I heard Jill Sobule’s version long before Katy Perry released hers, and when I heard the inferior one I was highly disappointed. Jill really made an excellent song there.
And the Jill Sobule video was shown once during the commercial break for an episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers — on network TV, in the 90s. I had already seen it elsewhere, but my mind was a little blown that they showed it on a mainstream channel in the middle of the afternoon, during a show aimed at minors. 🙂
The other far superior version. It is Katy Perry’s song… with just a few words changed… and one other change that changes everything. It’s almost worth the original existing, so that this could be done to it.
(anyway the next Willis Kickstarter isn’t gonna be for months yet, and finished commissions run even later than that, and why change anyway when someone else is just gonna take Panel 4 first)
A week to a year is about a 1:50 conversion factor. So if they’ve known each other for about 10 years in-comic, that’d correspond to meeting in about 1500 AD.
I’m pretty sure it’s been…four weeks? I don’t know if the days are being tracked exactly, but I think the parent week was about the third week in, so…yeah, not very long.
I don’t know if Mary has plans to destroy all lesbian relationships, but if so, Mary would probably be down for the count in seconds in a giant lesbian pileup.
Well, there was a school of thought that said it was a bit too obvious, and thought Willis might have been misdirecting us for the old switcheroo, like what happened with Joceline.
To be fair, the inference that Jocelyne was attracted to guys (including Ethan) was correct. It’s just that the way we (and Ethan) interpreted it failed to take into account another factor.
So the precedent doesn’t give anything to suggest that the whole deal with Becky being suggested to like girls and particularly Joyce would fail to pan out; it just meant that Becky might not identify as a girl/lesbian. Which in fact still hasn’t changed.
Jocelyne might not be attracted to guys still. There are people who define bisexual as attracted to two genders, not necessarily women and men. So Jocelyne could be attracted to women and agender people for example, and she still wouldn’t be “gay,” as she said.
Yeah, I completely missed it, too. Not sure if it’s because Becky is always seen and spoken of through Joyce’s lens, or just the length of time since we’ve seen the character, but today was a “WHAT” moment.
What was really unexpected is that she’s being as forward as she is. I was expecting this result, but was expecting it to take a bit longer to get to this direct a stage.
Which begs the question, “Why now? Becky’s probably had feelings for Joyce for a while now. Throwing all her cards on the table like this could alienate Joyce forever. Why make this hail-Mary move at this point in her life?” There’s some pressure in her life, that’s pushing her to make this move now. I’m very curious as to what that pressure is.
Becky practically states her reasoning in the previous comic. At least, part of it. She’s noticed that Joyce isn’t all boy crazy anymore. She doesn’t know it’s because of the incident at the party, but she’s thinking that college has started to open up her mind to different possibilities. That, and there’s no chance of being caught by their super religious families here. In the last comic, she did also seem a bit down about SOMETHING at Anderson, but that something could very well be that she’s been separated from Joyce for so long.
This. Becky’s been fishing for clues throughout her entire visit over whether it’s okay to come out to Joyce. The kiss feels like something she’s been working up to. There’s been a lot of inadvertent subtext in their prior conversations, some of which Becky could have taken as code for “I’m gay, but not comfortable talking about it”.
My guess is that Becky now thinks Joyce has a thing for Dorothy (from Walky’s insinuations and Joyce blatantly avoiding Dorothy) and is crushed that Dorothy chose Walky over her.
There’s a lot more “evidence” for Becky to pull from: Joyce clearly considers Billie a close friend despite her sexuality, and really small actions on Joyce’s part like being willing to share her ice cream. Hell, this scene alone has been peppered with homoerotic and vulvic metaphors, from the obvious “naked chick in a clam being spit on by fish” to Joyce saying she “sometimes talks about tacos”.
…or maybe my mind is just always in the gutter, and I’m glad that the plot at least corroborates the evidence I percieve? 😛
Anderson’s a Christian college, and well… even Joyce thinks that any orientation other than hetero would be a thing that should be “cured.”
Becky doesn’t know about Joyce’s stance on gay people! Becky might believe Joyce is the ONE person who will accept her for who she is. (Maybe Joyce WILL accept her for who she is. Her time with Ethan taught her that “gay people” are still “people.”) This could go any number of ways.
I just know that if it weren’t for weekend-update Kickstarter rewards, this page would’ve been carefully scheduled to land on a Friday just to drive us completely insane waiting for Monday.
Gonna guess that if they were both homeschooled and went to church together, that Becky knows exactly how Joyce feels about same-sex lovin’. She’s probably banking on lesbianism being a blind spot in the fundamentalist no-fly zone.
You realize that Becky either dropped out of her Christian college or got kicked out, right? I mean she might have HAD a girl friend there, but there’s a reason she’s here with Joyce when she should be in her classes.
Yeah, I figured she had. I hadn’t quite put the whole “girls who kiss girls get expelled” thing, however. At the small liberal arts college I attended, you couldn’t throw a shoe without hitting a gay or lesbian couple.
It may not be the ‘kissing girls’ thing that’s forcing her out of college. Then again, it’s a Christian college, maybe it has rules about ‘indecency’. Or, it could be that her parents found out, and cut off her funding. It could be that her grades simply didn’t cut the mustard, or maybe she hasn’t been attending classes. Don’t jump to conclusions. We’ll learn more.
Gs are easy enough with your mouth full. But unless she’s got untapped potential as a ventriloquist, she should avoid phrasing it as “I don’t dig delectable damsels”. She just can’t handle that many Ds.
Catastrophic indeed. From Joyce’s point of view, this is another unconsented sexual advance. Everyone’s exulting over this one-sided “ship,” but it just makes me sad. Throw in the fact that she’s losing a friend in the process and it’s a double burden for her.
It’s possible she won’t lose her friend–IF this pushes her to actually talk about what happened at the party, which will let Becky realize just how badly she’s overstepped here, and put her back to, “Support my good friend Joyce” and away from, “Ooh, now we can do that ‘scissors’ thing I keep hearing rumors about.”
I agree with Reflex and everyone who responded to this post above me. I feel terrible for Joyce right now.
I don’t completely blame Becky. She went through the same upbringing Joyce did and it’s obvious something happened back at Anderson. This is still a bad decision. She knows Joyce has a boyfriend.
I mean, it’ll probably work out in the end, as friends or girlfriends (probably friends). Who knows, maybe not giving Joyce time to think about it will end up provoking a better reaction than giving herself time to psych herself out. But that doesn’t make it right to randomly kiss people you aren’t involved with, without their consent.
To clarify: I say “She knows Joyce has a boyfriend” to add to the “catastrophic misreading” idea. As in, some of Joyce’s actions may be evidence of her being not-heterosexual, but Becky should still know better because Joyce has told her about Ethan. So Becky is not justified in thinking Joyce may have given up on guys, if that is what she is thinking.
Regardless of Joyce’s sexuality or relationship status it’s still not okay to kiss her without permission.
If I recall correctly- which I may not- ALL Joyce has told Becky is that they held hands in church, but when Becky turned up she didn’t want to introduce her to ANY guys. I would guess that that is all Becky knows. Given Joyce’s 180 attitude, it’s not unreasonable to think that one brief hand holding is all that happened- and that does not a boyfriend make.
That is what I recall too…
Just checked the Becky tag, yep, last time Joyce talked to her was indeed the church hand holding case. After that, she tried to call her, but never got through.
Ohhh… yes, of course. That was probably the catalyst for Becky pulling her now-or-never stunt – believing that Joyce had found or was about to find a boyfriend. I can imagine that bringing her to a crisis point and deciding she had “one last chance” at what she wanted.
Not a good decision, nor a smart or unselfish one, and we don’t yet know how many bridges she burned behind on on the way out, but certainly understandable, especially in the general context of the strip. And it makes more sense than “hey, I got bored after a few weeks and thought I’d come make a pass at the girl I’ve secretly loved for years”.
I’m expecting more of a horrified Joyce face and then a hasty retreat. Or Joyce looks at her all sexy and goes, “Oh Becky… I didn’t know you cared…” and then surprise premarital slipshine
And the sky split and the mountains trembled and the moon shook in its orbit, with the vibrations as a million million souls across a million million universes at once cried “CALLED IT.”
I was going to say that I don’t think set theory applies here, but now I’m not as certain. In fact, sets of possible lesbian ships might define a topology. At least, if they are open relationships. Which, incidentally, would make them open sets.
Do we actually have that many lesbians? There’s Leslie, of course. Carla’s homoromantic. Pretty much all the rest of the girls are either straight or bi. (Or pan, I guess.)
We don’t have enough information about them to tell in this universe, but in the Walkyverse they (and the rest of Squad 48 – Marcie and Sierra, and Guns, who hasn’t shown up in DoA) were apparently bi.
You’re all forgetting the ‘bi’ option. Both Billie and Ruth have had boyfriends, and Billie at least seems to like boys, so I’m filing her as bi. Becky is probably straight les, but she’s so focused on Joyce right now, I could be misreading her. Joyce can’t be classified as anything right now – she’s a traumatized fundie virgin, if anything – but she seems attracted to guys, if her past guilty fantasies mean anything. And honestly, at their ages, all of this could easily change, depending on experiences. So, stop slotting them, and just let things roll out as Willis has planned. It’s sure to be a fun ride.
For anyone curious I used the Wayback Machine to get the old cast page that had Becky on it, this is what it said:
“Becky is Joyce’s best friend and accomplice from back home. Of the pair, she’s the more irreverently tempered, and Joyce sort of lives vicariously through her. Becky loves Joyce more than like anything in the whole world, so she’s a little broken up that she has to go to school somewhere else.”
Yeah, but this is a lot. Her whole world is turning upside down. I mean, when your one best friend turns lesbian on you, who do you talk to about it? Your other best friend, the atheist? Your other other best friend, the alcoholic (WHOOPS! bisexual-in-a-same-sex-relationship-who-knew??!!) friend??
…to be honest, I’m hoping she is so confused and off-balance that she inadvisably goes with it, but then, I am totally biased towards the sexuality-questioning dramas.
Hm, I agree that Becky’s behaviour is extremely uncool, so I can definitely understand not wanting to see it rewarded. I wasn’t considering that it could be seen as a reward, I’m just hoping for maximum turbulence, because I like fictional chaos.
If they were real people, then I guess I would hope that they’d stop, have a heart to heart, and make mutually responsible/supportive decisions. Then Joyce goes to PFLAG, and eventually she brings Becky’s parents along too, and everyone is nice to Becky. Then Joyceline sees that Joyce is an ally, which empowers her to come out of the trans-closet, and, and, and…
Indeed, that is pretty much my thinking here. With all of the new and crazy stuff going on here, in her mind’s eye Becky was probably the one constant she felt she could count on. Her anchor to keep her world view secure.
Now, all bets are off. Anything could happen! Her brother could suddenly become her sister! I know, crazy, right? Cats and dogs, living together. Mass hysteria!
Hover text may be misleading. Becky is a lesbian. But she may have her signals totally misread here.
On the other hand, Joyce sure couldn’t get any safer from male relationships, if she has any sort of feelings to give back to Becky that would be at least honest.
If not and just uses Becky like she’s using Ethan, that would not be right.
The only reason I’m not seconding this is that Becky’s reasons for not expressing her feelings directly were likely less, “I fear rejection,” and more, “I don’t want my best friend to think I’m going to Hell and trying to drag her down with me.”
How she copes if Joyce starts freaking is going to be a key element in assessing Becky going forward.
I’m inclined to think this is more of a flaw in the XKCD analysis than anything else, in that it fails to recognize that this pattern of actions could be caused by genuine insecurity instead of cynical manipulation.
Except the XKCD comic was not an analysis of the scenario in today’s DoA, or of any scenario except the specific one presented in the XKCD comic itself. It doesn’t “fail to recognize” something just because it’s not about that something.
Relax, cause we are bound to rotate to another relationship tomorrow. We have at least four going on now, and Willis wouldn’t miss an opportunity to make us wait in suspense a week, or so while we look in on them.
What kinda makes it worse is that Becky is one of only two people in the entirety of DoA who has found Joyce attractive, and the other one was Joe. Ethan can’t be attracted to her, since he’s gay, Walky irritates the crap out of her and she irritates him too, Mike is… Well, Mike, Danny barely knows her since the one time they’ve talked so far that I can think of has been Joyce warning him of Sal’s sleeping attire, and Jacob only knows her as Ethan’s girlfriend/the girl Sarah told funny stories about. Even the gay/bi women in DoA don’t find her attractive (That we know of, but still). Kinda sad when you realize the only two people who have been attracted to Joyce are her old best female friend, the realization of which will probably destroy her, and Joe
I don’t know about that — I find many women attractive, but if they present as straight fundamentalist Christians then I will definitely not hit on them.
Sarah also thought Joyce was objectively pretty in her yellow dress, in a protective manner (she thought Joe was gonna eat her alive.)
They’ve had consistent interaction and moments since their disaster date, and Willis was always talking about what a great dynamic they had in Bring Back Roomies.
Joe and Joyce are great together. I think Joe may be the only guy in DoA I could ship Joyce with. But that’s an endgame scenario… they’ve both got a looooooooonnnnng way to go before they’re ready for that.
There is a definite deficiency of guys to ship Joyce with in this comic, now that you mention it. I suppose Walky or Jacob would be okay in another universe.
Calling it now: Joyce goes along with it because she’s horny and confused and wants to climb into boobs and be safe and warm forever, even though she’s not really attracted to Becky.
I never understood when people just…lean in for a kiss on someone. Like is that a thing that people do? I can’t imagine it going well very often in the real world.
I’m married to a wonderful woman who did just that. I was too full of my own ‘not going to take advantage of woman who just moved away from home’ to kiss her, so…yeah.
I have no idea how often that kind of thing turns out well in the real world, but I do see why this is something that turns up in fiction a lot.
I remember a moment where I was working as a lab assistant, and helping a really attractive freshman, both of us male, never having met before, and I felt the urge to lean in just those final few inches further and plant a kiss on his lips.
I think I made the right call not doing that, but it is a moment that I’ve relived in my mind, with happy intimacy occurring and everything, plenty of times since.
This is the kind of inspiration for sexy fiction. 🙂
I leaned in for a kiss once, but only because the sexual tension was crazy intense. But leaning in for a kiss when there isn’t any signals? Not brave enough.
I did that. We’d been seeing each other (without either of us calling it dating) for some weeks and I felt pretty sure that we were both interested in each other. He had come over for dinner, we had been sitting on my couch talking for at least an hour or two, it was getting pretty late. I had been moving closer and closer until in the end I had my hand on his leg, and when he *still* didn’t make a move, I leaned in to kiss him.
He immediately pulled back, so I immediately leaned out again. He explained he had never kissed someone before, I said well, would you like to try? He said that yes he did, but if it didn’t go very well, I’d know why. And then we did kiss.
Four months and counting 🙂 But yeah, you want to make fairly sure the other person is into you before you try that.
Wow, that was so obviously going to happen that I thought Willis would throw us a curveball and not make it happen. But it happened! BLESS YOU, WILLIS!
BECKY NOOOOOOOO!
(I mean, not bi/lesbian part. You keep doing that. I mean more specifically.)
(Man, this kind of thing is what got you kicked out of Anderson, isn’t it? Geez Becky, learn some pattern recognition.)
Don’t know if anyone else has said it yet, but perhaps this is leading into the big thing Joyce does at the end of the year that Willis was talking about?
The big thing that apparently decides which Joyce, the Walking or Dumb, that Willis prefers?
There are only half enough to go around, so you’ll have to share. Pick a partner, and squeeze in. Oh, and you will have take off your clothes, first, obviously.
Okay, so prediction: as much as I love this pairing right now and holy shit I really do. Joyce probably wont react well. While their friendship will stay it will be awkward for them for a while. However respect for her best friend along with already place doubts will cause her to break up with Ethan.
I dearly hope we don’t have anything negative come out of this.
I mean, I’m looking forward to the panicked sexual orientation questioning because that’s always really fun, but having a sad Joyce at the end ruins that.
Well, I am sure she will be upset, but I am not sure it will be that bad. Granted this is directed at her, from her friend, but she has gotten a lot calmer about things like homosexuality in general.
I mean, she pretty much took the revelation that Billie had had pre-marital hanky-panky with a girl in stride…
Oh, that’s true! Joyce sure has grown a lot — remember when learning her new friend was an atheist made her gasp so hard she got the hiccups? But she had no big reaction to Billie/Alice, even when it was spelled out right in front of her, and was properly kind to Billie in the aftermath.
This bar’s a great deal higher, though. How will she deal??
Coke will work, but aspartame lowers the surface tension and make it more dramatic than the sugar version. The sugar version is also much messier to clean up…
I love both DoA and GC, but in such totally different ways that I don’t think I could rank them.
GC’s art progression is kind of unusual, in that there’s a major shift, but it doesn’t start out crappy and get better as the artist practices like most webcomics do. It’s competently drawn from the start, but it starts out stylistically weird, and gets less so as time goes on. I’m not sure whether that was a deliberate effect, or just natural evolution.
I know a dude who was having anal sex with a man, stopped suddenly and said “oh noo!” And his concerned partner was like “What? What??” and he says “our balls touched! That makes it gay!!” D:
Now watch as Joyce goes off her nut, stops being friends with Becky and calls her a sinner. Or calls her a sinner, has a big rant then tries to change her to being straight.
So your saying setting up a known gay person and either a bi or lesbian person together is not trying to make them straight? She should just work at helping them be happy, not trying to change them to suit her beliefs.
Slipping & squeaking as we speak….
Nah, I reckon Becky is just screwing around because she may not know who she likes, & by running away from her college (which is obvious) she plans to drag whoever’s emotionally invested down with her trainwreck. Joyce is the prime target for such a thing. There’s almost every other kind of stapled characterisation & subplot covered, anyway.
For me it’s kind of disappointing. I WAS expecting Becky to have a Thing for Joyce – most conservative-raised people I know got over their homophobia because a friend turned out to be gay (if not themselves), and Becky being gay seemed like the most obvious, realistic way for Willis to make Joyce have to start confronting and dismantling her own homophobic tendencies.
I was just hoping that Becky – being Joyce’s best friend and, up until now, having seemed really cool and savvy – would have revealed this in a more sensitive, non-forceful way.
Well I don’t think going to a Christian school necessarily taught Becky good ways to handle her feelings.
I don’t know. I almost prefer that characters screw up sometimes. Yes it would be tremendously positive if she had a mature and respectful way to come out to Joyce, but that’s an ideal situation. Those don’t survive contact with reality.
I think that excusing such behavior instead of calling it what it is and letting the chips fall where they may from there is a really sketchy way of interpreting it. OF COURSE young people are gonna do bad and wrong stuff, but I think it’s incredibly patronizing and also gross to just shrug it off with an “EH, KIDS, AMIRITE?”
There’s so much “OMG YAASSS!! BECKY/JOYCE YAAASSSS!!!” going on here that I do think that it needed to be said that what Becky is doing is Actually Not Okay and not cute at all. It’s sad and wrong. My hope is that the writing will reflect that, and that both Joyce AND Becky learn important lessons in respecting each other.
Honestly though the “surprise kiss” is a pretty dick move, especially for someone you know probably won’t appreciate it! Also, as flimsy as Joyce and Ethan’s relationship is, Becky knows Joyce is IN a relationship…. :[
After rereading since Becky returned there have been many conversations that could be misinterpreted by Becky. Sometimes we see what we want to see. While it makes sense why Becky would go for it, I think the surprise kiss is totally out of line. It’s likely going to devastate Joyce considering in one of the first return strips Sarah mentions that Becky is the reason Joyce grew up somewhat normal.
“mammals are weird” to me make it seem even more likely she could be asexual. Or could just be a late bloomer, or demisexual… but yeah, I wouldn’t put her firmly in the “straight” camp at this point at all.
And Roz clearly likes guys, but she could be bi or pan. Granted her comment to her sister seems to dismiss that somewhat, but it was her sister after all. I don’t know why she would be totally honest with her. I’d say she is likely straight, but not certainly.
I can’t imagine that Roz would be closeted about anything. She’s been all over Joe and Jacob without propositioning any women. She does look great in a vest, though.
“hasn’t shown any kind of romantic or sexual interest in anyone” hardly means anything. People who’ve known me for years might be forgiven for thinking I’m asexual, but I know I’m attracted to women – I just don’t express it.
I mean, more than half so far seem straight. Hmmm…now that you mention it, we could do better. Somebody lock Dorothy and Amazi-girl in a room for a few hours, we need to test this.
Well, I’m not sure if we’ve proven any of them aren’t attracted to other females. (also, do random background characters count? Are we the MLP fandom all of a sudden?)
Also, yes, we need more Dina. We need a Dina story arc.
Dina is a carefully managed resource. If Willis needs more page views than girls smooching can bring in, he will combine Dina with Joyce for an extremely exothermic reaction.
Considering that the sexual orientation of characters has staid the same compared to It’s Walky!, Dina is most definitely not asexual. Definitely hetero (or perhaps bi), though.
I figure Dina as a late bloomer who mostly finds romance confusing. Plus, Walkyverse-Dina was into maturity, which hasn’t exactly been present in this environment.
yeah, yeah. But her reactions to Sal (least, just hair brushing and cool factor), Billie (stay safe and warm forever), and Dorothy (most, stuck to her like glue) open up at least a small possibility that she isn’t 100% straight. Maybe she is, and those were just innocent reactions. Just dunno yet.
Hmm thinking on what your saying, what if she is into girls, but her strong beliefs are keeping her from being herself/happy with who she is? Given how she acts about Ethan being gay, its fair to say she is one of those “If you aren’t breeding, your sinning” kinds when it comes to peoples sexuality, even if her own is buried deep in the closet.
Of the 9 girls on the cast page, only 3 are known to be not straight (Billie and Ruth are bi, Carla is [I think] homoromantic asexual).
Sarah, Amber, Dorothy, Sal and Joyce are all known to show attraction to guys, and haven’t shown any signs of actual attraction to non-dudes (outside of people joking about Joyce’s infatuation with Dorothy). Dina is kind of a wildcard, but she probably likes guys, too (based on the Walkyverse, and maybe her love of Walky’s dino drawing?)
I think there are fewer secondary straight girls, but even then there’s at least Mary (more than likely).
Though this could go good places. Joyce is losing her idea that her old life was really any different and if she gains a more in depth view of homosexuality she may become less willing to be Ethan’s beard.
Sooooo, time for Joyce’s sexuality crisis! Especially with the whole keeping Becky and Dorothy separated part (and given Walky’s comments I’m betting that gave Becky some hope) and delicious, delicious angst.
This storyline is going so much better than we expected from its title. Which is to say, there will be sobbing within twenty four hours.
No, at the end of the storyline she’ll leave, be absent for four more years, and then show up to reveal to Joyce that she’s masterminded all of the shenanigans at Indiana University the whole time.
As much as I wanted them to kiss, I’m kinda worried that since it was non-consensual it might freak Joyce out. On top the whole “lesbian” thing, I mean.
I actually bet Becky’s messing around. Panel three is total jokey best friend stuff, which just makes panel four total jokey but really cool best friend stuff.
Man, if my best childhood friend romantically kissed me and then said she was just kidding around, I would feel so confused and disrespected and mad. That is not cool best friend behaviour!
I want them to be canon so badly. The thing is at Joyce’s current state they couldnt become a couple until much much later. And I am willing to wait for that time to come into fruition.
Her strong beliefs are what make her worse, purely because she seems unwilling/unable to have an open mind and accept other peoples free will choices. That in effect is why she is unprepared for any relationship.
Except that she does have an open mind and accept other people’s choices. Her best friend is an atheist. She’s only dated jewish guys and her thing with Ethan is more about how she feels safe around him than any genuine desire to change who he really is.
She doesn’t actually accept Dorothy as an Atheist, otherwise she wouldn’t have really tried hiding her. She has stated that she’d “help” Ethan be into girls, a very clear point of saying she’ll change who he really is. And I predict that after this incident, she’ll either drop Becky as a friend, or try to change her into being only into guys, if Becky is Bi, or changing her to be into guys if she is gay.
Is it bad that I’m kind of disappointed that everyone called it so quickly?
I mean Becky has been build up as an awesome character by the author from the second we have seen her (see the Poll) and now is in Lesbians with the Main character. I don’t know, it all sort of seems so… ehn.
I guess I preferred cheering it on as a fan theory?
I tend to support couples that personally amuse me because they are so wierd. Typically if one of the couples I was cheering for happen, I double take and re-read it.
Unless it’s done really well, then I’m usually skeptical of it and wary of the work for actually pushing that angle.
Oh, I’m not saying he did it because he heard the fans pandering for it. Just Becky is walking a thin line for me between “Fun enough kind of light hearted character” to “Author favourite” (the poll feels like a demonstration of that, even if it’s mean comedicially. It’s literally “This new person I wrote; Best or BESTEST?”) and this is sort of a nudge towards the deep-end of that.
Having fans latching on to a relaxed and easy going character? Sure, fan favourites are often born by that.
But when it feels like the Author is sort of helping them along and doing what they can to make us feel like they are great (the JOYCE IS GAY FOR DOROTHY is going back a few months so pandering here isn’t infeasible) it feels awkward and forced.
So, I’m in between looking at Becky as an easy going character who’s a nice change of pace and a character Willis picked off to specifically to hit what the Fandom wants.
It all comes down to how the next few strips play; I just don’t have a strong feel yet. Something about her irks me and feels pandery though, even if I want to like her.
There is nothing good that Joyce can do here. If she doesn’t reciprocate Becky’s affection, she’s going to hurt Becky. If she does, then she’s going to have to deal with a bunch of self-hate. I don’t look forward to tomorrow’s strip.
JOYCE. JOYCE. BE A GOOD FRIEND. I KNOW THIS IS SHOCKING AND UNWANTED. AND SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE KISSED YOU. ALTHOUGH THE KISS DELIGHTS ME. BUT JOYCE. DO NOT BREAK HER HEART ENTIRELY OUT OF SHOCK.
Aw man, did not expect this! And it makes me squee with delight, but I’m so afraid of tomorrow! Its like, this is great but it is going to hurt so bad in 24 hours. I don’t see Joyce reacting well to this.
Man we didn’t get to bask in the Ruth/Billie happiness for very long did we. Sigh.
Damn. Poor Joyce. Has she even had a consensual smooch, yet? I totally get where Becky is coming from, but, damn, this might end super badly. (I hate feeling bad for Joyce.)
Yeah baby let’s fight prejudice and stereotypes and common misconceptions by putting only short haired lesbians in the comic.
Oh wait.
(We’re stirctly talking about DoA here so Robin doesn’t count)
So we have Daisy, Becky, and Leslie, with long, medium-length, and short hair. Oh, and I guess the two girls on their hall whose names and hair lengths I can’t remember.
What the hell? The important part isn’t the length of their hair, it’s how the short hair is used to signify someone who’s trying to be unfeminine in the particular. Given Becky’s behavior, that’s actually not entirely an unjustified reading of what we’ve seen so far of her (Wrong, but not unjustified, I think. She just likes puerile humor, she doesn’t engage in anything else coded masculinely except liking girls), but that’s *just* Becky.
I hadn’t even noticed that they were short haired, because they weren’t butch. Not even a little bit, really. It’s actually been nice that nobody approaches either ‘butch’ or really ‘femme’ (Maybe Daisy?)
I didn’t call it!!! I really thought it was a red herring. I’m so glad I was wrong.
I guess Becky started to freak out after Joyce told her about her dates and boyfriend. Now or never. Now, to reread all the Becky strips with the knowledge that she has been working up to this moment.
And a week of Amber, Ethan and Danny. Next time we see Joyce Becky will not be around and she will go on as usual. After about a week she will make an offhand remark that Becky went back to Andersson’s. They will not reunite for three years real world time and we will not find out what happened until then.
Well my thoughts are since Joyce wants to be loved honestly to the point of ninja stalking into Ethan’s to fill the void, she might actually let it heppen. I mean she freak for a moment and maybe even think about god, but then she will think of her bro and anything else she’s learned and has been feeling and maybe just dive right in. Could be wrong, and i know i left out other factors but yeah this is a possible path.
In one of the first few strips Becky said something like “don’t let anyone change you” I don’t think she meant her politics or religious beliefs. She knew Joyce was a fundamentally good person. Joyce has always been my favorite character. I relate to her on so many levels. She’s the kind of person I want to be someday. She’s strong and kind and loyal to her friends. I know I must be the last one to figure this out, but I think that’s what she meant when she said she didn’t want her to change.
But I have no idea what happens next and it could go horrible because of the whole ‘homosexuality is sinful’ thing and it’s one thing to help a guy who is gay try to live virtuously by being in a sorta-relationship but this is the gal Joyce basically grew up with, right? So how does she process that?
This is going to be interesting, and quality-wise it is pretty much guaranteed to be great.
I think you underestimate Joyce’s loyal, loving and forgiving nature. Sadly I don’t really see the ship working out, but I don’t see Joyce excessively pushing Becky away or anything.
CANON LESBIANS AND A REALIZATION THAT THIS CHAPTERS TITLE IS REFERENCING JESSE FROM TOY STORY 2’S FAMOUS SONG THAT SOUNDS LIKE ITS ABOUT GAY GIRLS. A BIG WIN XD
YESSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssssssss. Oh man. I know they’re gonna fall out from this and it’s going to break Becky’s heart but YES. You GO BECKY. AGGH. I’m squeeing and grinning all over the place and oh my goodnessss yesssss
Even though this is happening and I see it a part of me is wondering if Becky is just messing with her. It’s ridiculous to think- but I have trust issues.
Probably not though.
In any case sadly a ship which will never work out, given Joyce. Still- that never stopped me shipping her with Dorothy.
That would be kind of something I know people would do harmlessly and it would be interesting in comic. Interesting, but in universe not good, because I think that would be even more confusing for Joyce than her friend actually liking girls.
So it wasn’t a fakeout. Ugh I’m worried for Joyce’s reactions in the next comics. Also, a surprise kiss might not be the best transition from accidentally bringing up Joyce’s date rape, not that Becky knows that. I dunno whether I’m expecting confusion from Joyce, or anger, or terror (see above). I mean, I know it’ll be a combination, but what the main thing is.
I mean, insofar as it’s better when you’re kissing someone who’s totally not into your sex after swearing to convert him.
They do get the faces-melting-into-each-other thing going there, which she’s got a little bit with Becky today, and had none of the first time she kissed Ethan.
Gotta disagree with you there. The chapter title, “When somebody loved me” is speaking past tense. Someone loved this person, once in the past, with the implication that they don’t love them any longer. Or possibly that no one loves them any more, or that they feel no one does.
Regardless, I feel like Dorothy and Walky’s confession was a red herring. They have already patched things up super easily. Dorothy forgave him and that was that. Walky has not, it turns out lost his love. He’s not gonna be sad about having lost the love of someone he cares deeply about. Becky on the other hand……
This Becky/Joyce situation……… There’s no way it can end well. Everything we know about Joyce, about her thoughts on homosexuality, to her near rape ptsd that Becky doesn’t know about, tells us that this is gonna shake things up for them, and probably not well, at least in the short term.
Plus, one listen to that song and i cant unhear it being a song about Becky’s feelings for Joyce. That song from Toy Story 2 has always been known as one where, if you listen to it out of context, it sounds like a song about a gay women’s feelings for another lady. Which I’m sure was intended when Willis picked that chapter title, since the chapter title is directly quoting a line from that song.
SO, TLDR: Walky/Dorothy already got resolved angst free, so i think they were a red herring and this Becky/Joyce drama is what the title was referring to since it perfectly fits that song.
While I knew this was coming, I really don’t approve of the way Becky handled it. Just screams sexual assault to me. Had an ex male friend do this to me a few years back, just kiss me out of nowhere. When I said I didn’t see him that way, he got a little… unhappy with me to say the least.
Maybe I’m just overreacting based on past experiences, but if I ever had a second person do this to me again, I would call the police with zero hesitation.
P.S. Every person who knows me IRL knows what happened, and what I would do if it happened again, so I’m not too horribly worried, but still, just the way I feel.
No, I agree. It’s totally uncool. It’s one of those things we learn from fiction that is good for drama but simply doesn’t translate well into reality.
I don’t think you’re overreacting at all, Becky is WAY off on this. Part of me wants to feel sorry for Becky because she’s likely about to experience something I’ve always worried about, losing a friend because of a sexual/romantic interest in them (like her, I’m a lesbian with the nasty habit of falling for friends; at least I’ve always known to talk things out first and see how they react), but her actions in this strip are making it hard for me to sympathize at all. Sure, losing her friend/crush will hurt, but she has nobody to blame but herself.
It all makes sense now… It all makes sense now… Willis… Willis I’m about to come out of the hospital… Please don’t put me back in with your stressful story arcs…
I’m curious to see Joyce’s reaction, will she jump back and act confused/hurt (most likely), as someone who has been in a gender reversed version of this I would understand, also if Joyce is an autobiographical character does that mean he’s been there too? (Looks at Willis). Also 10 bucks says she came out as Bi or homosexual and that’s the reason for her impromptu visit.
you know, way back when, Willis told us there would be a slipstream featuring two people of the same gender from DOA. and that we wouldn’t expect who it was… and I totally said to myself “I dunno, Becky and Joyce?” When I saw Ethan and Danny getting a thing I figured it was gonna be them… but now… I think I know which pair he meant…
How “way back when” was the Willis comment mudakthemultiplier is referencing? Because I think Ruth and Billie has been expected for quite a while, at this point. But if it was a very old Willis comment, I suppose it could have been them…
So does Joyce’s playlist match Becky’s yet??
*everyone in the WORLD links to the same video*
No, most people would link to he far superior
Jill Sobule version.
The far superior version.
I heard Jill Sobule’s version long before Katy Perry released hers, and when I heard the inferior one I was highly disappointed. Jill really made an excellent song there.
Agreed.
And the Jill Sobule video was shown once during the commercial break for an episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers — on network TV, in the 90s. I had already seen it elsewhere, but my mind was a little blown that they showed it on a mainstream channel in the middle of the afternoon, during a show aimed at minors. 🙂
I hate to be that guy but I Prefer Katy Perry’s
First thing that came to my mind was the cover by Travis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqAysAhc_to
Me, I kinda failed at HTML
The other far superior version. It is Katy Perry’s song… with just a few words changed… and one other change that changes everything. It’s almost worth the original existing, so that this could be done to it.
I feel that this song may be a touch more fitting.
ThatTimeAgain, Ooh! Good choice! I wish people would sing this song at me instead of 867-5309 or Forrest Gump quotes. 🙂
i think you win the best choice of song for this situation
Jill Sobule’s is good, and certainly much better musically than Katy Perry’s garbage, but IMHO this is the best version ever:
http://youtu.be/AL5low-TqV8
Tualha, ha! That was great! 😀
Chris Phoenix, that version was AMAZING. Thanks so much for sharing.
That is quite good. This cover had a similar idea, sort of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVzlYTVhOPA
Yes, I would never link to she far inferior.
I legit thought that was going to be Ani Difranco’s “In or Out”.
So I see what you did there with your icon, Jen. Is it going to need to change again now?
I’m not Plasma Mongoose
(anyway the next Willis Kickstarter isn’t gonna be for months yet, and finished commissions run even later than that, and why change anyway when someone else is just gonna take Panel 4 first)
“Everyone in the world” should stop encouraging Katy Perry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsbYx6hevoQ
You really did it. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELLLLL!
This can only end badly.
CUE THE MUSIC!
Four years, Becky. Four god-damned years. Was it worth the wait?
Has it even been that long?
In the real world it has.
right. 4 weeks and change I believe in universe.
Then again, how long have they known each other before college? Surely at least four years.
I think a lot longer than that even
How many years is that in DoA years?
A week to a year is about a 1:50 conversion factor. So if they’ve known each other for about 10 years in-comic, that’d correspond to meeting in about 1500 AD.
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and Becky met Joyce
So what you’re saying is, Columbus shipped them long before we ever got around to it.
Kelly and jpic, I award you each one full Internet for your awesome comment series.
Jpic, you’ve won the Internet’s, what’re you going to do now?
I’m pretty sure it’s been…four weeks? I don’t know if the days are being tracked exactly, but I think the parent week was about the third week in, so…yeah, not very long.
SHES IN LESBIANS WITH HER!!!!
AND THE FANDOM EFFIN’-WELL REJOICED
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!
FLASH!
SAVIOR OF THE DUMBIVERSE!
SHE’LL SAVE EVERYONE OF US!
Send out War Vessal Ajax to bring back her body.
Becky’s alive?!
Thank you… Thank you for that.
Not if she doesn’t watch out for trucks!
Not enough ALLCAPS and exclamation points.
LOOOOOOOOUD NOIIIISES!!!
SHE’S A KILLER
QUEEEEEEEEEN
GUNPOWDER AND GELATINE
STAND FOR EVERY ONE OF US!
Becky, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!
Well, that answers that.
I really really can’t say I saw that coming. I was on the Becky/Walky ship train and closed myself off to any other possibilities.
HOW FOOLISH AND NAIVE.
I was on the Becky/Joyce train, so I’d say I saw it coming.
But I didn’t see THIS coming
comment about the “naked lady in a Clam” was Checkovs … naked lady in a clam ..
I had assumed the important part was “getting spit on by fish” and it meant Becky had an archerfish fetish.
*obligatory squirting reference*
I thought it was more polite to swallow rather than spit
Chekov’s lips: Becky’s lips were in the very first DoA, and now they’ve been used.
Mary delenda est
I don’t know if Mary has plans to destroy all lesbian relationships, but if so, Mary would probably be down for the count in seconds in a giant lesbian pileup.
Billie could drop her single-handed. She’s done it before.
My money was literally on Becky batting for the other team.
Literally? You mean you printed out the page and piled some coins on her?
So, is this a home run? With RBI’s?
It remains to be seen if she’s even safe at first.
There’s still a chance she’s not a lesbian, but a totally hetero man in a woman’s body.
It might be too much of a coincidence if Joyce’s brother and best friend are both trans though.
…Sister.
And no it wouldn’t be.
There is, yeah.
heh.
The entire population of the internet: “Calllled iiiiiittt”
Pretty much!
I have a friend who didn’t call it. I’m not sure how.
Well, there was a school of thought that said it was a bit too obvious, and thought Willis might have been misdirecting us for the old switcheroo, like what happened with Joceline.
since he’d already done that once he decided to fool us even more bu going with the obvious option
To be fair, the inference that Jocelyne was attracted to guys (including Ethan) was correct. It’s just that the way we (and Ethan) interpreted it failed to take into account another factor.
So the precedent doesn’t give anything to suggest that the whole deal with Becky being suggested to like girls and particularly Joyce would fail to pan out; it just meant that Becky might not identify as a girl/lesbian. Which in fact still hasn’t changed.
Jocelyne might not be attracted to guys still. There are people who define bisexual as attracted to two genders, not necessarily women and men. So Jocelyne could be attracted to women and agender people for example, and she still wouldn’t be “gay,” as she said.
While possible, that is pretty incredibly unlikely.
Unlikely in real life or in the story? because a. it’s really not and b. when a story has this many gay people, there is always hope.
That just goes to show the Willis genius. He knew we were expecting the switcheroo, so he 180’d the switcheroo, and made it a 360.
Even those who had never read/even heard of Dumbing of Age.
And that is the master stroke of Willis’s scheme to expand his readership a hundredfold.
I didn’t call it. I admit that I was wrong.
Wrong but happy to be wrong. 🙂
Yeah, I completely missed it, too. Not sure if it’s because Becky is always seen and spoken of through Joyce’s lens, or just the length of time since we’ve seen the character, but today was a “WHAT” moment.
This is why I’m single. Total obliviousness to what is apparently super-obvious.
That and probably other reasons.
I approve of this ship. The catering is excellent.
I like “Finally” better. Ruth runs a tight ship.
LOLOLOLOL
Right now she’s running a wide bottom girl.
Wow, is this whole comment thread gonna keep calling Queen songs?
We can hope!
Don’t Stop Me Now!
Do you use that thing in you avatar pic for a Bicycle Race?
not legal for bicycle racing, it’s strictly built for comfort.
I got to really them in action during STP (not a race, of course). They *fly*! And make it look easy!
The Fat bottomed girls, they’ll be riding today. So watch out for those beauties, oh yeah.
We’re just having a good time.
Becky obviously wants to tell Joyce that she’s her best friend.
Well, that was unexpected.
Was it though? Was it really?
What’s really unexpected is that it took this long.
No kidding, right?
What was really unexpected is that she’s being as forward as she is. I was expecting this result, but was expecting it to take a bit longer to get to this direct a stage.
Which begs the question, “Why now? Becky’s probably had feelings for Joyce for a while now. Throwing all her cards on the table like this could alienate Joyce forever. Why make this hail-Mary move at this point in her life?” There’s some pressure in her life, that’s pushing her to make this move now. I’m very curious as to what that pressure is.
Becky practically states her reasoning in the previous comic. At least, part of it. She’s noticed that Joyce isn’t all boy crazy anymore. She doesn’t know it’s because of the incident at the party, but she’s thinking that college has started to open up her mind to different possibilities. That, and there’s no chance of being caught by their super religious families here. In the last comic, she did also seem a bit down about SOMETHING at Anderson, but that something could very well be that she’s been separated from Joyce for so long.
This. Becky’s been fishing for clues throughout her entire visit over whether it’s okay to come out to Joyce. The kiss feels like something she’s been working up to. There’s been a lot of inadvertent subtext in their prior conversations, some of which Becky could have taken as code for “I’m gay, but not comfortable talking about it”.
My guess is that Becky now thinks Joyce has a thing for Dorothy (from Walky’s insinuations and Joyce blatantly avoiding Dorothy) and is crushed that Dorothy chose Walky over her.
There’s a lot more “evidence” for Becky to pull from: Joyce clearly considers Billie a close friend despite her sexuality, and really small actions on Joyce’s part like being willing to share her ice cream. Hell, this scene alone has been peppered with homoerotic and vulvic metaphors, from the obvious “naked chick in a clam being spit on by fish” to Joyce saying she “sometimes talks about tacos”.
…or maybe my mind is just always in the gutter, and I’m glad that the plot at least corroborates the evidence I percieve? 😛
Becky might not have realized she’s gay until the last four weeks. (Hell, even Joyce might not even be 100% hetero, and this discovery terrified herself.)
Anderson’s a Christian college, and well… even Joyce thinks that any orientation other than hetero would be a thing that should be “cured.”
Becky doesn’t know about Joyce’s stance on gay people! Becky might believe Joyce is the ONE person who will accept her for who she is. (Maybe Joyce WILL accept her for who she is. Her time with Ethan taught her that “gay people” are still “people.”) This could go any number of ways.
I just know that if it weren’t for weekend-update Kickstarter rewards, this page would’ve been carefully scheduled to land on a Friday just to drive us completely insane waiting for Monday.
Gonna guess that if they were both homeschooled and went to church together, that Becky knows exactly how Joyce feels about same-sex lovin’. She’s probably banking on lesbianism being a blind spot in the fundamentalist no-fly zone.
Which, to be fair, it often is.
Willis was careful enough to establish Joyce’s stand within the storyline tho
Ah! Missed that. I stand corrected!
No, it doesn’t “beg the question.”
I, for one, thought Becky was a lesbian, but that she had a girlfriend back at her school.
You realize that Becky either dropped out of her Christian college or got kicked out, right? I mean she might have HAD a girl friend there, but there’s a reason she’s here with Joyce when she should be in her classes.
These kids go to classes?
Yeah, I figured she had. I hadn’t quite put the whole “girls who kiss girls get expelled” thing, however. At the small liberal arts college I attended, you couldn’t throw a shoe without hitting a gay or lesbian couple.
It may not be the ‘kissing girls’ thing that’s forcing her out of college. Then again, it’s a Christian college, maybe it has rules about ‘indecency’. Or, it could be that her parents found out, and cut off her funding. It could be that her grades simply didn’t cut the mustard, or maybe she hasn’t been attending classes. Don’t jump to conclusions. We’ll learn more.
And if you did you’d immediately be kicked out for hate crimes!
Your avatar makes that all the more ironic. Shoe-thrower.
It was so expected that people thought it couldn’t be true so it wrapped back around to unexpected!
^ This.
love the apropo gravitar 😉
Well I guess y’all called it! It seemed to obvious to me but I guess y’all were right.
Same here. This was so obvious, well-foreshadowed, with so much anvilicious subtext, that I am actually surprised it’s happening.
Let the anvils ring!
When I first read that, I thought you said “Let the Avrils sing!” and thought you were making a Girlfriend reference.
Joyce is gonna suck, like, a billion dicks now.
While muttering “I’m not gay. I’m not gay. I’m not gay” (which is difficult to do while repeatedly putting dick after dick into your mouth.)
Hey girl stop mumbling during this blowjob
Actually, go back to what you were doing, I was digging it.
the tongue rolling around adds to the experience.
Haven’t you ever heard of a “hummer”? Feels good man.
Gs are easy enough with your mouth full. But unless she’s got untapped potential as a ventriloquist, she should avoid phrasing it as “I don’t dig delectable damsels”. She just can’t handle that many Ds.
Thank you, thank you! I’m here all week!
tip your veal, try the waitress
That’s funny, because thats probably exactly what Danny does too
She has to get rid of the taste somehow. 😛
eventually she will realize she can suck girldicks and her life will be great
holy SHIT.
So, catastrophic misreading of Joyce’s post-rape-attempt PTSD.
Delightful, yes.
Yeah, in light of that, things are probably going to go…
suboptimally.
Don’t exaggerate…
Joyce *really* doesn’t need people walking all over her boundaries right now.
Catastrophic indeed. From Joyce’s point of view, this is another unconsented sexual advance. Everyone’s exulting over this one-sided “ship,” but it just makes me sad. Throw in the fact that she’s losing a friend in the process and it’s a double burden for her.
It’s possible she won’t lose her friend–IF this pushes her to actually talk about what happened at the party, which will let Becky realize just how badly she’s overstepped here, and put her back to, “Support my good friend Joyce” and away from, “Ooh, now we can do that ‘scissors’ thing I keep hearing rumors about.”
I agree with Reflex and everyone who responded to this post above me. I feel terrible for Joyce right now.
I don’t completely blame Becky. She went through the same upbringing Joyce did and it’s obvious something happened back at Anderson. This is still a bad decision. She knows Joyce has a boyfriend.
I mean, it’ll probably work out in the end, as friends or girlfriends (probably friends). Who knows, maybe not giving Joyce time to think about it will end up provoking a better reaction than giving herself time to psych herself out. But that doesn’t make it right to randomly kiss people you aren’t involved with, without their consent.
To clarify: I say “She knows Joyce has a boyfriend” to add to the “catastrophic misreading” idea. As in, some of Joyce’s actions may be evidence of her being not-heterosexual, but Becky should still know better because Joyce has told her about Ethan. So Becky is not justified in thinking Joyce may have given up on guys, if that is what she is thinking.
Regardless of Joyce’s sexuality or relationship status it’s still not okay to kiss her without permission.
If I recall correctly- which I may not- ALL Joyce has told Becky is that they held hands in church, but when Becky turned up she didn’t want to introduce her to ANY guys. I would guess that that is all Becky knows. Given Joyce’s 180 attitude, it’s not unreasonable to think that one brief hand holding is all that happened- and that does not a boyfriend make.
That is what I recall too…
Just checked the Becky tag, yep, last time Joyce talked to her was indeed the church hand holding case. After that, she tried to call her, but never got through.
Ohhh… yes, of course. That was probably the catalyst for Becky pulling her now-or-never stunt – believing that Joyce had found or was about to find a boyfriend. I can imagine that bringing her to a crisis point and deciding she had “one last chance” at what she wanted.
Not a good decision, nor a smart or unselfish one, and we don’t yet know how many bridges she burned behind on on the way out, but certainly understandable, especially in the general context of the strip. And it makes more sense than “hey, I got bored after a few weeks and thought I’d come make a pass at the girl I’ve secretly loved for years”.
DANGIT I LOOKED AT THE LAST PANEL FIRST
This is why I can’t read manga anymore. For days afterward, I keep reading everything else from right to left, starting from the last page!
It ruins mystery novels!
? You don’t have to start with the last page: it’s there any time you feel the need/urge 🙂
There are other panels…?? =o
This is why I zoom in to the first panel on my phone. Or shrink the browser window on a laptop.
I kind of sort of caught a glance in the corner of my eye, and then I was like
— Did she actually…
— NOOO, DON’T LOOK! DON’T CONFIRM! SAVE IT FOR LAST!
— FUCK THAT, I’M LOOKING!
— AAAAAAAH I LOOKED!
— She did actually.
DID NOT CALL IT
HOW?!
I DON’T KNOW.
But what I do know is that aT LAST I SEEEE THE LIIIIIIGHT
AND IT’S LIIIIIKE THE FOOOOG HAS LIFTED
THE WORLD HAS SOMEHOW SHIFTED
Yeah, teach us your ways of not-knowing!
There’s this dude you should meet who somehow was UNSPOILED and watched Empire Strikes Back RECENTLY.
like… HOW D=
well yeah
Furious giggling. That’s the only sound I’m gonna be able to make for the next several hours.
I’m just grinning. A bit of light squeeing.
…I’m really looking forward to Joyce’s reaction. Whatever it is, it’ll be gold.
CONFIRMED CONFIRMED CONFIRMED AAAAHH
Well now I await the slap.
(tho i ship it)
I’m expecting more of a horrified Joyce face and then a hasty retreat. Or Joyce looks at her all sexy and goes, “Oh Becky… I didn’t know you cared…” and then surprise premarital slipshine
That’s gonna be my new thing.
“Surprise premarital slipshine”.
I own it now.
Kiss kiss slap slap!
Kiss kiss fall in love?
Unfortunately Joyce is no Haruhi.
Hahahaha this made my evening
That song has been stuck in my head for days.
My favorite version.
You know, I don’t think she’s confirmed for liking girls yet.
Joyce isn’t a girl. Joyce is made out of rainbows and kitten farts.
Joyce is made of everything I dislike. Except boobs. I guess I like all of those.
I wonder what Becky sees in Joyce.
Herself, if all goes as planned
OOOOOOOOOOOH!
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2e/a5/b9/2ea5b9ce14726ff984806ee85f07e81d.jpg
lol
Joyce is more of a state of mind than a person.
Wish I could “like” this.
Not talking about this for 24 hours due to patreon has been incredibly hard.
[exhales breath] LESBIANING OF AGE!
Same.
If it’s been incredibly hard for more than four hours, you should consult your doctor.
Or at least visit your sex partner of choice, no point wasting it.
See, that’s just a good way to convince me not to get the early strips.
no you totally should…. we uhhh. we had a pretty lively freaking out session together.
Ok, but I want my helmet back.
And now I know what you mean!
I’m surprised there hasn’t been any spoilers yet (that I’ve noticed, anyway).
Silly Becky, Billie is the girl who gets all the unsolicited lesbian smooching not Joyce.
It’s a disease. Why do you think so many DOA characters are gay. It’s spreading. Walky and Sal just carry a unique gene that makes them immune!
Wild Ass Theory: IU was a test site for various forms of gayioactive assotopes.
It was a Biological Gaydiation experiment. To create the perfect gay school. But what they didn’t realize is that all the students dumb as shit.
Ass Theory?
Is that a strain of butts disease?
What makes you think Sal is immune?
Because for joke’s sake if Walky is immune Sal probably is too!
She’s been rooming with Billie for a whole four weeks and hasn’t attempted to kiss her yet.
What if Billie isn’t her type and she’s being true to Marcie?
That I can support, Marcie is pretty cool after all.
No, but Billie’s tried to kiss her – disastrously.
They are the carriers
I’m still not convinced that it’s not a delayed effect of primary school.
I’m kinda stunned right now.
I mean, so many of us guessed it, but seeing it now
We guessed her being into Joyce, but. Not handling it in quite this way.
Awww, my Walky/Becky ship takes another hit. Clearly Farters was not a ship in the cards.
Don’t scuttle it just yet.
And the sky split and the mountains trembled and the moon shook in its orbit, with the vibrations as a million million souls across a million million universes at once cried “CALLED IT.”
People seriously thought there weren’t enough lesbians?
Rule #1: You can never have too many lesbians.
You can ALWAYS have too much of a good thing.
You can never have enough lesbians. You CAN have too many lesbians. But even then, that’s not enough lesbians.
See also: Dakka.
If everyone’s lesbians then nobody’s lesbians.
I was going to say that I don’t think set theory applies here, but now I’m not as certain. In fact, sets of possible lesbian ships might define a topology. At least, if they are open relationships. Which, incidentally, would make them open sets.
I like the idea of unions and intersections of lesbians…
So you are proposing to fire lesbians at the enemy as ammo? Hmm, aren’t they low on . . . penetration.
Great splash damage though.
+1
Assuming Becky’s a lesbian, we got two, and one of them’s Daisy.
Do we actually have that many lesbians? There’s Leslie, of course. Carla’s homoromantic. Pretty much all the rest of the girls are either straight or bi. (Or pan, I guess.)
Oh, right, Daisy. So that’s three. Three lesbians. Which is now four.
Mandy or Grace?
We don’t have enough information about them to tell in this universe, but in the Walkyverse they (and the rest of Squad 48 – Marcie and Sierra, and Guns, who hasn’t shown up in DoA) were apparently bi.
Willis has said sexualities are the same as in the Walkyverse re: Ethan, and he reaffirmed that statement later with Danny, so I’d say probably yes?
You’re all forgetting the ‘bi’ option. Both Billie and Ruth have had boyfriends, and Billie at least seems to like boys, so I’m filing her as bi. Becky is probably straight les, but she’s so focused on Joyce right now, I could be misreading her. Joyce can’t be classified as anything right now – she’s a traumatized fundie virgin, if anything – but she seems attracted to guys, if her past guilty fantasies mean anything. And honestly, at their ages, all of this could easily change, depending on experiences. So, stop slotting them, and just let things roll out as Willis has planned. It’s sure to be a fun ride.
HAHAHAHAHAHA I told you!
I told you about glares!
And, yeah, I know, everyone called it. But did anyone call it earlier than October of last year?
OH WHAT THE HELL!? How did you DO that?
Oy! We got a time traveler here!
For anyone curious I used the Wayback Machine to get the old cast page that had Becky on it, this is what it said:
“Becky is Joyce’s best friend and accomplice from back home. Of the pair, she’s the more irreverently tempered, and Joyce sort of lives vicariously through her. Becky loves Joyce more than like anything in the whole world, so she’s a little broken up that she has to go to school somewhere else.”
John, I still think of her as Hurricane Becky because of your post.
Nice. Thank you, Willis.
Joyce-scream in 3…2…1
People in Siberia will hear her.
People in Siberia will hear her.
In space, you can still hear Joyce scream!
Weeeeell, if her voice goes up in the Terahertz range, you might be able to see her scream from space. [/probablyNotHowThatWorks]
flight commander to base, drama bomb is away, repeat, drama bomb is away
YAY (please don’t let this backfire too badly).
you must be new to the ways of the willis
Don’t worry, the surprise fart will be a modest one.
Actually, where is the Jeph Jaques fart version of this strip?
We’re secretly replaced Joyce’s best friend with her best friend who has the hots for her.
Let’s see if she notices the difference….
Wait, there is a-
Oh, right, there’s Joyce’s best friend she has the hots for and her best friend who has the hots for her, riiight.
I FUCKING KNEW BECKY WAS A LESBIAN!
Well to be precise we know Becky is lesbians for Joyce, not in general.
“You never cared about boys” makes me think that it’s probably general.
Well, seems everyone’s speculation was correct. Alas, I don’t see Joyce responding well to this…
This could just possibly break her.
(The only hope is that when the pieces are put back together, they form a better, stronger Joyce.)
The first rule of Joyce is that she’s always stronger than people expect.
(The second is no weird-flavoured chex mix.)
Yeah, but this is a lot. Her whole world is turning upside down. I mean, when your one best friend turns lesbian on you, who do you talk to about it? Your other best friend, the atheist? Your other other best friend, the alcoholic (WHOOPS! bisexual-in-a-same-sex-relationship-who-knew??!!) friend??
No, your other other best friend, the gay heathen reclamation project.
Oh, no question that this is a lot. Most likely response is she’ll freak the hell out and make lots of epic faces. I’m just saying she won’t *break.*
…to be honest, I’m hoping she is so confused and off-balance that she inadvisably goes with it, but then, I am totally biased towards the sexuality-questioning dramas.
I hope she won’t. I mean, she just got kissed without permission. I don’t think that’s right, as much as many of us want Becky to have what she wants.
Hm, I agree that Becky’s behaviour is extremely uncool, so I can definitely understand not wanting to see it rewarded. I wasn’t considering that it could be seen as a reward, I’m just hoping for maximum turbulence, because I like fictional chaos.
If they were real people, then I guess I would hope that they’d stop, have a heart to heart, and make mutually responsible/supportive decisions. Then Joyce goes to PFLAG, and eventually she brings Becky’s parents along too, and everyone is nice to Becky. Then Joyceline sees that Joyce is an ally, which empowers her to come out of the trans-closet, and, and, and…
oh, I just made myself sad!
Indeed, that is pretty much my thinking here. With all of the new and crazy stuff going on here, in her mind’s eye Becky was probably the one constant she felt she could count on. Her anchor to keep her world view secure.
Now, all bets are off. Anything could happen! Her brother could suddenly become her sister! I know, crazy, right? Cats and dogs, living together. Mass hysteria!
And, no Sierra Mist! Stuff’s nasty.
I don’t drink it, but their Holiday Hawk ads were great (do they still run them?)
I’m a little more worried about Becky. She put herself out there, and now Joyce is gonna reject her hard. I feel bad for her.
This is true. Based on what I feel Joyce’s reaction will be, I actually feel bad for everyone in this situation…
Yes, we can rebuild her. Better, Stronger, Faster. She will be the six million dollar Joyce.
Though tomorrow will inevitably bring heartache and feels, let us savor this moment.
(Alsocalleditbye)
Hover text may be misleading. Becky is a lesbian. But she may have her signals totally misread here.
On the other hand, Joyce sure couldn’t get any safer from male relationships, if she has any sort of feelings to give back to Becky that would be at least honest.
If not and just uses Becky like she’s using Ethan, that would not be right.
Joyce, bastian of christianity, dating two gay people at the same time.
If Joyce was a beard, you could wrestle bears with it.
She must have been educated from the Wicked Bible.
Aww, sorta let down with that. I was sorta hoping for a Bostonian fratboy “girl’s kissing is fuckin’ WICKED” kind of Bible for some reason.
Afraid to admit her attraction, pretending to be friends, waiting until Joyce was vulnerable and weak: Becky is XKCD’s Nice Guy.
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/12/05/xkcd-explains-nice-guys-in-comic-format/
The only reason I’m not seconding this is that Becky’s reasons for not expressing her feelings directly were likely less, “I fear rejection,” and more, “I don’t want my best friend to think I’m going to Hell and trying to drag her down with me.”
How she copes if Joyce starts freaking is going to be a key element in assessing Becky going forward.
I’m inclined to think this is more of a flaw in the XKCD analysis than anything else, in that it fails to recognize that this pattern of actions could be caused by genuine insecurity instead of cynical manipulation.
Except the XKCD comic was not an analysis of the scenario in today’s DoA, or of any scenario except the specific one presented in the XKCD comic itself. It doesn’t “fail to recognize” something just because it’s not about that something.
Ohhhhh noooooo
Willis has done it. He’s actually broken Mr Campbell as well.
Ohhhhh yesssss
And there goes the Kool-Aid man.
Joyce will freak the fuck out next strip.
Yeah we’re all high on lesbians right now but the aftermath could be a downer.
“When Somebody Loved Me”
maybe not: http://www.dumbingofage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/webcomicrampage2014larger1.png she doesn’t look very freaked out.
Still don’t know if that pics canon or where it fits chronologically but I’d like to hope for the best. It would at least mean they’re still friends.
Half of it is canon.
Joyce, Becky and Walky are not!
Yeah, when we got to that scene, I half expected for Joyce, Walky and Becky to show up. But NOPE.
Man I kind of don’t want to read the inevitable fallout in tomorrow’s strip.
I want it to be forever today.
Time to delete the bookmark, clear your browser history, and hit yourself in the head until you forget the name of the strip.
Me too!
Your gravatar is far too perfect for this.
On one hand you don’t want to read it on the other hand the story is just getting good.
“Just”?
*Looks across the room to the first three print books.*
Relax, cause we are bound to rotate to another relationship tomorrow. We have at least four going on now, and Willis wouldn’t miss an opportunity to make us wait in suspense a week, or so while we look in on them.
YAY I WAS RIGHT….CRAP JOYCE IS GOING TO BE DEVESTATED AND PROBABLY DEVESTATE BECKY!
That’ll totally happen
“When Somebody Loved Me”
What kinda makes it worse is that Becky is one of only two people in the entirety of DoA who has found Joyce attractive, and the other one was Joe. Ethan can’t be attracted to her, since he’s gay, Walky irritates the crap out of her and she irritates him too, Mike is… Well, Mike, Danny barely knows her since the one time they’ve talked so far that I can think of has been Joyce warning him of Sal’s sleeping attire, and Jacob only knows her as Ethan’s girlfriend/the girl Sarah told funny stories about. Even the gay/bi women in DoA don’t find her attractive (That we know of, but still). Kinda sad when you realize the only two people who have been attracted to Joyce are her old best female friend, the realization of which will probably destroy her, and Joe
I don’t know about that — I find many women attractive, but if they present as straight fundamentalist Christians then I will definitely not hit on them.
Sarah also thought Joyce was objectively pretty in her yellow dress, in a protective manner (she thought Joe was gonna eat her alive.)
Three. You forgot about pastor boy.
Joyce and Walky!
I still ship them, old school.
Joe finds *every* woman attractive under the right circumstances.
Joe/Joyce is so happening.
They’ve had consistent interaction and moments since their disaster date, and Willis was always talking about what a great dynamic they had in Bring Back Roomies.
Joe and Joyce are great together. I think Joe may be the only guy in DoA I could ship Joyce with. But that’s an endgame scenario… they’ve both got a looooooooonnnnng way to go before they’re ready for that.
There is a definite deficiency of guys to ship Joyce with in this comic, now that you mention it. I suppose Walky or Jacob would be okay in another universe.
But, yeah, agreed. Not for a loooooooong time.
I am guessing you mean, devastated in a bad way. Cause, they are in the right place to deviate each other, in the good way.
Joyce could use some recreational devastation.
…Must…. see… next… strip…
A patreon patron need only donate $5 a month in order to see the next strip a day early. Well worth the price if you ask me.
Caution: extended (or even brief) exposure to Patreon strips may cause severe heart palpatations, profuse sweating, and acute “Shipper’s Rage”.
I knew it. You knew it. We all knew it. Let’s just skip ahead to Joyce freaking out
I did not actually think Willis would do it damn, there was an easy set up but here I thought he would just tease us.
… I did not know it…. this came as a legit surprise…. But then, I’m bad at detecting that sort of thing… Retrospect – shoulda seen it.
That will be in a week or two after she regains consciousness.
Pro tip: there’s never enough lesbians. Also, I KNEW IT!!
Welp. But I think it”s for the best! I can honestly say I was not expecting a kiss! This had better not be a cliffhanger…
I’m kind of surprised that anyone’s surprised. (Or maybe they’re just surprised Becky ACTED on it?)
Anyway… this is NOT going to make for a happy Joyce in the near future. Like her life wasn’t confusing her enough…
Yes my surprise was not her being gay, but that she was so forward with Joyce!
So of course my eyes dart to that last panel and make me cry out.
I think I woke my dog up.
Fuck yeah!
Tomorrows strip isn’t going to be pretty…
realistically I don’t see any good way this can turn out.
Ideally however… 😉
Calling it now: Joyce goes along with it because she’s horny and confused and wants to climb into boobs and be safe and warm forever, even though she’s not really attracted to Becky.
In the morning there are tears.
Ooh, yeah, I had totally forgotten about that…
I knew it!
Well, you asked God to send a sign, Joyce. He did.
The sign is a freckly redhead who is into you. We should all be so lucky.
Dude seriously
I want me some freckled redheads
Well that was fast!
I was slightly nodding off when I read this strip and then BAM! Now I’m awake…I mean yeah, we all kinda guessed it but still.
And now the afore-mentioned plot bomb goes nuclear.
*slow clap*
Bravo Mister Willis, bravo.
I’d bet a whole lot of money that if weekend updates had never happened that this would have been a Friday cliffhanger.
huh. well that escalated quickly.
huh. well that escalated quickly.
Well, this is going to end in tears. Probably both of theirs.
Bet she runs out repeatedly screaming, no no no no no no no no.
Yeah, Joyce, you add them tacos to yo’ playlist. guuuuurlllll
stupid internet posting it twice.
you could say it escalated twice as quickly 😛
I think my heart exploded. I just wanted to tell you all that while I still have some life in m-
One, two, three, CLEAR! ::zap::
(defibrillating of age)
Hey, remember how Joyce is autobiographical?
Hey, yeah! I had totally forgot that! Thanks for reminding me!
This is how Joel Watson and Willis first kissed.
Seriously?!
no, that was a joke.
But Joel and Willis do appear to be at least a little married.
I never understood when people just…lean in for a kiss on someone. Like is that a thing that people do? I can’t imagine it going well very often in the real world.
Brave(?) people who feel like they have nothing to lose by doing it will do it.
also, drunks
Yeah, I’ve had a lot more success with “Did you know, I totally want to kiss you”.
I have no idea. It’d be really uncomfortable to be kissed by someone randomly, but then I’m asexual and probably aromantic, so…dunno?
I’m married to a wonderful woman who did just that. I was too full of my own ‘not going to take advantage of woman who just moved away from home’ to kiss her, so…yeah.
It happens. And it works out.
If you’ve read the signals right.
Becky…hasn’t, I’m afraid. 🙁
I have no idea how often that kind of thing turns out well in the real world, but I do see why this is something that turns up in fiction a lot.
I remember a moment where I was working as a lab assistant, and helping a really attractive freshman, both of us male, never having met before, and I felt the urge to lean in just those final few inches further and plant a kiss on his lips.
I think I made the right call not doing that, but it is a moment that I’ve relived in my mind, with happy intimacy occurring and everything, plenty of times since.
This is the kind of inspiration for sexy fiction. 🙂
In the wrong circumstances (i.e., like here), it’s an unconsented sexual advance. Not a good thing to attempt on a sexual assault survivor.
I leaned in for a kiss once, but only because the sexual tension was crazy intense. But leaning in for a kiss when there isn’t any signals? Not brave enough.
I did that. We’d been seeing each other (without either of us calling it dating) for some weeks and I felt pretty sure that we were both interested in each other. He had come over for dinner, we had been sitting on my couch talking for at least an hour or two, it was getting pretty late. I had been moving closer and closer until in the end I had my hand on his leg, and when he *still* didn’t make a move, I leaned in to kiss him.
He immediately pulled back, so I immediately leaned out again. He explained he had never kissed someone before, I said well, would you like to try? He said that yes he did, but if it didn’t go very well, I’d know why. And then we did kiss.
Four months and counting 🙂 But yeah, you want to make fairly sure the other person is into you before you try that.
Wow, that was so obviously going to happen that I thought Willis would throw us a curveball and not make it happen. But it happened! BLESS YOU, WILLIS!
I think Becky is going to play this off as a joke when Joyce doesn’t
react positively, and then brood about it in pain later 🙁
PLOT TWIST. I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING.
Well this was-who am I kidding, we all knew this was how it was gonna be revealed.
Really? I didn’t guess it. But of course, I can’t speak for everyone! I thought she was going to have a conversation about it.
BECKY NOOOOOOOO!
(I mean, not bi/lesbian part. You keep doing that. I mean more specifically.)
(Man, this kind of thing is what got you kicked out of Anderson, isn’t it? Geez Becky, learn some pattern recognition.)
*the
While I’m happy for this right now, I’m just going to preemptively say this for what will inevitably happen tomorrow or very soon:
DAMN YOU WILLIS
Amen!
Don’t know if anyone else has said it yet, but perhaps this is leading into the big thing Joyce does at the end of the year that Willis was talking about?
The big thing that apparently decides which Joyce, the Walking or Dumb, that Willis prefers?
The Walking Dumb?
any link? I don’t remember that…
The gaydiation from Billia nd Ruth is starting to affect the rest of the dorm.
Break out the protection suits! (a.k.a. the person-sized condoms)
…and suffocate to death?
There are only half enough to go around, so you’ll have to share. Pick a partner, and squeeze in. Oh, and you will have take off your clothes, first, obviously.
No, I doubt it. It’s hard to bi gaydiation.
Yeah, I don’t bi it either.
YES! Until I realise unwelcome kisses can be a form of sexual harassment and then it’s all frowns.
You see the comment section blowing up real fast what’s going on-oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
http://i.imgur.com/78bEUSk.jpg
Good choice there, especially since both “ooohhhh”s were for the same reason, including the gender of the subjects.
It’s never a good sign when it’s 5am PST and there’s already 500+ comments…
Oh god. Those Internet breadcrumbs were true?!
Yessssss. I mean. This is gonna end in heartbreak and tears. But still. Yessssssssssssss. Y’know what I mean? xD
Man. I am SO glad I’m not that age any more. So much drama and confusion.
I can’t believe I actually gasped at this.
Okay, I guess now it’s confirmed.
And tomorrow Sarah smacks Becky with her bat ‘I can’t leave her alone for five minutes without someone forcing themselves on her.’
Okay, so prediction: as much as I love this pairing right now and holy shit I really do. Joyce probably wont react well. While their friendship will stay it will be awkward for them for a while. However respect for her best friend along with already place doubts will cause her to break up with Ethan.
I dearly hope we don’t have anything negative come out of this.
I mean, I’m looking forward to the panicked sexual orientation questioning because that’s always really fun, but having a sad Joyce at the end ruins that.
Prepare for APOCALYPTIC freakout in 3…2…1….
Joyce’s first F-bomb in 3… 2… 1…
Well, I am sure she will be upset, but I am not sure it will be that bad. Granted this is directed at her, from her friend, but she has gotten a lot calmer about things like homosexuality in general.
I mean, she pretty much took the revelation that Billie had had pre-marital hanky-panky with a girl in stride…
Wait, when did she do that? I thought Joyce only knows that Billie’s in love, and she assumed that Billie loves a man.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/inevitable/
Well that explains where Willis got the censor bar for the Slipshine preview a few days ago.
But, Joyce didn’t expressly put two and two together and see that Billie and Ruth are a thing…
Well, she doesn’t *know* (about Billie’s HS GF) but she gathered it from what Walky said:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/mistakes/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/dramahurricane/
Oh, that’s true! Joyce sure has grown a lot — remember when learning her new friend was an atheist made her gasp so hard she got the hiccups? But she had no big reaction to Billie/Alice, even when it was spelled out right in front of her, and was properly kind to Billie in the aftermath.
This bar’s a great deal higher, though. How will she deal??
Someone just won a coke somewhere.
Now for the Mentos…
That only works with Diet Coke
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14114-science-of-mentosdiet-coke-explosions-explained.html
Coke will work, but aspartame lowers the surface tension and make it more dramatic than the sugar version. The sugar version is also much messier to clean up…
All we need now is for Ethan and Dotty to walk in on them at this moment.
… I did not realize I desperately want that to happen until I read your comment.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!! I… I DONT’T…. WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN FRONT OF MY EYE HOLES!?!?
Is this like in Gunnerkrigg Court, where Zimmy sees that one girl as a giant metal woman?
That’s Kat!
“that one girl” indeed, sheesh
“that one techno-goddess”?
In case you haven’t read the last pages there: do it now! Glorious heroines all over the place.
I’m unfamiliar with that series, but that’s about to change.
It can start a little rough, as webcomics do, but it is glorious! Willis is my favorite, but Tom is probably second
I love both DoA and GC, but in such totally different ways that I don’t think I could rank them.
GC’s art progression is kind of unusual, in that there’s a major shift, but it doesn’t start out crappy and get better as the artist practices like most webcomics do. It’s competently drawn from the start, but it starts out stylistically weird, and gets less so as time goes on. I’m not sure whether that was a deliberate effect, or just natural evolution.
And just like that the Becky/Walky ship sinks to the bottem of the ocean.
I told you, the project should have never been funded! It was doomed from the start!!
All hands were lost XD
no survivors of the hetero baiting. bless
I guess we’re already getting another slipshine. That was quick!
Man, don’t get my hopes up by saying that. It’s far too soon.
*Farnsworth* a man can dream, a man can dream… /Farnsworth
Don’t worry, Joyce. The balls didn’t touch, so it’s not gay.
*Scrolls back up* Yep, boobs are safely separated by an arm. Yaaay
I know a dude who was having anal sex with a man, stopped suddenly and said “oh noo!” And his concerned partner was like “What? What??” and he says “our balls touched! That makes it gay!!” D:
True story, use this on your boyfriends.
Thank you for sharing, I’m dying xD
Don’t freak out Joyce, don’t freak out Joyce… Damn it she’s going to freak out. 🙁
Or close her eyes and imagine it’s Dorothy.
But no, more likely it’ll be a Homer-esque “HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE GAY?!?”
Now watch as Joyce goes off her nut, stops being friends with Becky and calls her a sinner. Or calls her a sinner, has a big rant then tries to change her to being straight.
Or maybe she just tries to set Becky up with Ethan.
So your saying setting up a known gay person and either a bi or lesbian person together is not trying to make them straight? She should just work at helping them be happy, not trying to change them to suit her beliefs.
Nah, it’ll be a menage a triEthen.
You forget, that very thing is happening elsewhere, at this very moment.
Do I hear another Slipshine?
Damn, what do I have to pay to get audio added?
Slipping & squeaking as we speak….
Nah, I reckon Becky is just screwing around because she may not know who she likes, & by running away from her college (which is obvious) she plans to drag whoever’s emotionally invested down with her trainwreck. Joyce is the prime target for such a thing. There’s almost every other kind of stapled characterisation & subplot covered, anyway.
STRONG ATTACK NO GUARD
Okay, but forcing a kiss on someone out of the blue is kinda shitty? C’mon, Becky.
College freshmen aren’t exactly known for their impulse control and sound judgment?
That doesn’t make it less wrong??
For me it’s kind of disappointing. I WAS expecting Becky to have a Thing for Joyce – most conservative-raised people I know got over their homophobia because a friend turned out to be gay (if not themselves), and Becky being gay seemed like the most obvious, realistic way for Willis to make Joyce have to start confronting and dismantling her own homophobic tendencies.
I was just hoping that Becky – being Joyce’s best friend and, up until now, having seemed really cool and savvy – would have revealed this in a more sensitive, non-forceful way.
Well I don’t think going to a Christian school necessarily taught Becky good ways to handle her feelings.
I don’t know. I almost prefer that characters screw up sometimes. Yes it would be tremendously positive if she had a mature and respectful way to come out to Joyce, but that’s an ideal situation. Those don’t survive contact with reality.
and it called “dumbing of age” for a reason.
I think that excusing such behavior instead of calling it what it is and letting the chips fall where they may from there is a really sketchy way of interpreting it. OF COURSE young people are gonna do bad and wrong stuff, but I think it’s incredibly patronizing and also gross to just shrug it off with an “EH, KIDS, AMIRITE?”
There’s so much “OMG YAASSS!! BECKY/JOYCE YAAASSSS!!!” going on here that I do think that it needed to be said that what Becky is doing is Actually Not Okay and not cute at all. It’s sad and wrong. My hope is that the writing will reflect that, and that both Joyce AND Becky learn important lessons in respecting each other.
I’m not expecting this to go down without consequences. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m by no means excusing it.
I just don’t think there’s any virtue in avoiding these pitfalls. It’s unrealistic, and it robs characters of growth.
I did a metric crapload of dumb stuff with relationships at that age. It’s how you learn.
It is, but sometimes you have to go for it and hope for the best. Still this is pretty unfair to Joyce. A friendship will be tested.
Honestly though the “surprise kiss” is a pretty dick move, especially for someone you know probably won’t appreciate it! Also, as flimsy as Joyce and Ethan’s relationship is, Becky knows Joyce is IN a relationship…. :[
Yeah, seriously.
After rereading since Becky returned there have been many conversations that could be misinterpreted by Becky. Sometimes we see what we want to see. While it makes sense why Becky would go for it, I think the surprise kiss is totally out of line. It’s likely going to devastate Joyce considering in one of the first return strips Sarah mentions that Becky is the reason Joyce grew up somewhat normal.
Are there even any straight girls in this comic?
Well…
*ponders for a second*
Dorothy! And likely Sal.
Also, Roz. Probably Dina.
I wonder why people assume Dina is straight. She hasn’t shown any kind of romantic or sexual interest in anyone, male or female.
“mammals are weird” to me make it seem even more likely she could be asexual. Or could just be a late bloomer, or demisexual… but yeah, I wouldn’t put her firmly in the “straight” camp at this point at all.
And Roz clearly likes guys, but she could be bi or pan. Granted her comment to her sister seems to dismiss that somewhat, but it was her sister after all. I don’t know why she would be totally honest with her. I’d say she is likely straight, but not certainly.
I can’t imagine that Roz would be closeted about anything. She’s been all over Joe and Jacob without propositioning any women. She does look great in a vest, though.
“hasn’t shown any kind of romantic or sexual interest in anyone” hardly means anything. People who’ve known me for years might be forgiven for thinking I’m asexual, but I know I’m attracted to women – I just don’t express it.
There was the time in the student union, with the youngest of the sisters, but it didn’t go far
Don’t forget Amber!
I mean, more than half so far seem straight. Hmmm…now that you mention it, we could do better. Somebody lock Dorothy and Amazi-girl in a room for a few hours, we need to test this.
What a scoop!
And it shall be titled, “Walky or no Walky?”
Yes, yes there are. Dorothy, Amber, Sarah, Sal, Dina (though she’s more asexual), and any other random female who we haven’t seen kiss another girl.
And speaking of Dina, where’s my favorite ASD girl been lately? I’m rooting for her to get some action soon.
Well, I’m not sure if we’ve proven any of them aren’t attracted to other females. (also, do random background characters count? Are we the MLP fandom all of a sudden?)
Also, yes, we need more Dina. We need a Dina story arc.
Dina is a carefully managed resource. If Willis needs more page views than girls smooching can bring in, he will combine Dina with Joyce for an extremely exothermic reaction.
ASD = Asian Single Dinosaur
Considering that the sexual orientation of characters has staid the same compared to It’s Walky!, Dina is most definitely not asexual. Definitely hetero (or perhaps bi), though.
I figure Dina as a late bloomer who mostly finds romance confusing. Plus, Walkyverse-Dina was into maturity, which hasn’t exactly been present in this environment.
also Joyce
Let’s not be too hasty. Let’s see where this goes first.
yeah, yeah. But her reactions to Sal (least, just hair brushing and cool factor), Billie (stay safe and warm forever), and Dorothy (most, stuck to her like glue) open up at least a small possibility that she isn’t 100% straight. Maybe she is, and those were just innocent reactions. Just dunno yet.
Hmm thinking on what your saying, what if she is into girls, but her strong beliefs are keeping her from being herself/happy with who she is? Given how she acts about Ethan being gay, its fair to say she is one of those “If you aren’t breeding, your sinning” kinds when it comes to peoples sexuality, even if her own is buried deep in the closet.
This comment is made hilarious because of the typical ship fans put the character in this person’s avatar in.
The Vinyl Scratch Tapes is my favorite. XD
Of the 9 girls on the cast page, only 3 are known to be not straight (Billie and Ruth are bi, Carla is [I think] homoromantic asexual).
Sarah, Amber, Dorothy, Sal and Joyce are all known to show attraction to guys, and haven’t shown any signs of actual attraction to non-dudes (outside of people joking about Joyce’s infatuation with Dorothy). Dina is kind of a wildcard, but she probably likes guys, too (based on the Walkyverse, and maybe her love of Walky’s dino drawing?)
I think there are fewer secondary straight girls, but even then there’s at least Mary (more than likely).
Also, none of the confirmed non-straight main characters are lesbians.
So no, there aren’t enough lesbians.
Of the 9 girls on the cast page, 9 of them are known to be not Becky – this is totally unacceptable!
Joyce’s sexuality has not been confirmed.
Though this could go good places. Joyce is losing her idea that her old life was really any different and if she gains a more in depth view of homosexuality she may become less willing to be Ethan’s beard.
Oh dear this can’t end well…
Wow, reached yesterday’s comment count in 21 minutes
Sooooo, time for Joyce’s sexuality crisis! Especially with the whole keeping Becky and Dorothy separated part (and given Walky’s comments I’m betting that gave Becky some hope) and delicious, delicious angst.
This storyline is going so much better than we expected from its title. Which is to say, there will be sobbing within twenty four hours.
Hrm, try 72.
Tomorrow’s gonna be a hard cut to a minor character one off, then we’ll check up with Dorothy, then back to this :p
Patreon?
DAMN I wish I had money.
Joke. I was thinking of the most troll thing Willis could do after this. I hope I’m wrong I need resolution here.
Can Becky stay forever and for always, please?
No, at the end of the storyline she’ll leave, be absent for four more years, and then show up to reveal to Joyce that she’s masterminded all of the shenanigans at Indiana University the whole time.
Call it her nest egg.
So, does Joyce kiss on and angst later, or punch and/or run away from Becky and angst now (bonus points if she kisses someone else not Ethan)?
It will be Walky. And everything will become much worse.
Hoo boy. Can’t wait to see her reaction.
Femurs may be removed, & ding dongs definitely etched.
As much as I wanted them to kiss, I’m kinda worried that since it was non-consensual it might freak Joyce out. On top the whole “lesbian” thing, I mean.
There may be a BSOD incoming, or worse.
Specifically, a divide by zero error.
I keep reading erektion…
Well, that too. :3
NOPE NOPE NOPE
Joyce, I’m in lesbians with you
Nuts, I was hoping she dropped out of school because she turned atheist or something.
She could do that too! Nothing stopping her from being a lesbian/bi atheist!
Quite probable, given how I imagine that the way they treated her was fairly alienating.
(Not that all Christians are like that, of course. There are plenty of gay/bi Christians).
I actually bet Becky’s messing around. Panel three is total jokey best friend stuff, which just makes panel four total jokey but really cool best friend stuff.
Man, if my best childhood friend romantically kissed me and then said she was just kidding around, I would feel so confused and disrespected and mad. That is not cool best friend behaviour!
Oh-my-god BECKY! Look at your lips!
Guys! Guys! It’s too easy! There’s gonna be another twist tomorrow!
“But Joyce, you see. I’m also…a man”.
https://31.media.tumblr.com/5db1287f620f480e73603558e44a960d/tumblr_inline_ndst02OvTj1qjop0x.png
I don’t know, Willis might not be able to top this not even he can catch us off guard twice in a row after something like this.
This is what I get for being staunchly aboard the Wecky ship…. That said…. Poor Becky… She’s about to get the wrong kind of tongue lashing….
I want them to be canon so badly. The thing is at Joyce’s current state they couldnt become a couple until much much later. And I am willing to wait for that time to come into fruition.
Becky, hun, you can do way better. I mean, I know the heart wants what it wants, but Joyce? You know it’s not going to work. :C
I don’t think Joyce is “better” or “worse” than anyone.
I just think she’s woefully unprepared for any relationship, let alone this one.
Not a bad person, but has a damn lot to learn.
Agreed
Her strong beliefs are what make her worse, purely because she seems unwilling/unable to have an open mind and accept other peoples free will choices. That in effect is why she is unprepared for any relationship.
Except that she does have an open mind and accept other people’s choices. Her best friend is an atheist. She’s only dated jewish guys and her thing with Ethan is more about how she feels safe around him than any genuine desire to change who he really is.
She doesn’t actually accept Dorothy as an Atheist, otherwise she wouldn’t have really tried hiding her. She has stated that she’d “help” Ethan be into girls, a very clear point of saying she’ll change who he really is. And I predict that after this incident, she’ll either drop Becky as a friend, or try to change her into being only into guys, if Becky is Bi, or changing her to be into guys if she is gay.
Did I call it or did I call it? :C :C :C
@o@!!!!!!
HELL YEAH! FINALY! I coudn’t take the suspense anymore. Also, willis, is this part autobiographical?
I am voting ‘greatest character’ over and over and over again as hard as I can! But it’ll only let me do it once! D:
and…. where is Sarah like, right when Joyce starts screaming? Maybe she is just down there with a bat in one hand and a toy in the other, hessitant?
Is it bad that I’m kind of disappointed that everyone called it so quickly?
I mean Becky has been build up as an awesome character by the author from the second we have seen her (see the Poll) and now is in Lesbians with the Main character. I don’t know, it all sort of seems so… ehn.
I guess I preferred cheering it on as a fan theory?
Well, we’ll see where this goes.
Subtext is better as subtext than maintext?
I tend to support couples that personally amuse me because they are so wierd. Typically if one of the couples I was cheering for happen, I double take and re-read it.
Unless it’s done really well, then I’m usually skeptical of it and wary of the work for actually pushing that angle.
Remember, Willis wrote this all out months ago. Any correlation between what the fans pray for, and what actually happens, is entirely coincidental.
Or perhaps intentional – I’m pretty sure Willies could see the fan theories coming a mile away
Oh, I’m not saying he did it because he heard the fans pandering for it. Just Becky is walking a thin line for me between “Fun enough kind of light hearted character” to “Author favourite” (the poll feels like a demonstration of that, even if it’s mean comedicially. It’s literally “This new person I wrote; Best or BESTEST?”) and this is sort of a nudge towards the deep-end of that.
Having fans latching on to a relaxed and easy going character? Sure, fan favourites are often born by that.
But when it feels like the Author is sort of helping them along and doing what they can to make us feel like they are great (the JOYCE IS GAY FOR DOROTHY is going back a few months so pandering here isn’t infeasible) it feels awkward and forced.
So, I’m in between looking at Becky as an easy going character who’s a nice change of pace and a character Willis picked off to specifically to hit what the Fandom wants.
It all comes down to how the next few strips play; I just don’t have a strong feel yet. Something about her irks me and feels pandery though, even if I want to like her.
And he had the general idea (Becky loves Joyce) from before DOA actually started. (confirmed on tumblr)
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming.
Dammit, where’s my popcorn? I’m gonna need it for the next few strips.
Freaking CALLED IT
I just saw Willis’s tweet about the Patreon , I will not forget this outrage Willis !
There is nothing good that Joyce can do here. If she doesn’t reciprocate Becky’s affection, she’s going to hurt Becky. If she does, then she’s going to have to deal with a bunch of self-hate. I don’t look forward to tomorrow’s strip.
Which means, you can’t wait for the next strip. Amirite?
JOYCE. JOYCE. BE A GOOD FRIEND. I KNOW THIS IS SHOCKING AND UNWANTED. AND SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE KISSED YOU. ALTHOUGH THE KISS DELIGHTS ME. BUT JOYCE. DO NOT BREAK HER HEART ENTIRELY OUT OF SHOCK.
wow, I was expecting a lot more angry people with full diapers, ppl must be cooler with this than bi danny
also: computer, take me to patreon website now
Aw man, did not expect this! And it makes me squee with delight, but I’m so afraid of tomorrow! Its like, this is great but it is going to hurt so bad in 24 hours. I don’t see Joyce reacting well to this.
Man we didn’t get to bask in the Ruth/Billie happiness for very long did we. Sigh.
Damn. Poor Joyce. Has she even had a consensual smooch, yet? I totally get where Becky is coming from, but, damn, this might end super badly. (I hate feeling bad for Joyce.)
All her kisses have been with gay people.
Maybe this will make her see some sense about Ethan, like “Oh, that must have been how he felt when I did this to him!”
I’m in favor of this sentiment.
That’s what I’m worried about too.
Yeah baby let’s fight prejudice and stereotypes and common misconceptions by putting only short haired lesbians in the comic.
Oh wait.
(We’re stirctly talking about DoA here so Robin doesn’t count)
What about Daisy? Daisy’s her name, right?
also becky’s hair is… not especially short?
So we have Daisy, Becky, and Leslie, with long, medium-length, and short hair. Oh, and I guess the two girls on their hall whose names and hair lengths I can’t remember.
oh wait
if you’re gonna be snarky, try not to be wrong
I can’t help noticing that all your lesbian characters are women. STEREOTYPE?
I giggled, at least.
Forgot about her existence, I apologize.
Ruth’s hair is shoulder-length. That’s hardly short.
Ruth is bisexual.
Mea culpa. My memory is frazzled after midnight.
What the hell? The important part isn’t the length of their hair, it’s how the short hair is used to signify someone who’s trying to be unfeminine in the particular. Given Becky’s behavior, that’s actually not entirely an unjustified reading of what we’ve seen so far of her (Wrong, but not unjustified, I think. She just likes puerile humor, she doesn’t engage in anything else coded masculinely except liking girls), but that’s *just* Becky.
I hadn’t even noticed that they were short haired, because they weren’t butch. Not even a little bit, really. It’s actually been nice that nobody approaches either ‘butch’ or really ‘femme’ (Maybe Daisy?)
I’m so happy. I love you all for being here with me for this. Everyone here is the best. Love and happiness to you all.
RIght back at you, Swoop. Joy and liberty be your friends on this day.
<3
There is no bad in today’s strip.
And the penny drops. FINALLY.
#LOLDoctorWhoReference
Can a totally generic and common turn of phrase really be a reference?
Yes, if you say it is.
I like that Abe Lincoln reference there.
I didn’t call it!!! I really thought it was a red herring. I’m so glad I was wrong.
I guess Becky started to freak out after Joyce told her about her dates and boyfriend. Now or never. Now, to reread all the Becky strips with the knowledge that she has been working up to this moment.
Not the best decision Becky.
At least their hair differences will give them away in-costume.
“Well, there’s no way anything else tonight will have an “oooooh” moment like Arrow did with the final scene- oh wait, nevermind, DoA just topped it.”
Hooray, It’s just like Corpse Party; although hopefully it will turn out better then it did for Seiko and Naomi.
Becky needs a new popularity poll, in light of this development. Becky now best character.
wrong, she already was the best. And she will continue to be the best.
Your gravatar sold that comment.
Get this, and all of my previous porns on slipshine!
XD Auu.. this is going to go badly for Becky
Though.. it would be interesting if this Joyce ended up being homosexual.
She seems either clueless or bi so far though.
but yeah…… this is going to go south at least mostly
Joyce looks more jealous of Becky lately and seems less panic faced in the last panel than in previous situations…
But not a good face either. I think it’s not panic or disgust (thankfully), but a little more than just shocked/what is happening
Joyce is certainly not a lesbian. We’ve seen some of her beefcake fantasies. Bi is a possibility, though.
“Oh shit!” out loud. GF probably thinks I’m crazy.
now that I think about it becky has been making power moves nonstop since she arrived
One hour since the comic went live… over 330 comments. Damn Willis. Not damn you – just damn!
And they’re not all just “AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!”. Some of them are “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!”
But Becky and Walky were meant to be. I was gonna call it Gasshipping.
The Methane Tanker.
but Becky IS Walky.
IF Anything, this is Willis’s way of telegraphing that Joyce and Walky are meant to be.
DOA is like the Smallville of they get together , but without Superpowers
We think Becky is so great, but in fact she is a liar. A lying liar that lies.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/inseparable/
What she said was true, from a certain point of view.
It’s 1am during finals week, I have a paper to write by like two hours ago, and I’m sitting on the floor of my room clapping at my computer screen.
On the one hand: YEAH! I CALLED IT. (I and everyone else, but still.)
On the other hand: This interferes with my Joyce/Dina ship.
>Joyce/Dina ship.
Wait, what? O_O
Never heard that one before…
I will sail that ship towards the sun and never come back if I have to.
Foe Yay, yo.
Not a ship, a sub… Because you can never sink what wasn’t floating in the first place.
My new motto.
But the parlance for destroying a sub is indeed “sinking”. Also they do technically float, just not above the water line 😀
And… SCENE CHANGE!!!
And a week of Amber, Ethan and Danny. Next time we see Joyce Becky will not be around and she will go on as usual. After about a week she will make an offhand remark that Becky went back to Andersson’s. They will not reunite for three years real world time and we will not find out what happened until then.
All fans will go nuts.
Well… This is a twist… O.O
Well my thoughts are since Joyce wants to be loved honestly to the point of ninja stalking into Ethan’s to fill the void, she might actually let it heppen. I mean she freak for a moment and maybe even think about god, but then she will think of her bro and anything else she’s learned and has been feeling and maybe just dive right in. Could be wrong, and i know i left out other factors but yeah this is a possible path.
I don’t know if Joyce has quite reached her breaking point in that respect as of yet.
I just know that when she does, it will be visible from space.
Now that I think about it though, Joyce might not like the sudden sexual contact for more reasons than “Becky, what the hecky!?”
Oh, someone worded this way more briefly than me. I would love if that was the first line to tomorrow’s comic though
That would be a neat curveball. “Becky, what the hecky, kissing each other all the time was something we did as kids”
In one of the first few strips Becky said something like “don’t let anyone change you” I don’t think she meant her politics or religious beliefs. She knew Joyce was a fundamentally good person. Joyce has always been my favorite character. I relate to her on so many levels. She’s the kind of person I want to be someday. She’s strong and kind and loyal to her friends. I know I must be the last one to figure this out, but I think that’s what she meant when she said she didn’t want her to change.
“Same old Joyce”
I want to say “D’awwwww, that’s great”
But I have no idea what happens next and it could go horrible because of the whole ‘homosexuality is sinful’ thing and it’s one thing to help a guy who is gay try to live virtuously by being in a sorta-relationship but this is the gal Joyce basically grew up with, right? So how does she process that?
This is going to be interesting, and quality-wise it is pretty much guaranteed to be great.
I hope it goes actually great, as well.
I see another twist coming.
The next 45.5 strips are going to be Joyce’s shocked face.
Willis’ answer to the Best Page Of Gunnerkrigg Court!
Yes! haven’t even opened the link…
Mhm, okay, I’ll stick with it.
I think this one is more to the point, in this case. Kat, that is. http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=519
…it’s kind of good that Joyce doesn’t have anything sharp handy, isn’t it?
I think you underestimate Joyce’s loyal, loving and forgiving nature. Sadly I don’t really see the ship working out, but I don’t see Joyce excessively pushing Becky away or anything.
Joyce has attempted rape trauma and an inherent rage about unwanted sexual activity to begin with.
Yeah, I’m not thinking conscious act so much as reflex.
“Damn You Willis” doesn’t even begin to cover ending a strip like this. This is far to much
Well Joyce will deal with this poorly, but I wonder how poorly.
HELL YES I DOUBLED DOWN ON MY BET THAT BECKY WAS GAY TWO STRIPS AGO AND I WAS RIGHT! HELL YE THIS IS AWESOME
What did you win for your bet?
CANON LESBIANS AND A REALIZATION THAT THIS CHAPTERS TITLE IS REFERENCING JESSE FROM TOY STORY 2’S FAMOUS SONG THAT SOUNDS LIKE ITS ABOUT GAY GIRLS. A BIG WIN XD
That song made me cry.
Oh geez, I just looked up the video on youtube. I think I’m going to cry.
I literally gasped.. Can’t wait to see how this turns out!
Wow. The amount of comments in that amount of time is astounding.
By the way, Damn you Willis.
I do have to say I have a small crush on Joyce. I don’t care if nobody likes it.
I understand
Thank you
Says the Becky Gravatar…
I now understand why Robin had to use a Chalkboard to keep track of these relationships.
And My Gravatar’s face does not reflect my own.
I was wondering if this was the case from the moment that Sarah started to put two and two together.
Ooh, yes! 😛
When you squee and OH SHIT at the same moment… Yeah, that.
Death! By the Machine God, Death is HERE!
WOAH. WAIT.. WHAT. WHAAAT.
YESSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssssssss. Oh man. I know they’re gonna fall out from this and it’s going to break Becky’s heart but YES. You GO BECKY. AGGH. I’m squeeing and grinning all over the place and oh my goodnessss yesssss
Oh no. OH NO. There is no way this ends well. GOD DAMN IT.
Delicious, delicious drama and suffering is mine, I just have to wait for it. Mmmm, suffering.
Even though this is happening and I see it a part of me is wondering if Becky is just messing with her. It’s ridiculous to think- but I have trust issues.
Probably not though.
In any case sadly a ship which will never work out, given Joyce. Still- that never stopped me shipping her with Dorothy.
That would be kind of something I know people would do harmlessly and it would be interesting in comic. Interesting, but in universe not good, because I think that would be even more confusing for Joyce than her friend actually liking girls.
Man, look at all these comments in such a short time. It’s almost like something special happened.
I partially blame Walky for this blunder. He made the “Joyce wants to go down on Dorothy” joke and gave Becky the entirely wrong impression. <_<
I’m pretty sure Becky trusts her own evaluation of her best friend more than Walky’s. She just liked the insinuation.
I knew it! Yesterday, when she said something like singing a different tune about boys.
Also, *Jesse Cox voice* Jesus, I need you now more than evaaah…
New Head canon ! : Making Joyce Jealous is the reason why Dorothy’s dating Walky !
WOAAAAAH. Willis has thrown me some curve balls before but EARTH JEEGUS, THAT WAS A TOTAL BLINDSIDE
So it wasn’t a fakeout. Ugh I’m worried for Joyce’s reactions in the next comics. Also, a surprise kiss might not be the best transition from accidentally bringing up Joyce’s date rape, not that Becky knows that. I dunno whether I’m expecting confusion from Joyce, or anger, or terror (see above). I mean, I know it’ll be a combination, but what the main thing is.
And in panel 4, you can just hear Joyce’s brain snap.
Joyce’s head will implode in …5…4…3…2…WHOOMPF!
This will end in tears.
I have a bad feeling about but I am also SO HAPPY
Wait, was this…was this Joyce’s first kiss!?
No. She kissed Ethan at lunch the once and then ran and hid in the ladies’ room.
So Joyce has only kissed gay people so far.
(Assuming Becky identifies as gay, and not bi, pan or straight with an exception, for example.)
She got a better kiss from him a little later.
I mean, insofar as it’s better when you’re kissing someone who’s totally not into your sex after swearing to convert him.
They do get the faces-melting-into-each-other thing going there, which she’s got a little bit with Becky today, and had none of the first time she kissed Ethan.
And also all those Becky-kisses when they were kids. [hedcanon]
I JUST REALIZED THE CHAPTER TITLE IS A REFERENCE TO THAT SONG FROM TOY STORY 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3qBbLyRixg
BECKY SINGING ABOUT JOYCE????
This song makes me cry. Jerk. >:(
im sorry jesus i had to share my feels with the world. 😛
The chapter titles usually have multiple meanings. The obvious one here being a reference to Dorothy and Walky’s confession of feelings.
Gotta disagree with you there. The chapter title, “When somebody loved me” is speaking past tense. Someone loved this person, once in the past, with the implication that they don’t love them any longer. Or possibly that no one loves them any more, or that they feel no one does.
Regardless, I feel like Dorothy and Walky’s confession was a red herring. They have already patched things up super easily. Dorothy forgave him and that was that. Walky has not, it turns out lost his love. He’s not gonna be sad about having lost the love of someone he cares deeply about. Becky on the other hand……
This Becky/Joyce situation……… There’s no way it can end well. Everything we know about Joyce, about her thoughts on homosexuality, to her near rape ptsd that Becky doesn’t know about, tells us that this is gonna shake things up for them, and probably not well, at least in the short term.
Plus, one listen to that song and i cant unhear it being a song about Becky’s feelings for Joyce. That song from Toy Story 2 has always been known as one where, if you listen to it out of context, it sounds like a song about a gay women’s feelings for another lady. Which I’m sure was intended when Willis picked that chapter title, since the chapter title is directly quoting a line from that song.
SO, TLDR: Walky/Dorothy already got resolved angst free, so i think they were a red herring and this Becky/Joyce drama is what the title was referring to since it perfectly fits that song.
Welp. Did not see that coming. Prolly cause I had no idea who Becky was… I never coughed up for the “paid” IW strips. :/
Not that much Becky there either. And pretty sure this is all DOA Becky
IT’S TACO THURSDAY!
I will laugh if she has the same reaction as Ruth.
Did not see this coming! Thought we had our lesbian limit, but THEY LIVE AMONG US.
While I knew this was coming, I really don’t approve of the way Becky handled it. Just screams sexual assault to me. Had an ex male friend do this to me a few years back, just kiss me out of nowhere. When I said I didn’t see him that way, he got a little… unhappy with me to say the least.
Maybe I’m just overreacting based on past experiences, but if I ever had a second person do this to me again, I would call the police with zero hesitation.
P.S. Every person who knows me IRL knows what happened, and what I would do if it happened again, so I’m not too horribly worried, but still, just the way I feel.
No, I agree. It’s totally uncool. It’s one of those things we learn from fiction that is good for drama but simply doesn’t translate well into reality.
I don’t think you’re overreacting at all, Becky is WAY off on this. Part of me wants to feel sorry for Becky because she’s likely about to experience something I’ve always worried about, losing a friend because of a sexual/romantic interest in them (like her, I’m a lesbian with the nasty habit of falling for friends; at least I’ve always known to talk things out first and see how they react), but her actions in this strip are making it hard for me to sympathize at all. Sure, losing her friend/crush will hurt, but she has nobody to blame but herself.
By the way, this is where Becky re-entered the story.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/angel/
Note the previous strip for context. Hmm.
angel achieved
It all makes sense now… It all makes sense now… Willis… Willis I’m about to come out of the hospital… Please don’t put me back in with your stressful story arcs…
I’m curious to see Joyce’s reaction, will she jump back and act confused/hurt (most likely), as someone who has been in a gender reversed version of this I would understand, also if Joyce is an autobiographical character does that mean he’s been there too? (Looks at Willis). Also 10 bucks says she came out as Bi or homosexual and that’s the reason for her impromptu visit.
Okay let’s be honest.
Is anyone REALLY surprised by this development.
I’m disappointed you didn’t say “lesbi honest…”
Hahaha 😀
I couldn’t bother to go through the tribble.
I half-expect the next comic to be a “oooooh it was all just a dream” scene.
I also half expect it to be a Slipshine. Work, you pornlord Willis!
Justin: “…Somewhere around ninety percent of people are heterosexual.”
Grace: counting on fingers “That can’t possibly be right.”
Haha, nice!
you know, way back when, Willis told us there would be a slipstream featuring two people of the same gender from DOA. and that we wouldn’t expect who it was… and I totally said to myself “I dunno, Becky and Joyce?” When I saw Ethan and Danny getting a thing I figured it was gonna be them… but now… I think I know which pair he meant…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH
Not counting Ruth and Billie?
How “way back when” was the Willis comment mudakthemultiplier is referencing? Because I think Ruth and Billie has been expected for quite a while, at this point. But if it was a very old Willis comment, I suppose it could have been them…
It was when the Slipshine with Robin x Lisle came out. I figured that we were going to get one for Ruth x Billie, so they didn’t really count.
Indeed. By that time, Ruth and Billie were an eventual inevitability. So there must be some other lesbian coupling to look forward to.
Who says we won’t get all three?
That escalated faster than I thought it would.
I’ll be super happy to be wrong about this, but….hope you love the smell of burning friendships Becky. Your about to get a lungful tomorrow.
And she knows it.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/fart-joke/
So that happened.
Congratz,..
That caught me Totally off guard.
Didn’t see it coming,.. just thought her friend was ditching school because it was too strict, and Joyce was a fresh breath from home.
Meh,.. Poor Joyce,.. her world was already rocking back and forth,..