“Hi! I’m Becky! I don’t think about the consequences of my actions because if I did, I’d get super bummed out! Plus, being impulsive is part of why I’m just the raddest! Rock on peeps!”-what I hear whenever I look at Becky.
I’m gonna say that she did think about this one. Joyce’s dad was being strangely nice and and good and maybe she didn’t want Joyce to forget the bad stuff, so she threw herself into the fray to make the dad act mean. Of course this is just hopeful thinking.
And yes, despite the suffering involved, I think “Reminding her that her parents are intolerant so she doesn’t just blow it off because things are going nice this time” is good. Though I have no idea why I keep coming here to comment, since I still haven’t read this through.
On a completely unrelated sidenote. All the people reading Becky like some sort of supervillain seeking to hurt people is giving me flashbacks to all the people who tried to argue during the Toedad hunts Becky arc who tried to argue that it would be such a “good twist” if it turned out that Becky was an evil gay liar who lies and Toedad was actually just an awesome caring dad trying to stop her lying gay ways.
Like, it’s at the level where it’s a) no, and b) what comic have these people even been reading to be able to interpret Becky’s character this way?
This comic, they’re just reading it through their twisted worldview. I remember in QC when Marten’s Dad first showed up there was someone who came into the forum angrily claiming that gay men are inherently incapable of caring about their families, because his own father had “abandoned” his family (it was never clear whether this is a case of being a scumbag who happened to be gay, or if the father just couldn’t handle their bigotry and so cut ties) so clearly all gay people would do that.
Are we really going to get these “This character is the devil and deserves whatever they get” comments whenever anyone LGBTQIA does anything in this comic? ~.~
Because I don’t hear any of you people saying this about Joe. Or Mike. Or Jacob.
Ok, I had to sign on just to say ‘Mike deserves to have his entire life blow up in his face.’ Because, even as someone who has left college long behind them, I have no sympathy for him, and whatever makes him such a jerk. He’s a sick puppy and he’s going to do serious damage someday unless he’s stopped.
Honestly, Joe scares me a lot. Hopefully he hasn’t committed sexual assault yet, and someone will upside him in the head and get through before he does, but he teeters on the verge of harrassment way too often. If he were to pick up a (curable) STD, I would be all like “Karma!”
I have some sympathy for Becky, but Willis has already shown us that she’s not in a good headspace right now to make good choices. She’s upset, to start with, and Becky has shown that her response to being upset is to stir the Shinola. She’s done it before. The fact that her traumas and her coming out are what are pushing her to do that stirring is worthy of sympathy, but this is still a bad choice, and one coming from a state of poor judgement.
While confronting Joyce’s dad may be a good truthtelling measure, it’s unlikely to allow the object of Becky’s affection the time and space she needs to come to terms with everything that has happened to her and how that involves her family of origin.
Poor Joyce. Poor Becky. But jeez, Becky, way to take your best friend with you on your Nuke Them From Orbit tour.
It’s come up. Both with Mike and Joe, though I don’t recall anything with Jacob.
There was a lot of analysis of Joe just a little while back during the fake marriage bit. IIRC, mostly the same people defending Becky here were criticizing Joe there.
Mike’s a little odder. He gets some slack from the Shortpacked version and from generally being over the top & cartoony. For some, he’s just not real enough to attack. Others think he really is an ass.
I feel like if I were to evaluate Mike as I would a real person then yes, he is a complete ass.
On the other hand, it almost seems like he walks a weird line between a jerk who just screws with everyone for the hell of it, and some sort of… I’m not really sure what the word is, but it seems like half of his dickish behavior is actually aimed at forcing characters to own up to their mistakes, see past their own excuses, or face some unpleasant decision. Except for punching Joe in the face repeatedly at Joyce’s request. That was pure physical comedy.
Of course, this all depends on whether or not Mike is actually orchestrating all this on purpose, or if it’s all an unintended consequence of being an asshole. It would be easier to get a read on him if he were actually present whenever shit hits the fan and we could see if he actually makes an effort to help or not when it matters.
I really don’t buy the “Mike is trying to help by forcing people to confront their mistakes” argument. Partially because Mike never did that in the Walkyverse; if anything he took great pleasure in making peoples’ lives worse, and partially because of all the genuinely horrible actions he’s taken. I’m pretty sure he’s just meant to be an occasional joke character.
And like, if it’s true… so what? It’s still disgusting, and presumes that Mike is in a place where he should allowed to mete out abuse as long as it has a positive ending.
Mike is an awesome force of nature and the help you never want. He may force people to face their own contradictions because he enjoys being a jerk, but that doesn’t make him any less useful. What we have here is a immature form of the Walkyverse Mike, a dumber version if you like, but still recognizably Mike.
I’m kind of hoping he I use flat out hugs her and tries to make sure she is okay. Thus revealing that he’s not as shitty a Christian as his wife, but that he upholds her teachings in the house.
That would be awesome, but I can definitely see him doing that and then chiding her for her “choices” in friendship later on in the car. Basically a similar small comfort and then pulling the rug from out under her that her mom did.
I could see the Browns questioning Joyce remaining close with her best friend, but what choices in friendship would they chide Becky for? I doubt Ross has told anyone about the Pokey Man girlchild that deceived him.
They know he’s in jail “because” of her. (And by that I mean he’ll put all the blame on her, he’s in jail because of the shit he pulled, not defending him on that front.)
That’s what I meant, sorry. That he’ll emotionally hit Joyce for her “choices” in being friends with her in a way that’ll unintentionally hit Becky or he’ll chide Becky for her “choices” in sexuality and parental obedience in a way that minimizes the true horror of Toedad’s crime.
That would be nice, but I’d be worried that if that happened then all the parent couples we see would be Overbearing-Mom/Ineffectual-Dad types. Not to say DoA doesn’t have its share of Bad Dads, obv, but they all sort of appear solo, either divorced or widowed. Besides Dorothy’s parents the rest would seem to fall into these two categories, though I could be easily missing something.
Considering some of the insights the author has given into his own Fundie upbringing (and the fact that Joyce is autobiographical), I really hope you’re right.
We haven’t seen Hank without Carol before; it’s possible he’s fairly moderate but ‘plays along’ with her to avoid conflict. (For lack of a better description.)
“You haven’t changed” is a really common thing to say to someone, let alone your kid after they’ve been away at college. I can’t imagine Hank meant anything sinister by it.
it’s…probably more related to me and my personal experiences tbh.
like, as someone who grew up in a more evangelical-flavored fundie background, the stated goal for me as a good christian girl going to college was to not change anything important about myself or my morals. because college was sort of notorious for being a corrupting influence?? a lot of good christian kids would go to college and then leave the church. which people’s morals evolving and changing is apparently a Bad Thing, as is being exposed to more of the world. acknowledging gay people’s existence, let alone trans people’s. being kind to people who’ve had abortions. allowing the world to be bigger than the church, essentially.
idk there’s this real thing in the churches i’ve been a part of where you have to specifically control your intake so that you don’t become corrupted. you have to walk the straight and narrow in every aspect of your life, you have to be this particular person and if you’re not you’re a bad christian. and the gossip can be insidious and vicious, because people are human but they’re held up to these standards that nobody can possibly reach and they’re taught to feel bad about themselves all the time because they’re not good enough, never going to be good enough. and –
there’s this specific kind of patriarchal controlling that comes with being daddy’s little girl. because you do your best to please and you try to be perfect, like a disney princess, but disney princesses aren’t real people and they don’t have the kind of real problems that can’t be solved within the space of a song. but you’re still really encouraged to fit that perfect image of what a girl ought to be: which is a static image. Aurora asleep on her bed waiting for true love’s kiss, essentially, but true love never comes because she’s never allowed to get up and go looking for it. she’s not an active participant; she’s always passive and moldable. which for a long time was the ideal woman in american society.
so like – at this point i’m probably way overreading it, although this chapter is called “that perfect girl” – but Hank not meaning anything sinister by it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a heckton of cultural baggage along with it. which is, essentially, the problem.
so like it is kinda heartwarming because both Hank and Joyce are trying to go back to a space where things were simple and nothing had to change. but like simpler is sort of a matter of perspective – the world was always this screwed up, Joyce just didn’t notice until now, and it’s a manifestation of white Christian privilege that the world was allowed to be that simple and black and white.
Hank might not have, but Willis did.
It’s pretty obviously a callback both to Becky’s “Don’t let anyone change you” from Mov-in Day and to her later “I’m glad they did”.
Joyce just stood up for Becky in the face of death itself. This is going to be painful however it goes, but I don’t think Joyce throwing Becky under the truck is going to happen.
Yeah, the way it’d stack up is Joyce alone will have a much harder time, because she won’t have an ally willing to fully get her back (Jocelyne is awesome, but terrified of jumping into arguments with family), but Becky with Joyce means Becky will be having to casually grin past a lot of crap herself and may be physically dangerous for her.
No, no, no. You’re supposed to set the universal constants while creating the universe such that the random number generator on a particular Game Boy generates a zero at a particular time such that it is guaranteed that the pokéball captures the Joyce.
Which, yeah, I would normally assume to mean, yes, but only if you’re okay with it, which Becky was, but given that we haven’t seen Becky pack, maybe that assumption is in error, but then maybe this scene suggests the opposite. I dunno, I imagine it’ll get cleared up one way or another by the next couple of comics.
*blink blink* Ummmmm, what exactly is the “first” day she “ruined”? Was it the one where she was running halfway across the state with nothing beyond the clothes on her back having just escaped being dragged off to a “reparative therapy” camp? Or the day her dad decided to come on campus and try and kidnap her at gunpoint?
Or maybe it’s all the times she’s shown a huge amount of support for her best friend, putting aside her own trauma recovery to fully be there for Joyce’s emotional crises?
Gosh, Becky is so very selfish. Really, just the worst. *roll eyes*
I know, right? If she had just reported for brainwashing camp like a good little Droog, Joyce’s day would be like 18% better right now. And isn’t that what’s really important here?
Becky has been through some shit, but she’s often rude and doesn’t think about how her actions affect others. Living with joyce in a moment of desperate need doesn’t make her a jerk. Things like this do. You can sympathize and be annoyed by a character’s actions at the same time.
Are you trying to imply that it’s possible to be a persecuted party and still by merit of your actions cause a lot of stress and harm towards people around you, and that simply because your life is fucked up doesn’t make you immune to consequences or get you out of having to take responsibility for any actions that may cause problems for the people around you since your problems are still more astronomically worse? Having an awful life is basically your “Get out of judgement free” card. You’re given the proportional amount of leeway based on how shitty your life is.
I think it’s more that none of us in this thread is really sure where these accusations are coming from? Like…I’m totally open to being proven wrong, but what stress and harm has Becky caused to those around her, with the exception of being kidnapped and held at gunpoint by her dad? Because, ah…those aren’t her doing.
Oh Becky’s obnoxious but tolerable. Joyce is kinda hanging on by a thread though and if I was her lesbian best friend I’d be making out with my girfriend I’d probably show a bit more tact, considering everything Joyce knew has basically been ripped from her life forcibly within the first two months of college and she’s clearly desperately trying to hold onto something.
But…then why are so many people acting like Becky’s a recurring toxic influence in Joyce’s life? Literally, I’m asking what has she done that people are reacting to?
Basically nothing. In the same way she has never once had a negative experience with alcohol. Becky hasn’t done anything directly to Joyce, but Becky’s appearance has caused a cascading series of awful events all attributed to Becky that Joyce had to defend her from. She’s emotionally exhausted and in a very short time had to make very big changes. She seemed to be hungry for some familiarity before being thrust into what her life has become.
So like…people are blaming Becky for the extreme amount of homophobia and trauma she’s had to deal with lately, which Joyce (as her best friend) has tried to help with? That’s what I’m getting here, and while I (again) am open to being proven wrong, I don’t see any concrete badness from Becky being pointed out here.
Did you skip over parts of what I wrote? I’m curious because I really don’t want to write it out again.
Becky can do whatever she wants. Joyce wants to help her because she’s a good friend. Helping Becky is incredibly emotionally exhausting for Joyce. Becky basically bounds through life with very few cares which is ideal. It’s probably how I’d act. Joyce however feels very aprehensive about this, especially because she doesn’t want to lose every part of herself in favor of her friends. She’s sacrificed a lot. Becky showing up isn’t wrong and there’s a good chance it’ll go fine. But based on all the drama of her being there in the first place, the chance for it to go wrong is pretty large. And while Becky can roll with the punches, Joyce is a bit less able to do that. Just compare how Becky acted once she started rooming with Joyce to how Joyce acted. Becky was loud, exuberant and immediately went out to change herself. Joyce resisted the change but supported her friend and wasn’t until she was forced to do something did she change her disposition.
Becky is a Wheel. Joyce is a Cube. Despite all of the awful things that’ve happened to Becky she continues on. Joyce has been drained by that experience. Sure, the homophobia isn’t Becky’s fault, but it certainly is based on Becky being around. And while Becky takes everything in stride Joyce is now very obviously distant and frustrated.
Pretending like everything is fine and normal on Becky’s behalf seems a little uncomfortable. Joyce is struggling to try to maintain as much of herself as she can and she is now reasonably worried she has to forsake her family. Perhaps Becky’s also bottling up her emotions but Joyce is very clearly not handling the past week very well and now the one thing she had to look forward to might be taken from her.
Yes. Because that’s what happens. That’s what always happens. When shit cascades on you bouncing off and hitting to a lesser extent those around you, then people blame you as if you caused the shit cascade in the first place. Because if you didn’t?
Then things are not okay. Things, big scary, unequal things in society. Unfixable things are broken. So it must have been the person getting fucked over, getting hit with the oppression. They really should have known better.
She is. She’s not pulling a Walky and saying “hi Hank, I’ve been sleeping in your daughter’s bed for a week”. She’s telling a disarming and humanizing story about Joyce that has no connection to the recent events. She’s in every way, presenting a clean normality.
And well… yeah, she should be talking to Hank. She has no family. Her mom’s dead. Her dad’s Toedad and on his way to prison. Hank and Carol are the closest things to what she has left. This is what remains of even the echo of her family. These are people she’s known her whole life. This is not a stranger to her.
And she’s doing literally nothing wrong in approaching him as a friend.
I agree. She’s clearly not malicious in her intentions. But if this goes south, would Joyce walk away unscathed. It’d help Becky certainly, and it’d help Joyce in the long run maybe. But Joyce has already regressed. This could potentially just be another notch in Joyce’s slow decent into depression. And now Joyce is denied the opportunity to ease into it and Becky just rips it off like a band-aid.
Becky definitely has the right to talk to Hank. She would’ve been wiser (careful of her own safety & finding out if it’ll go okay), and kinder to Joyce, if she’d *told* Joyce she wanted to go with if possible.
Nope.
Becky should walk 10 spaces at all times behind the Browns,
and then …sneak into the trunk while Hank isnt Looking.
right?
Thats the only way the poor fragile Homophobes in the readership can be comfortable with Beckys um….Infectious Uppity Lesbianship. Actually looking Mr Brown in the face? Its almost like Becky isnt ashamed of her own existence.
What? making a sushi joke? That could be a double-entendre.
Since when are Gay people allowed to tell the jokes?
Becky must advance directly to Gay-jail, do not collect Glitter. Do not go to Long John Silvers.
I saw that comic but I think it’s ambiguous, cause look at Joyce’s surprised face in the last panel of today’s! They didn’t plan this introduction or test the waters with the Browns at all. Much better to have said, days ago, “okay please let them know I still regard them as family and I want to come along, and see if they are full of transphobic bees”
Or, just as much, Joyce could’ve said “okay cool, I’d like to have you, I’ll let my mom know to make extra food and set up the guest bed. Let’s plan what to do if my folks turn out to be jerks.”
I wonder if they had planned to do that or at least talk more about particulars and fully clarify their game plan, but the ‘rents arriving early threw all that out the window and so Becky had to wing it based on the last bits said out loud regarding it.
Like, ok, we seemed to leave it at I’m going to support, but Joyce isn’t actively bringing this up. Should I, shouldn’t I? Um… Joyce probably needs me based on our convo, so fuck it, I’m going in. Be disarmingly casual and then maybe let Joyce bring up the possibility of me coming or I can pitch coming along myself.
Becky should definitely be talking to Hank. From her perspective, it’s probably wise to at least get a read on this father before he takes his daughter away from school. She’s got no reason to have blind faith at this point.
Ok I don’t want to argue against giving Joyce a chance to consent, but she tends to worry a lot, especially about her parents’ reactions to things. Maybe by surprising her, she’s relieving Joyce of a responsibility to “explain” Becky. I could easily imagine a week of Joyce trying to “talk around” the issue with Becky nervously watching from the shadows. Becky can be tactless at times, but she’s not stupid. She would jump out if she didn’t think it had a significant chance of working out OK.
* She sexually assaulted and harassed Joyce (kissed her without warning/consent, continued to make sexual comments even when she knew it made her uncomfortable).
* She constantly says and does things that are inappropriate and unhelpful
Being gay doesn’t give her a free pass on being a terrible and obnoxious person. Having a hard time of things doesn’t give her a free pass either.
The first kind of sucked, though understandable under the circumstances. Joyce has forgiven her and she hasn’t repeated even the sexual comments after the first day or so.
The second is debatable at best, depending on what examples you have in mind. She’s a bit loud and obnoxious, I wouldn’t go much farther than that. Especially knowing that most of it is cover for trauma – No one likes a Debbie Downer.
She doesn’t get a free pass, but I don’t think she’s terrible to start with.
“Are you trying to imply that it’s possible to be a persecuted party and still by merit of your actions cause a lot of stress and harm towards people around you, and that simply because your life is fucked up doesn’t make you immune to consequences or get you out of having to take responsibility for any actions that may cause problems for the people around you since your problems are still more astronomically worse? ”
To a certain extent, yeah.
Otherwise, we drive right into “you were abused so it’s ok for you to hit others” territory.
Becky is constantly thinking of others, to the point where she denies herself her right to collapse, because she thinks she needs to be happy helpful Becky all the time.
And offering to come along home to support said friend through an emotionally trying time. Which this? Said thing she is offering is to willingly go back to a community that views her as a literal child-stealing monster. Who will pray over her and is the same community that views her being gay as an ailment that must be fixed. This offer is not just a kindness, it’s her literally risking potentially being whisked away to a reparative therapy camp just to help a friend not feel fully alone: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/elsewhere/
Oh yeah, and when she was just rescued, despite having been through a terrifying experience, where she was nearly shot, was in fact punched, definitely threatened with death, and nearly killed in a car crash, immediately drops everything to emotionally support Joyce: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/damn/
And gosh, I feel I’m forgetting something… Oh, right…
She straight up sacrificed herself for the safety and emotional health of others. She risked being tortured, never seeing anyone she loved ever again, and all manner of awfulness, simply to make sure no pain or more emotional suffering befell those she cared for.
She straight up sacrificed herself.
But still we get “oh Becky is so selfish” comments. Despite the fact that literally no one outside of maybe Amazi-girl has been shown to be so unconditionally selfless.
I don’t know how to say this next comment without sounding really really really bitter, so screw it I’ll sound really really really bitter:
Yes, but, don’t you see? She persists in being so open and blatant about who she is! I mean, what does she expect when she basically announces it from the nearest rooftop? */heavy sarcasm*
The reaction to Becky just boils down to classic victim-blaming. She won’t go to inhuman lengths to change everything about herself so her abuser is happy, therefore everything her abuser does is her fault. Ok, yeah, she’s not exactly swimming in forethought, but that does not in any way make her deserve the piles and piles of shit that’s been thrown her way, nor does it make her responsible for damage caused by the actions of others.
That Joyce is exhausted and traumatized after what Toedad did is completely 100% Toedad’s fault, not Becky’s.
What, exactly, would any of you have had Becky do when her dad showed up to drag her off to one of those re-education camps? Go along meekly and put up with degradation and torture for time unspecified so as not to inconvenience anyone? Flee but remain homeless with nothing but the clothes on her back as winter approaches, thus risking injury and death by any number of dangers on the streets (let’s be real here – Becky does a better job of hiding it, but she’s every bit as sheltered and naive as Joyce. Bad Things would happen to her if she did that)? What other options did she have?
Becky was put into a lose-lose situation, and she chose the option of best odds of self-preservation. I cannot fault her for that, and I cannot deem it as “selfish” for her to take the least-bad option available to her.
And all that is ignoring the fact that she has consistently and systematically covered up how much this is affecting her for the sake of her friends, and consistently put aside her own needs to help those she cares about. Yeah, in part it may be due to the fact that she fears abandonment (after all she’s been through, do you blame her?) but part of it is her genuine personality. I sincerely doubt that was the first time Toedad was violent towards her (she did not seem surprised or shocked at all when he hit her, and she was entirely too good at judging when and how she needed to submit to stay safe, both of which tell me her dad has probably hit her before), and until the gun incident, Joyce had no idea what he was really like.
I think it’s inappropriate to question Becky’s selfishness, for all the reasons you pointed out and more. The thing that I’m upset about have to do with her treatment of Dina. While it’s true that Becky brings her along for a lot, Dina already feels like Becky treats her as a rebound. And now with this, (I’m going after the assumption that Becky is trying to either go with Joyce, or instigate a reaction from her father), it feels like the two things that could happen are put Joyce in a tough position, or make Dina think she’s not a “real” girlfriend. She’s probably questioning every move anyway. It must be hard for her.
All I’m saying is that we’ve seen a lot of sacrifice and unselfishness from Becky towards Joyce. I really wish she’d direct more at her girlfriend.
I included some links regarding that in the link dump, but there’s a lot more I can include. Basically, every time Dina and Becky have interacted, Becky’s gone out of her way to make sure Dina feels appreciated, talk up how interested and excited she is by her company and her topics of conversations, and show genuine awe at her girlfriend’s awesomeness.
The link where Dina is ripping herself apart for not stopping a man 3 times her size and Becky’s all let’s bring the police back in here, because my badass girlfriend biting him is so awesome it should be in the police report demonstrates this nicely. As does the bit where Dina asks a concerned question about the Bio class being boring and Becky raves about it right before she thanks Amber. And she even has been doing well to make sure she hasn’t been abandoning Dina to care for Joyce, making sure to bring Dina with her and make it a group comfort when Becky notices that Joyce just stormed off and is now in danger of a flashback because of it.
Like, yes, Dina feels she is not a “real” girlfriend and has a lot of insecurities about whether she is able to make Becky happy and with regards to being the “rebound”, but Becky so far in comic has been shown to be a very conscientious to her girlfriend, deliberately avoiding taking advantage of her, celebrating her inherent awesomeness, and showing support where she can (Dina is about as open with her internal pain as Becky), always making sure Dina feels supported and is recognized for her awesomeness.
Hell, I’ve seen real-life very healthy couples that don’t feature as much internal support for each other as Dina and Becky have shown in comic. They’re really quite healthy for each other.
And that’s not covering Becky at the beginning. Sure, I said in a previous post that maybe she didn’t know she had a huge crush on Joyce until she wasn’t with her.
But, given everything else, it’s just as likely if not more that she was putting on a brave front so that Joyce wouldn’t freak out.
Joyce is about to go home and get into a massive fight with her parents for supporting Becky. If it goes badly, her parents may pull her college tuition. Becky just guaranteed that Joyce’s best chance of getting her dad on her side won’t happen. So yes, Becky CAN be present, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a smart or kind thing for her to do. Some respect for Joyce and her awkward position would be nice.
Of course it would be kinder to Joyce to stay out of the situation, but if Becky wanted to join in the conversation, the only alternative was to hide, which has got to feel bad for someone who has gone through a lot to ‘be herself’. Becky has no obligation to go that far; it’s the difference between what someone can do and what someone should do. My point (to J) was that to ‘hate people like her’, just because her kindness isn’t self-sacrificing to the point J demands, is unfair. I think Becky is still essentially ‘kind’, and that not doing the ‘kinder’ thing in this instance doesn’t mean that she’s doing anything wrong.
I’m not sure Becky changed anything here. It’s not like the confrontation over Becky wasn’t going to happen anyway.
It might even be that seeing the actual Becky again and having her be the same obnoxious, adorable kid he knows as Joyce’s best friend will help him think of her that way instead of as some abstract representation of evil lesbian sin.
That’s actually one of the things that confuses me.
Some people seem to think that Becky’s personality is entirely new. That she started being loud and embarrassing Joyce after she came out of the closet.
Seems more likely to me that being out of the closet is the only new thing. All the rest is the same Becky Joyce became best friends with…though she probably hid it from their parents.
Given that in the very first strip, Becky joked about an “Inaugural Poop”, I think that’s pretty solidly canon.
How much she hid any of that from their parents is less clear.
A shark needs to eat to live a bigot won’t die if they don’t prey upon others that’s a ridiculous comparison that places the blame for any horribleness that Hank directs at Becky onto her. Don’t victim blame dude.
I’m not. I just hate the phrase “X has a RIGHT to do X” as if having a right to do it makes it fine to do it. Every situation is different and in this particular situation, if things go south it’s not just herself that might get hurt. Becky may be a victim who’s been through some hard shit, but that doesn’t mean her actions only affect her. The bigot in that metaphor isn’t the shark. The shark is any kind of threat to oneself or others. This situation could turn out fine with nothing bad happening at all. But now that Becky’s just swum out to the deep end we’ll just have to wait and see if there are really sharks out there, and if Joyce will end up getting hurt saving her.
Having a right to do something actually does make it fine to do it, by definition. It’s a simplification, because it assumes that all other rights and responsibilities are being upheld by the person exercising their right; your argument is essentially that Becky has a responsibility here, for her own or Joyce’s safety, that should be limiting her rights.
A threat posed by Hank is Hank’s fault, not Becky’s, even if her actions make the threat from Hank greater. Becky is hurting no-one; she’s just not going out of her way to protect anyone. I don’t think she has a responsibility to protect anyone in these circumstances, since she has the right (hahaha) to assume that Hank will behave in a decent manner. To put the responsibility on the victim to prevent the aggressor’s actions is classic victim-blaming, I’m sorry to say, although I don’t like to use such a loaded term; in my opinion, it comes down to a flaw in your analogy: these ‘sharks’ aren’t just uncontrollable forces of nature. They’re controlled by Hank.
I guess in that same way Joyce has the right to completely abandon Becky and side with her dad if things go south. Certainly would be out of character but she does have the right to do it. She has no responsibility to protect anyone.
She took that responsibility on herself when she said that she would support Becky, besides the fact that siding with her dad would violate Becky’s rights regarding how she’s treated.
Sure you can. Sharks don’t eat people, they eat seals. They only bite people because they mistake them for seals. So if one bites you it is calling you a seal.
Specially not anyone who lived their whole lives on the ocean, and was literally raised by sharks, and who are sharks themselves except they’re… vegan sharks?
I’d say a better metaphor would be a Dolphin among sharks. Then again Dolphins are total badasses who bop sharks with their noses cuz they know sharks hate that shit.
But why does Joyce look so surprised in the last panel today?
I think Becky offered to come and support Joyce, but they left it ambiguous, and foolishly didn’t plan how to tell the Browns she might drop in.
I think it’s likely that Joyce just pushed it out of her consciousness as one more thing to worry about – she doesn’t want drama on Becky – and is now worrying for her.
I don’t think Becky coming along is in any way a bad thing for Joyce, or going to make her life harder. A friendly presence is incredibly important
Dorothy isn’t involving herself in this conversation. Neither is Walky, or Sarah, or anyone else Joyce knows, because they all know that this is a delicate situation and talking to her dad might make things worse for Joyce. So either Becky is less socially adept than Walky, or she has decided that she’s perfectly willing to hurt Joyce as long as she gets to make sure a homophobe knows she exists. And while that is her right, it’s also a shitty thing for a friend to do.
…pretty sure Becky’s best friend since time immemorial’s dad knows she exists. What, is she just supposed to stop interacting with people she’s known since she was kneehigh to a grasshopper just cause she’s gay now?
Yes. Gay people should hide in the background feeling sorry for themselves until they can be used by their straight acquaintances to make a big show about how said acquaintance supporting them has made them grow as a person. And then they retire immediately back into the background having fulfilled their narrative role.
So it is written in the Sitcom Tome. So shall it be done.
I now have the mental image of a priest walking around a place of worship with an elaborately dressed scroll labeled “Holy Scripts of Sitcom” while people touch the thing with their “TV Prayer Books”. It’s kinda of absurd, and now the image won’t get out of my head.
Everyone else is hiding in the background. Yes, in a perfect world, Becky wouldn’t have to hide. This isn’t a perfect world, and Joyce is about to go through hell for Becky again. The least Becky could do is show the basic social restraint of Walky and not make things any harder on Joyce than they already are.
This is not about Becky being out on the street, at work, or in class. Joyce is about to go off and defend Becky and their continuing friendship to her parents, who have significant power over her life and her emotional well-being. That’s a really tough conversation to have, and if Joyce screws up she’s homeless. Becky came downstairs, went into the lobby, and inserted herself into that conversation. That’s not being out, that’s actively looking for an argument and not caring if Joyce gets caught in the crossfire.
I think the real issue, more than Becky being lesbian (which really shouldn’t be an issue, cmon world get yo shit together) is that right now she represents a lot of instability in regards to Joyce. I’m not saying she should have to hide herself, she is Joyce’s best friend after all. That being said, I have seen when my very being with my friend escalates the situation, even with a family I was once close with.
Yes, she has every right to speak to Joyce’s father but it is also true that maybe she could have waited a little longer. Felt out the situation a bit more and worked out how to play it.
I’ve personally always had trouble understanding how to act around others, which mask i should wear because no one has ever seen me be myself and not alienated me. As a result, I always go into a conversation the same way I was taught to fight, tentative moves to see what is happening before I wade deeper.
Becky is a lot braver than me but if I am understanding the situation right maybe Joyce had an actual plan about how she was going to handle all of what has been happening. It is her father and surely she knows how to deal with him better than Becky? Maybe Joyce had no plan but wasn’t it worth waiting a little to see?
Becky definitely needs to be a part of this but maybe this was a time she should have trusted in her friend’s ability to bring her into the conversation in a way that gave the both of them a good place to fight from if they had to fight.
The flip side is Becky is feeling hurt and maybe a little lost? These are her best friends parents and now the closest to parents she has, it might be unreasonable to expect her to not come say hi to them. Mr Brown was presumably a kind man to her growing up, why would she expect to have to fight him in the first place? We expect her to handle the situation with absolute foresight and perfection when in reality Becky is dealing with it in the way she thinks is best. It may even be the best way to deal with it, time will tell.
I hope I have explained myself clearly but I don’t often comment!
She’s not Dorothy, the atheist friend. She’s Becky, childhood friend. Hank and Carol aren’t just “Joyce’s parents”, they’re people she’s known for years. They’re the closest thing she has to remaining family. And they know that their daughter and her have been through thick and thin together.
This is not a stranger she has met once under ill circumstances once. These are people she’s probably spent dinner with and slept over at their house on many occasions. She knows Hank, personally, has established relationships with him and under normal circumstances would have no reason to assume that this behavior would be taking poorly. After all, she’s acting normally, breaking the ice, making things light and small-talk filled. The only “tension” she’s adding is her existence and well… her existence was going to come up this weekend. It would have to given recent events.
Also, it’s still not clear whether or not Becky is actually supposed to be coming along here rather than just lending moral support, so yeah, approaching and saying hi would be very important at this moment.
Yep. Becky probably considers the Brown household her second home, just judging from how Joyce was talking about Toedad. She quite possibly calls Joyce’s parents Mom and Dad. There is a History there that I’m not sure how people are overlooking.
When it’s considered from that perspective, it’s possible that this isn’t even something she’s doing on purpose at all; she’s forgetting that she can’t just jump into the conversation here the way she normally would. Or, her instinctive comfort with Joyce’s dad is overriding the more rational concerns, and she thinks it will be fine anyway.
@Shiro – only thing I can think of is that they’re not familiar with how small-town best-friendships work among children. My best friend growing up and I spent almost as much time at the other’s house as we did at our own. It can safely be assumed, from how Joyce spoke about Toedad, that they had the same level of familiarity with each other’s parents.
Hank and Carol aren’t strangers or near-strangers to Becky, they’re practically a second set of parents.
These are not normal circumstances, though, and Becky would have to be a moron not to recognize how badly this situation could go. Joyce might get pulled out of college and end up on the street after this weekend, and Becky just made that more likely. That’s not the action of someone who actually cares about Joyce.
I think the logic goes:
– Becky inserts herself into the conversation
– Father makes some sort of homophobic comments
– Joyce defends Becky against her dad
– Entire weekend is basically a big fight, with her parents concentrating more on Becky’s homosexuality than a gun-toting nutbag
– Parents stop funding Joyce’s tuition
– Because Joyce has to withdraw from college, Becky might too (although perhaps she might have enough support from Dina, Dorothy and others to continue sticking around.)
What might be preferred is:
– Joyce talks with her dad, feels out the situation (to see if her parents are OK with her still being friends with Becky)
– If she finds out that her parents are raging homophobes she can avoid breaching the subject altogether, or at least put it in a context that might result in sympathy. (i.e. the first thing that she could mention was the danger of toedad waving a gun, rather than Becky’s homosexuality. Plant the seeds in their mind that the danger is not “the gays” but the people trying to harm “the gays”)
She already told them on the phone that Becky likes girls and that she’s supporting Becky no matter what. It’s why Ross was there. It’s why Becky was there.
There is no way to avoid the subject. It can still be deflected to the actual danger, but we’ve already seen her mother take that back to “But you understand why…”
Oh yes, I’m sure the issue of Becky was definitely going to come up on the weekend.
Some people are just suggesting Joyce might wanted things to be brought up on her own terms (i.e. emphasizing the gun-toting lunatic) rather than have things brought up on other people’s terms.
I dont remember seeing talk of Becky ever going with Joyce (and if I’m wrong I’m wrong, I literally do not remember it) but even if she is, I’d say that’s a bad call in and of itself. Yes, Beck has the right to do whatever she wants, orientation notwithstanding, however she doesn’t live in a vacuum.
Right now her friend is suffering. It’s obvious and she can tell Joyce is distressed. Joyce wants and needs this weekend to go well, so she can still feel like she has a family who can support and love her, since it’s clear that her friends simply aren’t cutting it.
Becky being there, either to just say hi or to actually go home with her only serves to take that away from Joyce. Moreover, this action ACTIVELY HURTS BECKY, since right now she’s still living on campus in secret. Joyce’s parents are almost as bad as Becky’s, so when it does inevitably come up that Becky is gay, and hiding in Joyce’s dad’s old college campus for refuge, there are going to be some issues. At best he scolds Joyce for supporting Becky, at worst he calls the school and outs her.
Becky is accidentally forcing Joyce to make a choice at this specific point: defend Becky and risk the nice weekend/relationship with her dad that she really needs, or throw Becky under the bus and have everyone walk away sad. Joyce isn’t in the mental position to make the correct choice (defend Becky) so this can only end badly.
This is similar to the time Becky loudly announced that she was there, and gay, while living in Joyce’s room, thus putting them both at risk.
Becky isn’t a bad person, and has the right to exist and go wherever she pleases, but a little tact goes a long way, especially when you can lose your home at any moment, AND your friend that you’re stressing is stilly getting over some severe trauma and is in need of familial support.
For the rest of it… well, as someone who’s repeatedly been told I need to hide myself away and go in the closet and not be, you know, quite as visible because of how I am, I really can’t agree less with any of it. I’m really sorry, but I just can’t.
I have more to say, but it’s clear that this means a lot to you and there’s no point in making a stranger’s day worse just because I disagree their interpretation of a character. I’m sorry if this has caused you any distress.
Neither Joyce nor Becky there is concerned with themselves – Becky is offering to go to be Joyce’s support, Joyce is voicing concern that that will make things worse for Becky.
Yeah, I think they could both do to be more selfish, to check in with their own needs and express them to each other. LIke Becky might say “I’d love to come, because I want to support you, and because this is as close as I can get to having my family.” And Joyce might say, “But, this weekend really needs to stabilize me, and I’m already terrified of how they’ll react to my changed views — can we please wait til next time, they’ll still be your family.” But they’re both way too selfless to hash that out.
Leorale- Yeah, I’ve fallen into that trap with partners before where we’re both so focused on trying to do right by the other and fully support them that we forget to care for ourselves or even vocalize our needs and then things go wrong because of it.
It could be going the other, more obvious, way too. “I’m scared to go, but I want to go to support you.” and “I really want you there, but I don’t want to put you through it”.
Which is essentially what they said.
I’m not sure I really understand either side of this whole argument. One side seems to be “I HATE BECKY AND EVERYTHING ABOUT HER GO DIE IN A FIRE AAAGGGHHH” and the other seems to be “if someone is not heteronormative or whatever else is mainstream then they are perfect and have no flaws.”
I think people should be allowed to dislike Becky for reasons other than her being a lesbian. I mean, the only times I can stand Becky is when she’s with Dina (those two together are absolutely adorable I want them to be together forever). But all of her interactions with everyone else just rub me the wrong way. It’s not cause she’s gay though. It’s cause she’s obnoxious. And yeah sure she’s been through a lot but I don’t think that’s an excuse to be obnoxious. For instance, this guy I used to know had cancer and beat it but then decided that this gave him the right to just go around putting everyone else around him down and treating them all like crap. I dunno if he was like that before the cancer but he seemed to think it was justified. And we haven’t seen much of Becky before she escaped Anderson and Toedad to get to IU but she was probably like this before all of that.
No, no one deserves to have happen to them what Toedad did to her and if I had been there I wouldn’t’ve stopped with a punch like Joyce did. I would’ve beat him to death because, whether I like Becky or not, none of that is OK. The “therapy camp” or whatever it’s called, bringing a gun to school and chasing her down, threatening her and a bunch of other kids with a gun, none of that is OK no matter how obnoxious she is. But I still find her obnoxious most of the time.
Plus here, Joyce is going to be in a world of trouble when she gets home because she has a gay friend. Most of us don’t think being gay is bad but her parents think it’s a sin that will send you to hell, so to THEM it’s like as if Joyce is friends with a murderer cause murder is also a sin. Obviously it’s not clear whether they decided one way or the other whether Becky was coming home with Joyce or not but judging from their faces in the last panel if they did 100% decide that Becky was going nobody bothered to tell the Browns. And your equivalent-to-a-murderer (again, in her parents’s eyes, not mine) friend just interjecting themselves into a convo is inviting a lot of crap onto Joyce. (Note: I don’t like Joyce either, so I’m not sitting here defending her cause she’s the straight white chick. I’m just saying this random interjection into a convo with someone who equates your lifestyle with being a murderer is probably not the best thing to do, tact-wise. If you murder someone it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known your friend’s parents. They’re still not gonna want you around).
Also I can’t sleep so I hope this makes sense. Basically, Becky didn’t deserve the bad stuff that happened to her and I wish it hadn’t happened to her and Toedad needs to burst into flames but that doesn’t mean she can be obnoxious or invite problems for someone else. She could’ve at least waited for Joyce to call her over or something.
Where did anyone say Becky was perfect with no flaws? I see people saying that Becky isn’t the worst for wanting to talk to someone she’s known all her life. I can’t see anywhere way someone says Becky is perfect.
I love Becky’s flaws. Her jealousy of Dorothy, her habit of repressing all her hurt. They’re very humanizing and flesh out her character.
I’m just having a really hard time seeing how “talking to Joyce’s dad in a perfectly normal way” qualifies as a flaw and frankly it’s a bit offputting and triggering given my particular set of life experiences.
Becky, Carla, Jocelyne, etc… all have flaws. I just wish more times in these sorts of threads, people actually responded to the flaws they do have rather than the flaws they make up or project on to them in order to justify victim blaming.
I think you (Dragon_Nataku) misread the argument. Yes, one side is basically arguing that Becky is evil–saying she is inconsiderate and selfish and a horrible friend. But no one on the other side says she has no flaws. They’re the same people upthread who acknowledge that she’s loud and has impulse control problems.
It’s just that the argument that she is horrible is just so baseless. It seems to only be because this one action has a chance of being bad for Joyce. And just a chance, since there are many more ways it can go.
They disregard every other time that Becky has been completely selfless, and they disregard the flaw she’s had since the beginning–her impulsive behavior.
And, what’s worse, Becky isn’t doing anything wrong. She’s talking to someone she knows. She was not asked not to get involved, and it’s possible she thinks she is going back with them. They’re mad at her for doing something no one has given her any reason to not do.
So it reads a whole lot like those people who think that just being there and being gay is wrong. Sure, gya people have a right to do be out in public, but it’s still selfish and wrong. Ignore everything else about these people, just don’t make Joyceme feel a little bad.
This weekend isn’t going to go well and be a nice relaxing, supportive experience for Joyce no matter what Becky does. Since that phone call to her mom, Joyce knows it well.
Her parents might be thinking that she needs support, but they’re also thinking they need to get her back on the right path and away from all these secular influences, like atheists and Becky, so that she can make proper Godly choices. Like rejecting Becky.
No matter what Becky did here, whether she hid or whether she talks to Hank, this visit was always going to be a major stressor for Joyce. She was going to be on the defensive the whole time, trying to justify her choices to her parents and probably being pushed to question them herself.
If Becky comes along, that might bring the conflict a little more to the fore, but it also gives Joyce an ally and a reminder what she’s fighting for. Likely Becky being there would only shorten that awkward period where they’re all carefully being nice and avoiding the elephant in the room.
As I said before, Becky actually being there reminds them that this isn’t an abstract problem. They’re not rejecting the concept of lesbians, they’re rejecting Becky, who they’ve known and cared for all her life. And that is the single biggest thing that could sway them. In recent years it’s been by far the biggest factor in changing people’s attitudes towards gays – knowing them personally.
Yeah. And it means that there’s actually a better chance of it going well than if she doesn’t make herself present or come along.
Without her, it’s an abstract problem of how could you let Satan into your home. With her, it humanizes it, makes it clear that this is about Becky, the human being, with fears and emotions and a long storied history with their daughter. Even if they can’t look past their homophobia, maybe they’ll be able to understand why their daughter “defied” them.
On the bright side this is Joyce’s dad. From past appearances, it’s her mom who’s the more… vocal one on objections who whom Joyce associates with. Dad was kinda just there. So this may not be as bad as it could be. (*Knock-wood*)
I’m guessing the way the prior visit went may be why it’s only dad picking her up for the weekend.
It is not a shitty thing to do. It is not shitty to exist and to be friendly with a long close friend’s parents, especially when you’re probably coming along.
Honestly, we have very little to go on as far as him being less vocal than his wife is concerned. We know he backed down because he agreed with Joyce’s interpretation of a particular Bible quote. That doesn’t imply by default that he will be as agreeable in regards to Becky and what the Bible says about her.
As far as I can tell the very worst this could be called is a bit incautious. But that’s Becky in a nutshell. She’s Roosevelt’s “Man in the arena”. Things could go wrong here, certainly, but… well, let’s go over the alternative.
In her situation I would have been more cautious, but I’d never know that was the right choice. I would probably hide, not go on the trip “home” and forever wonder how things would have gone had I shown up. I probably would have told myself that everyone would be better off if I just quietly slipped away and let them get on without me, just in case. And I could never have been proven wrong, exactly. That way lies an ingrown life, and that’s what calling her behavior shitty inadvertently _demands_.
If Joyce wanted a Becky-free visit with her dad the onus is on Joyce to tell Becky that. Since we haven’t seen any such exchange we can’t expect Becky to act as if that exchange had taken place.
I wouldn’t call it shitty (malicious), just dumb and impulsive. If Joyce’s dad had a fundie freakout, Joyce would be forced to instantly choose between friend or family, not easy even when one is in the wrong.
Well yeah. Lesbians are visible. Thus, they are rude and ruining everything by existing all visibly around people whereas bisexuals are allowed to stand near people so long as they don’t move objects (cause this would clearly make people worried that the location was haunted).
I actually like to stand near people quietly and then move something nearby, just to watch them jump and say, “I just saw that move … Do you think this place has bisexuals?”
That reminds me of something that happened in DC comics. One time, in the gordian knot that is the continuity of Legion of Super Heroes, they introduced the first bisexual member of the team.
No, the first bi character was Dawnstar (revealed as such about…7 years ago, IIRC). Post-Zero Hour IK was gay.
(Arguably, there was Element Lad, but the intent was for him to be gay and just seeing through the ‘female’ mask when Sean was pretending to be Shvaughn, because in the 30th century, you should still assume homophobia, apparently.)
Jim Shooter, of all people, was severely hampered by editorial over that.
He initially wanted Ferro Lad to be black, but having a black dude in a series about a utopian future where mankind has peacefully resolved all conflict and joined a welcoming intergalactic civilization was apparently too much.
Jim Shooter is also the guy who insisted to John Byrne (again; of all people) that Northstar wasn’t allowed to be a gay in the 1980’s, so instead they revealed he was part elf.
Jesus Christ no it’s not derogatory what’s wrong with you 0.0
(and i don’t fucking mean autism, i’m autistic too and am capable of respecting bipolar, borderline and shizophrenic people as people jesus christ what the fuck seriously)
Maybe because “mental disorder” is outdated terminology that along most mental illness communities I know and deal with, the opinion is that it should go the way of the R-word?
(i.e., though I didn’t phrase it well, I was also opposed to referring to bipolar disorder as a “mental disorder”. Apologies for bad phrasing which I can see now had exactly the opposite of my intended implication.
Also apologies for wording which played into societal ableism. I am not opposed to being grouped in with people with bipolar. I am opposed to the use of outdated and othering phrasing.
No. It’s the scientific term. The developmental problems with autism happen in the brain, making it a mental disorder. It’s listed in the DSM-5: the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition.”
Now, if this were innocuous, I’d let it slide and let you think what you want. But trying to make a normal term offensive actually causes harm to our cause. Yes, our cause–I have a mental disorder, too.
Saying “mental disorder” is derogatory, when it is factually not used in that manner, only makes us look like we are not in touch with reality, and thus makes our real concerns seem like they could be “crazy,” too.
Anyway. I don’t think this is a matter of whether she has a right To do whatever she pleases (she does). It’s more general courtesy, because regardless of what it’s about, you should think about how people feel.
I mean, one of my good friends parents’ are extremely right wing scientologists, and he’s transgender and bi. That doesn’t mean I can pop in front of their house and make jokes the day after their dog died, even if I do exactly that normally. It doesn’t matter that I’m gay – I might have a right (and even a strong urge) to resort to humor, and have a right to be there, but that doesn’t make it any less insensitive.
It’s obviously not exactly the same here, but I think the same principle applies. I’m don’t think Becky’s doing anything terrible, and if Joyce and her dad are reasonable they’ll roll with it (understanding that Becky’s been through a lot, even more than Joyce, and it’s a way of dealing with it). But that doesn’t make it ideal.
Oh noes, I’m awful, reading down a comment thread and commenting. Bad Cerberus, no triple biscuit.
Also, the “dog dying” here is her, Becky, being targeted by her dad, involving a gun being pulled on her personally, leading to her personally being kidnapped and being involved in a car crash.
Becky was rather central to this whole “dog dying” thing that has Joyce’s parents wanting to show their support to Joyce. And she’s not entering in with her sushi joke while talking heavy stuff. They’re making small talk. Becky entered in with small talk of her own.
I’m really not getting how so so many people are viewing this as nefarious or injurious to Joyce other than by blaming her for societal homophobia.
I don’t think anyone’s saying it’s nefarious, per se. Becky’s trying to help things in her own Becky way, it’s just, judging by the expressions on the Browns’ faces, it’s kinda startling them right now. I wouldn’t call it bad, but I wouldn’t say Becky’s being perfect either. Especially if it ends up escalating much.
Yes, you wouldn’t barge into their house. But are you saying you wouldn’t talk to them in public? Because that’s what’s going on here. Becky is talking to her two friends in public. They weren’t grieving over their “dog dying”, or anything. And she didn’t bring the subject up.
You mention ideals, but what is ideal for Becky? That she just hide herself from her best friend and someone who has been a father figure in her life?
I’m not saying everything is ideal for Joyce. And I can see an argument that Becky is being a bit of her impulsive self and hasn’t thought things through.
But the idea that she’s wrong for talking to them just doesn’t work.
About the only thing Becky’s really guilty of here is lack of foresight. If Joyce’s dad decides to be a dick about her being there, that’s HIS fault, not hers.
Becky practically grew up in the Brown household. She and Joyce were as close as sisters you can be. She just lost her family. This man is the closest thing she has to a father.
I know. This is the scrappy remains of anything she could remotely call a family here. People are really not paying attention to what exactly they’re accidentally saying here.
Not so much replying to you as much as replying to this thread in general
You guys… Hank is NOT Ross. Mr. Brown is NOT Toedad. Papa Joyce is NOT Papa Becky, although he MIGHT AS WELL BE. Hank has had another child rebel to him (Joshua IIRC). I find it doubtful that he’s never of LGBT issues, having an LGBT daughter (Jocelyne). Regardless of dogma, he can’t be as ignorant as Toedad, as he’s had to deal with difference.
Becky’s been raised with him. She’s family to him, the Browns are family to her. They were probably her introduction to a next degree of freedom -after all, Toedad didn’t even let Becky have a cell phone, so going to Joyce’s was probably her chance to “get wild” and watch Psalmy until midnight or whatever. Her haircut is the only thing that screams lesbian about her, and that’s only a stereotype. He’s heard of her lesbianism, but he probably also heard of MacIntyre going on a shooting spree, causing a traffic incident, and hurting his youngest daughter. There are too many stakes. It’s not as black and white as with Toedad. And Becky might or might not know this consciously, but she most definitely can feel the conflict inconsciously. But historically he’s been part of one of her safe spaces, an a space that she has not yet established as unsafe.
Joyce already left her parents a voice mail lighting fire to that bridge. At this point, the stakes are already lower, as they don’t want that and a week later they might have thought over bargains and let the fire de out a little.
God I’m bad at meta and analysis, like I’m the kind of dude who forgets half of the strips, doesn’t associate implicit shit, and EVEN I can tell Becky’s not being a selfish bull in a china shop here. Careless? Definitely! But does she even have a choice being not?
TL;DR: Give the poor man a chance, and don’t jump at Becky’s throat for doing so.
Yes, but did it have to happen now? They were just starting to get father-daughtery. We were in the clear, at least we would’ve been till she got home and things innevitably heated up.
You mean until they were home and Joyce was completely isolated from any support? I’m hoping this is Becky making it clear she’s going to be tagging along because the last thing I want is Joyce being stuck dealing with this stuff with her parents alone.
I feel I should explain that my brain played a long game of broken telephone to pick that quote, and as an afterthought I tacked on the bit about Atlas Shrugged. I was sleepy and I thought “hey, loving yourself and finding the world inadequate is a very Ayn Rand idea, isn’t it?” I did not mean to imply anything about Willis’ philosophical motivations for writing that line. I’m sure he’s all about friendship and teamwork and frequently donates to disabled puppies
“Joyce, why are you keeping this a secret. I’m not raising you to do disgusting unchristian things like…Eating Sushi. If jesus wanted us to eat raw fish he wouldn’t have invented the Grill. Oh, hi Becky”
Of course we have. Jesus fought Foreman for the heavyweight title back in 96. If I recall correctly, Foreman won by KO, and the entire earth was destroyed.
The bible doesn’t discuss it but Jesus also gave everyone a personal Grill, and told them that they must eat their fish prepared in this fashion, or not at all. He then got in his hot rod with a couple of his groupies and zoomed off to create nutella and compose Bohemian Rapsody.
Yeah, that’s the heartbreaking part in all this. Becky has no family left. This is the closest thing still remaining.
And she so desperately wants to connect to it, but Hank and Carol will probably never see Becky, the brash little kid who’s been their daughter’s friend since forever. They’ll just see her sexuality and what their religion has called on them to view that as.
And the worst part is if she’s rejected here she won’t actually show it. She’ll bury it until she’s alone. And she’ll cry there where no one can see her. Lamenting a family ripped from her life. Simply because she is.
And now I remember why I dislike Becky. Yes, her life is unfair and sucky, but Joyce is being incredibly nice to her(as a friend should), the least Becky could do is not make Joyce’s already-stressful weekend even worse.
It was almost two months ago, so I guess I forgot. Although the comic kind of left it up in the air what the decision was and whether or not Joyce actually wants Becky there for family weekend.
Knowing that it actually was the plan (or at least a plan) for Becky to come with, it seems like she probably just popped up so awkwardly because this situation is fucked up, she had no ideas for how to enter the conversation naturally, and so she defaulted to her usual “full steam ahead!” coping strategy.
Joyce’s worldview is already cracking. Becky’s just guaranteeing that Joyce won’t get a chance to peacefully talk with her father and try to get him to back her before the inevitable explosion with her mom. Not to mention that Joyce had a gun pointed at her earlier this week and might reasonably need a non-stressful interaction with her dad before she snaps. This is the equivalent of Mike’s “Hail Satan” but from a character Willis seems convinced we should like.
Mike deliberately antagonizes Carol in a way most likely to put multiple people in danger: Comment thread loves it, jokes about how much Mike uses his power of assholitude to make everyone better people.
Becky has normal small talk with people she’s known her entire life and may be going home with this weekend: How dare you Becky, have you no respect for how hard you’re making Joyce’s life?
And that is very illustrative. All the more illustrative for all the people slagging on Carla in the last arc and Carla’s comment on the unreasonable expectation to be “perfect” if you’re marginalized.
I’m trying to figure out if the issue is that these commentors are homophobes/transphobes or that they’re misogynists. Or whether it’s some intersection of all three. None of the dudes have received this treatment, but then again, they’ve all been “straight” as far as heteronormativity tells us.
There are some readers who are only interested in Danny because he’s bi, yeah. I mean, there have been genuine requests for him to cheat, disappointment that he won’t, and calls that he get over being monogamous because it gets in the way of him fucking a dude like he is actually required to by law. It’s all a big pile of gross as fuck sexual objectifying filtered through the lens of it being acceptable as long as its in the name of Danny being the right kind of queer man.
At the same time, Danny is pretty much the only bi dude in popular webcomics, and the only bi dude in any fiction I consume. I can’t understate how important it is that Danny just being bi, and seeing him deal with that in the context of what it means to him and in his relationship with Amber, is for bisexual male readers. We don’t get representation, period, and when we do it’s always, always about us being magical sex pixies who just want to stick our dicks into any hole that wriggles, fundamentally incapable of fidelity, or about how our relationships with women don’t count, because as queer men, we need to be queer in a visibly queer way for us to actually count to more privileged straight and gay folks, because to suggest otherwise means we’re faking having valid attractions to both genders; that we’re just putting on a little gay hat for a night on the town before going back into our straight hiding holes.
To be fair, I don’t know if that’s so much because of Danny’s bisexuality as because Danny’s only other notable defining characteristic up until that point was his haplessness.
Yes, how dare she exist in the presence of a bigot doesn’t she know it’s her responsibility to disappear lest she FORCE him to be an awful human bieng?
This is probably the first time Hank has seen Becky with her new haircut. Maybe he’ll experience a 404 error and by the time he reboots he’ll have forgotten what he was going to say.
I… don’t think she’s here to antagonize the Browns? After staring down the barrel of homelessness and poverty I don’t think she’d try to do anything that might force Joyce to confront her parents, even though it would be understandable that Becky would be angry and spiteful towards them too after everything that’s happened.
Is this… an attempt to protect Joyce somehow…? Just wanting to know for herself what’s going on…? I really have no clue where this is going.
Actually, could this be an attempt to hitch a ride back to their hometown to pick up her legal docs? She was recently thinking about jobs so she might be after her social security card and birth certificate. Maybe she could even guilt some adults in their hometown into helping out. But why the hell would she do that without getting Joyce on board first?
Thanks for the reminder. I totally forgot about that until winter posted a link a couple threads up.
My guess now is that there’s nothing to Becky’s awkward entrance than her just not knowing what the hell else to do. There’s not really any way that this could be not awkward anyway.
It wasn’t just Becky coming along they were discussing, it was Becky coming along to act as moral support for Joyce. Which Joyce hesitated to accept because it might cause stress for Becky.
She came right out and said ‘no’ to Dorothy. (Although, honestly, that might have been for Dorothy’s comfort. She just never said why.) It’s doubtful she wouldn’t to the best friend she’s always been open with before.
(Yes, I understand that the South isn’t Nazi Germany. I’m also aware that the South probably isn’t even normal German. Finally, we should all be aware that, despite the association with sieg heil, saying ‘Heil’ still really only amounts to ‘Hail’ or ‘Hear, hear’ in German. Shoosh.)
Why? What has she done here that wouldn’t be completely acceptable if she was straight? Say hi to her best friend’s father who she’s know pretty much her entire life? Make a joke about said best friend’s pickiness? Literally the only thing she’s doing here that could be “objectionable” is be gay.
In fairness, it wouldn’t really matter why Joyce and her parents were going to have a big fight about Becky. It’s just happens that being gay is the reason they’re going to.
Mind you, I still don’t have a problem with Becky doing it and I hope she comes along.
Except that is not the case. Becky has been at the center of an extremely disruptive event. Joyce needs this time to deal with her parents in her own way. Becky’s injection of herself is just as annoying as Dorothy trying to change Joyce in Gender Studies class when Joyce is clearly has a crisis of faith.
My position isn’t because Becky is gay. I’ve been the kicked out gay kid. Ben there, am that. There is a such thing as tact and Becky is not demonstrating it.
I don’t really… understand why Becky felt the need to make her presence known here. Even disregarding the discomfort it might be bringing up for Joyce, I probably wouldn’t want to be in the same room as Mr Brown for fear of stirring up shit and getting kicked out of the dorm.
Becky might be takin’ a risk here but Becky’s also been Joyce’s friend for most of her life. You can’t just assume all fundies are gun-toting Christians. I’m sure she actually LIKES the Browns and just wants to see if they’re down with Taco Tuesdays.
ABORT THE BALLOONS! ABORT THE BABIES!
But seriously, Hank had damn well better be nice to Becky. She’s his daughter’s best childhood friend. If he’s mean to her now just because she’s a lesbian, I’ll be… well, actually, I won’t be too surprised. But I will be VERY ANGRY.
Ruth: This really hot girl in my dorm is an alcoholic and a drunk driver! That really makes me angry for some reason. I better go get counseling to deal with my problems so I don’t take it out on her for no reason.
So much this. Also, does everyone who’s saying that realize that what they’re saying is “How dare you Becky? How dare you be alive in a way that inconveniences Joyce’s ability to try and lie her way through the weekend?”
Like, Becky exists. Becky is probably coming along. Becky at the least should say hi to the closest thing she has to remaining family and show her humanity given that Joyce will definitely be having a fight this weekend over her moral choice to not literally leave her out in the cold.
Becky is doing nothing wrong unless you believe “inconvenient” people should be hidden out of sight so they won’t “upset” people.
And being one of those “inconvenient” people? One of those people who people straight up tell on the regular that I am doing something wrong walking down the street, it’s really not okay to be doing that.
It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t make one feel fully human.
Or until our “allies” need/want to make a big dramatic show of how they Do Ally so well. Without asking us about what we want/need out of an ally, and then getting all offended when we get annoyed at them for either steamrolling over our own wants (case in point: if you want to be an ally, make no assumptions about whether I’m comfortable with the entire room knowing I’m bi – you can call out a stranger using bigoted language without using me as your prop. I assure you, there is pretty much no situation in which I am comfortable coming out to the entire room – not the least of which is because being an out bi woman is like having a superpowered creep magnet implanted and then I’m the one who has to deal with groping and creepy propositions for threesomes all night), or making a situation worse, or making a situation about them.
FYI: same holds true for disabled and chronically ill people – you’d be amazed how often I get the cops called on me because I “must be on drugs” (read: am being visibly autistic in public because I made the mistake of thinking nobody was watching and let my guard down a bit) or how often people threaten me with violence for asking them not to expose me to things that make it hard to breathe (like asking smokers to abide by provincial law requiring them to be a certain distance from the entrance of a building) or how often I get told I should “just stay home” if [asthma trigger] bothers me so damn much. Bonus points if I get told that by someone wearing so much perfume you can smell them 20 feet away in a supposedly scent-reduced environment, or by someone who just emptied half a bottle of perfume into the women’s washroom so they can pretend their shit doesn’t stink.
Becky volunteered to come home with Joyce, and I don’t recall Joyce ever telling her no. So why all the surprised comments? She was going to have to make Hank aware of her presence at some point.
Because the comic plays it like a surprise. Joyce doesn’t ask if Becky’s packed (even though her dad got here earlier than expected), Becky is hiding around the corner with the others rather than walking down with Joyce to meet him, and when she pops up Joyce has a worried/surprised look on her face. I mean, they may have totally planned it and Becky was just hanging back to give Joyce a moment with her dad, but the presentation of the strip is “unexpected Becky is unexpected”.
I do have to say that starting your sushi-eating career with a whole shrimp seems like a poor choice. Tuna, maybe wel or a California roll are probably easier for a newbie.
Becky is only guilty of wishful thinking here, I think. She sees Joyce’s dad behaving in a friendly, normal, happy way and probably thinks everything’s okay between them despite the dad knowing about what happened. This is an adult she’s known since she was a child, and probably views as an extended family member. I think she wants pretty desperately to have some kind of acceptance/normalcy from her old life, and thinking that her friend’s dad isn’t going to outright spit venom in her face is not an unreasonable thought.
She’s probably had tons of exchanges like this with Mr. Brown, and in fact was with the Browns when they dropped off Joyce. It reads like her trying to pick up an old rapport. From what she said about the Chik Fil A protest, these parents are the more subtly homophobic ones: “It’s not about hate, it’s about choice,” which might make her feel like they’ll be more likely to be friendly with her in a ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ way.
So yeah, this might not have been a wise decision, but it’s one I sympathize with and find more sad than anything else. I certainly don’t like that she’s garnering immediate hatred in the comment section for it, and the tone of it makes it read like people would rather her keep her head down and try to be invisible. She’s said nothing here that would upset either Joyce or her dad, it’s her presence that may be upsetting, and that’s not something I hate Becky for. I don’t hate her for trying to reach out and reconnect to another adult figure in her life that she hopes won’t spit in her face.
A nice interpretation of Becky’s action. And if true, it’s sad.
She is too decent basically to see that he is not going to react well, I have a feeling.
I really like Becky since she calmed down a bit after exploding onto the world scene. I think she’s strong, resilient, bright, funny and a good person.
But, I sit here staring at the last 3 strips, and see Becky’s face when Walky ran his mouth about Joyce and Dorothy’s pretend marriage in gender studies.
And I can’t see any reason why Becky would pop out, in full bloom, at this point, unless she is deliberately is trying to put Joyce on the spot.
Personally, the way Joyce has treated her or not treated her recently, I think it’s about time Becky gave a little back to Joyce.
Joyce hasn’t been mean, but she is so wrapped up in herself, as she usually is, that she was getting comfort FROM Becky at the car wreak – instead of GIVING it to Becky who surely needed her best friends attention.
Joyce needs to grow up in more ways than one, imo. We all have problems, they kill us or we grow up. Becky is growing up.
And yes, getting even is growing up under certain circumstances.
I can think of a reason why: Hank is basically a surrogate father to her, and she doesn’t realize that unlike Joyce, Hank and Carol don’t let their compassion and innate decency over-ride their ingrained bigotry.
(well, Carol doesn’t. Hank tries at least. Sort of. For his kids. While passive-aggressively reminding them of his religious interpretation on the subject. But at least he respects that his kids are good and well-meaning even if they don’t always make decisions he agrees with. Remains to be seen whether Becky counts as “of the kids” for this. And from experience, “hate the sin not the sinner” talk can still be pretty damn hurtful even if it’s intended well.)
Well now Becky is putting Joyce is a position where Joyce will have to defend her from her !@#$ father. But maybe it’s better they get this in the open, than pretend it isn’t there?
The question is, will Joyce defend her? I wonder.
Supposedly she really likes Dorothy, but refused her request to walk her downstairs because she’s an atheist.
Joyce has risked her life for Becky, and vice versa. Heck, when Becky came out, Joyce was willing to risk the wrath of God. I don’t think the wrath of Hank really compares.
Dorothy was asking Joyce if having her around would help. Joyce stated the fact that it wouldn’t. This isn’t Joyce rejecting or hurting Dorothy, it’s her acknowledging the obvious.
Becky is different than Dorothy here because:
1) unlike Dorothy, she’s actually going to come along and support Joyce all the way through, not leaving her without support in the face of her parents’ dissatisfaction with her choices;
2) unlike Dorothy, she’s Joyce’s childhood friend, having known her since forever, and is much more effective at actually lending Joyce emotional support just by being there;
3) unlike Dorothy, she’s known these people since forever too. She’s not just an ‘undesirable friend’ stranger to them, she’s their Becky. She might not make the situation as a whole less awkward, but she’s definitely going to ease some pressure off personally Joyce by taking it herself instead;
4) unlike Dorothy, she isn’t just there for Joyce. She’s there for herself. As Cerberus has mentioned numerous times already, these people are the closest Becky has to her own parents now, and they are well aware of that. She needs to clear the air there – find out for sure what this relationship is now going to be like – absolutely regardless of Joyce. That she’s actually going to help Joyce along the way is a nice bonus.
(And she is going to help Joyce. All the lectures of “lebianism is sin and Toedad had a point” that were going to be targeted at personally Joyce are now going to at least be shared between them, and that makes one hell of a difference)
“Senpai noticed me!!” is basically my default response anytime Cerberus responds to one of my comments. Unless they’re disagreeing with me then it’s more like “Oh no I have erred grievously.”
The really amusing bit will be when they get to the Brown home and Dina gets out of the car behind them. Having been completely unnoticed through the entire car ride.
Dina’s never been confirmed as bi, actually. The way she said that gender expression might not matter to indicated to me that she was pan, or more specifically panromantic since I also view her as ace.
Both Joyce and her dad have expressions that say, “oh crap.” Also for some reason I’m expecting Hank to say “Well, the sushi here is pretty awful. I remember needing a ton of soy sauce.”
More like “In my days, if you wanted sushi you had to go out in the street, all the way down to the coast, get on a ship and hunt the goddamn tuna by yourself.”
(Would Hank say “goddamn” though? I wonder if it counst as blasphemy)
Yep. Why the anti-Becky comments were so ferociously negative was baffling me at first. But then I figured out where the commenters were coming from.
These responses are predicated on the belief that lesbians should know that they are are considered offensive and not fully human. Consequently, they should be respectful of those people who loathe them. Because it would be very rude and insensitive to make those people uncomfortable.
Becky reaching out for the same reason Joyce was so shaken by toedad with a rifle. Because she has been safe with and cared for by the man standing in front of her, for her whole life. Which direction this goes is on him, not Becky.
You’re right. The part where she’s pointing to her vag and going “yeah, baby I like girls here” is really inappropriate and awkward… wait, what’s that? She didn’t do that? Instead she approached with a perfectly normal and humanizing bit of small-talk as she would with a long-time acquaintance she has known for many years?
Well, then, these sorts of comments just got a fuck of a lot more awkward then, didn’t they?
It’d be an interesting twist if Papa Joyce is actually uncomfortable because he’s unsure how to react to a kidnap victim. One who he knew from basic childhood and is terrified/sympathetic too.
Of course, I remember when I stopped being a fundamentalist. I actually had a lifestory somewhat similar to Willi, except I felt into fundamentalism rather than was indoctrinated for it so I don’t have an excuse. I became deeply ingrained in the belief system and started speaking all sorts of terrible crazy things. I also became a homophobe.
Then I went to work at a job with an openly lesbian boss. She was a nice person and it occurred to me, the first time I met her. “Wait, I’m supposed to be hateful to this person? There’s something wrong here.” So, I was just polite and after a week, realized I was a sick male bongo for behaving like this.
It was the beginning of the end for my fundamentalism because recognizing basic humanity and empathy is the enemy of all hate.
Because of family.
Because Joyce is her best friend in the whole world and she doesn’t want her to be alone.
Because she has known Hank her whole life and decided to put her head on the block to find out if all dads are terrible or just Ross.
Because her parents are gone, her school has kicked her out but the Browns still serve as a link to her old life.
Ok we’re doing this you know what why stop here let’s get two atheists out here alongside the smartass who you know is going to be a shit no matter what.
I want to test Hanks patient’s here like how much will you put up with and if he succeeds Congrats he’s way more likeable than his wife.
Oh my god y’all. This time it’s just frustrating because I have no idea how y’all are even getting to the conclusions at which you’re arriving. How in the world is Becky being a smartass or a shit?
I haven’t seen this much Becklash in months. I have no idea where it’s coming from, let alone in a strip where Becky is enthusiastically greeting someone she probably sees as the closest thing she has to a father in her life right now.
Someone coined it months ago for the irrational hatred Becky received for such heinous actions as “being a bit flippant” and “spending 20$ on a haircut.”
Their name has been lost to history, at least because I can’t be assed to look it up.
Queer people aren’t fully people, don’t you see? And any time we get uppity and act like we are, we deserve anything that comes to us as a result.
That’s where it’s coming from.
(See also when I got kept in for in-school suspension after some biphobic bullying for longer than the bullies because I had “contributed to the situation” by coming out. That kind of victim-blaming is at play here and it boils down to how dare Becky exist while openly lesbian around people who aren’t comfortable with her sexual orientation)
Go Becky Go!
I’m rooting for Becky to make things better, not worse.
That look on Joyce’s dad’s face is totally just his “What happened to your hair?” look.
Yuuuuup.
I agree we shouldn’t judge Hank by Toedad’s measure. Becky is a girl he half-raised, if she’s that close to Joyce. He has watched her grow up and (hopefully) loves her as a quasi-daughter too. He also knows she’s been through crazy trauma just now. Being fundamentalist doesn’t means he has to be a total a-hole; Joyce isn’t, and she had to get empathy somewhere.
Think quick, mr Brown. What do you say to the girl who was raised partly under your roof, basically as a sister to your daughter, who was thrown out by her family and school and assaulted with a gun by her father because of who she is? A father who is a part of your community and who was upholding your values.
Hint: The correct reaction is to display concern. “Becky, I’m so glad to see you. How are you holding up?” would be one acceptable way to phrase it.
There are lots of ways in which Becky annoys me, in that she’s the type of person I can’t stand in real life. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand why she acts the way she does some times.
But this is one of those annoying ones. And it’s not because I think she should hide because she’s gay. It’s because Joyce has also been through a traumatic experience and has literally just started talked with her father. It’s a private moment, dammit. She’s even smiling. Best friend or not, sometimes you shouldn’t intrude.
Now, Becky may have taken the lack of shouted Bible verses and the fact that even Dina can identify the facial expressions as smiles to indicate that things will be fine. If the issue of whether she was going to accompany Joyce was never actually settled, she may have decided just now to risk it.
She could even be worried that Joyce seeing her family again could get her re-brainwashed into homophobia and have decided to pre-empt that, so that if Hank’s going to say horrible things about her he’ll have to do it to her face in Joyce’s presence. Whether she’s thought it out or not, she’s throwing down the gauntlet here. It’s a perfectly understandable thing to do.
And it still just reaffirms all the ways I find Becky annoying.
You mean the traumatic experience of Becky getting kidnapped by her own father? This is the experience you are referring to justify calling Becky annoying?
Well we have a lot in common.
Everything youve written here— I feel the same way;
Except about the Homophbes in the readership attacking Becking for existing Or Transphobes demanding Carla Be “that Perfect girl”
<<<holds up mirror.
"Whether she’s thought it out or not, she’s throwing down the gauntlet here. "
Hmmm
"And it still just reaffirms all the ways I find" Phobes "annoying".
yup
I sorta understand why Becky thinks this is okay… but quite honestly, it’s not okay. Joyce needs time away, time at home without any of these issues bothering her for at least a little while.
The odds of “these issues” not bothering her at home were like 9438 to 1, even if Becky had hidden away in Dina’s room all weekend long. First: she’s already outspokenly gone to bat for Becky to her mom, and there’ll be hell to pay for that; second: her own current crisis of faith and newfound ability to curse would be causing trouble even if Becky wasn’t involved at all.
Seriously this. She’s coming home specifically as part of a “oh baby, are you okay after that man came to the school with that gun” thing. The chances that Becky and her sexuality weren’t coming up this weekend… hell, this day were absolutely zero.
Becky showing she exists isn’t changing those odds, because that discussion was going to happen one way or another anyways, because that calm before the storm there was just the small talk before shit gets heavy.
Now I am wondering what plans Hank had for preemptive damage control on the drive back. Like trying to maneuver Joyce into not getting into a confrontation with her Mom.
A futile hope, of course, but sometimes you just have to try.
I find it kind of gross that so many people’s first reaction to this is “GODDAMMIT BECKY!” and not: “THE BALL’S IN YOUR COURT, DON’T FUCK IT UP HANK!!!”
I hold out 0 hope of Hank not fucking it up. That’s the problem, he’s going to fuck it up and Joyce will suffer for it. Why Becky thinks that’s a good thing I don’t know.
I doubt she thinks it’s a good thing. I think she hopes Hank is going to respond like the man she remembers him being because she’s taking her prompts by how nice he’s being to Joyce right now. If he reacts badly, no doubt Becky will be horrified and miserable. Acting like she’s doing this just to torment Joyce or even with the idea that it will torment Joyce is doing her a disservice.
Your blaming Becky for the Homophobia she has to face, every single day for the rest of her life. Its never going to stop EVER till the Homophobes stop it; or people like you , grown a spine and Flip The Script.
“I hold out 0 hope of Hank not fucking it up”
How do you stack up in the same standards , you hold up for Hank and Becky?
Considering all the LGBT readers right now, maybe wonder how you stack up in the “not F-ing it up “?
“will suffer for it.”
How will your comments effect LGBT readers? will they suffer for it too?
“Why”.. you “thinks that’s a good thing I don’t know’
People are saying ‘Dammit Becky’ as if she hasn’t been through jack shit recently. I don’t want to spark a flame war here, but let’s just make a few quick notes:
JOYCE: Having her religion challenged, reacting badly; Nearly raped; Had a gun pointed at her; Punched the asshole who did it
BECKY: Already challenged her religion at some point, partially over it; Painfully rejected by Joyce (partially reconciled???); Had a gun pointed at her; Got kidnapped; Has shown tendencies to cover up emotional trauma with a cheerful mask
They’ve both been through shit, sure. But I don’t think it’s fair for most of the comments I’ve read to say “Becky is annoying, Joyce need space” or “Becky is fine, Joyce is traumatized” etc. etc. (Note that those are the slightest of generalizations.)
You have to remember that Becky, under most circumstances, reverts to her happy-go-lucky exterior to deal with stress, trauma, and sadness Keep that in mind when you make comments about why Becky is “so annoying right now”. (Another extremely slight generalization.)
They’re both victims, and you can’t just let one fall by the wayside, as it were.
TL;DR: Becky and Joyce have both been through shit, give them both some slack.
Oh, and Becky doesn’t much have any family any more PERIOD. Joyce still has several siblings and her parents.
Also, Becky’s own FATHER is the one that pointed the gun at her. Reasons like that are why I say Becky doesn’t have any real family. As far as we know, at least.
Those are all great points. These are two traumatized people with very different ways of expressing it. And they are both doing the best they can to rebuild their lives in positive ways (Joyce reaching out more about her PTSD triggers, questioning what she was taught as a child, Becky studying hard to enroll in college, being super cute and healthy with her girlfriend).
I’m not sure what Willis has in mind for this, but I speculate an alternate explanation for Becky’s actions. She’s just been through an entirely traumatic experience. Her father has turned on her in a vile and malicious manner. Her college turned on her. Presumably her church turned on her. Her life has been put in danger. This happy-go-lucky attitude she has? I suspect it’s a front.
Becky is hurting inside from trauma and betrayal, and she wants catharsis. She got some of that catharsis when she flipped off her father, but I wonder if she doesn’t want more. I wonder if she’s not putting herself out there so boldly in the hopes, consciously or unconsciously, that she’ll be attacked and thus get to attack her attackers in turn. She wants Joyce’s dad to judge her, so she can flip him off like she did her father.
Which sucks for Joyce, but Becky’s been through just as much as Joyce has. She deserves what she needs to heal as well. If I’ve got this figured right (and I might not), Becky’s got a lot of anger. And that anger is legitimate and requires outlet. That’s why she nuked the closet from orbit. That’s why she’s butting in on Joyce and her father. She’s painting a target on herself and saying “come at me, bro!” in the hopes that her retaliation will release the feelings she has inside.
I don’t think she wants Hank’s judgement. I think she wants his love. His acceptance. His assurances that she’s not an unperson in his eyes. That she’s someone he can at least be civil and kind to.
Because as you say, she’s got nothing left from home besides Joyce who supports her in even the smallest of ways. This is her last chance for that.
That’s possible. Like I said, just speculation of a possible alternate motivation. And, admittedly, based more than a little on my own experience being rejected by my family.
Thanks. I wasn’t looking for sympathy, but it is very much appreciated.
That was years ago, though, so I have, I hope, some perspective on it now. It wasn’t homosexuality for me, but I sympathize a lot with both Becky and Joyce in this comic.
But Becky hasn’t had years. Becky just went through it all a few days ago. And when I see a character who’s been severed from her whole life, who’s been decried as evil, who’s had her father put a gun to her and her friends, and who still is smiling all the time?
Sal said it. Someone who went through this should be traumatized. But not Becky. It just rolls off Becky. Her response to what should be the most traumatizing thing she’s ever been through was, as I recall, “Again!”
That looks an awful lot like denial to me. That looks to me like a thin veneer of “That Perfect Girl” put up to disguise the depth of her trauma. Maybe I’m just used to Willis putting drama in everything, but I don’t think the other day’s [Internal Screaming] was as much of a joke as it seemed.
Or maybe I’ve taken a few details in a story and run the absolute wrong direction with them, that is also quite possible. 🙂
“Win/win” would be my guess, too. When you’ve got your life on track, you can put up with a lot of people just playing along, pretending to be nice, but when you’re in a bad situation you need to crack those masks and find out who’s a real friend, who’s a foe, and who’s just a useless bystander.
I’m going to say this here. Those of you who are acting like Becky did something wrong here? For talking to a person she has known all her life. For showing her face instead of hiding in shame, groveling in how “hard” she makes her friend’s life simply for existing?
That’s really not cool.
And I’m saying this, because that request. That request to hide, to be absent, to apologize for existing is something I’ve gone through… a lot. A lotta lot.
And it’s still scarring me. I was told to my face that things like being threatened with death or being discriminated against or being disowned or being repeatedly accosted or mistreated on the street were because I was being “so stupid as to force myself on people” by existing near them. I was made to feel like the ways in which secondary trauma befell those close to me were personally fault. I was “breaking up the family”. I was “hurting everyone” around me.
At many a time I believed that the only way to stop people from being hurt by my existence was… well, to take a more permanent solution as it were.
And it still grips me. I don’t have that thought so much anymore, but I catch myself when I’m out with someone I love, where I worry about what will befall them for being next to me. Or where I view myself as incapable of being worth the suffering that can come with. Where I view myself as a cancer in other people’s lives. And that is up to me to make it up to everyone. By being, in Carla’s terms, “that perfect girl”.
And the reason that scarred was because society fully agreed with those sentiments. Of course I’m making “everyone’s life hard”, of course I should be held to this impossible standard.
And of course it should be reasonable to ask me to be invisible.
And that invisibility? Wounds.
For Becky, this is the last gasping breath of family she’s got left. Joyce is a friend she wants to support as best she can.
And she’s responding in a perfectly normal way. She’s doing nothing wrong.
And reacting as if she is doing something wrong simply because she exists in space is NOT okay. And I’m sorry to be firm on this, but I’m not sure how to convey just how dehumanizing it is to read so many comments echoing that sentiment so strongly when you have a background like mine.
I hope you’re doing okay, these past few comments sections seem to be causing you a lot of stress and pain and I’m really sorry for that. It sucks looking through these and feeling like your humanity/feelings are invalidated in the minds of some people.
You don’t need to apologize at all. You’ve been very strong for very long, and you deserve a moment to rest and recuperate. You’ve been fighting the good fight and everyone worth caring about, both here and elsewhere, is very proud and grateful. ♥
Like the others said, there’s no reason for you to feel sorry for your feelings, they’re completely understandable. I’ve been admiring all of your comments and your bravery in talking about your struggles in such detail. You definitely deserve some peace and I hope it comes to you. <3
But ( my unsolicited advice ) Try and be conscious of the energy burden, on yourself, of taking on the job of ‘teh jackass whisperer’ .
It also has a cost —just like reading privileged bullshit.
i think the main benefit of challenging bias and untruth, is the effecting Bystander effects on the other people reading or witnessing a conversation. in this case it signals to gay and trans people that you have their back fully.
And the points youve made here are excellent.
But if its a drain, and the topic is “who is responsible for the burden of homo/transphobic bias?” You can outsource also that to someone .
( Dan Savage? Its one of his main perennial topics )
You don’t need to be stronger, or at the very least you damn well shouldn’t, they need to be more mindful of the implications of what they’re saying. There’s nothing for you to be sorry about you’re an entirely positive and illuminating influence on this community. I know I’m not the only one who appreciates your relentless defense of marginalized people or your efforts to educate people on our issues. You’re very good people and I’m really glad you’re around to set people straight (just not too straight).
Hey Cerberus, sorry to hear that you’re not doing well. I don’t know if this will help since you strike me as someone already well versed in coping strategies. But for what it’s worth, I’ve learned to pay extra attention when I find myself using “should” statements since they often reveal unfair expectations I’m putting on myself. Rephrasing them still seems really gimmicky to me but despite that it actually does help me sometimes.
Echoing everyone that you are rad, and also that you’ve been extremely generous with your important perspective in these comment sections. As a result, I hear you loud and clear, and clearly many others have, too. Thank you so much!
Also, giving you tons of permission to take a break whenever the comments put you in a bad headspace. (Or, for that matter, whenever you want.)
Does reading/responding a lot do you more harm, or more good? Maybe sometimes one but sometimes the other?
You are much more important than the comments section is.
Please be a bit selfish and take care of yourself. Only you know whether that means continuing to read it all, to take long breaks whenever the comments get to you, etc. You’ve already expressed yourself so well that others will have your back. I hope you do what is best for you, because you are the best. <3
These are the reasons why I’m still deep, deep in the closet with family and at work. Which will eventually be a problem since in the past couple years, my orientation (while still bi) has slid sharply up the Kinsey scale…so that’s fun! While far from cult fundie status, both sides of my family are very Christian and conservative, and I have no idea how they’ll react.
I’m in a similar situation, Shiro. Liberal atheist bisexual with a conservative Christian family in the middle of the Bible Belt. Very much in the closet about who I really am and what I believe. Even dealt with some friction over voting for Obama, so really not anxious to reveal more.
At the same time though, I really like my family and don’t want to alienate them. Similar to you, I don’t really know how they would react, but I dread having to force that confrontation. (As an aside, I recognize that there’s a certain amount of privilege in having a situation where I can just avoid pressing the issue, unlike Becky for instance.)
So Joyce is the character I relate to more closely here. The one who just doesn’t want things to change while having the sinking feeling that they’re going to. Maybe I’m projecting on to her, but I feel like Joyce is trying to hold her fracturing life together, scared if she screws up she’ll lose something important to her. If I were in Joyce’s shoes, I’d be panicking just like she seems to be.
Rationally, yeah, this is probably a good move on Becky’s part for both her and Joyce and any negative consequences are totally not her fault. But viscerally, I can’t help but wince in sympathy for Joyce who (perhaps naively) seems to just want to get through a visit home without any major drama and with the (admittedly flawed) status quo relatively intact.
Me too, though have my family is atheist (contrary to popular belief, “atheist” and “progressive” don’t go hand-in-hand. There are at least as many homophobic and misogynistic atheists as there are homophobic and misogynistic Christians, in my experience. It’s just that the atheists word it in terms of biotruths whereas the Christians word it in terms of the Bible).
I don’t want to be that guy who discredits your experience or anything, because honestly, I really do appreciate your comments and perspective, but I can’t help but feel that Becky could’ve allowed Joyce just a little more time to get comfortable talking to her dad again, because she very clearly isn’t. This said, I was hoping that Becky would be willing to meet with Joyce’s dad and talk to him without being afraid, because she shouldn’t have to hide from people she knew well, and I’m happy she’s not being apologetic for who she is. I just think that Joyce could’ve used more time to prepare herself mentally.
Tell me if my thinking is wrong, because seeing how fragile this topic is I deserve to be yelled at if I am.
If you look at the background on panels 2 and 3, you’ll see Joyce and Hank are walking away. So with that in mind, how much time should Becky wait? Until they are out of the room? In the car? They were already walking way, the time was really now.
Perhaps until they got back. I mean, Joyce won’t be away forever and she’s not coming back alone. I think I just feel bad that Joyce has to potentially jump into he fray again so soon.
I think she should have time to sort herself out, without having to worry that she might have to fight with her parents regarding Becky. Its one thing to get help, but when the person offering it could potentially create an even worse situation going it alone sounds preferable for Joyce.
First of all, allow me to return the *hugs* you gave me. No one should have to go through that, and here you are using your experience to put forth some very insightful comments on the subject. You are awesome.
Now, on to the meat of this. It’s been bothering me since the comic went up why Becky’s actions… well, bothered me. Because everything you said is absolutely true. Becky exists, and Becky should never have to hide that she exists. And yet, something about Becky’s actions kept bothering me. Not her motivations (I go into that in my quite possibly apocryphal comment above), but the fact that she put herself forward at all.
I think we can safely dismiss the idea that she’s doing this naively or innocently. All of the others are hiding behind the corner. There’s clearly a deliberate “let’s leave Joyce alone” vibe here. And while happy-go-lucky, Becky’s not foolish enough to pretend that nothing has changed in her relationship to Joyce’s parents. So she’s deliberately putting herself in a situation that might very well cause conflict.
But so what? As you said, brilliantly, she deserves to exist. She deserves a relationship with the only quasi-family she’s got left.
But still, it kept gnawing at me. And I think I’ve finally figured out what it was.
Becky isn’t taking the risk here. Becky is forcing the risk on to Joyce.
Joyce is at college at her parents’ sufferance. And while Joyce’s parents likely won’t go after her with a gun, they might pull her out of college, and they might disown her. Joyce has a closet of her own, a closet of fundamentalism that she hides in around her parents. If Joyce leaves that closet there could be very real, very tangible consequences which have been hinted at and foreshadowed throughout the comic.
By moving forward like this, Becky is quite possibly forcing a confrontation that will force Joyce to either deny her best friend, or nuke her own closet. And while Becky nuking her closet from orbit is awesome… that’s not a decision you can make for someone else.
I’m not willing to say Becky’s wrong, for all the reasons you pointed out. But Becky is risking Joyce, and she’s doing it without giving Joyce any say in the matter, without giving Joyce any agency. And Joyce clearly is not happy with it. That, I think, is what is bothering me about this.
“Becky isn’t taking the risk here. Becky is forcing the risk on to Joyce.”
No, Joyce already took on this risk, and confronted her parants on the phone.
Joyce already invited her. She isnt forcing herself. She was fully invited.
Look, there is no way this isnt going to be a little awkward. But Mr Brown has a preexisitng relationship with Becky . You are missing the contexts here. Becky probably jokes with Mr Brown about Joyce’s food habits all the time. Shes breaking the ice.
This is extra awkward because the Browns tried to betray Becky to her crazy father. She know it . They know it. They know she knows it. She knows they know she knows it etc.
Not wanting to step on any landmines of this already very touchy discussion, I think I can safely say that I agree in large part with EvilWriter here. However, that agreement is based on my ignorance of a particular issue here. Adam, you and a few other commenters say that Becky was “fully invited” to meet Joyce’s parents with her. I’m not sure if this is true–but maybe my memory’s a little fuzzy, because I’m mostly just remembering the previous comic where Dorothy explicitly asks if Joyce wanted her presence, to which she answered, “no.” If I’m mistaken, please by all means, correct me. In which comic were all of Joyce’s friends “invited” to come down and be a part of this moment?
I’m mostly just asking so I can go back and read it myself, to disabuse myself of any incorrect notions I’m having. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. Darn the lack of an edit button!
OTOH, it was never explicitly confirmed and Hank doesn’t seem to have been informed.
Which might or might not be a good idea, but certainly isn’t an argument that she was definitely coming all along.
And damn near every argument for why Becky shouldn’t have stepped out to talk to Hank also applies to surprising him with her coming for the weekend.
Mind you, I think she should come, but in that case I’d rather the parents be prepared up front.
I suppose the pertinent question is that, if Becky weren’t gay, would there be any kind of hypothetical objection the Browns would have, given their history with Becky?
Likely not, though it’s generally considered good form to let people know when you’re bringing extra house guests.
But if Becky wasn’t gay, the whole situation would be so completely different that it’s hard to parallel. If Becky was straight and Ross flipped out and attacked her and Joyce for reasons not linked to their shared religion, I suspect the Browns would be practically adopting her.
@Evilwriter: back when Becky showed up at IU, the night that Becky came out to her, Joyce cradled her and told her that no matter what it was a choice between, she’d choose Becky. Becky isn’t forcing Joyce to choose.
People also are failing to recognize how SAFE Becky is at the moment, to where she CAN go up to Joyce’s dad to gauge his attitude toward her. Dorothy, Walky and Dina are nearby, Joyce is right next to her, and after toedad you KNOW campus security is on higher alert.
I cannot tell you how much I respect what you have been doing here. You have been clearly and calmly explaining what’s wrong in these comments, staying so polite and respectful of people I am mentally cursing incoherently at. You shouldn’t have to do it, but I find you incredibly badass for taking it on. You are awesome.
Cerberus, thank you for being as open about your experiences as you have been. It goes without saying that it’s way beyond unforunate (replace with appropriate adjective) that you are such a resource for real life experience and context of recent comic events.
Your strength is an inspiration. I hope you are okay and that one day soon this space can be safer and less draining for all.
I'm sorry this is all triggering for you, and I'm sorry ignorant people in the world have caused you this kind of pain. 🙁 For the record, you're awesome and I love reading the stuff you post. It seems like you have a fairly decent support network within this community (despite the ignorant other peeps, cause, internet) — I hope you have something like that within your day to day life as well. Wishing you peace and comfort. <3
Cerberus, anyone who’s earned your love must be good people and they wouldn’t want you to stress yourself because they love you and want to be next to you — and if the people you love love you then you totes deserve that love. Accept and believe it: that’s what you ‘owe’ them.
For greeting someone she’s grown up around and known most of her life? After hanging back and making sure that things didn’t go instantly up in flames before she approached them? She’s just said something completely normal – probably a topic they’ve all joked about millions of times before – to someone who’s played a huge role in her life.
It may not have been the most tactful time to enter, but in a situation like this one, there may not /be/ a better time. She saw an opportunity to approach them when things were good and start off in what should have been a lighthearted way. She’s definitely not doing it for the sake of starting a fight.
I think I might’ve misread the intent of the strip. I read everyone going “Oh hey no bad times” as the cause of Becky going out and talking (like “Oh yeah?”) rather than the probably intent of it ironic foreshadowing
Donchaknow, homophobia is now 100% gay people’s fault for antagonizing those poor innocent homophobes, ESPECIALLY when it makes straight people’s lives harder as a result.
Couldn’t have said it better. When we’re not causing innocents to perish in the hurricanes we force God to deploy at us, we’re deliberately causing pain to the sensitive and fragile innocents who have been Good Enough to tolerate our presence.
And that’s why, if we insist on coming out of the closet, we should close the door very, very gently behind us so that we don’t upset anyone. It’s the least we can do.
No we need to leave the door open so that it’s easier for us to jump back in whenever straight people don’t want to deal with the truly exhausting travail of us being us anymore.
… if you define “antagonizing” as “existing without spending 99.9% of your time profusely apologizing” then yeah. See also my school which defined me coming out and then going about my day as an out bi girl as antagonizing and “contributing to the situation” when some people decided to be bigots.
Silly me, I’d thought after a kid got put in the hospital a couple months before and the school got on this big “no tolerance for homophobia” kick, they were actually going to walk the talk.
(actually, not entirely. I feared that they were just talking the talk with no intention of walking the walk, but I wanted to see because hope is dangerous like that and it will make you do very dangerous things with years-long repercussions just to see if maybe fear is wrong. From experience: fear is pretty much never wrong when the question is whether or not people are going to enable other’s terribleness and blame the victim instead of the person being terrible.)
Becky is coming with Joyce, they’ve already agreed on that. Becky HAD to make her presence known at some point and they’re literally leaving the building right now. The reason she likely didn’t come down with Joyce was to give her and her dad that alone time for as long as feasible but it’s stopped being feasible unless she wants to sneak into the trunk of his car.
Where did Joyce say she wanted to be alone with her dad? (She said Dorothy shouldn’t see her off, but that’s specifically to avoid a confrontation like Family Weekend)
Having been in that situation a year ago, before other commenters pointed out how awful my comments were to anyone who were not me, I think it boils down to us having done really stupid things ourselves that we know is only our fault and being jealous that a fictional character can get away with it.
I absolutely hate hitting post comment on my phone when trying to scroll down.
Continued: It’s not homophobia in the sense that commenters believe non-cisgendered/non-heterosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to be honest with who they are and freely express it, but rather in the sense of being unable to put ourselves in the situation of people who can relate to the character before saying anything.
It’s easy to criticize Becky when only seeing her as a fictional character and not as a representation of how real and relatable her life is to a lot of people.
Yep, like you yourselves seem to recognize, no homosexuals = no homophobes, that’s just logic, so its real hetero-oppressive for you to force “otherwise decent people” to be homophobic. Course, it’s equally true that, no homophobes = no homophobes, so, never mind the first part.
People acting surprised at Becky’s actions have no appreciation for tactics or strategy.
Her own dad has just put her and her friends’ lives in danger. With him safely out of the picture, Joyce’s parents – who share the same moral viewpoints as her dad – are the only people who would have both a possible motive and the means to threaten hers and Joyce’s well being.
So for her own safety she needs to KNOW whose side they are on and whether she should expect them to be a threat, and she needs to see it first hand, and through bits of information passed on to her by Joyce.
And she knows that Joyce needs to know that too, head on, before she is taken out of the comfort of her new home and into the lions den so to speak.
Seeing that Joyce and her dad were clearly avoiding talking about the issue and doing the whole “lets pretend THE THING did not happen”, confronting the issue head on was clearly the smartest and bravest thing that Becky could have done, as now Joyce’s dad is pretty much forced to reveal his cards in front of everyone.
I don’t think that’s a wrong way to look at it, in fact I think that’s something Becky wants on the table for her own peace of mind, but I took this as her jumping in because she’s just honestly that happy to see Joyce’s dad again, because right now he’s the closest she has to a good parent in her life.
So what if he totally sides against her? Now she accelerated the process and she’s fucked even harder than before. Honestly, if it WAS to see if Joyce’s dad was willing to be a good guy or not, that was a huge gamble on her part, since it’s not even clear he knows everything yet. For all we know, he was turning a blind eye to the situation so he could not rat out Becky while still being a “good Christian”, and now he can’t play ignorant.
DisGonBGud.gif
Am I a bad person for wanting to see all the hell break loose?
Please, we’re talking about Joyce’s parents.
All heck’s gonna break loose.
“Hi! I’m Becky! I don’t think about the consequences of my actions because if I did, I’d get super bummed out! Plus, being impulsive is part of why I’m just the raddest! Rock on peeps!”-what I hear whenever I look at Becky.
She doesn’t seem very good at impulse-control, now that you mention it.
There’s “pulling the bandage off fast” and then there’s “Hey, what’s under this tourniquet that needs to be removed carefully? (Gush!)”
I’m gonna say that she did think about this one. Joyce’s dad was being strangely nice and and good and maybe she didn’t want Joyce to forget the bad stuff, so she threw herself into the fray to make the dad act mean. Of course this is just hopeful thinking.
I sincerely doubt that’s it.
Becky is impulsive but she wouldn’t intentionally do that.
Popcorn2.tiff
… That sounds like Mary, if she were willing to use her powers for good.
And yes, despite the suffering involved, I think “Reminding her that her parents are intolerant so she doesn’t just blow it off because things are going nice this time” is good. Though I have no idea why I keep coming here to comment, since I still haven’t read this through.
Yeah, that’s very unlikely.
On a completely unrelated sidenote. All the people reading Becky like some sort of supervillain seeking to hurt people is giving me flashbacks to all the people who tried to argue during the Toedad hunts Becky arc who tried to argue that it would be such a “good twist” if it turned out that Becky was an evil gay liar who lies and Toedad was actually just an awesome caring dad trying to stop her lying gay ways.
Like, it’s at the level where it’s a) no, and b) what comic have these people even been reading to be able to interpret Becky’s character this way?
This comic, they’re just reading it through their twisted worldview. I remember in QC when Marten’s Dad first showed up there was someone who came into the forum angrily claiming that gay men are inherently incapable of caring about their families, because his own father had “abandoned” his family (it was never clear whether this is a case of being a scumbag who happened to be gay, or if the father just couldn’t handle their bigotry and so cut ties) so clearly all gay people would do that.
Are we really going to get these “This character is the devil and deserves whatever they get” comments whenever anyone LGBTQIA does anything in this comic? ~.~
Because I don’t hear any of you people saying this about Joe. Or Mike. Or Jacob.
Ok, I had to sign on just to say ‘Mike deserves to have his entire life blow up in his face.’ Because, even as someone who has left college long behind them, I have no sympathy for him, and whatever makes him such a jerk. He’s a sick puppy and he’s going to do serious damage someday unless he’s stopped.
Honestly, Joe scares me a lot. Hopefully he hasn’t committed sexual assault yet, and someone will upside him in the head and get through before he does, but he teeters on the verge of harrassment way too often. If he were to pick up a (curable) STD, I would be all like “Karma!”
I have some sympathy for Becky, but Willis has already shown us that she’s not in a good headspace right now to make good choices. She’s upset, to start with, and Becky has shown that her response to being upset is to stir the Shinola. She’s done it before. The fact that her traumas and her coming out are what are pushing her to do that stirring is worthy of sympathy, but this is still a bad choice, and one coming from a state of poor judgement.
While confronting Joyce’s dad may be a good truthtelling measure, it’s unlikely to allow the object of Becky’s affection the time and space she needs to come to terms with everything that has happened to her and how that involves her family of origin.
Poor Joyce. Poor Becky. But jeez, Becky, way to take your best friend with you on your Nuke Them From Orbit tour.
It’s come up. Both with Mike and Joe, though I don’t recall anything with Jacob.
There was a lot of analysis of Joe just a little while back during the fake marriage bit. IIRC, mostly the same people defending Becky here were criticizing Joe there.
Mike’s a little odder. He gets some slack from the Shortpacked version and from generally being over the top & cartoony. For some, he’s just not real enough to attack. Others think he really is an ass.
I feel like if I were to evaluate Mike as I would a real person then yes, he is a complete ass.
On the other hand, it almost seems like he walks a weird line between a jerk who just screws with everyone for the hell of it, and some sort of… I’m not really sure what the word is, but it seems like half of his dickish behavior is actually aimed at forcing characters to own up to their mistakes, see past their own excuses, or face some unpleasant decision. Except for punching Joe in the face repeatedly at Joyce’s request. That was pure physical comedy.
Of course, this all depends on whether or not Mike is actually orchestrating all this on purpose, or if it’s all an unintended consequence of being an asshole. It would be easier to get a read on him if he were actually present whenever shit hits the fan and we could see if he actually makes an effort to help or not when it matters.
I really don’t buy the “Mike is trying to help by forcing people to confront their mistakes” argument. Partially because Mike never did that in the Walkyverse; if anything he took great pleasure in making peoples’ lives worse, and partially because of all the genuinely horrible actions he’s taken. I’m pretty sure he’s just meant to be an occasional joke character.
And like, if it’s true… so what? It’s still disgusting, and presumes that Mike is in a place where he should allowed to mete out abuse as long as it has a positive ending.
Silly, they’re not girls! Women get this treatment as characters in general, and being LGBT+ only makes it worse.
Mike is an awesome force of nature and the help you never want. He may force people to face their own contradictions because he enjoys being a jerk, but that doesn’t make him any less useful. What we have here is a immature form of the Walkyverse Mike, a dumber version if you like, but still recognizably Mike.
Mike literally told Amber that her preferences in men meant that she was doomed to be an abuser.
He can’t be this awesome force of nature and an actual character at the same time.
She’s a big fan of Representative DeSanto.
Becky would certainly support banning cancer.
But Cancers are great people! I mean, yeah, they’re jerks, but they’re basically good people. Mostly. Well, they mean well. I guess.
Yeah, you’re right. Fuck Cancers.
Fuck you too buddy 😀
I’m kind of hoping he I use flat out hugs her and tries to make sure she is okay. Thus revealing that he’s not as shitty a Christian as his wife, but that he upholds her teachings in the house.
Fracking autocorrect.
That would be awesome, but I can definitely see him doing that and then chiding her for her “choices” in friendship later on in the car. Basically a similar small comfort and then pulling the rug from out under her that her mom did.
I could see the Browns questioning Joyce remaining close with her best friend, but what choices in friendship would they chide Becky for? I doubt Ross has told anyone about the Pokey Man girlchild that deceived him.
They know he’s in jail “because” of her. (And by that I mean he’ll put all the blame on her, he’s in jail because of the shit he pulled, not defending him on that front.)
That’s what I meant, sorry. That he’ll emotionally hit Joyce for her “choices” in being friends with her in a way that’ll unintentionally hit Becky or he’ll chide Becky for her “choices” in sexuality and parental obedience in a way that minimizes the true horror of Toedad’s crime.
That Deceptress!
That would be nice, but I’d be worried that if that happened then all the parent couples we see would be Overbearing-Mom/Ineffectual-Dad types. Not to say DoA doesn’t have its share of Bad Dads, obv, but they all sort of appear solo, either divorced or widowed. Besides Dorothy’s parents the rest would seem to fall into these two categories, though I could be easily missing something.
Considering some of the insights the author has given into his own Fundie upbringing (and the fact that Joyce is autobiographical), I really hope you’re right.
We haven’t seen Hank without Carol before; it’s possible he’s fairly moderate but ‘plays along’ with her to avoid conflict. (For lack of a better description.)
yeah, i’m kinda bothered that hank’s first move wasn’t “i’m so glad you’re okay” but instead “i’m so glad you haven’t changed”.
“You haven’t changed” is a really common thing to say to someone, let alone your kid after they’ve been away at college. I can’t imagine Hank meant anything sinister by it.
it’s…probably more related to me and my personal experiences tbh.
like, as someone who grew up in a more evangelical-flavored fundie background, the stated goal for me as a good christian girl going to college was to not change anything important about myself or my morals. because college was sort of notorious for being a corrupting influence?? a lot of good christian kids would go to college and then leave the church. which people’s morals evolving and changing is apparently a Bad Thing, as is being exposed to more of the world. acknowledging gay people’s existence, let alone trans people’s. being kind to people who’ve had abortions. allowing the world to be bigger than the church, essentially.
idk there’s this real thing in the churches i’ve been a part of where you have to specifically control your intake so that you don’t become corrupted. you have to walk the straight and narrow in every aspect of your life, you have to be this particular person and if you’re not you’re a bad christian. and the gossip can be insidious and vicious, because people are human but they’re held up to these standards that nobody can possibly reach and they’re taught to feel bad about themselves all the time because they’re not good enough, never going to be good enough. and –
there’s this specific kind of patriarchal controlling that comes with being daddy’s little girl. because you do your best to please and you try to be perfect, like a disney princess, but disney princesses aren’t real people and they don’t have the kind of real problems that can’t be solved within the space of a song. but you’re still really encouraged to fit that perfect image of what a girl ought to be: which is a static image. Aurora asleep on her bed waiting for true love’s kiss, essentially, but true love never comes because she’s never allowed to get up and go looking for it. she’s not an active participant; she’s always passive and moldable. which for a long time was the ideal woman in american society.
so like – at this point i’m probably way overreading it, although this chapter is called “that perfect girl” – but Hank not meaning anything sinister by it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a heckton of cultural baggage along with it. which is, essentially, the problem.
so like it is kinda heartwarming because both Hank and Joyce are trying to go back to a space where things were simple and nothing had to change. but like simpler is sort of a matter of perspective – the world was always this screwed up, Joyce just didn’t notice until now, and it’s a manifestation of white Christian privilege that the world was allowed to be that simple and black and white.
Hank might not have, but Willis did.
It’s pretty obviously a callback both to Becky’s “Don’t let anyone change you” from Mov-in Day and to her later “I’m glad they did”.
I think it would be deliciously awful to have Joyce feel so cornered that she breaks out the gay-shaming on Becky in front of her dad.
That would be utterly heart-breaking. 🙁
Ouch!!! That would be cray cray
Joyce just stood up for Becky in the face of death itself. This is going to be painful however it goes, but I don’t think Joyce throwing Becky under the truck is going to happen.
Sometimes standing up to family can be scarier than death.
Joyce has already stood up to her family over Becky.
Though, admittedly, via voice mail, not face to face, but it’s still a point against breaking, just not the strongest.
Yeah absolutely. It was just a little worrisome since she been having angry eyebrows for a few strips. You know his important those eyebrows are ‘,:)
Couldn’t agree more. Cornering Joyce between rocks and hard places doesn’t seem a very loving thing to do.
I dunno, after everything Joyce has stood up for, and stood up to, I can’t imagine her giving up on Becky like that.
*plays the Charlie Daniels Band’s “Devil Went Down To Georgia” on the hacked Muzak*
Charlie probably would not like DoA.
All the best people want to see that.
No. This will be glorious and I’m so excited to see what’s coming next.
Ooh, that sounds suspiciously like hope. You know what Willis does when he senses hope!
Nonsense, it’ll go great this time…
(flash forward two weeks)
nooooooooooo…
It’ll be horrible and painful, but we’ll still get to cheer Joyce being badass and sticking up for Becky. To her parents yet.
Be better if she tagged along with Joyce home. Then good times for all.
(Then again I feel like Joyce may not make it home at all)
Yeah, the way it’d stack up is Joyce alone will have a much harder time, because she won’t have an ally willing to fully get her back (Jocelyne is awesome, but terrified of jumping into arguments with family), but Becky with Joyce means Becky will be having to casually grin past a lot of crap herself and may be physically dangerous for her.
texting! it’s like being physically there but only in an emotional sense.
bEcKy sTaY iN lInE YoU hAvE nO BuSsInEsS HeRe
Panel 3: Called it!
[/preen]
Perfect timing.
Ok shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit….
Wait for it~
Becky uses Embarrass. It’s super effective!
Does she faint?
I hope not, I don’t have a Joyce in my collection! Pokeball, go!
hold up b for a better chance!
I always thought it was rapidly pressing a and b
Fools! You’re supposed to press the D-Pad in a clockwise circle while holding A!
No, no, no. You’re supposed to set the universal constants while creating the universe such that the random number generator on a particular Game Boy generates a zero at a particular time such that it is guaranteed that the pokéball captures the Joyce.
she did say she would come with joyce right? or am i imagining things…… eh id believe either honestly
She offered to, but Joyce said it would be a bad idea.
And so, Joyce got overridden.
Joyce asked if she was sure, and Becky responded with a poorly timed joke that triggered a shocked response in Joyce. Then the scene changed.
Yup, whatever you think of her… that’s Becky. 100%.
bleh, that was supposed to go lower, on its own – this was a comment I started, then changed my mind.
Which, yeah, I would normally assume to mean, yes, but only if you’re okay with it, which Becky was, but given that we haven’t seen Becky pack, maybe that assumption is in error, but then maybe this scene suggests the opposite. I dunno, I imagine it’ll get cleared up one way or another by the next couple of comics.
She isn’t carrying a bag, though.
maybe she put some of her cloth into joyces bag as well?
That, and she can go to her h (Becky’s) house and get more.
Stay there, too.
She doesn’t /have/ a bag.
….Goshdarnit Becky.
Yeah! Dadburnit, Becky!
Now everything’s shot to HFIL!
Dads are very good at burning things.
Well, this could be going worsAW GOSH DANG IT BECKY
I thought they were going to La Porte, not Warsaw.
(don’t shoot me)
tWell they’re only 60 miles apart. A bit out of the way, though, coming from Bloomington.
Bad! Bad Becky! You had one job!
Chick-fil-a?
Time for her to look for her next job.
BECKY NO
BECKY YES
BECKY MAYBE
STRONG POSSIBILITY OF BECKY
BECKY INTENSIFIES!
INTERNAL BECKY-ING!
Schrödinger’s Becky.
You can know where a Beckion is, or what a Beckion is going to do, but not both.
But there is no box -in this case, a closet- because Becky nuked it from orbit.
Heisenbeck’s Uncertain Principle.
A WILD BECKY appears!
She uses FRIENDLY OVERTURE! It’s not very effective.
FIGHT
ITEM
>RUN
Can’t escape!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMd6V1IOJ5k
God DAMN IT, Becky.
Way to ruin your friend’s day AGAIN. Way to interject yourself where you don’t belong AGAIN.
Fucking seething. I hate people like her.
*blink blink* Ummmmm, what exactly is the “first” day she “ruined”? Was it the one where she was running halfway across the state with nothing beyond the clothes on her back having just escaped being dragged off to a “reparative therapy” camp? Or the day her dad decided to come on campus and try and kidnap her at gunpoint?
Or maybe it’s all the times she’s shown a huge amount of support for her best friend, putting aside her own trauma recovery to fully be there for Joyce’s emotional crises?
Gosh, Becky is so very selfish. Really, just the worst. *roll eyes*
I know, right? If she had just reported for brainwashing camp like a good little Droog, Joyce’s day would be like 18% better right now. And isn’t that what’s really important here?
Becky has been through some shit, but she’s often rude and doesn’t think about how her actions affect others. Living with joyce in a moment of desperate need doesn’t make her a jerk. Things like this do. You can sympathize and be annoyed by a character’s actions at the same time.
Are you trying to imply that it’s possible to be a persecuted party and still by merit of your actions cause a lot of stress and harm towards people around you, and that simply because your life is fucked up doesn’t make you immune to consequences or get you out of having to take responsibility for any actions that may cause problems for the people around you since your problems are still more astronomically worse? Having an awful life is basically your “Get out of judgement free” card. You’re given the proportional amount of leeway based on how shitty your life is.
I think it’s more that none of us in this thread is really sure where these accusations are coming from? Like…I’m totally open to being proven wrong, but what stress and harm has Becky caused to those around her, with the exception of being kidnapped and held at gunpoint by her dad? Because, ah…those aren’t her doing.
Oh Becky’s obnoxious but tolerable. Joyce is kinda hanging on by a thread though and if I was her lesbian best friend
I’d be making out with my girfriendI’d probably show a bit more tact, considering everything Joyce knew has basically been ripped from her life forcibly within the first two months of college and she’s clearly desperately trying to hold onto something.But…then why are so many people acting like Becky’s a recurring toxic influence in Joyce’s life? Literally, I’m asking what has she done that people are reacting to?
Basically nothing. In the same way she has never once had a negative experience with alcohol. Becky hasn’t done anything directly to Joyce, but Becky’s appearance has caused a cascading series of awful events all attributed to Becky that Joyce had to defend her from. She’s emotionally exhausted and in a very short time had to make very big changes. She seemed to be hungry for some familiarity before being thrust into what her life has become.
So like…people are blaming Becky for the extreme amount of homophobia and trauma she’s had to deal with lately, which Joyce (as her best friend) has tried to help with? That’s what I’m getting here, and while I (again) am open to being proven wrong, I don’t see any concrete badness from Becky being pointed out here.
Did you skip over parts of what I wrote? I’m curious because I really don’t want to write it out again.
Becky can do whatever she wants. Joyce wants to help her because she’s a good friend. Helping Becky is incredibly emotionally exhausting for Joyce. Becky basically bounds through life with very few cares which is ideal. It’s probably how I’d act. Joyce however feels very aprehensive about this, especially because she doesn’t want to lose every part of herself in favor of her friends. She’s sacrificed a lot. Becky showing up isn’t wrong and there’s a good chance it’ll go fine. But based on all the drama of her being there in the first place, the chance for it to go wrong is pretty large. And while Becky can roll with the punches, Joyce is a bit less able to do that. Just compare how Becky acted once she started rooming with Joyce to how Joyce acted. Becky was loud, exuberant and immediately went out to change herself. Joyce resisted the change but supported her friend and wasn’t until she was forced to do something did she change her disposition.
Becky is a Wheel. Joyce is a Cube. Despite all of the awful things that’ve happened to Becky she continues on. Joyce has been drained by that experience. Sure, the homophobia isn’t Becky’s fault, but it certainly is based on Becky being around. And while Becky takes everything in stride Joyce is now very obviously distant and frustrated.
Pretending like everything is fine and normal on Becky’s behalf seems a little uncomfortable. Joyce is struggling to try to maintain as much of herself as she can and she is now reasonably worried she has to forsake her family. Perhaps Becky’s also bottling up her emotions but Joyce is very clearly not handling the past week very well and now the one thing she had to look forward to might be taken from her.
Shiro-
Yes. Because that’s what happens. That’s what always happens. When shit cascades on you bouncing off and hitting to a lesser extent those around you, then people blame you as if you caused the shit cascade in the first place. Because if you didn’t?
Then things are not okay. Things, big scary, unequal things in society. Unfixable things are broken. So it must have been the person getting fucked over, getting hit with the oppression. They really should have known better.
I sadly know the experience well.
Ooh, yes, that would make sense. I forgot that he showed up early. Head canon accepted.
^grah, replied in the wrong spot.
She is. She’s not pulling a Walky and saying “hi Hank, I’ve been sleeping in your daughter’s bed for a week”. She’s telling a disarming and humanizing story about Joyce that has no connection to the recent events. She’s in every way, presenting a clean normality.
And well… yeah, she should be talking to Hank. She has no family. Her mom’s dead. Her dad’s Toedad and on his way to prison. Hank and Carol are the closest things to what she has left. This is what remains of even the echo of her family. These are people she’s known her whole life. This is not a stranger to her.
And she’s doing literally nothing wrong in approaching him as a friend.
I agree. She’s clearly not malicious in her intentions. But if this goes south, would Joyce walk away unscathed. It’d help Becky certainly, and it’d help Joyce in the long run maybe. But Joyce has already regressed. This could potentially just be another notch in Joyce’s slow decent into depression. And now Joyce is denied the opportunity to ease into it and Becky just rips it off like a band-aid.
Becky definitely has the right to talk to Hank. She would’ve been wiser (careful of her own safety & finding out if it’ll go okay), and kinder to Joyce, if she’d *told* Joyce she wanted to go with if possible.
Leorale-
She did:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/elsewhere/
Nope.
Becky should walk 10 spaces at all times behind the Browns,
and then …sneak into the trunk while Hank isnt Looking.
right?
Thats the only way the poor fragile Homophobes in the readership can be comfortable with Beckys um….Infectious Uppity Lesbianship. Actually looking Mr Brown in the face? Its almost like Becky isnt ashamed of her own existence.
What? making a sushi joke? That could be a double-entendre.
Since when are Gay people allowed to tell the jokes?
Becky must advance directly to Gay-jail, do not collect Glitter. Do not go to Long John Silvers.
I saw that comic but I think it’s ambiguous, cause look at Joyce’s surprised face in the last panel of today’s! They didn’t plan this introduction or test the waters with the Browns at all. Much better to have said, days ago, “okay please let them know I still regard them as family and I want to come along, and see if they are full of transphobic bees”
(Er, homophobic, I mean. I’m just waiting for Jocelyn.)
Or, just as much, Joyce could’ve said “okay cool, I’d like to have you, I’ll let my mom know to make extra food and set up the guest bed. Let’s plan what to do if my folks turn out to be jerks.”
Leorale-
I wonder if they had planned to do that or at least talk more about particulars and fully clarify their game plan, but the ‘rents arriving early threw all that out the window and so Becky had to wing it based on the last bits said out loud regarding it.
Like, ok, we seemed to leave it at I’m going to support, but Joyce isn’t actively bringing this up. Should I, shouldn’t I? Um… Joyce probably needs me based on our convo, so fuck it, I’m going in. Be disarmingly casual and then maybe let Joyce bring up the possibility of me coming or I can pitch coming along myself.
Hmm, that seems probable. They were counting on him showing up much later.
Oh, yes, that would make sense. I forgot Hank showed up early. Head-canon accepted.
Becky should definitely be talking to Hank. From her perspective, it’s probably wise to at least get a read on this father before he takes his daughter away from school. She’s got no reason to have blind faith at this point.
Ok I don’t want to argue against giving Joyce a chance to consent, but she tends to worry a lot, especially about her parents’ reactions to things. Maybe by surprising her, she’s relieving Joyce of a responsibility to “explain” Becky. I could easily imagine a week of Joyce trying to “talk around” the issue with Becky nervously watching from the shadows. Becky can be tactless at times, but she’s not stupid. She would jump out if she didn’t think it had a significant chance of working out OK.
* She sexually assaulted and harassed Joyce (kissed her without warning/consent, continued to make sexual comments even when she knew it made her uncomfortable).
* She constantly says and does things that are inappropriate and unhelpful
Being gay doesn’t give her a free pass on being a terrible and obnoxious person. Having a hard time of things doesn’t give her a free pass either.
Generally we cut people a little slack when their entire life is disintegrating around them. It’s called empathy.
The first kind of sucked, though understandable under the circumstances. Joyce has forgiven her and she hasn’t repeated even the sexual comments after the first day or so.
The second is debatable at best, depending on what examples you have in mind. She’s a bit loud and obnoxious, I wouldn’t go much farther than that. Especially knowing that most of it is cover for trauma – No one likes a Debbie Downer.
She doesn’t get a free pass, but I don’t think she’s terrible to start with.
Yup Becky can be obnoxious.
But your statements make you look like a homophobe.
These are all classic Homophobic tropes.
How many times have you identified discussions of straight-sexuality in this comic as wrong?
Remember when Dorothy Kissed Walky?
Did you file rape charges then?
You are literally the object of Walkys joke.
You are the one asking commenters for a free ( homophobic ) pass of your own. I am not inclined to give it to you.
You think Becky is a terrible person for being fully out of the closet.
Becky isnt terrible. Becky isnt even a real person.
You in the other hand…
PS: While I wrote this I kissed my cat on the forehead. Please File bestilaity charges against me at the local ASPCA
can’t tell if sarcasm or
“Are you trying to imply that it’s possible to be a persecuted party and still by merit of your actions cause a lot of stress and harm towards people around you, and that simply because your life is fucked up doesn’t make you immune to consequences or get you out of having to take responsibility for any actions that may cause problems for the people around you since your problems are still more astronomically worse? ”
To a certain extent, yeah.
Otherwise, we drive right into “you were abused so it’s ok for you to hit others” territory.
That’s bullshit.
Becky is constantly thinking of others, to the point where she denies herself her right to collapse, because she thinks she needs to be happy helpful Becky all the time.
I mean, in this last in-comic week:
Crisis Intervention to forestall Joyce panic despite having her jealousy nastily triggered: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/darnit/
Deliberately seeking out the superheroine who saved her in order to personally thank her: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/engaging/
Seeking out a friend risking a triggering panic attack while the rest of her friends do nothing, making sure her girlfriend doesn’t feel abandoned by bringing her along: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/profane/
And offering to come along home to support said friend through an emotionally trying time. Which this? Said thing she is offering is to willingly go back to a community that views her as a literal child-stealing monster. Who will pray over her and is the same community that views her being gay as an ailment that must be fixed. This offer is not just a kindness, it’s her literally risking potentially being whisked away to a reparative therapy camp just to help a friend not feel fully alone: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/elsewhere/
Deliberately going out of her way to make sure that her friend knows that she’s not learning Biology to hurt her: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/originalsin/
Going alone to get her clothes so no one else had to be inconvenienced: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/clothes/
Making sure everyone feels thanked for helping her: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/fourwords/
Oh, other major ones? Well, how about deliberately lying to her friends about talking to her dad so that they won’t worry about her or feel they need to emotionally support her:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/hi-2/
This despite the fact that she’s genuinely hurting? Or making sure her girlfriend doesn’t feel she has failed her when said gf is beating herself up over not being able to stop said asshole dad? http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/fought/
Oh yeah, and when she was just rescued, despite having been through a terrifying experience, where she was nearly shot, was in fact punched, definitely threatened with death, and nearly killed in a car crash, immediately drops everything to emotionally support Joyce: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/damn/
Oh, yeah, and there’s the fact that she was hit because she quickly grabbed the wheel to try and save another person’s life:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/restore/
And gosh, I feel I’m forgetting something… Oh, right…
She straight up sacrificed herself for the safety and emotional health of others. She risked being tortured, never seeing anyone she loved ever again, and all manner of awfulness, simply to make sure no pain or more emotional suffering befell those she cared for.
She straight up sacrificed herself.
But still we get “oh Becky is so selfish” comments. Despite the fact that literally no one outside of maybe Amazi-girl has been shown to be so unconditionally selfless.
And that?
That’s bullshit.
Oh, forgot the last link… heh, this is going to look weird until my initial response clears moderation:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/risk/
YES.
Strongly agree. Becky is impulsive and noisy, sure, but is really, really unselfish.
Another quality smart link-bomb from Cerberus. 8-)}
Cerberus has built up so much good karma with these comments that she could actually devour a live baby and still be morally in the clear.
Oh shit, you know about the baby incident?!? Um… I mean to say… er… [DISTRACTION]
It was totally self-defense
That baby had it coming. Seriously, it shouldn’t have slathered itself in A-1 sauce if it didn’t want to be devoured.
If it’s the right baby, she’s probably immune to radiation.
Oh, yeah, all of those things. But do they make up for the fact that she chose to defy our Lord and Savoir, Jesus Christ, AND HER OWN FATHER!?
Truly, it’s like comparing apples and oranges.
For some reason I read that as “comparing apples and orgasms.”
Apples and Orgasms don’t have much in common. I think I may take this phrase.
“Apples and Orgasms” is the name of my next not-suitable-for-airplay band.
Something something original sin?
That does make a LOT more sense than comparing apples to oranges. Compared to most things, apples and oranges are actually pretty similar.
But isn’t “Apples to Orgasms” the name of a game?
I don’t know how to say this next comment without sounding really really really bitter, so screw it I’ll sound really really really bitter:
Yes, but, don’t you see? She persists in being so open and blatant about who she is! I mean, what does she expect when she basically announces it from the nearest rooftop? */heavy sarcasm*
The reaction to Becky just boils down to classic victim-blaming. She won’t go to inhuman lengths to change everything about herself so her abuser is happy, therefore everything her abuser does is her fault. Ok, yeah, she’s not exactly swimming in forethought, but that does not in any way make her deserve the piles and piles of shit that’s been thrown her way, nor does it make her responsible for damage caused by the actions of others.
That Joyce is exhausted and traumatized after what Toedad did is completely 100% Toedad’s fault, not Becky’s.
What, exactly, would any of you have had Becky do when her dad showed up to drag her off to one of those re-education camps? Go along meekly and put up with degradation and torture for time unspecified so as not to inconvenience anyone? Flee but remain homeless with nothing but the clothes on her back as winter approaches, thus risking injury and death by any number of dangers on the streets (let’s be real here – Becky does a better job of hiding it, but she’s every bit as sheltered and naive as Joyce. Bad Things would happen to her if she did that)? What other options did she have?
Becky was put into a lose-lose situation, and she chose the option of best odds of self-preservation. I cannot fault her for that, and I cannot deem it as “selfish” for her to take the least-bad option available to her.
And all that is ignoring the fact that she has consistently and systematically covered up how much this is affecting her for the sake of her friends, and consistently put aside her own needs to help those she cares about. Yeah, in part it may be due to the fact that she fears abandonment (after all she’s been through, do you blame her?) but part of it is her genuine personality. I sincerely doubt that was the first time Toedad was violent towards her (she did not seem surprised or shocked at all when he hit her, and she was entirely too good at judging when and how she needed to submit to stay safe, both of which tell me her dad has probably hit her before), and until the gun incident, Joyce had no idea what he was really like.
This.
THANK YOU. Ugh. Geez.
I think it’s inappropriate to question Becky’s selfishness, for all the reasons you pointed out and more. The thing that I’m upset about have to do with her treatment of Dina. While it’s true that Becky brings her along for a lot, Dina already feels like Becky treats her as a rebound. And now with this, (I’m going after the assumption that Becky is trying to either go with Joyce, or instigate a reaction from her father), it feels like the two things that could happen are put Joyce in a tough position, or make Dina think she’s not a “real” girlfriend. She’s probably questioning every move anyway. It must be hard for her.
All I’m saying is that we’ve seen a lot of sacrifice and unselfishness from Becky towards Joyce. I really wish she’d direct more at her girlfriend.
I included some links regarding that in the link dump, but there’s a lot more I can include. Basically, every time Dina and Becky have interacted, Becky’s gone out of her way to make sure Dina feels appreciated, talk up how interested and excited she is by her company and her topics of conversations, and show genuine awe at her girlfriend’s awesomeness.
The link where Dina is ripping herself apart for not stopping a man 3 times her size and Becky’s all let’s bring the police back in here, because my badass girlfriend biting him is so awesome it should be in the police report demonstrates this nicely. As does the bit where Dina asks a concerned question about the Bio class being boring and Becky raves about it right before she thanks Amber. And she even has been doing well to make sure she hasn’t been abandoning Dina to care for Joyce, making sure to bring Dina with her and make it a group comfort when Becky notices that Joyce just stormed off and is now in danger of a flashback because of it.
Like, yes, Dina feels she is not a “real” girlfriend and has a lot of insecurities about whether she is able to make Becky happy and with regards to being the “rebound”, but Becky so far in comic has been shown to be a very conscientious to her girlfriend, deliberately avoiding taking advantage of her, celebrating her inherent awesomeness, and showing support where she can (Dina is about as open with her internal pain as Becky), always making sure Dina feels supported and is recognized for her awesomeness.
Hell, I’ve seen real-life very healthy couples that don’t feature as much internal support for each other as Dina and Becky have shown in comic. They’re really quite healthy for each other.
Becky is Jesus
If Jesus was Jessie (specially if she’d been makkin on Magdalene) she’d totally have gotten the same treatment.
And that’s not covering Becky at the beginning. Sure, I said in a previous post that maybe she didn’t know she had a huge crush on Joyce until she wasn’t with her.
But, given everything else, it’s just as likely if not more that she was putting on a brave front so that Joyce wouldn’t freak out.
I like the cut of your jib. 😀
Becky has a right to exist and be present without concealing it from anyone, which is pretty much all she’s doing here.
Joyce is about to go home and get into a massive fight with her parents for supporting Becky. If it goes badly, her parents may pull her college tuition. Becky just guaranteed that Joyce’s best chance of getting her dad on her side won’t happen. So yes, Becky CAN be present, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a smart or kind thing for her to do. Some respect for Joyce and her awkward position would be nice.
Of course it would be kinder to Joyce to stay out of the situation, but if Becky wanted to join in the conversation, the only alternative was to hide, which has got to feel bad for someone who has gone through a lot to ‘be herself’. Becky has no obligation to go that far; it’s the difference between what someone can do and what someone should do. My point (to J) was that to ‘hate people like her’, just because her kindness isn’t self-sacrificing to the point J demands, is unfair. I think Becky is still essentially ‘kind’, and that not doing the ‘kinder’ thing in this instance doesn’t mean that she’s doing anything wrong.
I’m not sure Becky changed anything here. It’s not like the confrontation over Becky wasn’t going to happen anyway.
It might even be that seeing the actual Becky again and having her be the same obnoxious, adorable kid he knows as Joyce’s best friend will help him think of her that way instead of as some abstract representation of evil lesbian sin.
That’s actually one of the things that confuses me.
Some people seem to think that Becky’s personality is entirely new. That she started being loud and embarrassing Joyce after she came out of the closet.
Seems more likely to me that being out of the closet is the only new thing. All the rest is the same Becky Joyce became best friends with…though she probably hid it from their parents.
Given that in the very first strip, Becky joked about an “Inaugural Poop”, I think that’s pretty solidly canon.
How much she hid any of that from their parents is less clear.
I mean yeah. I have the right to be present in the ocean but I can’t get pissed if sharks eat me.
A shark needs to eat to live a bigot won’t die if they don’t prey upon others that’s a ridiculous comparison that places the blame for any horribleness that Hank directs at Becky onto her. Don’t victim blame dude.
I’m not. I just hate the phrase “X has a RIGHT to do X” as if having a right to do it makes it fine to do it. Every situation is different and in this particular situation, if things go south it’s not just herself that might get hurt. Becky may be a victim who’s been through some hard shit, but that doesn’t mean her actions only affect her. The bigot in that metaphor isn’t the shark. The shark is any kind of threat to oneself or others. This situation could turn out fine with nothing bad happening at all. But now that Becky’s just swum out to the deep end we’ll just have to wait and see if there are really sharks out there, and if Joyce will end up getting hurt saving her.
Having a right to do something actually does make it fine to do it, by definition. It’s a simplification, because it assumes that all other rights and responsibilities are being upheld by the person exercising their right; your argument is essentially that Becky has a responsibility here, for her own or Joyce’s safety, that should be limiting her rights.
A threat posed by Hank is Hank’s fault, not Becky’s, even if her actions make the threat from Hank greater. Becky is hurting no-one; she’s just not going out of her way to protect anyone. I don’t think she has a responsibility to protect anyone in these circumstances, since she has the right (hahaha) to assume that Hank will behave in a decent manner. To put the responsibility on the victim to prevent the aggressor’s actions is classic victim-blaming, I’m sorry to say, although I don’t like to use such a loaded term; in my opinion, it comes down to a flaw in your analogy: these ‘sharks’ aren’t just uncontrollable forces of nature. They’re controlled by Hank.
I guess in that same way Joyce has the right to completely abandon Becky and side with her dad if things go south. Certainly would be out of character but she does have the right to do it. She has no responsibility to protect anyone.
She took that responsibility on herself when she said that she would support Becky, besides the fact that siding with her dad would violate Becky’s rights regarding how she’s treated.
Sure you can. Sharks don’t eat people, they eat seals. They only bite people because they mistake them for seals. So if one bites you it is calling you a seal.
That bastard.
Yeah, no one should never go to the ocean, ever.
Specially not anyone who lived their whole lives on the ocean, and was literally raised by sharks, and who are sharks themselves except they’re… vegan sharks?
I’d say a better metaphor would be a Dolphin among sharks. Then again Dolphins are total badasses who bop sharks with their noses cuz they know sharks hate that shit.
They’re also more rapey than Ryan.
It sounded earlier like Joyce was okay with Becky coming with as long as Becky was okay with it.
She already told Joyce she was coming over. This isn’t a surprise thing.
She, in fact, offered to, in order to support Joyce.
But why does Joyce look so surprised in the last panel today?
I think Becky offered to come and support Joyce, but they left it ambiguous, and foolishly didn’t plan how to tell the Browns she might drop in.
I think it’s likely that Joyce just pushed it out of her consciousness as one more thing to worry about – she doesn’t want drama on Becky – and is now worrying for her.
I don’t think Becky coming along is in any way a bad thing for Joyce, or going to make her life harder. A friendly presence is incredibly important
Oh my god look at that lesbian ruining her straight friend’s day with all her inconvenient existing!
Dorothy isn’t involving herself in this conversation. Neither is Walky, or Sarah, or anyone else Joyce knows, because they all know that this is a delicate situation and talking to her dad might make things worse for Joyce. So either Becky is less socially adept than Walky, or she has decided that she’s perfectly willing to hurt Joyce as long as she gets to make sure a homophobe knows she exists. And while that is her right, it’s also a shitty thing for a friend to do.
…pretty sure Becky’s best friend since time immemorial’s dad knows she exists. What, is she just supposed to stop interacting with people she’s known since she was kneehigh to a grasshopper just cause she’s gay now?
Yes. Gay people should hide in the background feeling sorry for themselves until they can be used by their straight acquaintances to make a big show about how said acquaintance supporting them has made them grow as a person. And then they retire immediately back into the background having fulfilled their narrative role.
So it is written in the Sitcom Tome. So shall it be done.
I now have the mental image of a priest walking around a place of worship with an elaborately dressed scroll labeled “Holy Scripts of Sitcom” while people touch the thing with their “TV Prayer Books”. It’s kinda of absurd, and now the image won’t get out of my head.
Like that one thing with the Torah except the cover has TVs all over it.
Everyone else is hiding in the background. Yes, in a perfect world, Becky wouldn’t have to hide. This isn’t a perfect world, and Joyce is about to go through hell for Becky again. The least Becky could do is show the basic social restraint of Walky and not make things any harder on Joyce than they already are.
Please think about what you are saying to the real life Beckys of the world with that comment.
This is not about Becky being out on the street, at work, or in class. Joyce is about to go off and defend Becky and their continuing friendship to her parents, who have significant power over her life and her emotional well-being. That’s a really tough conversation to have, and if Joyce screws up she’s homeless. Becky came downstairs, went into the lobby, and inserted herself into that conversation. That’s not being out, that’s actively looking for an argument and not caring if Joyce gets caught in the crossfire.
It is not. It is a girl with nothing left having a regular every day conversation with the last vestiges of “family” she’s got left.
I think the real issue, more than Becky being lesbian (which really shouldn’t be an issue, cmon world get yo shit together) is that right now she represents a lot of instability in regards to Joyce. I’m not saying she should have to hide herself, she is Joyce’s best friend after all. That being said, I have seen when my very being with my friend escalates the situation, even with a family I was once close with.
Yes, she has every right to speak to Joyce’s father but it is also true that maybe she could have waited a little longer. Felt out the situation a bit more and worked out how to play it.
I’ve personally always had trouble understanding how to act around others, which mask i should wear because no one has ever seen me be myself and not alienated me. As a result, I always go into a conversation the same way I was taught to fight, tentative moves to see what is happening before I wade deeper.
Becky is a lot braver than me but if I am understanding the situation right maybe Joyce had an actual plan about how she was going to handle all of what has been happening. It is her father and surely she knows how to deal with him better than Becky? Maybe Joyce had no plan but wasn’t it worth waiting a little to see?
Becky definitely needs to be a part of this but maybe this was a time she should have trusted in her friend’s ability to bring her into the conversation in a way that gave the both of them a good place to fight from if they had to fight.
The flip side is Becky is feeling hurt and maybe a little lost? These are her best friends parents and now the closest to parents she has, it might be unreasonable to expect her to not come say hi to them. Mr Brown was presumably a kind man to her growing up, why would she expect to have to fight him in the first place? We expect her to handle the situation with absolute foresight and perfection when in reality Becky is dealing with it in the way she thinks is best. It may even be the best way to deal with it, time will tell.
I hope I have explained myself clearly but I don’t often comment!
No, it’s really not.
She’s not Dorothy, the atheist friend. She’s Becky, childhood friend. Hank and Carol aren’t just “Joyce’s parents”, they’re people she’s known for years. They’re the closest thing she has to remaining family. And they know that their daughter and her have been through thick and thin together.
This is not a stranger she has met once under ill circumstances once. These are people she’s probably spent dinner with and slept over at their house on many occasions. She knows Hank, personally, has established relationships with him and under normal circumstances would have no reason to assume that this behavior would be taking poorly. After all, she’s acting normally, breaking the ice, making things light and small-talk filled. The only “tension” she’s adding is her existence and well… her existence was going to come up this weekend. It would have to given recent events.
Also, it’s still not clear whether or not Becky is actually supposed to be coming along here rather than just lending moral support, so yeah, approaching and saying hi would be very important at this moment.
Yep. Becky probably considers the Brown household her second home, just judging from how Joyce was talking about Toedad. She quite possibly calls Joyce’s parents Mom and Dad. There is a History there that I’m not sure how people are overlooking.
When it’s considered from that perspective, it’s possible that this isn’t even something she’s doing on purpose at all; she’s forgetting that she can’t just jump into the conversation here the way she normally would. Or, her instinctive comfort with Joyce’s dad is overriding the more rational concerns, and she thinks it will be fine anyway.
@Shiro – only thing I can think of is that they’re not familiar with how small-town best-friendships work among children. My best friend growing up and I spent almost as much time at the other’s house as we did at our own. It can safely be assumed, from how Joyce spoke about Toedad, that they had the same level of familiarity with each other’s parents.
Hank and Carol aren’t strangers or near-strangers to Becky, they’re practically a second set of parents.
These are not normal circumstances, though, and Becky would have to be a moron not to recognize how badly this situation could go. Joyce might get pulled out of college and end up on the street after this weekend, and Becky just made that more likely. That’s not the action of someone who actually cares about Joyce.
Gosh, pulled out of college and possibly ending up on the street you say?
*cough* look at Becky’s literal current circumstance *cough*
Did she make it more likely? How?
By talking to Hank? By reminding him that she exists?
I don’t see it.
I think the logic goes:
– Becky inserts herself into the conversation
– Father makes some sort of homophobic comments
– Joyce defends Becky against her dad
– Entire weekend is basically a big fight, with her parents concentrating more on Becky’s homosexuality than a gun-toting nutbag
– Parents stop funding Joyce’s tuition
– Because Joyce has to withdraw from college, Becky might too (although perhaps she might have enough support from Dina, Dorothy and others to continue sticking around.)
What might be preferred is:
– Joyce talks with her dad, feels out the situation (to see if her parents are OK with her still being friends with Becky)
– If she finds out that her parents are raging homophobes she can avoid breaching the subject altogether, or at least put it in a context that might result in sympathy. (i.e. the first thing that she could mention was the danger of toedad waving a gun, rather than Becky’s homosexuality. Plant the seeds in their mind that the danger is not “the gays” but the people trying to harm “the gays”)
Maybe they should bring Dina and thereby derail all of the “evil gays” argument into an “evil evolution/Deep Time believers” argument.
She already told them on the phone that Becky likes girls and that she’s supporting Becky no matter what. It’s why Ross was there. It’s why Becky was there.
There is no way to avoid the subject. It can still be deflected to the actual danger, but we’ve already seen her mother take that back to “But you understand why…”
Oh yes, I’m sure the issue of Becky was definitely going to come up on the weekend.
Some people are just suggesting Joyce might wanted things to be brought up on her own terms (i.e. emphasizing the gun-toting lunatic) rather than have things brought up on other people’s terms.
I dont remember seeing talk of Becky ever going with Joyce (and if I’m wrong I’m wrong, I literally do not remember it) but even if she is, I’d say that’s a bad call in and of itself. Yes, Beck has the right to do whatever she wants, orientation notwithstanding, however she doesn’t live in a vacuum.
Right now her friend is suffering. It’s obvious and she can tell Joyce is distressed. Joyce wants and needs this weekend to go well, so she can still feel like she has a family who can support and love her, since it’s clear that her friends simply aren’t cutting it.
Becky being there, either to just say hi or to actually go home with her only serves to take that away from Joyce. Moreover, this action ACTIVELY HURTS BECKY, since right now she’s still living on campus in secret. Joyce’s parents are almost as bad as Becky’s, so when it does inevitably come up that Becky is gay, and hiding in Joyce’s dad’s old college campus for refuge, there are going to be some issues. At best he scolds Joyce for supporting Becky, at worst he calls the school and outs her.
Becky is accidentally forcing Joyce to make a choice at this specific point: defend Becky and risk the nice weekend/relationship with her dad that she really needs, or throw Becky under the bus and have everyone walk away sad. Joyce isn’t in the mental position to make the correct choice (defend Becky) so this can only end badly.
This is similar to the time Becky loudly announced that she was there, and gay, while living in Joyce’s room, thus putting them both at risk.
Becky isn’t a bad person, and has the right to exist and go wherever she pleases, but a little tact goes a long way, especially when you can lose your home at any moment, AND your friend that you’re stressing is stilly getting over some severe trauma and is in need of familial support.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/elsewhere/
She’s probably coming.
For the rest of it… well, as someone who’s repeatedly been told I need to hide myself away and go in the closet and not be, you know, quite as visible because of how I am, I really can’t agree less with any of it. I’m really sorry, but I just can’t.
I have more to say, but it’s clear that this means a lot to you and there’s no point in making a stranger’s day worse just because I disagree their interpretation of a character. I’m sorry if this has caused you any distress.
Thank you.
Of important note there:
Neither Joyce nor Becky there is concerned with themselves – Becky is offering to go to be Joyce’s support, Joyce is voicing concern that that will make things worse for Becky.
Yeah, I think they could both do to be more selfish, to check in with their own needs and express them to each other. LIke Becky might say “I’d love to come, because I want to support you, and because this is as close as I can get to having my family.” And Joyce might say, “But, this weekend really needs to stabilize me, and I’m already terrified of how they’ll react to my changed views — can we please wait til next time, they’ll still be your family.” But they’re both way too selfless to hash that out.
Leorale- Yeah, I’ve fallen into that trap with partners before where we’re both so focused on trying to do right by the other and fully support them that we forget to care for ourselves or even vocalize our needs and then things go wrong because of it.
It could be going the other, more obvious, way too. “I’m scared to go, but I want to go to support you.” and “I really want you there, but I don’t want to put you through it”.
Which is essentially what they said.
I’m not sure I really understand either side of this whole argument. One side seems to be “I HATE BECKY AND EVERYTHING ABOUT HER GO DIE IN A FIRE AAAGGGHHH” and the other seems to be “if someone is not heteronormative or whatever else is mainstream then they are perfect and have no flaws.”
I think people should be allowed to dislike Becky for reasons other than her being a lesbian. I mean, the only times I can stand Becky is when she’s with Dina (those two together are absolutely adorable I want them to be together forever). But all of her interactions with everyone else just rub me the wrong way. It’s not cause she’s gay though. It’s cause she’s obnoxious. And yeah sure she’s been through a lot but I don’t think that’s an excuse to be obnoxious. For instance, this guy I used to know had cancer and beat it but then decided that this gave him the right to just go around putting everyone else around him down and treating them all like crap. I dunno if he was like that before the cancer but he seemed to think it was justified. And we haven’t seen much of Becky before she escaped Anderson and Toedad to get to IU but she was probably like this before all of that.
No, no one deserves to have happen to them what Toedad did to her and if I had been there I wouldn’t’ve stopped with a punch like Joyce did. I would’ve beat him to death because, whether I like Becky or not, none of that is OK. The “therapy camp” or whatever it’s called, bringing a gun to school and chasing her down, threatening her and a bunch of other kids with a gun, none of that is OK no matter how obnoxious she is. But I still find her obnoxious most of the time.
Plus here, Joyce is going to be in a world of trouble when she gets home because she has a gay friend. Most of us don’t think being gay is bad but her parents think it’s a sin that will send you to hell, so to THEM it’s like as if Joyce is friends with a murderer cause murder is also a sin. Obviously it’s not clear whether they decided one way or the other whether Becky was coming home with Joyce or not but judging from their faces in the last panel if they did 100% decide that Becky was going nobody bothered to tell the Browns. And your equivalent-to-a-murderer (again, in her parents’s eyes, not mine) friend just interjecting themselves into a convo is inviting a lot of crap onto Joyce. (Note: I don’t like Joyce either, so I’m not sitting here defending her cause she’s the straight white chick. I’m just saying this random interjection into a convo with someone who equates your lifestyle with being a murderer is probably not the best thing to do, tact-wise. If you murder someone it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known your friend’s parents. They’re still not gonna want you around).
Also I can’t sleep so I hope this makes sense. Basically, Becky didn’t deserve the bad stuff that happened to her and I wish it hadn’t happened to her and Toedad needs to burst into flames but that doesn’t mean she can be obnoxious or invite problems for someone else. She could’ve at least waited for Joyce to call her over or something.
Oh gods I wrote a textbook I’m sorry I should not post when I can’t sleep ^.__.^;;
Where did anyone say Becky was perfect with no flaws? I see people saying that Becky isn’t the worst for wanting to talk to someone she’s known all her life. I can’t see anywhere way someone says Becky is perfect.
I love Becky’s flaws. Her jealousy of Dorothy, her habit of repressing all her hurt. They’re very humanizing and flesh out her character.
I’m just having a really hard time seeing how “talking to Joyce’s dad in a perfectly normal way” qualifies as a flaw and frankly it’s a bit offputting and triggering given my particular set of life experiences.
Becky, Carla, Jocelyne, etc… all have flaws. I just wish more times in these sorts of threads, people actually responded to the flaws they do have rather than the flaws they make up or project on to them in order to justify victim blaming.
I think you (Dragon_Nataku) misread the argument. Yes, one side is basically arguing that Becky is evil–saying she is inconsiderate and selfish and a horrible friend. But no one on the other side says she has no flaws. They’re the same people upthread who acknowledge that she’s loud and has impulse control problems.
It’s just that the argument that she is horrible is just so baseless. It seems to only be because this one action has a chance of being bad for Joyce. And just a chance, since there are many more ways it can go.
They disregard every other time that Becky has been completely selfless, and they disregard the flaw she’s had since the beginning–her impulsive behavior.
And, what’s worse, Becky isn’t doing anything wrong. She’s talking to someone she knows. She was not asked not to get involved, and it’s possible she thinks she is going back with them. They’re mad at her for doing something no one has given her any reason to not do.
So it reads a whole lot like those people who think that just being there and being gay is wrong. Sure, gya people have a right to do be out in public, but it’s still selfish and wrong. Ignore everything else about these people, just don’t make
Joyceme feel a little bad.This weekend isn’t going to go well and be a nice relaxing, supportive experience for Joyce no matter what Becky does. Since that phone call to her mom, Joyce knows it well.
Her parents might be thinking that she needs support, but they’re also thinking they need to get her back on the right path and away from all these secular influences, like atheists and Becky, so that she can make proper Godly choices. Like rejecting Becky.
No matter what Becky did here, whether she hid or whether she talks to Hank, this visit was always going to be a major stressor for Joyce. She was going to be on the defensive the whole time, trying to justify her choices to her parents and probably being pushed to question them herself.
If Becky comes along, that might bring the conflict a little more to the fore, but it also gives Joyce an ally and a reminder what she’s fighting for. Likely Becky being there would only shorten that awkward period where they’re all carefully being nice and avoiding the elephant in the room.
As I said before, Becky actually being there reminds them that this isn’t an abstract problem. They’re not rejecting the concept of lesbians, they’re rejecting Becky, who they’ve known and cared for all her life. And that is the single biggest thing that could sway them. In recent years it’s been by far the biggest factor in changing people’s attitudes towards gays – knowing them personally.
Yeah. And it means that there’s actually a better chance of it going well than if she doesn’t make herself present or come along.
Without her, it’s an abstract problem of how could you let Satan into your home. With her, it humanizes it, makes it clear that this is about Becky, the human being, with fears and emotions and a long storied history with their daughter. Even if they can’t look past their homophobia, maybe they’ll be able to understand why their daughter “defied” them.
She loves Joyce to the point of recklessness.
I’m not sure thats such an awful thing, do you? We’ve all done things in tbe name of love which are completely unselfish. Or at least we should.
Agreed, shitty thing to do.
On the bright side this is Joyce’s dad. From past appearances, it’s her mom who’s the more… vocal one on objections who whom Joyce associates with. Dad was kinda just there. So this may not be as bad as it could be. (*Knock-wood*)
I’m guessing the way the prior visit went may be why it’s only dad picking her up for the weekend.
It is not a shitty thing to do. It is not shitty to exist and to be friendly with a long close friend’s parents, especially when you’re probably coming along.
Honestly, we have very little to go on as far as him being less vocal than his wife is concerned. We know he backed down because he agreed with Joyce’s interpretation of a particular Bible quote. That doesn’t imply by default that he will be as agreeable in regards to Becky and what the Bible says about her.
“Shitty” is going waaaaay to far.
As far as I can tell the very worst this could be called is a bit incautious. But that’s Becky in a nutshell. She’s Roosevelt’s “Man in the arena”. Things could go wrong here, certainly, but… well, let’s go over the alternative.
In her situation I would have been more cautious, but I’d never know that was the right choice. I would probably hide, not go on the trip “home” and forever wonder how things would have gone had I shown up. I probably would have told myself that everyone would be better off if I just quietly slipped away and let them get on without me, just in case. And I could never have been proven wrong, exactly. That way lies an ingrown life, and that’s what calling her behavior shitty inadvertently _demands_.
If Joyce wanted a Becky-free visit with her dad the onus is on Joyce to tell Becky that. Since we haven’t seen any such exchange we can’t expect Becky to act as if that exchange had taken place.
I wouldn’t call it shitty (malicious), just dumb and impulsive. If Joyce’s dad had a fundie freakout, Joyce would be forced to instantly choose between friend or family, not easy even when one is in the wrong.
How dare she!
Has she no honor? I ask you again, has she no honor, sir?
Wait, I though it was the bisexuals who were supposed to be invisible.
Well yeah. Lesbians are visible. Thus, they are rude and ruining everything by existing all visibly around people whereas bisexuals are allowed to stand near people so long as they don’t move objects (cause this would clearly make people worried that the location was haunted).
I actually like to stand near people quietly and then move something nearby, just to watch them jump and say, “I just saw that move … Do you think this place has bisexuals?”
+1 to you fellow commentor
That reminds me of something that happened in DC comics. One time, in the gordian knot that is the continuity of Legion of Super Heroes, they introduced the first bisexual member of the team.
It was, of course, Invisible Kid.
No, the first bi character was Dawnstar (revealed as such about…7 years ago, IIRC). Post-Zero Hour IK was gay.
(Arguably, there was Element Lad, but the intent was for him to be gay and just seeing through the ‘female’ mask when Sean was pretending to be Shvaughn, because in the 30th century, you should still assume homophobia, apparently.)
Jim Shooter, of all people, was severely hampered by editorial over that.
He initially wanted Ferro Lad to be black, but having a black dude in a series about a utopian future where mankind has peacefully resolved all conflict and joined a welcoming intergalactic civilization was apparently too much.
Ah, comics.
Jim Shooter is also the guy who insisted to John Byrne (again; of all people) that Northstar wasn’t allowed to be a gay in the 1980’s, so instead they revealed he was part elf.
Northstar wasn’t allowed to be a gay guy in the 1980’s*
No, you’re thinking of people with mental disorders that aren’t immediately apparent.
(By which I mean Bipolar, mild Autistm-spectrum, etc. Nothing to do with sexuality or gender identity.)
Erm, for one: Autism is a developmental disorder. Not a “mental disorder,” which is actually quite derogatory.
For two: As a bisexual autistic, I can pretty much guarantee you that bi people are pretty damned invisible to public consciousness.
I mean, it’s incorrect so definitely good to call it out/clear it up, but…derogatory? Ouch.
Jesus Christ no it’s not derogatory what’s wrong with you 0.0
(and i don’t fucking mean autism, i’m autistic too and am capable of respecting bipolar, borderline and shizophrenic people as people jesus christ what the fuck seriously)
(also, ace here, joining the invisibility club)
Maybe because “mental disorder” is outdated terminology that along most mental illness communities I know and deal with, the opinion is that it should go the way of the R-word?
(i.e., though I didn’t phrase it well, I was also opposed to referring to bipolar disorder as a “mental disorder”. Apologies for bad phrasing which I can see now had exactly the opposite of my intended implication.
Also apologies for wording which played into societal ableism. I am not opposed to being grouped in with people with bipolar. I am opposed to the use of outdated and othering phrasing.
The first rule of Invisibility Club is that you do talk about Invisibility Club, because how else would ever find each other?
No. It’s the scientific term. The developmental problems with autism happen in the brain, making it a mental disorder. It’s listed in the DSM-5: the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition.”
Now, if this were innocuous, I’d let it slide and let you think what you want. But trying to make a normal term offensive actually causes harm to our cause. Yes, our cause–I have a mental disorder, too.
Saying “mental disorder” is derogatory, when it is factually not used in that manner, only makes us look like we are not in touch with reality, and thus makes our real concerns seem like they could be “crazy,” too.
…did you go to every comment chain?
Anyway. I don’t think this is a matter of whether she has a right To do whatever she pleases (she does). It’s more general courtesy, because regardless of what it’s about, you should think about how people feel.
I mean, one of my good friends parents’ are extremely right wing scientologists, and he’s transgender and bi. That doesn’t mean I can pop in front of their house and make jokes the day after their dog died, even if I do exactly that normally. It doesn’t matter that I’m gay – I might have a right (and even a strong urge) to resort to humor, and have a right to be there, but that doesn’t make it any less insensitive.
It’s obviously not exactly the same here, but I think the same principle applies. I’m don’t think Becky’s doing anything terrible, and if Joyce and her dad are reasonable they’ll roll with it (understanding that Becky’s been through a lot, even more than Joyce, and it’s a way of dealing with it). But that doesn’t make it ideal.
Oh noes, I’m awful, reading down a comment thread and commenting. Bad Cerberus, no triple biscuit.
Also, the “dog dying” here is her, Becky, being targeted by her dad, involving a gun being pulled on her personally, leading to her personally being kidnapped and being involved in a car crash.
Becky was rather central to this whole “dog dying” thing that has Joyce’s parents wanting to show their support to Joyce. And she’s not entering in with her sushi joke while talking heavy stuff. They’re making small talk. Becky entered in with small talk of her own.
I’m really not getting how so so many people are viewing this as nefarious or injurious to Joyce other than by blaming her for societal homophobia.
I don’t think anyone’s saying it’s nefarious, per se. Becky’s trying to help things in her own Becky way, it’s just, judging by the expressions on the Browns’ faces, it’s kinda startling them right now. I wouldn’t call it bad, but I wouldn’t say Becky’s being perfect either. Especially if it ends up escalating much.
Yes, you wouldn’t barge into their house. But are you saying you wouldn’t talk to them in public? Because that’s what’s going on here. Becky is talking to her two friends in public. They weren’t grieving over their “dog dying”, or anything. And she didn’t bring the subject up.
You mention ideals, but what is ideal for Becky? That she just hide herself from her best friend and someone who has been a father figure in her life?
I’m not saying everything is ideal for Joyce. And I can see an argument that Becky is being a bit of her impulsive self and hasn’t thought things through.
But the idea that she’s wrong for talking to them just doesn’t work.
Wow.
About the only thing Becky’s really guilty of here is lack of foresight. If Joyce’s dad decides to be a dick about her being there, that’s HIS fault, not hers.
“Don’t belong???”
Becky practically grew up in the Brown household. She and Joyce were as close as sisters you can be. She just lost her family. This man is the closest thing she has to a father.
I know. This is the scrappy remains of anything she could remotely call a family here. People are really not paying attention to what exactly they’re accidentally saying here.
Not so much replying to you as much as replying to this thread in general
You guys… Hank is NOT Ross. Mr. Brown is NOT Toedad. Papa Joyce is NOT Papa Becky, although he MIGHT AS WELL BE. Hank has had another child rebel to him (Joshua IIRC). I find it doubtful that he’s never of LGBT issues, having an LGBT daughter (Jocelyne). Regardless of dogma, he can’t be as ignorant as Toedad, as he’s had to deal with difference.
Becky’s been raised with him. She’s family to him, the Browns are family to her. They were probably her introduction to a next degree of freedom -after all, Toedad didn’t even let Becky have a cell phone, so going to Joyce’s was probably her chance to “get wild” and watch Psalmy until midnight or whatever. Her haircut is the only thing that screams lesbian about her, and that’s only a stereotype. He’s heard of her lesbianism, but he probably also heard of MacIntyre going on a shooting spree, causing a traffic incident, and hurting his youngest daughter. There are too many stakes. It’s not as black and white as with Toedad. And Becky might or might not know this consciously, but she most definitely can feel the conflict inconsciously. But historically he’s been part of one of her safe spaces, an a space that she has not yet established as unsafe.
Joyce already left her parents a voice mail lighting fire to that bridge. At this point, the stakes are already lower, as they don’t want that and a week later they might have thought over bargains and let the fire de out a little.
God I’m bad at meta and analysis, like I’m the kind of dude who forgets half of the strips, doesn’t associate implicit shit, and EVEN I can tell Becky’s not being a selfish bull in a china shop here. Careless? Definitely! But does she even have a choice being not?
TL;DR: Give the poor man a chance, and don’t jump at Becky’s throat for doing so.
Actually, Jocylene is closeted to her family. There’s a reason she still presents as male. Remember when she was talking with Ethan about how she’s the favorite “precisely because” they know the least about her? http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/heated/
Now I am picturing Marlon Perkins talking about the natural habitat of the Wild Becky.
“Mutual Of Omaha is people you can count on when the going’s rough!”
Hey he has hopes for her growth in college! That’s not so dire!
“Say, where’s Perry?”
Do-Be-Do-Bah, Do-Be-Do-Bah…
Dammit. I meant Do-Be-Do-Be-Do-Bah, Do-Be-Do-Be-Do-Bah…
Great, now i want Becky to have her own little lair entrance sequence.
well i mean SOMETHING had to happen
Yes, but did it have to happen now? They were just starting to get father-daughtery. We were in the clear, at least we would’ve been till she got home and things innevitably heated up.
You mean until they were home and Joyce was completely isolated from any support? I’m hoping this is Becky making it clear she’s going to be tagging along because the last thing I want is Joyce being stuck dealing with this stuff with her parents alone.
Same. I was worried about where Becky was and if she was indeed going to leave Joyce alone.
Sorry, what was that? I was calling the fan an ambulence after it got hit.
Considering what just hit it, the fan janitor might be a better bet.
Someone call the fanitor!
this is why we can’t have nice things. cuz we’re beautiful and the world is ugly.
…or something, i never read atlas shrugged
Good for you. The book is heavily overrated, and Ayn Rand has this weird policy of making all of her protagonists legitimately sociopathic.
That is a nice quote. It does not fit my second hand understanding of atlas shrugged. It is nice
It’s not actually from Atlus Shrugged. It’s from It’s Walky.
I feel I should explain that my brain played a long game of broken telephone to pick that quote, and as an afterthought I tacked on the bit about Atlas Shrugged. I was sleepy and I thought “hey, loving yourself and finding the world inadequate is a very Ayn Rand idea, isn’t it?” I did not mean to imply anything about Willis’ philosophical motivations for writing that line. I’m sure he’s all about friendship and teamwork and frequently donates to disabled puppies
The one constant of the Dumbiverse:
Becky cannot be contained.
Mary: Immovable Object
Carla: Hoppable Force
Becky: Uncontainable Spirit
Part of me wants a scene with all three of these characters interacting now, but I also feel like this would be a Very Bad Thing.
I dunno.
I kind of feel like Becky is Mary’s Kryptonite.
Everything is probably Mary’s Kryptonite.
Plot twist: Bongos are Mary’s Kryptonite.
Becky is joy.
Joy? The unknown Brown twin sister stolen from the hospital and never mentioned because the memory was just too painful?
Damnit Becky…
“Joyce, why are you keeping this a secret. I’m not raising you to do disgusting unchristian things like…Eating Sushi. If jesus wanted us to eat raw fish he wouldn’t have invented the Grill. Oh, hi Becky”
Jesus invented the grill? I thought George Foreman did.
Have you ever seen Jesus and George Foreman in the same room at the same time? I haven’t.
Of course we have. Jesus fought Foreman for the heavyweight title back in 96. If I recall correctly, Foreman won by KO, and the entire earth was destroyed.
“and becky, if jesus meant for you to eat raw fish…”
you know what, i’m gonna stop myself there
We all know Becky prefer’s tacos anyway.
If Jesus wanted us to eat fish, he would have handed them out when giving some kind of sermon.
But it would have to have a huge turnout. 5000 should be enough.
The bible doesn’t discuss it but Jesus also gave everyone a personal Grill, and told them that they must eat their fish prepared in this fashion, or not at all. He then got in his hot rod with a couple of his groupies and zoomed off to create nutella and compose Bohemian Rapsody.
Aww…Becky wants a family…
Yeah, that’s the heartbreaking part in all this. Becky has no family left. This is the closest thing still remaining.
And she so desperately wants to connect to it, but Hank and Carol will probably never see Becky, the brash little kid who’s been their daughter’s friend since forever. They’ll just see her sexuality and what their religion has called on them to view that as.
And the worst part is if she’s rejected here she won’t actually show it. She’ll bury it until she’s alone. And she’ll cry there where no one can see her. Lamenting a family ripped from her life. Simply because she is.
I dunno, I can see Hank coming around to a more sympathetic point of view.
Not Carol though.
It’s adorable and heartbreaking how Becky peaks around the corner to make up her mind if this dad is worth betting on.
“OK, I can’t see a gun. he actually smiles, he hasn’t started to scream at Joyce yet… OK, I’ll risk it.”
Yeah. She’s so optimistic. This world hasn’t broken her… yet.
I don’t think the world will ever actually break Becky she’s too powerful. Unless Joyce betrays her, that would probably destroy her.
The risk for that is pretty slim. She didn’t do it for God at least.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/pit/
i hope becky grows up to become an awesome lesbian grandma
I was such a picky eater like Joyce, too, before college. Turns out that might have been an autistic symptom.
Everything is an autistic symptom.
Well, this is will get interesting.
Becky always knows how to get Joyce to make certain faces.
Except the O-face.
I suspect she knows how.
She has the means and the motive, just not the opportunity.
So, is Becky the best character in this comic or what?
What?
I don’t think she even breaks my top 5
Yotomoe’s Top 5:
1. Sierra
2. Sierra
3. Sierra
4. Sierra
5. Sierra
It’s been a while. Sierra’s in my top 5 but she’s probably not #1Becky is the best and I don’t know what all those haters are on about.
You spell “Dorothy” funny. 😛
You spelled ‘Dina’ funny.
You spelled ‘Malaya’ funny.
You spelled ‘Mike’ funny.
You all spelled “My Original Character” wrong.
NONE OF YOU FUCKERS CAN SPEEEEEEEELL! D=
She uses awkward comment. It’s super effective! Dad is stunned and unable to parry!
Awkward Comment doesn’t sound like if would be a damging move. Probably a status move that causes Confusion.
I’m triple confused because it seems to be combining RPG elements.
It could be a damaging move with a flinch chance…
Becky no why
No seriously why how could this go any direction but south
She’s trying to connect with the only “family” she’s got left and lighten the mood.
Because they’re heading for La Porte, which, Wikipedia tells me, is north of Bloomington. *deadpan*
Becky.
Becky, I know you love your snark and I adore you for your ability to stay upbeat no matter what, I really do, but.
There is a time and a place.
This is neither.
But she didn’t even try to equip her bike indoors!
OAK: Red.
Red, I know you love your bicycle and I adore you for your ability to stay upbeat no matter what, I really do, but.
There is a time and a place.
This is neither.
Geez, Professor Oak, no need to be so dramatic. No bicycles in the Pokécemetery.
OAK: BECKY! This isn’t the time to use that!
I almost thought that text above the mailboxes in the final panel was a bunch of sound effects.
Like everyone’s mail was going “clank.”
Is it not? What’s happening there, I’m confused
Dorm wing names. So you know where to look for your mailbox.
Beck, Clark, etc.
“Clark” is written on the wall, because they’re mailboxes for the Clark wing.
And now I remember why I dislike Becky. Yes, her life is unfair and sucky, but Joyce is being incredibly nice to her(as a friend should), the least Becky could do is not make Joyce’s already-stressful weekend even worse.
She already told Joyce she was coming over. This isn’t a surprise thing.
Did she?
*checks*
LINK
It was almost two months ago, so I guess I forgot. Although the comic kind of left it up in the air what the decision was and whether or not Joyce actually wants Becky there for family weekend.
Nice link-hunting. Jeez, I totally forgot too.
Knowing that it actually was the plan (or at least a plan) for Becky to come with, it seems like she probably just popped up so awkwardly because this situation is fucked up, she had no ideas for how to enter the conversation naturally, and so she defaulted to her usual “full steam ahead!” coping strategy.
Joyce’s cracking is inevitable. Becky’s arguably doing everyone a favor by trying to get it out of the way early.
Joyce’s worldview is already cracking. Becky’s just guaranteeing that Joyce won’t get a chance to peacefully talk with her father and try to get him to back her before the inevitable explosion with her mom. Not to mention that Joyce had a gun pointed at her earlier this week and might reasonably need a non-stressful interaction with her dad before she snaps. This is the equivalent of Mike’s “Hail Satan” but from a character Willis seems convinced we should like.
I dunno, the commenters seemed to enjoy the “HAIL SATAN” a hell of a lot more than this. I wonder why that is.
Yesss, this.
Mike deliberately antagonizes Carol in a way most likely to put multiple people in danger: Comment thread loves it, jokes about how much Mike uses his power of assholitude to make everyone better people.
Becky has normal small talk with people she’s known her entire life and may be going home with this weekend: How dare you Becky, have you no respect for how hard you’re making Joyce’s life?
And that is very illustrative. All the more illustrative for all the people slagging on Carla in the last arc and Carla’s comment on the unreasonable expectation to be “perfect” if you’re marginalized.
I’m trying to figure out if the issue is that these commentors are homophobes/transphobes or that they’re misogynists. Or whether it’s some intersection of all three. None of the dudes have received this treatment, but then again, they’ve all been “straight” as far as heteronormativity tells us.
Oddly, Danny got far more popular around the same time his bisexuality was revealed. I’m not at all sure there’s a direct connection.
All these issues and the intersectionality among them are complicated. And mostly happening subconsciously, which makes it even harder to tease out.
There are some readers who are only interested in Danny because he’s bi, yeah. I mean, there have been genuine requests for him to cheat, disappointment that he won’t, and calls that he get over being monogamous because it gets in the way of him fucking a dude like he is actually required to by law. It’s all a big pile of gross as fuck sexual objectifying filtered through the lens of it being acceptable as long as its in the name of Danny being the right kind of queer man.
At the same time, Danny is pretty much the only bi dude in popular webcomics, and the only bi dude in any fiction I consume. I can’t understate how important it is that Danny just being bi, and seeing him deal with that in the context of what it means to him and in his relationship with Amber, is for bisexual male readers. We don’t get representation, period, and when we do it’s always, always about us being magical sex pixies who just want to stick our dicks into any hole that wriggles, fundamentally incapable of fidelity, or about how our relationships with women don’t count, because as queer men, we need to be queer in a visibly queer way for us to actually count to more privileged straight and gay folks, because to suggest otherwise means we’re faking having valid attractions to both genders; that we’re just putting on a little gay hat for a night on the town before going back into our straight hiding holes.
To be fair, I don’t know if that’s so much because of Danny’s bisexuality as because Danny’s only other notable defining characteristic up until that point was his haplessness.
Danny IS pretty hapless. He could use some haps. Let’s get some haps all up in here.
Yes, how dare she exist in the presence of a bigot doesn’t she know it’s her responsibility to disappear lest she FORCE him to be an awful human bieng?
This is probably the first time Hank has seen Becky with her new haircut. Maybe he’ll experience a 404 error and by the time he reboots he’ll have forgotten what he was going to say.
As we from the future have discovered, you are 100% correct!
Whoa, what’s up, Becky? What are you doing?
I… don’t think she’s here to antagonize the Browns? After staring down the barrel of homelessness and poverty I don’t think she’d try to do anything that might force Joyce to confront her parents, even though it would be understandable that Becky would be angry and spiteful towards them too after everything that’s happened.
Is this… an attempt to protect Joyce somehow…? Just wanting to know for herself what’s going on…? I really have no clue where this is going.
Actually, could this be an attempt to hitch a ride back to their hometown to pick up her legal docs? She was recently thinking about jobs so she might be after her social security card and birth certificate. Maybe she could even guilt some adults in their hometown into helping out. But why the hell would she do that without getting Joyce on board first?
Joyce knows that Becky was considering coming along for the ride. They discussed it a while back.
I just don’t think she expected this sudden ‘HI MISTER BROWN’ from Becky quite this soon into the visit.
Thanks for the reminder. I totally forgot about that until winter posted a link a couple threads up.
My guess now is that there’s nothing to Becky’s awkward entrance than her just not knowing what the hell else to do. There’s not really any way that this could be not awkward anyway.
It wasn’t just Becky coming along they were discussing, it was Becky coming along to act as moral support for Joyce. Which Joyce hesitated to accept because it might cause stress for Becky.
I thought she was doing that thing girls are raised to do, where she’d actually rather Becky didn’t come along, but she can’t say so.
Wait what? That’s a thing?
She came right out and said ‘no’ to Dorothy. (Although, honestly, that might have been for Dorothy’s comfort. She just never said why.) It’s doubtful she wouldn’t to the best friend she’s always been open with before.
maybe she just wanted to say hi?
this is a relatively safe place to test the waters.
everyone: becky no
becky: BECKY YES
God damn it Willis……. Just in case this goes south which I hoped it doesn’t.
This is DoA, of course it’ll inevitably go south.
The south shall rise again.
HEIL!
(Yes, I understand that the South isn’t Nazi Germany. I’m also aware that the South probably isn’t even normal German. Finally, we should all be aware that, despite the association with sieg heil, saying ‘Heil’ still really only amounts to ‘Hail’ or ‘Hear, hear’ in German. Shoosh.)
Actually, “Hear, hear” is “Hört, hört” in German. As you said, “Hail” is the proper translation for “Heil”.
And “sieg” is “victory”. And South Germany is Bavaria. What?
Yes, in Bavaria, where the trees are made of wood!
Repeatedly it seems.
“Damn you Willis” is always applicable at any time all the time always.
At any point in time, theres a scene in one of his 5 comics that warrants it.
Them all eating sushi was only last weekend. :[
I suddenly, really, really, don’t like Becky. Dammit Becky.
Why? What has she done here that wouldn’t be completely acceptable if she was straight? Say hi to her best friend’s father who she’s know pretty much her entire life? Make a joke about said best friend’s pickiness? Literally the only thing she’s doing here that could be “objectionable” is be gay.
In fairness, it wouldn’t really matter why Joyce and her parents were going to have a big fight about Becky. It’s just happens that being gay is the reason they’re going to.
Mind you, I still don’t have a problem with Becky doing it and I hope she comes along.
Except that is not the case. Becky has been at the center of an extremely disruptive event. Joyce needs this time to deal with her parents in her own way. Becky’s injection of herself is just as annoying as Dorothy trying to change Joyce in Gender Studies class when Joyce is clearly has a crisis of faith.
My position isn’t because Becky is gay. I’ve been the kicked out gay kid. Ben there, am that. There is a such thing as tact and Becky is not demonstrating it.
My totally baseless headcanon I just came up with is that Jocelyne came out to one of her brothers, maybe Johnathan since he’s showing up.
It’d be nice if, even under that roof, she wasn’t alone and had someone supporting her.
Ooh, hey, I forgot about her. Maybe Becky will get to learn about her during this trip and we’ll get to see more of her.
No, Becky – stay back! You’re Kryptonite to middle aged Christian dads!
Ooooh! Sabotage. Interesting. Good thing Mom’s not there. Bystanders could be severely injured by the schrapnel from that explosion.
And I don’t even have my popcorn popped yet.
Hopefully this will be an evening of awkward forced politeness.
…no fireworks this time? Please?
I sure hope Walky’s pleased as whatever specialty drink they have in TacoBell.
Umm… I… I’m sure gerything’s fine 😡
BECKY: “She made the same expression when I kissed her, dangit.”
Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Abort abort abort!
I don’t really… understand why Becky felt the need to make her presence known here. Even disregarding the discomfort it might be bringing up for Joyce, I probably wouldn’t want to be in the same room as Mr Brown for fear of stirring up shit and getting kicked out of the dorm.
Possible explanations?
If she didn’t make her presence known, how would anyone notice her, silly?
How foolish of me not to see that :3
One day I will be as wise as you, Yoto! *not even sarcasm*
I’m Figuratively perfect.
Becky might be coming with Joyce? Joyce asked her earlier. I mean it’s hard for her to come and remain invisible at the same time.
she could take ninja lessons from Dina
Yeah, I checked the tags, and it does seem like Joyce and Becky discussed the possibility of visiting the Browns together.
LINK
Although Joyce’s reaction in both that strip and this strip kind of lead to the idea that Joyce was not fully on board with Becky coming along.
I dunno. It sounds excited and desirous, just worried about Becky’s safety.
LOW KEY SURPRISED THIS DIDN’T END ON THE SHOCKED JOYCE FACE
DDDDD:
Ah, I was wondering what’d happen when they met.
Looks like it’s for tomorrow tho.
Oh… uh…. well… shit.
Becky might be takin’ a risk here but Becky’s also been Joyce’s friend for most of her life. You can’t just assume all fundies are gun-toting Christians. I’m sure she actually LIKES the Browns and just wants to see if they’re down with Taco Tuesdays.
I think Joyce is the only Brown that Becky wants to have Taco Tuesday with.
After Taco Tuesday they deal with something else brown.
This daily poop joke has been brought to you by Someone.
You know that’s unless she had any lewd thoughts about Joyce’s mom during her teen years.
Boom ! Let that settle in for a while.
I had lewd thought’s of Joyce’s mom since 2013. It’s literally impossible to stop me from doing it! (unless you killed me or something)
Anything you fantasize about Becky probably thought years ago. Such like that three-way dream she had about her and Joyce herself.
You know the one with the cherry gelatin.
ABORT ABORT !!!
wait, should probably not use that term around Mr. Brown
DESIST !!
ABORT THE BALLOONS! ABORT THE BABIES!
But seriously, Hank had damn well better be nice to Becky. She’s his daughter’s best childhood friend. If he’s mean to her now just because she’s a lesbian, I’ll be… well, actually, I won’t be too surprised. But I will be VERY ANGRY.
Yesss Becky. Bring things to a head now, and not when Joyce is trapped at home.
Becky and Common Sense …. Nope, you’ll never see those used in the same sentence ever again.
I love how everybody gets mad at drama causing characters, while failing to consider that without them this comic would be boring as fuck.
Dumbing of age with out the dumbing.
Amber: I was going to dress as a superhero, but then I got therapy.
Walky: I will calmly offer you this toy and not lob it at your head.
Danny: I have physic powers and know exactly what is happening in every possible situation.
EXACTLY
We consider it! It just hurts sometimes =p
Replace the name “Danny” with “Mike”, and I’m 98% sure that last statement is actually true.
Ruth: This really hot girl in my dorm is an alcoholic and a drunk driver! That really makes me angry for some reason. I better go get counseling to deal with my problems so I don’t take it out on her for no reason.
Becky: I am a lesbian, but also very good at disarming people/situations literally and figuratively.
Ruth: I use non-violent, non-illegal discipline techniques and don’t defile my charges.
Mary: I learned to distinguish between following the bible and being a kind and Christian person.
Could you not refer to sex between two enthusiastically consenting adult women as “defiling”? Thanks.
I think they mean the forced kiss, which was a total breach of propriety both in terms of consent and in terms of the power differential at play.
I figured it was a reference to Mary’s “defiling the cheerleader” comment, and thus assumed it was used ironically.
Dude, all else aside, I want sweet physics powers
Beehive poked!
People getting mad at Becky showing up, and I’m all like
*Joyce and Becky were talking about her visiting along with Joyce. Becky was all for it and Joyce didn’t really reject it.*
So much this. Also, does everyone who’s saying that realize that what they’re saying is “How dare you Becky? How dare you be alive in a way that inconveniences Joyce’s ability to try and lie her way through the weekend?”
Like, Becky exists. Becky is probably coming along. Becky at the least should say hi to the closest thing she has to remaining family and show her humanity given that Joyce will definitely be having a fight this weekend over her moral choice to not literally leave her out in the cold.
Becky is doing nothing wrong unless you believe “inconvenient” people should be hidden out of sight so they won’t “upset” people.
And being one of those “inconvenient” people? One of those people who people straight up tell on the regular that I am doing something wrong walking down the street, it’s really not okay to be doing that.
It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t make one feel fully human.
Queer people should neither seen nor heard until it is convenient for our “allies” who have so graciously granted us conditional permission to exist.
Or until our “allies” need/want to make a big dramatic show of how they Do Ally so well. Without asking us about what we want/need out of an ally, and then getting all offended when we get annoyed at them for either steamrolling over our own wants (case in point: if you want to be an ally, make no assumptions about whether I’m comfortable with the entire room knowing I’m bi – you can call out a stranger using bigoted language without using me as your prop. I assure you, there is pretty much no situation in which I am comfortable coming out to the entire room – not the least of which is because being an out bi woman is like having a superpowered creep magnet implanted and then I’m the one who has to deal with groping and creepy propositions for threesomes all night), or making a situation worse, or making a situation about them.
FYI: same holds true for disabled and chronically ill people – you’d be amazed how often I get the cops called on me because I “must be on drugs” (read: am being visibly autistic in public because I made the mistake of thinking nobody was watching and let my guard down a bit) or how often people threaten me with violence for asking them not to expose me to things that make it hard to breathe (like asking smokers to abide by provincial law requiring them to be a certain distance from the entrance of a building) or how often I get told I should “just stay home” if [asthma trigger] bothers me so damn much. Bonus points if I get told that by someone wearing so much perfume you can smell them 20 feet away in a supposedly scent-reduced environment, or by someone who just emptied half a bottle of perfume into the women’s washroom so they can pretend their shit doesn’t stink.
I’m sorry you have to deal with environmental sensitivities. Those are really tough.
Becky volunteered to come home with Joyce, and I don’t recall Joyce ever telling her no. So why all the surprised comments? She was going to have to make Hank aware of her presence at some point.
Because the comic plays it like a surprise. Joyce doesn’t ask if Becky’s packed (even though her dad got here earlier than expected), Becky is hiding around the corner with the others rather than walking down with Joyce to meet him, and when she pops up Joyce has a worried/surprised look on her face. I mean, they may have totally planned it and Becky was just hanging back to give Joyce a moment with her dad, but the presentation of the strip is “unexpected Becky is unexpected”.
I wonder what Joyce does eat.
Probably spaghetti and burgers.
Lies.
I do have to say that starting your sushi-eating career with a whole shrimp seems like a poor choice. Tuna, maybe wel or a California roll are probably easier for a newbie.
Becky is only guilty of wishful thinking here, I think. She sees Joyce’s dad behaving in a friendly, normal, happy way and probably thinks everything’s okay between them despite the dad knowing about what happened. This is an adult she’s known since she was a child, and probably views as an extended family member. I think she wants pretty desperately to have some kind of acceptance/normalcy from her old life, and thinking that her friend’s dad isn’t going to outright spit venom in her face is not an unreasonable thought.
She’s probably had tons of exchanges like this with Mr. Brown, and in fact was with the Browns when they dropped off Joyce. It reads like her trying to pick up an old rapport. From what she said about the Chik Fil A protest, these parents are the more subtly homophobic ones: “It’s not about hate, it’s about choice,” which might make her feel like they’ll be more likely to be friendly with her in a ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ way.
So yeah, this might not have been a wise decision, but it’s one I sympathize with and find more sad than anything else. I certainly don’t like that she’s garnering immediate hatred in the comment section for it, and the tone of it makes it read like people would rather her keep her head down and try to be invisible. She’s said nothing here that would upset either Joyce or her dad, it’s her presence that may be upsetting, and that’s not something I hate Becky for. I don’t hate her for trying to reach out and reconnect to another adult figure in her life that she hopes won’t spit in her face.
A nice interpretation of Becky’s action. And if true, it’s sad.
She is too decent basically to see that he is not going to react well, I have a feeling.
This is a good comment.
Awww :/ Yeah, I see that
I really like Becky since she calmed down a bit after exploding onto the world scene. I think she’s strong, resilient, bright, funny and a good person.
But, I sit here staring at the last 3 strips, and see Becky’s face when Walky ran his mouth about Joyce and Dorothy’s pretend marriage in gender studies.
And I can’t see any reason why Becky would pop out, in full bloom, at this point, unless she is deliberately is trying to put Joyce on the spot.
Personally, the way Joyce has treated her or not treated her recently, I think it’s about time Becky gave a little back to Joyce.
Joyce hasn’t been mean, but she is so wrapped up in herself, as she usually is, that she was getting comfort FROM Becky at the car wreak – instead of GIVING it to Becky who surely needed her best friends attention.
Joyce needs to grow up in more ways than one, imo. We all have problems, they kill us or we grow up. Becky is growing up.
And yes, getting even is growing up under certain circumstances.
I can think of a reason why: Hank is basically a surrogate father to her, and she doesn’t realize that unlike Joyce, Hank and Carol don’t let their compassion and innate decency over-ride their ingrained bigotry.
(well, Carol doesn’t. Hank tries at least. Sort of. For his kids. While passive-aggressively reminding them of his religious interpretation on the subject. But at least he respects that his kids are good and well-meaning even if they don’t always make decisions he agrees with. Remains to be seen whether Becky counts as “of the kids” for this. And from experience, “hate the sin not the sinner” talk can still be pretty damn hurtful even if it’s intended well.)
That’s right, don’t pretend nothing happened, gaze upon the lesbian and despair!
Just like I do when me and a girl seem to have a lot in common and hit it off!
Well now Becky is putting Joyce is a position where Joyce will have to defend her from her !@#$ father. But maybe it’s better they get this in the open, than pretend it isn’t there?
The question is, will Joyce defend her? I wonder.
Supposedly she really likes Dorothy, but refused her request to walk her downstairs because she’s an atheist.
Joyce has risked her life for Becky, and vice versa. Heck, when Becky came out, Joyce was willing to risk the wrath of God. I don’t think the wrath of Hank really compares.
She will defend her because she is a good person and she knows it is the right thing to do.
Dorothy was asking Joyce if having her around would help. Joyce stated the fact that it wouldn’t. This isn’t Joyce rejecting or hurting Dorothy, it’s her acknowledging the obvious.
Becky is different than Dorothy here because:
1) unlike Dorothy, she’s actually going to come along and support Joyce all the way through, not leaving her without support in the face of her parents’ dissatisfaction with her choices;
2) unlike Dorothy, she’s Joyce’s childhood friend, having known her since forever, and is much more effective at actually lending Joyce emotional support just by being there;
3) unlike Dorothy, she’s known these people since forever too. She’s not just an ‘undesirable friend’ stranger to them, she’s their Becky. She might not make the situation as a whole less awkward, but she’s definitely going to ease some pressure off personally Joyce by taking it herself instead;
4) unlike Dorothy, she isn’t just there for Joyce. She’s there for herself. As Cerberus has mentioned numerous times already, these people are the closest Becky has to her own parents now, and they are well aware of that. She needs to clear the air there – find out for sure what this relationship is now going to be like – absolutely regardless of Joyce. That she’s actually going to help Joyce along the way is a nice bonus.
(And she is going to help Joyce. All the lectures of “lebianism is sin and Toedad had a point” that were going to be targeted at personally Joyce are now going to at least be shared between them, and that makes one hell of a difference)
All of this.
*loud screaming inside because acknowledged by Cerberus The Best Coolest Person In This Thread*
^^
“Senpai noticed me!!” is basically my default response anytime Cerberus responds to one of my comments. Unless they’re disagreeing with me then it’s more like “Oh no I have erred grievously.”
Becky, you scamp >_<
Oh no becky, now is not the time
I mean if she’s coming with them it’s kind of the only time unless she plans to sneak into their trunk and surprise them at home instead.
The really amusing bit will be when they get to the Brown home and Dina gets out of the car behind them. Having been completely unnoticed through the entire car ride.
Dina is the living proof of bisexual invisibility.
I doubt that was intended, but it’s kind of neat.
Dina’s never been confirmed as bi, actually. The way she said that gender expression might not matter to indicated to me that she was pan, or more specifically panromantic since I also view her as ace.
This needs to happen.
Both Joyce and her dad have expressions that say, “oh crap.” Also for some reason I’m expecting Hank to say “Well, the sushi here is pretty awful. I remember needing a ton of soy sauce.”
More like “In my days, if you wanted sushi you had to go out in the street, all the way down to the coast, get on a ship and hunt the goddamn tuna by yourself.”
(Would Hank say “goddamn” though? I wonder if it counst as blasphemy)
He says gaddanged in yesterday’s strip. So I’d think not.
I feel like Joyce’s dad will be more open to Becky than her own dad. People of the same church community don’t necessarily have the same beliefs.
I want this to be true. Very much so. All involved need a break.
“I feel like Joyce’s dad will be more open to Becky than her own dad.”
That’s an awful low bar to clear, so I’d say that he is.
You’d be surprised how many kick the bar in protest.
So do I… but only because Becky’s dad did not set a very high bar.
Look at all the people getting on Becky’s case, for talking to someone she has known her whole life, instead of hiding away in shame.
Bite me, all of you.
Ok, who is this Gravatar? I’ve seen three people with it so far, and the name escapes me.
Pamela Galasso
This. So much this.
Pretty fuckin’ much.
YES!!! Also, Becky has just lost both her parents. The Browns are the closest things she has left.
Exactly, she is reaching out. Behaving normally, against a lot of odds after the last few days. Let’s see if someone can return the favour.
Yep. Why the anti-Becky comments were so ferociously negative was baffling me at first. But then I figured out where the commenters were coming from.
These responses are predicated on the belief that lesbians should know that they are are considered offensive and not fully human. Consequently, they should be respectful of those people who loathe them. Because it would be very rude and insensitive to make those people uncomfortable.
The response is enlightening, at least.
Becky reaching out for the same reason Joyce was so shaken by toedad with a rifle. Because she has been safe with and cared for by the man standing in front of her, for her whole life. Which direction this goes is on him, not Becky.
Sadly, this.
You know, I agree that Becky was through a lot of bad stuff lately, but that’s no excuse for behaving like an elephant in an Apple store…
You’re right. The part where she’s pointing to her vag and going “yeah, baby I like girls here” is really inappropriate and awkward… wait, what’s that? She didn’t do that? Instead she approached with a perfectly normal and humanizing bit of small-talk as she would with a long-time acquaintance she has known for many years?
Well, then, these sorts of comments just got a fuck of a lot more awkward then, didn’t they?
It’d be an interesting twist if Papa Joyce is actually uncomfortable because he’s unsure how to react to a kidnap victim. One who he knew from basic childhood and is terrified/sympathetic too.
Of course, I remember when I stopped being a fundamentalist. I actually had a lifestory somewhat similar to Willi, except I felt into fundamentalism rather than was indoctrinated for it so I don’t have an excuse. I became deeply ingrained in the belief system and started speaking all sorts of terrible crazy things. I also became a homophobe.
Then I went to work at a job with an openly lesbian boss. She was a nice person and it occurred to me, the first time I met her. “Wait, I’m supposed to be hateful to this person? There’s something wrong here.” So, I was just polite and after a week, realized I was a sick male bongo for behaving like this.
It was the beginning of the end for my fundamentalism because recognizing basic humanity and empathy is the enemy of all hate.
I believe the distaf counterpart for bongo is dickwad. At least that’s mine. Easier than saying male bongo.
Erm.. I feel like this is causing her friend needless trouble here…. and why?
Because of family.
Because Joyce is her best friend in the whole world and she doesn’t want her to be alone.
Because she has known Hank her whole life and decided to put her head on the block to find out if all dads are terrible or just Ross.
Because her parents are gone, her school has kicked her out but the Browns still serve as a link to her old life.
+1
Ditto. 🙂
Ok we’re doing this you know what why stop here let’s get two atheists out here alongside the smartass who you know is going to be a shit no matter what.
I want to test Hanks patient’s here like how much will you put up with and if he succeeds Congrats he’s way more likeable than his wife.
Oh my god y’all. This time it’s just frustrating because I have no idea how y’all are even getting to the conclusions at which you’re arriving. How in the world is Becky being a smartass or a shit?
fer shizzle
I haven’t seen this much Becklash in months. I have no idea where it’s coming from, let alone in a strip where Becky is enthusiastically greeting someone she probably sees as the closest thing she has to a father in her life right now.
Becklash? Is that her stage name when she gets into kinky porn?
(I’ll be in my bunk.)
Someone coined it months ago for the irrational hatred Becky received for such heinous actions as “being a bit flippant” and “spending 20$ on a haircut.”
Their name has been lost to history, at least because I can’t be assed to look it up.
The first usage that Google knows about is here, by Halloween Jack. The comment refers to “yet another…”, so it may not be the first.
Homophobia is where it’s coming from.
Queer people aren’t fully people, don’t you see? And any time we get uppity and act like we are, we deserve anything that comes to us as a result.
That’s where it’s coming from.
(See also when I got kept in for in-school suspension after some biphobic bullying for longer than the bullies because I had “contributed to the situation” by coming out. That kind of victim-blaming is at play here and it boils down to how dare Becky exist while openly lesbian around people who aren’t comfortable with her sexual orientation)
He’s probably talking about Walky.
Oh, fair. In that case disregard my flailing.
Nevermind thank you Viktoria
I was talking about Walky and plus I’m enjoying every minute of this.
Hank has patients? I didn’t even know he was a doctor.
“Patience” “patients” that’s what I get for using google voice translator and not spell checking.
Oh good, Becky is being loud and fun right away.
Nope, nothing that could possibly indicate that something is about to go down.
Also, the expressions on the final panel are all perfect. I request larger versions. I demand them.
I did the easiest for you, which is Hank’s.
Why, Becky. Why.
So, um… I read some of the other comments. Guess I got my answer 🙁
Go Becky Go!
I’m rooting for Becky to make things better, not worse.
That look on Joyce’s dad’s face is totally just his “What happened to your hair?” look.
Yuuuuup.
Well, I’m rooting for Becky anyway.
I agree we shouldn’t judge Hank by Toedad’s measure. Becky is a girl he half-raised, if she’s that close to Joyce. He has watched her grow up and (hopefully) loves her as a quasi-daughter too. He also knows she’s been through crazy trauma just now. Being fundamentalist doesn’t means he has to be a total a-hole; Joyce isn’t, and she had to get empathy somewhere.
They aren’t making it to La Porte, are they?
WELL GEE DOESN’T THAT SOUND LIKE A MURDER SCHEME
Iiiiiiiit’s BECKY!!!!
Breaking the ice with funny Joyce storie as is her habit! She and Sarah are more alike than Sara likes to admit.
It’s the best way to break ice!
I thought the best way to break ice was with one of those ice breaker ships.
She tried to ship with Joyce already.
Beckys Gonna Troll!
Think quick, mr Brown. What do you say to the girl who was raised partly under your roof, basically as a sister to your daughter, who was thrown out by her family and school and assaulted with a gun by her father because of who she is? A father who is a part of your community and who was upholding your values.
Hint: The correct reaction is to display concern. “Becky, I’m so glad to see you. How are you holding up?” would be one acceptable way to phrase it.
I admire your optimism
It’s very Becky-like. 🙂
Ah, hope. That most dangerous of emotions.
I admire Becky’s optimism. It’s her neck on the block now.
There are lots of ways in which Becky annoys me, in that she’s the type of person I can’t stand in real life. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand why she acts the way she does some times.
But this is one of those annoying ones. And it’s not because I think she should hide because she’s gay. It’s because Joyce has also been through a traumatic experience and has literally just started talked with her father. It’s a private moment, dammit. She’s even smiling. Best friend or not, sometimes you shouldn’t intrude.
Now, Becky may have taken the lack of shouted Bible verses and the fact that even Dina can identify the facial expressions as smiles to indicate that things will be fine. If the issue of whether she was going to accompany Joyce was never actually settled, she may have decided just now to risk it.
She could even be worried that Joyce seeing her family again could get her re-brainwashed into homophobia and have decided to pre-empt that, so that if Hank’s going to say horrible things about her he’ll have to do it to her face in Joyce’s presence. Whether she’s thought it out or not, she’s throwing down the gauntlet here. It’s a perfectly understandable thing to do.
And it still just reaffirms all the ways I find Becky annoying.
You mean the traumatic experience of Becky getting kidnapped by her own father? This is the experience you are referring to justify calling Becky annoying?
Don’t you know straight people are the REAL victims of homophobia?
Though they likely mean her almost-rape.
Well we have a lot in common.
Everything youve written here— I feel the same way;
Except about the Homophbes in the readership attacking Becking for existing Or Transphobes demanding Carla Be “that Perfect girl”
<<<holds up mirror.
"Whether she’s thought it out or not, she’s throwing down the gauntlet here. "
Hmmm
"And it still just reaffirms all the ways I find" Phobes "annoying".
yup
I sorta understand why Becky thinks this is okay… but quite honestly, it’s not okay. Joyce needs time away, time at home without any of these issues bothering her for at least a little while.
The odds of “these issues” not bothering her at home were like 9438 to 1, even if Becky had hidden away in Dina’s room all weekend long. First: she’s already outspokenly gone to bat for Becky to her mom, and there’ll be hell to pay for that; second: her own current crisis of faith and newfound ability to curse would be causing trouble even if Becky wasn’t involved at all.
Seriously this. She’s coming home specifically as part of a “oh baby, are you okay after that man came to the school with that gun” thing. The chances that Becky and her sexuality weren’t coming up this weekend… hell, this day were absolutely zero.
Becky showing she exists isn’t changing those odds, because that discussion was going to happen one way or another anyways, because that calm before the storm there was just the small talk before shit gets heavy.
Now I am wondering what plans Hank had for preemptive damage control on the drive back. Like trying to maneuver Joyce into not getting into a confrontation with her Mom.
A futile hope, of course, but sometimes you just have to try.
Is “I wanna sex up your daughter!” next?
“Don’t worry, Mr. Brown, we’re not sleeping together anymore. She wanted to but I needed my space.”
Thats tomorrows comic
I hope Hank doesn’t blame Becky for Ross’s actions.
The less her parents talk about it, the better
You’re comparing a funny anecdote to sexual harassment? I don’t see the logic here.
I find it kind of gross that so many people’s first reaction to this is “GODDAMMIT BECKY!” and not: “THE BALL’S IN YOUR COURT, DON’T FUCK IT UP HANK!!!”
Glad that *someone* gets it. I’m not entirely sure where all those other people came from. Have they been READING the same comic strip that we are?
I hold out 0 hope of Hank not fucking it up. That’s the problem, he’s going to fuck it up and Joyce will suffer for it. Why Becky thinks that’s a good thing I don’t know.
I doubt she thinks it’s a good thing. I think she hopes Hank is going to respond like the man she remembers him being because she’s taking her prompts by how nice he’s being to Joyce right now. If he reacts badly, no doubt Becky will be horrified and miserable. Acting like she’s doing this just to torment Joyce or even with the idea that it will torment Joyce is doing her a disservice.
Your blaming Becky for the Homophobia she has to face, every single day for the rest of her life. Its never going to stop EVER till the Homophobes stop it; or people like you , grown a spine and Flip The Script.
“I hold out 0 hope of Hank not fucking it up”
How do you stack up in the same standards , you hold up for Hank and Becky?
Considering all the LGBT readers right now, maybe wonder how you stack up in the “not F-ing it up “?
“will suffer for it.”
How will your comments effect LGBT readers? will they suffer for it too?
“Why”.. you “thinks that’s a good thing I don’t know’
( actually I think its about not thinking )
So so gross. It’s really victim-blamey. And it really doesn’t feel at all okay.
So much this.
People are saying ‘Dammit Becky’ as if she hasn’t been through jack shit recently. I don’t want to spark a flame war here, but let’s just make a few quick notes:
JOYCE: Having her religion challenged, reacting badly; Nearly raped; Had a gun pointed at her; Punched the asshole who did it
BECKY: Already challenged her religion at some point, partially over it; Painfully rejected by Joyce (partially reconciled???); Had a gun pointed at her; Got kidnapped; Has shown tendencies to cover up emotional trauma with a cheerful mask
They’ve both been through shit, sure. But I don’t think it’s fair for most of the comments I’ve read to say “Becky is annoying, Joyce need space” or “Becky is fine, Joyce is traumatized” etc. etc. (Note that those are the slightest of generalizations.)
You have to remember that Becky, under most circumstances, reverts to her happy-go-lucky exterior to deal with stress, trauma, and sadness Keep that in mind when you make comments about why Becky is “so annoying right now”. (Another extremely slight generalization.)
They’re both victims, and you can’t just let one fall by the wayside, as it were.
TL;DR: Becky and Joyce have both been through shit, give them both some slack.
Oh, and Becky doesn’t much have any family any more PERIOD. Joyce still has several siblings and her parents.
Also, Becky’s own FATHER is the one that pointed the gun at her. Reasons like that are why I say Becky doesn’t have any real family. As far as we know, at least.
beckysiblingarcplzplzplz
Those are all great points. These are two traumatized people with very different ways of expressing it. And they are both doing the best they can to rebuild their lives in positive ways (Joyce reaching out more about her PTSD triggers, questioning what she was taught as a child, Becky studying hard to enroll in college, being super cute and healthy with her girlfriend).
hahahahaa wow i didn’t even think about this until you said it thank you
I’m not sure what Willis has in mind for this, but I speculate an alternate explanation for Becky’s actions. She’s just been through an entirely traumatic experience. Her father has turned on her in a vile and malicious manner. Her college turned on her. Presumably her church turned on her. Her life has been put in danger. This happy-go-lucky attitude she has? I suspect it’s a front.
Becky is hurting inside from trauma and betrayal, and she wants catharsis. She got some of that catharsis when she flipped off her father, but I wonder if she doesn’t want more. I wonder if she’s not putting herself out there so boldly in the hopes, consciously or unconsciously, that she’ll be attacked and thus get to attack her attackers in turn. She wants Joyce’s dad to judge her, so she can flip him off like she did her father.
Which sucks for Joyce, but Becky’s been through just as much as Joyce has. She deserves what she needs to heal as well. If I’ve got this figured right (and I might not), Becky’s got a lot of anger. And that anger is legitimate and requires outlet. That’s why she nuked the closet from orbit. That’s why she’s butting in on Joyce and her father. She’s painting a target on herself and saying “come at me, bro!” in the hopes that her retaliation will release the feelings she has inside.
I don’t think she wants Hank’s judgement. I think she wants his love. His acceptance. His assurances that she’s not an unperson in his eyes. That she’s someone he can at least be civil and kind to.
Because as you say, she’s got nothing left from home besides Joyce who supports her in even the smallest of ways. This is her last chance for that.
That’s possible. Like I said, just speculation of a possible alternate motivation. And, admittedly, based more than a little on my own experience being rejected by my family.
I’m sorry that happened to you *hugs*
Could be a situation where Becky came up with both outcomes and thought: “win/win”
Anyway, hope things have gotten/will get better for you, EvilWriter. (Whichever tense works best)
Thanks. I wasn’t looking for sympathy, but it is very much appreciated.
That was years ago, though, so I have, I hope, some perspective on it now. It wasn’t homosexuality for me, but I sympathize a lot with both Becky and Joyce in this comic.
But Becky hasn’t had years. Becky just went through it all a few days ago. And when I see a character who’s been severed from her whole life, who’s been decried as evil, who’s had her father put a gun to her and her friends, and who still is smiling all the time?
Sal said it. Someone who went through this should be traumatized. But not Becky. It just rolls off Becky. Her response to what should be the most traumatizing thing she’s ever been through was, as I recall, “Again!”
That looks an awful lot like denial to me. That looks to me like a thin veneer of “That Perfect Girl” put up to disguise the depth of her trauma. Maybe I’m just used to Willis putting drama in everything, but I don’t think the other day’s [Internal Screaming] was as much of a joke as it seemed.
Or maybe I’ve taken a few details in a story and run the absolute wrong direction with them, that is also quite possible. 🙂
Becky could still have PTSD.
“Win/win” would be my guess, too. When you’ve got your life on track, you can put up with a lot of people just playing along, pretending to be nice, but when you’re in a bad situation you need to crack those masks and find out who’s a real friend, who’s a foe, and who’s just a useless bystander.
I’m going to say this here. Those of you who are acting like Becky did something wrong here? For talking to a person she has known all her life. For showing her face instead of hiding in shame, groveling in how “hard” she makes her friend’s life simply for existing?
That’s really not cool.
And I’m saying this, because that request. That request to hide, to be absent, to apologize for existing is something I’ve gone through… a lot. A lotta lot.
And it’s still scarring me. I was told to my face that things like being threatened with death or being discriminated against or being disowned or being repeatedly accosted or mistreated on the street were because I was being “so stupid as to force myself on people” by existing near them. I was made to feel like the ways in which secondary trauma befell those close to me were personally fault. I was “breaking up the family”. I was “hurting everyone” around me.
At many a time I believed that the only way to stop people from being hurt by my existence was… well, to take a more permanent solution as it were.
And it still grips me. I don’t have that thought so much anymore, but I catch myself when I’m out with someone I love, where I worry about what will befall them for being next to me. Or where I view myself as incapable of being worth the suffering that can come with. Where I view myself as a cancer in other people’s lives. And that is up to me to make it up to everyone. By being, in Carla’s terms, “that perfect girl”.
And the reason that scarred was because society fully agreed with those sentiments. Of course I’m making “everyone’s life hard”, of course I should be held to this impossible standard.
And of course it should be reasonable to ask me to be invisible.
And that invisibility? Wounds.
For Becky, this is the last gasping breath of family she’s got left. Joyce is a friend she wants to support as best she can.
And she’s responding in a perfectly normal way. She’s doing nothing wrong.
And reacting as if she is doing something wrong simply because she exists in space is NOT okay. And I’m sorry to be firm on this, but I’m not sure how to convey just how dehumanizing it is to read so many comments echoing that sentiment so strongly when you have a background like mine.
Thank for that. Completely agreed.
I hope you’re doing okay, these past few comments sections seem to be causing you a lot of stress and pain and I’m really sorry for that. It sucks looking through these and feeling like your humanity/feelings are invalidated in the minds of some people.
Sadly, I’m not. I should be. Because I should be stronger. But I’m really not doing okay right now. I’m sorry for that.
Don’t ever feel guilty for thinking you’re not at your best. You put a lot of effort into being your awesome self and sometimes you need a recharge.
You don’t need to apologize at all. You’ve been very strong for very long, and you deserve a moment to rest and recuperate. You’ve been fighting the good fight and everyone worth caring about, both here and elsewhere, is very proud and grateful. ♥
Like the others said, there’s no reason for you to feel sorry for your feelings, they’re completely understandable. I’ve been admiring all of your comments and your bravery in talking about your struggles in such detail. You definitely deserve some peace and I hope it comes to you. <3
As everybody else has said, there’s nothing to be sorry about. Your comments are always insightful and helpful. You’re a pretty awesome person.
You **dont** have to apologize for yourself.
But ( my unsolicited advice ) Try and be conscious of the energy burden, on yourself, of taking on the job of ‘teh jackass whisperer’ .
It also has a cost —just like reading privileged bullshit.
i think the main benefit of challenging bias and untruth, is the effecting Bystander effects on the other people reading or witnessing a conversation. in this case it signals to gay and trans people that you have their back fully.
And the points youve made here are excellent.
But if its a drain, and the topic is “who is responsible for the burden of homo/transphobic bias?” You can outsource also that to someone .
( Dan Savage? Its one of his main perennial topics )
You don’t need to be stronger, or at the very least you damn well shouldn’t, they need to be more mindful of the implications of what they’re saying. There’s nothing for you to be sorry about you’re an entirely positive and illuminating influence on this community. I know I’m not the only one who appreciates your relentless defense of marginalized people or your efforts to educate people on our issues. You’re very good people and I’m really glad you’re around to set people straight (just not too straight).
Hey Cerberus, sorry to hear that you’re not doing well. I don’t know if this will help since you strike me as someone already well versed in coping strategies. But for what it’s worth, I’ve learned to pay extra attention when I find myself using “should” statements since they often reveal unfair expectations I’m putting on myself. Rephrasing them still seems really gimmicky to me but despite that it actually does help me sometimes.
What Xelgaex says.
Echoing everyone that you are rad, and also that you’ve been extremely generous with your important perspective in these comment sections. As a result, I hear you loud and clear, and clearly many others have, too. Thank you so much!
Also, giving you tons of permission to take a break whenever the comments put you in a bad headspace. (Or, for that matter, whenever you want.)
Does reading/responding a lot do you more harm, or more good? Maybe sometimes one but sometimes the other?
You are much more important than the comments section is.
Please be a bit selfish and take care of yourself. Only you know whether that means continuing to read it all, to take long breaks whenever the comments get to you, etc. You’ve already expressed yourself so well that others will have your back. I hope you do what is best for you, because you are the best. <3
You really don’t have to apologise for yourself. Your comments are insightful and thoughtful. Be as kind two yourself as you are able.
What everyone else said. You’re already being stronger than most.
it’s not your fault!
These are the reasons why I’m still deep, deep in the closet with family and at work. Which will eventually be a problem since in the past couple years, my orientation (while still bi) has slid sharply up the Kinsey scale…so that’s fun! While far from cult fundie status, both sides of my family are very Christian and conservative, and I have no idea how they’ll react.
I’m in a similar situation, Shiro. Liberal atheist bisexual with a conservative Christian family in the middle of the Bible Belt. Very much in the closet about who I really am and what I believe. Even dealt with some friction over voting for Obama, so really not anxious to reveal more.
At the same time though, I really like my family and don’t want to alienate them. Similar to you, I don’t really know how they would react, but I dread having to force that confrontation. (As an aside, I recognize that there’s a certain amount of privilege in having a situation where I can just avoid pressing the issue, unlike Becky for instance.)
So Joyce is the character I relate to more closely here. The one who just doesn’t want things to change while having the sinking feeling that they’re going to. Maybe I’m projecting on to her, but I feel like Joyce is trying to hold her fracturing life together, scared if she screws up she’ll lose something important to her. If I were in Joyce’s shoes, I’d be panicking just like she seems to be.
Rationally, yeah, this is probably a good move on Becky’s part for both her and Joyce and any negative consequences are totally not her fault. But viscerally, I can’t help but wince in sympathy for Joyce who (perhaps naively) seems to just want to get through a visit home without any major drama and with the (admittedly flawed) status quo relatively intact.
Me too, though have my family is atheist (contrary to popular belief, “atheist” and “progressive” don’t go hand-in-hand. There are at least as many homophobic and misogynistic atheists as there are homophobic and misogynistic Christians, in my experience. It’s just that the atheists word it in terms of biotruths whereas the Christians word it in terms of the Bible).
What Cerberus said.
The comic even spelled it out to us less than a week ago.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/antagonize/
I don’t want to be that guy who discredits your experience or anything, because honestly, I really do appreciate your comments and perspective, but I can’t help but feel that Becky could’ve allowed Joyce just a little more time to get comfortable talking to her dad again, because she very clearly isn’t. This said, I was hoping that Becky would be willing to meet with Joyce’s dad and talk to him without being afraid, because she shouldn’t have to hide from people she knew well, and I’m happy she’s not being apologetic for who she is. I just think that Joyce could’ve used more time to prepare herself mentally.
Tell me if my thinking is wrong, because seeing how fragile this topic is I deserve to be yelled at if I am.
If you look at the background on panels 2 and 3, you’ll see Joyce and Hank are walking away. So with that in mind, how much time should Becky wait? Until they are out of the room? In the car? They were already walking way, the time was really now.
Perhaps until they got back. I mean, Joyce won’t be away forever and she’s not coming back alone. I think I just feel bad that Joyce has to potentially jump into he fray again so soon.
So you think she should go into the fray alone. This visit to her parents isn’t a welcome respite. She’s going to need all the help she can get.
I think she should have time to sort herself out, without having to worry that she might have to fight with her parents regarding Becky. Its one thing to get help, but when the person offering it could potentially create an even worse situation going it alone sounds preferable for Joyce.
Yeah, that would be great, but her parents aren’t going to give her that time. Going home alone wouldn’t give her that. It was never an option.
Fair point. I dunno. This seemed like a no win situation at the time. Though Hank is helping make this a moot point which I’m quite happy about.
First of all, allow me to return the *hugs* you gave me. No one should have to go through that, and here you are using your experience to put forth some very insightful comments on the subject. You are awesome.
Now, on to the meat of this. It’s been bothering me since the comic went up why Becky’s actions… well, bothered me. Because everything you said is absolutely true. Becky exists, and Becky should never have to hide that she exists. And yet, something about Becky’s actions kept bothering me. Not her motivations (I go into that in my quite possibly apocryphal comment above), but the fact that she put herself forward at all.
I think we can safely dismiss the idea that she’s doing this naively or innocently. All of the others are hiding behind the corner. There’s clearly a deliberate “let’s leave Joyce alone” vibe here. And while happy-go-lucky, Becky’s not foolish enough to pretend that nothing has changed in her relationship to Joyce’s parents. So she’s deliberately putting herself in a situation that might very well cause conflict.
But so what? As you said, brilliantly, she deserves to exist. She deserves a relationship with the only quasi-family she’s got left.
But still, it kept gnawing at me. And I think I’ve finally figured out what it was.
Becky isn’t taking the risk here. Becky is forcing the risk on to Joyce.
Joyce is at college at her parents’ sufferance. And while Joyce’s parents likely won’t go after her with a gun, they might pull her out of college, and they might disown her. Joyce has a closet of her own, a closet of fundamentalism that she hides in around her parents. If Joyce leaves that closet there could be very real, very tangible consequences which have been hinted at and foreshadowed throughout the comic.
By moving forward like this, Becky is quite possibly forcing a confrontation that will force Joyce to either deny her best friend, or nuke her own closet. And while Becky nuking her closet from orbit is awesome… that’s not a decision you can make for someone else.
I’m not willing to say Becky’s wrong, for all the reasons you pointed out. But Becky is risking Joyce, and she’s doing it without giving Joyce any say in the matter, without giving Joyce any agency. And Joyce clearly is not happy with it. That, I think, is what is bothering me about this.
“Becky isn’t taking the risk here. Becky is forcing the risk on to Joyce.”
No, Joyce already took on this risk, and confronted her parants on the phone.
Joyce already invited her. She isnt forcing herself. She was fully invited.
Look, there is no way this isnt going to be a little awkward. But Mr Brown has a preexisitng relationship with Becky . You are missing the contexts here. Becky probably jokes with Mr Brown about Joyce’s food habits all the time. Shes breaking the ice.
This is extra awkward because the Browns tried to betray Becky to her crazy father. She know it . They know it. They know she knows it. She knows they know she knows it etc.
Not wanting to step on any landmines of this already very touchy discussion, I think I can safely say that I agree in large part with EvilWriter here. However, that agreement is based on my ignorance of a particular issue here. Adam, you and a few other commenters say that Becky was “fully invited” to meet Joyce’s parents with her. I’m not sure if this is true–but maybe my memory’s a little fuzzy, because I’m mostly just remembering the previous comic where Dorothy explicitly asks if Joyce wanted her presence, to which she answered, “no.” If I’m mistaken, please by all means, correct me. In which comic were all of Joyce’s friends “invited” to come down and be a part of this moment?
I’m mostly just asking so I can go back and read it myself, to disabuse myself of any incorrect notions I’m having. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. Darn the lack of an edit button!
Becky offered to come with, while Joyce asked if she was sure she wanted to, to which Becky affirmed.
As far as Becky and Joyce are concerned, she’s invited along for the ride.
OTOH, it was never explicitly confirmed and Hank doesn’t seem to have been informed.
Which might or might not be a good idea, but certainly isn’t an argument that she was definitely coming all along.
And damn near every argument for why Becky shouldn’t have stepped out to talk to Hank also applies to surprising him with her coming for the weekend.
Mind you, I think she should come, but in that case I’d rather the parents be prepared up front.
I suppose the pertinent question is that, if Becky weren’t gay, would there be any kind of hypothetical objection the Browns would have, given their history with Becky?
Likely not, though it’s generally considered good form to let people know when you’re bringing extra house guests.
But if Becky wasn’t gay, the whole situation would be so completely different that it’s hard to parallel. If Becky was straight and Ross flipped out and attacked her and Joyce for reasons not linked to their shared religion, I suspect the Browns would be practically adopting her.
Just checked the archives, and you are correct about the implied invitation, Spencer. Sorry. I read by the update, so sometimes I forget things.
What @Spencer said.
Joyce had already invited her.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/elsewhere/
So if Becky doesnt join up now ( at the last moment ) when could she?
@Evilwriter: back when Becky showed up at IU, the night that Becky came out to her, Joyce cradled her and told her that no matter what it was a choice between, she’d choose Becky. Becky isn’t forcing Joyce to choose.
People also are failing to recognize how SAFE Becky is at the moment, to where she CAN go up to Joyce’s dad to gauge his attitude toward her. Dorothy, Walky and Dina are nearby, Joyce is right next to her, and after toedad you KNOW campus security is on higher alert.
I cannot tell you how much I respect what you have been doing here. You have been clearly and calmly explaining what’s wrong in these comments, staying so polite and respectful of people I am mentally cursing incoherently at. You shouldn’t have to do it, but I find you incredibly badass for taking it on. You are awesome.
+1
Cerberus, thank you for being as open about your experiences as you have been. It goes without saying that it’s way beyond unforunate (replace with appropriate adjective) that you are such a resource for real life experience and context of recent comic events.
Your strength is an inspiration. I hope you are okay and that one day soon this space can be safer and less draining for all.
</3 *hugs*
I'm sorry this is all triggering for you, and I'm sorry ignorant people in the world have caused you this kind of pain. 🙁 For the record, you're awesome and I love reading the stuff you post. It seems like you have a fairly decent support network within this community (despite the ignorant other peeps, cause, internet) — I hope you have something like that within your day to day life as well. Wishing you peace and comfort. <3
Cerberus, anyone who’s earned your love must be good people and they wouldn’t want you to stress yourself because they love you and want to be next to you — and if the people you love love you then you totes deserve that love. Accept and believe it: that’s what you ‘owe’ them.
So, is Becky actively *trying* to start a fight between Joyce and her Dad?
Depends. Is the bare ‘audacity’ of existing an active thing?
A non-extinct Beckasaur?
whats the Bible say?
For greeting someone she’s grown up around and known most of her life? After hanging back and making sure that things didn’t go instantly up in flames before she approached them? She’s just said something completely normal – probably a topic they’ve all joked about millions of times before – to someone who’s played a huge role in her life.
It may not have been the most tactful time to enter, but in a situation like this one, there may not /be/ a better time. She saw an opportunity to approach them when things were good and start off in what should have been a lighthearted way. She’s definitely not doing it for the sake of starting a fight.
I think I might’ve misread the intent of the strip. I read everyone going “Oh hey no bad times” as the cause of Becky going out and talking (like “Oh yeah?”) rather than the probably intent of it ironic foreshadowing
WTF is with all the “omg becky how dare you acknowledge someone you’ve known and trusted for your entire life” going on tonight?
Is it early 2015 again? Did Becky get a new haircut when I wasn’t looking?
Donchaknow, homophobia is now 100% gay people’s fault for antagonizing those poor innocent homophobes, ESPECIALLY when it makes straight people’s lives harder as a result.
It really is.
Couldn’t have said it better. When we’re not causing innocents to perish in the hurricanes we force God to deploy at us, we’re deliberately causing pain to the sensitive and fragile innocents who have been Good Enough to tolerate our presence.
And that’s why, if we insist on coming out of the closet, we should close the door very, very gently behind us so that we don’t upset anyone. It’s the least we can do.
No we need to leave the door open so that it’s easier for us to jump back in whenever straight people don’t want to deal with the truly exhausting travail of us being us anymore.
… if you define “antagonizing” as “existing without spending 99.9% of your time profusely apologizing” then yeah. See also my school which defined me coming out and then going about my day as an out bi girl as antagonizing and “contributing to the situation” when some people decided to be bigots.
Silly me, I’d thought after a kid got put in the hospital a couple months before and the school got on this big “no tolerance for homophobia” kick, they were actually going to walk the talk.
(actually, not entirely. I feared that they were just talking the talk with no intention of walking the walk, but I wanted to see because hope is dangerous like that and it will make you do very dangerous things with years-long repercussions just to see if maybe fear is wrong. From experience: fear is pretty much never wrong when the question is whether or not people are going to enable other’s terribleness and blame the victim instead of the person being terrible.)
http://i.imgur.com/r3U4xax.png
Hey, my grandma has the same hairstyle!(What not to tell to a woman)
for me, its not about homophobia. joyce wants to be alone with her parent and has informed all her friends about it
Becky is coming with Joyce, they’ve already agreed on that. Becky HAD to make her presence known at some point and they’re literally leaving the building right now. The reason she likely didn’t come down with Joyce was to give her and her dad that alone time for as long as feasible but it’s stopped being feasible unless she wants to sneak into the trunk of his car.
Where did Joyce say she wanted to be alone with her dad? (She said Dorothy shouldn’t see her off, but that’s specifically to avoid a confrontation like Family Weekend)
This situation wouldn’t exist and we wouldn’t be having this discussion if not for homophobia, so for me it’s about homophobia.
Having been in that situation a year ago, before other commenters pointed out how awful my comments were to anyone who were not me, I think it boils down to us having done really stupid things ourselves that we know is only our fault and being jealous that a fictional character can get away with it.
It’s
I absolutely hate hitting post comment on my phone when trying to scroll down.
Continued: It’s not homophobia in the sense that commenters believe non-cisgendered/non-heterosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to be honest with who they are and freely express it, but rather in the sense of being unable to put ourselves in the situation of people who can relate to the character before saying anything.
It’s easy to criticize Becky when only seeing her as a fictional character and not as a representation of how real and relatable her life is to a lot of people.
Yep, like you yourselves seem to recognize, no homosexuals = no homophobes, that’s just logic, so its real hetero-oppressive for you to force “otherwise decent people” to be homophobic. Course, it’s equally true that, no homophobes = no homophobes, so, never mind the first part.
People acting surprised at Becky’s actions have no appreciation for tactics or strategy.
Her own dad has just put her and her friends’ lives in danger. With him safely out of the picture, Joyce’s parents – who share the same moral viewpoints as her dad – are the only people who would have both a possible motive and the means to threaten hers and Joyce’s well being.
So for her own safety she needs to KNOW whose side they are on and whether she should expect them to be a threat, and she needs to see it first hand, and through bits of information passed on to her by Joyce.
And she knows that Joyce needs to know that too, head on, before she is taken out of the comfort of her new home and into the lions den so to speak.
Seeing that Joyce and her dad were clearly avoiding talking about the issue and doing the whole “lets pretend THE THING did not happen”, confronting the issue head on was clearly the smartest and bravest thing that Becky could have done, as now Joyce’s dad is pretty much forced to reveal his cards in front of everyone.
+1
I don’t think that’s a wrong way to look at it, in fact I think that’s something Becky wants on the table for her own peace of mind, but I took this as her jumping in because she’s just honestly that happy to see Joyce’s dad again, because right now he’s the closest she has to a good parent in her life.
I like your interpretation too! It was clearly created by someone with a much more pleasant and hopeful interpretation of the world than mine 😉
So what if he totally sides against her? Now she accelerated the process and she’s fucked even harder than before. Honestly, if it WAS to see if Joyce’s dad was willing to be a good guy or not, that was a huge gamble on her part, since it’s not even clear he knows everything yet. For all we know, he was turning a blind eye to the situation so he could not rat out Becky while still being a “good Christian”, and now he can’t play ignorant.
For all we know Joyce’s dad is going to smother her with a massive hug and buy her a pizza.