soon IRL?

  24. Bagge

    Sorry Joyce, Becky has that narrative box pretty well covered

  25. Jonah Sanville

    god i love dorothy

  26. Rocket Relm

    Grumpy Joyce is the most adorable thing and I love it.

  27. Kravis

    Dorothy is a dildo strictly in the sense that Joyce wants to (not so) secretlyseat on her.

  28. ADLegend21

    And there’s the imminent bisexuality creeping through Joyce.

  29. Diana Nock

    Next strip…

    Joyce: Joe, what’s a dildo?!
    Joe: *self-immolates*

  30. Lanie

    Joyce just needs to buy a pair of Tripp pants already, because her current level of angst is just flashing me right back to middle school and I need the visual to crystallize in a strip.

    Gosh, I know she’s probably so torn up inside, but it’s so hard to empathize with her while she’s being abrasive to everyone that isn’t 100% behind the new identity she’s trying to build.

    1. Lanie

      And re-reading that I feel like I’m being harsh, but I’m struggling to watch her lash out so much.

    2. Francoinblanco

      Because of you now I see Joyce in hot topic and song Crawling in my skin in the air

    3. Alex

      They’re comic book characters, not real people, so sometimes our reactions are based on how much we like the current storyline.

  31. Kathleen

    just realized something- Dottie, Sal, Sarah and Mike – they’re all gods with omniscience of everyone else’s flaws. what they choose to do with that information is different, but they have it somehow. Sarah hates everyone. Dottie wants to help everyone. Mike secretly wants to help while pretending to hate. Sal also wants to help.

    1. Thag Simmons

      They’re all perceptive, sure, but they all have blindspots and biases, they all get things wrong sometimes.

      1. Clif

        Sarah and Sal, I don’t see it. Mike has the uncanny ability to read people, but the DOA version of Mike is bad at predicting how things will play out. He’s perfectly willing to “help”, but only if it’s personally entertaining. Dorothy is perceptive in general, but nowhere near the uncanny level, much less reach the level of omniscience. Sarah sees everything through a filter and Sal can’t even read Danny.

  32. Freddie!

    Oboy! This is gonna get bigger and be just like that stoning scene in Life of Brian – just use “dildo” instead of “Jehovah”

  33. Zaxares

    I have to disagree with Dorothy here. In my experience, anger is ALWAYS stupid. I have never seen anything positive ever come from a place of anger. You can be upset or indignant about the injustice of a situation, but you don’t need anger to have the determination to bring about change. Bringing anger to the argument never results in lasting change except to either make people dig in harder into their positions or it results in people getting hurt.

    It sure does FEEL GOOD in the moment, I’ll concede. 😛

    1. Sam

      Anger can be used for good for defending others and it can motivate you to protect yourself from threats. I don’t think anger ever feels good for me, but it is what motivated me to stop talking to abusive friends and cut ties with them. It isn’t good to bring to like every day arguments with a friend or partner, but it does have its uses for protecting your ego from unfair criticism from awful people and to break off ties with people you’d otherwise keep giving chances.

      1. The Wellerman

        And that’s how Joyce uses anger as a “tool for kindness”!!!

        By the way Sam, thanks for sharingall that information you provided on Introjects a few days ago!!!

        1. The Wellerman

          I could have sworn I did that link right….

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/frootloops/#comment-1590021

      2. Zaxares

        Yes, but that’s kind of what I meant. In your example, and in practically all of the examples people give below, anger is the catalyst that spurs someone to change the circumstances in their life. But if one uses the anger DIRECTLY in confrontation, that’s usually framed as a bad thing. To use Hazel’s examples below, getting cut off in traffic and then going into road rage as a result is bad. An abusive parent smashing their child’s toys as punishment is also bad. Yelling at bigots to get out of an establishment? Ostensibly good, yes, but that carries the risk of escalating the situation and making the bigots get more angry, and possibly violent. It would be better to coolly tell them that they are not welcome in the establishment and to please leave at once. (And if they don’t leave, call the cops.) That’s the point I’m trying to make. People who use anger directly as part of the solution often wind up accidentally making the situation worse (and sometimes, I think they actually WANT the situation to escalate).

        To go back to your example, you felt angry at your friends for their treatment of you and you decided to cut things off with them. However, I’m guessing you did not leave them following an angry rant or an altercation. You just decided to stop being friends with them. Anger was not part of the solution, even though it helped spur your decision.

        Of course everybody is going to feel anger at some points in their lives, and I’m not saying that we should bottle it up inside and pretend everything is A-OK. But we should always, ALWAYS refrain from letting it become part of the confrontation, because it tends to wind up dominating it.

        1. Zaxares

          As an aside, tomorrow’s strip kind of makes the point I was going to make. Dorothy could just as easily have reacted angrily to Joyce for her stubborn refusal to acknowledge that her actions are hurting Becky and others, or even gotten mad at Joyce simply for calling her a dildo (hey, some people get awfully touchy about insults, even silly ones). But she didn’t. She reacted calmly, helped Joyce work out her thoughts, and offered a de-escalation option that might help Joyce see that you can still be friends with someone whose views differ from yours.

    2. Doopyboop

      Anger is typically a ‘secondary emotion’, usually if you feel anger it is because you’re feeling something else, but anger is being used defensively. Usually fear, frustration, hurt… I always liked how Inside Out describes anger as being about making sure things are fair. Anger isn’t stupid, but many people don’t know how to healthily express anger.

    3. Hazel

      Nah, anger is pretty neutral. Emotions generally are. How someone expresses their emotions and why they are feeling it are the more important factor.
      A person might get angry over something they shouldn’t or something they should. Road rage is an unproductive and unsafe form of anger. A person yelling at some w-supremacists to get the heck out of an establishment is a good use of anger. An abusive parents smashing their children’s belongings in anger is a terrible one.

      1. Hazel

        Also, people can want the same thing but feel differently about it. A lack of funding for certain health conditions may make person A feel furious and person B feel deep sadness. And then both could then use what they feel to fund raise, campaign, etc.

    4. Spencer

      Anger’s an emotion and you feel it.

      It’s okay to be angry, it’s even okay to act beneath yourself when you’re angry, it’s especially okay to be angry at people you love mistreating you. Apart from the emotional aspect of, y’know, emotion, maybe you can be angry and right about things, maybe you’re still a good person if you’re angry at someone even if there’s grey areas and they aren’t MegaDeathSatan, Embodiment of Evil.

      It’s just a thing to feel. I ain’t ever gonna get on my own case for being too happy. Anger’s not the fine china, it’s not this thing that’s only allowed to exist in a specific context or else it’s invalid, it’s a part of everyone. We just decided it’s wrong to be angry.

      1. Doki

        I don’t disagree with you intellectually. Suppressing anger rarely helps, and it’s a natural emotion for most people to feel. And acting on it doesn’t make someone a monster. My BFF has a little bit of a temper, and I still trust their judgment 100%, no questions asked. When they’re angry about something, it’s often because something doesn’t add up and they’re right to be angry. I’ve often used them as a barometer for when I should be bothered by something too.

        Because, uh… as far as I can tell I legit don’t get angry? I just get disappointed, or maybe turn that inward into self-hatred. I’ve felt distressed a lot on my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever really experienced what most people mean when they refer to anger…?

        But it’s hard to tell for sure since words can be frustratingly vague when describing emotions ahaha. Either way, I’m probably like SPIDERS GEORG: an outlier who should not be counted.

    5. Alex

      Everyone’s gonna be angry sometimes, but if you’re not in touch with your emotions or aware of why you’re angry, you can easily get out of control.

    6. june gloom

      This is an incredibly toxic, harmful take — and one I see all too often from people who view any conflict as inherently abusive, or people who view any conflict with them as inherently abusive. I don’t know which is worse, tbh. And I’m not saying you’re one of those people, but it’s a common enough opinion among them that it requires mention.

      Anger is an emotion, and like all emotions, it is value-neutral. What you do with it, about it, is what matters. Yes, anger can be destructive, harmful, toxic. Anger can also create change, it can be the catalyst for righting wrongs. But above all, it’s not a feeling that a person can suppress forever any more than they can suppress any other emotion. Believe me, I’ve tried. All it got me was high blood pressure and depression.

    7. thejeff

      Just listen to yourself Joyce. You sound so angry.

    8. Keulen

      Being angry about an injustice often can motivate a person to take action to try to stop that injustice. So anger isn’t a bad thing.

  34. Sombrero

    I wonder if the hovertext is about the next poll or the next book title.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Yes.

  35. Arianod

    Yeah, but she’s *your* dildo, Joyce ^^

  36. Rabisch

    I suspect Joyce feels really bad about being angry. Hearing Dorothy tell her that she envies her anger only results in making her feel more anger and make her feel misunderstood. Anger is not a good thing, it doesn’t make you think, it makes you say things that you regret and you can’t control it. Then, comes someone always calm and controlled who says she envies you… but does anyone realize how annoying this is?

    1. Alex

      The grass is greener, I guess. In anger management we talked about how anger towards true injustices can be a driving force for change. That is the kind of anger Dorothy is talking about.

  37. DonLindo

    My favourite stand up comedian uses dildo as his go to slur. Joyce clearly has northern Norwegian heritage.

  38. AGV

    See, Dorothy puts it best

  39. RedCat

    When there’s a character like Dorothy, who is just pretty nice a lot of the time and tries her best, people seem to want her to fck up so they can hate her.

    1. nicoleandmaggie

      Agreed.

  40. milu

    “i envy your anger”: samesies knucks, Dorothy

  41. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Let your loveable anger flow through you and your journey to the Angry Atheist Side will be complete!

  42. Rainhat

    She’s just an emotional pinball right now, isn’t she.

  43. Spencer

    In writing this I want to frame it as something where I’m asking folks here I vehemently disagree with to help me understand their perspective, and that I won’t be responding to contradict anyone who says anything because I don’t want anyone to share their thoughts upon being asked then getting the “actually I’m right” response. I seriously just want this to be a thread where I say how I’ve been reading this and then come away with some other reads on the situation than my own (and if I started arguing with anyone I’d latch onto the comments section all day again).

    So my question is: how has Joyce been unfairly lashing out at her friends since the fight with Becky?

    Joyce wasn’t acting like this with Joe. She was confused and didn’t have objective facts that other people told her to trust anymore, and she internalized it. I’m just a monkey, it doesn’t matter if I swear because Heaven and Hell aren’t real. Both times, Joe helped her understand that she was still real and important even without those hard coded facts. There was never a point where smug superiority came into play, because Joyce has not been forced to confront to thoughts she’s not ready for yet, she was given the opportunity to take it at her own pace unlike now, where being right about there being no God is all Joyce can assert.

    Sidestepping the reasons why Becky and Dorothy were even there to begin with: Joyce and Becky had a fight. It was a bad one, they’ve never fought in their lives, they were not listening to a word the other one was saying (and it’s been ignored too much that Becky gave as much as she took; she’s not the helpless victim when she tells Joyce that she only ever had faith because it made her lord her superiority), but that’s all it was; a fight. People have those, and I’m pretty sure two best friends who have fought and nearly died for each other would, eventually, after cooling off some, both come to realize how much they mean to each other.

    And then Sarah hammers it in over and over, and I think three instances of it is enough to establish a pattern: Joyce doesn’t want to deal with it right now and Sarah tells her she has to for her own convenience, so Joyce asserts that she’s right and a brain genius and God is dumb. You’re not really sorry, you deserve to suffer for your hubris, you were better off when you were an annoying Jesus girl, and finally “we’ll forgive you” when Sarah’s forgiving Joyce is contingent on Joyce inconveniencing her. Until this sequence with Dorothy, Joyce has not gone up to any of her friends and said “how do you do, fellow atheists?” and Dorothy was there judging her when it happened. That’s not an unwarranted hot take, that’s your best friend deliberately involving themself. Dorothy’s not a bystander, she helped cause this to begin with.

    I feel that there’s been a startling lack of understanding for Joyce’s own perspective, and that the only thing worth focusing on is that she’s “mean to Christians” when Joyce’s life existed far away from the typical North American culturally Christian upbringing; she grew up in a death cult that taught her rigid adherence to the nearest authority figure and to parrot objective falsehoods that her friends constantly made fun of her for, and then her authority figures kept nearly murdering her. She is allowed to be mad at that even if she doesn’t properly articulate that she’s mad at “just the Bad Christians” because Joyce is only now starting to vocalize shit about her lifetime of lies and betrayal. Of all the things I’ve not been able to understand, it’s that someone who suffered the worst hells of a Christian upbringing is expected to immediately calmly and politely engage with those institutions. The Christian church does horrible shit to people like me all the time, am I obligated to treat it fairly?

    In conclusion, I’ll reiterate that I will not be arguing back or contradicting anyone who shares their perspective here, that big blob of words is there to lay out the specific context I’m coming from when I see reads on the situation like “Joyce is an edgy atheist, she’s a shitty friend, she’s being hateful to all religion ever” and why those reads feel so alien to me, which is why I’m hoping you feel compelled to share your thoughts (and hopefully with some detail, but please don’t feel like you have to spend half an hour on it like I did here; I like writing a whole bunch of words but it’s not the only valid approach) so that I can understand where y’all are coming from and understand the situation better myself, in the event that I’m approaching it too blinkered.

    Thanks for reading, and I hope to see your thoughts too.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I think part of the issue that everyone keeps coming down on is that Joyce was mean to BECKY and made it clear she didn’t have any respect for her/believes her stupid despite the fact they had been through all this shared stuff together. Becky is every bit the victim of the Brown church of Buttholery that Joyce was so her getting torn down is the worst sort of projection. No one would be pissed at Joyce if she was mad at Carol.

    2. Vulcanodon

      In the past week or so it feels like you sometimes miss when people agree with you but also want to build on that larger context. Of course Joyce has a right to be mad, and she doesn’t do it well. Her religious upbringing was incredibly damaging not only to her understanding of the world, but her ability to conduct relationships as well. As it was to Becky. And Dorothy and Sarah are being total dildos about it, but this might be outside their experience as well.

      It’s gonna take her a while to sort it out, especially since her friends have short memories (Sarah being mad while forgetting she mocked Joyce behind her back in a similar way comes to mind).

      My feeling in this part of the story is like watching a ship collision happening; there’s no easy way for any party to swerve and avoid it. Because I’ve been there, and man does it ever suck no matter which ship you’re on.

      (Not that kind of ship, I mean steel hulls floating in the water)

      I started out hating Liz when it seemed like she was mocking Joyce, but then it became clear she is just as adrift as Joyce is. Now I’m worried for her.

      I’m also kinda nervous about what’s behind those texts from Jocelyn. I have been waiting for that story line with great anticipation and fingers crossed.

      1. Spencer

        In the past week or so it feels like you sometimes miss when people agree with you but also want to build on that larger context.

        Touching Grass the last few days has also instilled this in me, yeah.

        I’m approaching complex thought processes that actual real life human beings have that are shaped by their own experiences, but they’re not me and don’t love the sound of their own voice like I do, so to express a nuanced thought process like “how much emotional effort can you expend for a friend when they’re angry and not willing to talk about the problem in such a way that you don’t endanger your own health or wellness” they write “it’s not appropriate to take your anger out on your friends” and move on with their day because dropping a block of words on the internet isn’t a hobby for them, and then I just take that as immediate face value and go “I cannot BELIEVE you are DIRECTLY STATING that ACTUAL PEOPLE become immediately worthless and deserve to be excommunicated if they MILDLY ANNOY YOU.”

        I’ve definitely seen takes here I view as deeply objectionable, but it strikes me that the best thing I could do there is not bother unless it’s, like, super overt and blatantly hateful. ‘Cause either I’m misrepresenting a complex thought process that’s expressed in a casual way, or that surface level statement really is all there is to it in which case me bothering isn’t gonna be productive to begin with. Talking about the actual character motivations and stuff, yeah that’s fine, but at least when I’m doing that I’m talking about the series itself.

        1. Yumi

          I’m glad you’re acknowledging this. I’ve drawn back from commenting during a lot of this arc in large part because of your comments… not even that I necessarily disagree with everything you’re saying, but just how a number of the exchanges/replies seems to go is unappealing to the point that I’d rather avoid it.

          I do think a lot of what you post, especially in your longer posts, has value. And you’re hardly alone in the people having strong reactions in the comment sections, but your name has stood out to me the most.

        2. Deadjolras

          To be super honest, and not that my opinion matters anyway, that attitude you describe is one of the main reasons I’ve been put off completely on commenting any sort of analysis on the actual content of the latest strips. I’m fine posting the occasional joke that nobody pays attention to and leaving it at that.

          I should also note you’re not the only one that, uh, displays that behaviour, so it’s not just “oh, I hope Spencer doesn’t reply to me”, but it’s a general thing where I don’t want to post something as simple as “wow, Joyce is being kind of a jerk here” and then receive multiple paragraphs accusing me of having no empathy or explaining Joyce’s character arc to me like I’ve somehow been incapable of reading the comic myself this entire time. (Or have someone in a separate comment going “To those that think that Joyce is being a jerk, what is wrong with you?”)

          But that’s the danger (and the gift) of the comments section, I think. There will always be people more invested than me and willing to go deep into analysing the characters, their arcs, their dynamics and the overall themes of the story, and they will get very passionate about their interpretations. I don’t think that’s a bad thing in itself, and I do appreciate that level of investment. I envy it, at times. And I think you’re one of the most analytical commenters here, and I appreciate all the effort you put into your analysis and the way you share your thoughts with others.

        3. Spencer

          I see. I think I owe both you and Yumi an apology, then. I didn’t think I was being aggressive, not at anyone who I thought wasn’t giving it first, at least, but I guess that’s the kind of thing where what you’re writing makes perfect sense and has a clear tone in your head that doesn’t carry over, and then I just kept hammering on about it. I like writing big ol’ piles of words, I probably don’t need to do it fifty thousand times a day at every single post I disagree with.

          It’s kind of embarrassing, to be honest? I figured out why I fixate so hard so I went “oh okay, stop yourself from doing that exact thing”, then not fixating made me realize I was doing something even more annoying.

    3. winter

      Yeah, I agree with you that she hasn’t really been lashing out. She’s definitely said some smug and intentionally provocative things (the swears, opening this conversation with Dotty saying they’re in ‘the top 3%’) but I don’t think any of it has really been the type of undirected freefall Dotty’s characterising it as here. She chose Liz to vent her feelings about religion with because Liz was a receptive audience, the same way she chose to feel out Dotty’s reaction to her here.

      To be clear I think Joyce has done some unacceptable things since this whole fiasco started, even if it wasn’t really lashing out. The big one being her, as a straight woman, condescendingly explaining to Becky that their church/religion is homophobic and how that should affect her faith, when Becky was eyes-open dealing with the homophobia in their upbringing while Joyce was still trying to date Ethan straight. And beyond that I wish Joyce had been able to tell Becky she wasn’t stupid for believing in a god either, although I see why Joyce isn’t there yet and I wish more she’d had time to process it privately before bringing it to Becky.

      But that’s not really what any of Joyce’s friends are reacting to, is it? Most didn’t even here the gritty details of her argument with Becky. They all want her to process her trauma quietly and not create conflict and go back to being the Joyce they know and feel most comfortable with. Dotty’s having the closest to a productive conversation with her, and even Dotty’s first instinct is to tell her to pick a nice deism and not change so quickly (nevermind that the change has already happened).

      idk, I guess this is like… I’m not sure where the comic is going and I don’t exactly expect the comment section to be sympathetic with Joyce when she’s being presented as she is. But you’re not the only one who thinks Joyce’s friends aren’t handling this well no matter how calm and collected they are when they say things.

  44. Keulen

    I don’t understand why Dorothy almost never seems to get angry about anything. Like when Becky was still doing that dumb “rivals” thing. Or any number of other situations where it would make sense to get angry, and yet somehow she’s usually still calm about everything.

    1. Alex

      Today’s strip is implying that she may not have the emotional capacity for anger. Some people naturally don’t get mad.

      1. AKP

        Some people also put in an immense amount of work to be able to subvert the tendency to get mad. Some people value being kind and level so much that it takes a situation where it feels like anger is really properly warranted for them to feel able to get angry. Some people feel like being kind in level is so valuable that they give up the ability to tell where anger is properly warranted. I could believe Dorothy is in any of those camps.

      2. CorporateDronesDontHaveMissiles

        Yah. I’ve always kind of wondered that about myself. I grew up in situations where displaying anger would be counterproductive and dangerous, but I got away from that. Now I can be firmly assertive fairly easily, but it takes a lot for me to do ‘anger’, and I wonder if I’m just a naturally calm person or if I should be getting angry more often and I’m just dragging more baggage around than I realize.

        We haven’t really seen much of Dorothy’s upbringing except she’s had rather chill, supportive parents. So I’m not sure how much of that even relates

  45. mrnoidea

    Man, I got nothing. I’m just waiting to see how this all plays out.

  46. Megan Rivera

    The shading of Dorothy’s upper lip in Panel 2 makes her look like she’s wearing lipstick and it’s so cuuuute ♥

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