Two hunters try to survive and end up being pushed to pursue a deadly bounty dubbed "The Ghost".
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Clover
Experience the queer journey of an upbeat hippie and the friendships she makes along the way! A tale of self-discovery and love of many forms.
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WARNING: This comic often ignores the Laws of Physics
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Lucy Marlowe, a magician's apprentice, competes against other apprentices for an important, magical, Goverment Job.
Devil's Candy
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A lush fantasy about boy genius Kazu Decker, the girl he constructed for his 9th grade science project, and the world of devils and monsters they live in.
Monster Pulse
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Four kids run afoul of a creepy secret organization's experiments, which turn their body parts into fighting monsters. Part sentimental coming-of-age story, part monster-training shonen manga, with just a bit of sci-fi body horror.
Cut Time
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Rel and her trusty avian friend Fugue are on a quest to save a world that's lost track of time. Follow them and their new recruits, in a story written with help from the stars.
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Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Love Not Found
Gina Biggs
Abeille is on a quest to find someone who wants to do it the old-fashioned way in a time when touching has become outdated.
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A teen girl inherits a powerful alien artifact and proceeds to make a series of increasingly poor decisions
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Aisha Osman and her uncle Siddig outwit bikers, spies and kidnappers while gearing up for a showdown with the formidable Widowmaker mecha.
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Oscar decided to rent an old haunted house, and that's when things got weird...
Wychwood
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When Tiara's pyrokinesis is finally noticed, she is captured by a magical research organization for study. If she cooperates, she could be helping to save humanity from a dire threat - but can she trust them?
Nerf Now!!
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A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Girl Genius
Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio
In a time when the Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war, Mad Science rules the World...with mixed success.
Kiwi Blitz
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Steffi thinks she can use her kiwi mech to become a superhero. This idea turns out to be very stupid.
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A fantasy coming-of-age following the adventures of Astra The Black and friends, as they navigate the mysterious world around them. It's politics, adventure, and the supernatural; oh, and crazy hair.
Star Trip
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Jas is a human taken from her home planet on a trip across the galaxy she will never forget.
Alice and the Nightmare
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Alice finally attends University to learn to collect the dreams of humans, meet new friends, and deal with a pesky reflection along the way.
Sam & Fuzzy
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Troubled by gangster rodents, lovesick vampire stalkers, or confused ninja assassins? Don't panic! Sam and Fuzzy are here to help. (For a reasonable fee.)
Jailbird
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An all-ages comic about a recently escaped prisoner's struggle to understand the outside world, and vice-versa. Also, a magic cape!
Kochab
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A YA F/F fantasy comic about Sonya, a lost skier trying to survive a snowy wilderness and find her way back to her village; and Kyra - a fire spirit trying to fix the home that she let fall apart around her.
Paranatural
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Superpowered middle schoolers fight evil spirits in their rural hometown. Come for the jokes, stay for the cast, the creatures, and the mystery that ties them all together!
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A depressed, portly, hirsute anime fan stumbles through life in the ever-pursuit of chicken nuggets and other life-shortening indulgences.
Demon's Mirror
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Based loosely off of "The Snow Queen", a story by Hans Christian Andersen, we see things take a different turn as the demons become central characters, and the side characters stick around. Yup, that's the only differences. Enjoy!
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Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
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Goodbye to Halos
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Cuddles, gay flirting, weird feelings, and magic-fueled knife fights - it's an adventure across the queer multiverse!
Real Science Adventures
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Spin off stories and other adventures from the world of Atomic Robo!
Cassiopeia Quinn
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Empowered
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A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Between Failures
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The low stakes adventures of an assorted group of 20 somethings trapped in the declining years of American retail. They are naughty and say lots of swears.
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Sparkly undead kids fight society's worst Nightmares in this pastel-punk urban fantasy coming-of-age!
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The robot punches monsters and bad robots and one time he was a cowboy.
Guilded Age
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Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
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Godslave
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Katariina Lehto discovers her neighbor is a witch called Jousia Muotka. Jousia introduces Katariina to the strange people and places beyond the witch door...
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This is Not Fiction
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What do you do when the person you're in-love with is an anonymous romance novelist? Get your best friend to hire your worst enemy for help!
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A story about messy relationships. From friendly foes to crazy families. Nothing is black and white, just full of color. But, all colors can get a little hazy...
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Trader Joe’s in the US has it. Only time I’ve ever had bacon and didn’t like it. It was truly bad– they tool something great and made it into an abomination.
When I first hit refresh and got a new comic, the only comment was Ana Chronistic’s. By the time I typed in sixteen words and hit “Post Comment,” there were almost 40 comments, 75 percent of them bacon-related.
But… how? Bacon is a solid, and therefore fundamentally unslatherable. Unless of course you’ve managed to obtain some sort of spreadable meat-flavored paste, in which case I hate to break it to you, but that’s not bacon. I’m not sure what it is, and frankly I think I’m better off not knowing, but I know it isn’t bacon.
There’s a small but non-zero chance that it may be people.
Mmmmaybe? Her own rules are incredibly important to her, BUT, she HAS been known to break them for those she cares about- implying that morality may seldom trump lawfulness but it is still important. I would say that she’s hovering between lawful neutral and good.
Alignment charts only make sense in a world where it’s literally impossible to have a divergent moral code. (After all, nobody really thinks of themself as ‘evil’, right?)
Beef bacon is the closest thing to real bacon I’ve found, I like the texture more too.
Turkey bacon is usually shit, though occasionally you find good ones. The problem I have with it is that (I guess) the lower fat content means it doesn’t sort of fry itself like beef and pork do, it’s best to add a fat (usually oil) to the pan to make it cook like the others.
WHERE do we have these non-pork bacons? Maybe not in Israel ’cause I’ve never seen them. And since I’ve stopped having pork-bacon after learning what that industry is like I would LOVE to try the alternatives.
(I’m Jewish by birth, culture and heritage, just very secular by choice)
I don’t really get why Becky is acting so smug right now. I grew to like her as a character over time, but this is reminding me why I didn’t at first. She shouldn’t be acting like she has it all figured out. Especially when it’s pretty obvious that she is actually profoundly ignorant about a lot of things.
It’s not Jacob’s fault, it’s Becky’s. I meant that Becky is like Carla; when they find people that react to that poking and prodding, that just drives them to poke and prod more. That’s kind of why she’s best friends with Joyce – Joyce is very reactive.
i dunno, i think becky started here trying to reassure joyce that she could not like jacob’s church and still support her. yeah, she’s pushing it a little far, but i don’t think she set out to needle jacob–she just wanted to show joyce that it was fine to miss some aspects of her old church.
I’m seeing a lot of Becky hate today and…I don’t get it?? She made a metaphor about Joyce, Jacob and their respective churches that was pretty on point in more ways than one. Sure Becky’s a bit presumptive when she brushes away Jacob’s objection last strip, but today?
Today all her comments sound totally sincere. There’s nothing even slightly mean or unfair or even teasing about what Becky says in today’s strip.
One of those friends is spouting pretty much heresy about bacon, being ignored is the nicest possible response.
Less jokingly, as Becky already mentioned, there’s nothing wrong with needing structure. She already said there was nothing wrong with Joyce’s already-known opinion.
The smug is your read and really not that awful even if it is smugness.
I took it as smug too. But I don’t think it’s smug because she managed to push buttons. As Deathjavu said: Becky said it was ok to be structured. I think Jacob’s reaction is saying more that he is starting to realize that despite Raidah meeting all the check-boxes, the relationship isn’t all that fulfilling. There is something satisfying in “knowing” that you are right and seeing someone come to that conclusion.
In this case, I think Becky’s idea of being right is that structure is overrated, not as much about Raidah since she doesn’t know Raidah personally. I think she believes that Jacob needs to lighten up and shake up his life a little. Based on Jacob’s reaction, I’m thinking that she is likely right in this case. He’s placed Raidah on a pedestal that she can not live up to in the long term. It’d be no wonder if the relationship isn’t very fulfilling if they aren’t challenging one another.
Yeah, I’m pretty solidly in the “smug” camp- but here’s the thing, Becky isn’t doing much at all here. The fact that it’s getting a reaction isn’t about her- it’s about Jacob’s and Joyce’s issues respectively. And I don’t think a person deserves hate for being nice just because that sets off someone else’s issues- even if they suspect it.
Honestly, I interpreted that as subtle sabotage of the relationship to give Joyce a chance, and a smug smile that she indeed brought them closer together despite the church fiasco?
Another part of course is just her usual getting Joyce to react bit. And maybe happiness that she’s back to freaking out about food, not religion. Safer and more normal.
There’s two schools of thought here. One is that Becky is still swimming in the “OMG, my partner/relationship is so perfect and awesome and I can’t believe you guys aren’t getting why it’s so perfect!” high. She’s not trying to insult either Jacob or Joyce, but it’s more of a “man, you guys just don’t get it” smugness that she doesn’t realize is actually quite aggravating. This is quite likely considering that her relationship with Dinah might be the first serious relationship she’s had.
The second school of thought is that Becky is deliberately putting doubts into Jacob’s mind about the suitability of his relationship with Raidah in order to get him to have second thoughts and hook up with either Sarah or Joyce. If this theory is correct, while that would make Becky an extremely intelligent and cunning manipulator of people, it would also be an action that severely diminishes her in my opinion. You do not have the right to break up someone’s perfectly happy and functional relationship for your own reasons, regardless of whether it’s for good or bad intentions.
Seems to be a bit of both to me. Not to say that she absolutely wants to break them up, but I feel like Becky would be happy if they did. So I feel like she knows what she is saying, and just doesn’t care about the consequences.
Try a third: Becky is manipulating Joyce. Jacob doubting his relationship with Raidah might be a consequence down the line, but Becky isn’t looking to do that. She’s pushing Joyce’s buttons in a way that’ll help Joyce have a moment with Jacob, rather than focusing on what Joyce and Jacob don’t have in common.
Oh thank god, I’m not the only one whose seeing that Becky is being a smug pretentious shithead. Just because you got out of the closet like the rest of us, doesn’t mean that all of a sudden you know when the Sun is going to rise at the exact spot of the earth at noon.
Try working the graveyard shift. I’ve woken up from a nap and rushed out to the car in a blind panic, thinking I overslept and was late for work, because I forgot there’s also a 5 PM.
We, the Emperor of the Internet, graciously grants you Official Dispensation from the rule of -when- you partake in bacon, as long as you still follow the very serious and not at all arbitrary rules on -how- you partake in it (i.e, your meal must be breakfast-like, not dinner-like).
There, now it’s all good. And this is given to all you night workers out there!
Kinda struggling with Joyce’s rule here. An imperial ruling, if I might,
your highness?
Bring heavily-salted water to the boil and add enough fettucine to serve four. While it cooks gently fry 500g of bacon cut in thin slivers in a skillet, and reduce the heat and add lots of garlic once starting to crisp. Thinly slice a head of romaine lettuce, and when the fettucine is ready drain it, take the bacon off the heat, stir the romaine quickly with the bacon, and when it starts to wilt mix all into the pasta and serve out on plates. Top each helping with a pierced egg yolk and plenty of parmesan cheese.
Dinner or not?
(not during autumn or winter, of course, that’d be gauche.)
After David Brooks’s column about taking a poor friend of his to an upscale Italian deli where the sandwich ingredients were things like soppressata and capicollo, and the friend freaked out because (in Brooks’s mind) poor people can’t understand such things, Mara Wilson’s response was this:
Breaking up any relationship isn’t really cool here guys. Or “planting the seeds” honestly of doubt. “OH YOUR JUST SO PERFECT ARENT YOU JACOB” Jesus christ Becky, I know you want your galpal here to make some moves that make the oceans groove but for goodness sakes lady ya need to chill.
what is happening I don’t like this. Is Becky meddling with other people’s love lives again? Goddamnit this is the worst. Please grow out of this Becky.
Hopefully Becky, Joyce, and Sarah will all learn not to pull this kinda thing before it causes too much heartbreak, but so far it looks like they’re gonna learn the hard way
I’m interested in seeing more of Jacob and Raidah- I’m curious as to why Jacob seems to be trying to convince himself here, rather than just shrugging off Becky’s words.
What we have seen of them, they seem to work just fine.
My guess is that that’s just it – they work just fine, but with cute, brave, good, endearingly naive Joyce something ha REALLY clicked for Jacob, poor sod…
Remember, Dorothy and Walky started out “for funsies” and that shortly became more.
Jacob and Raidah? We don’t know what, or if, they agreed they were doing together, what label they might put on it. Joyce is perhaps a variable he can’t account for.
Oh, that’s been addressed- whatever else is going on with Jacob and Raidah, he explicitly said that she doesn’t go to church with him. I can’t remember if anything else has been said about her religious leanings but Jacob said they “don’t do church together, considering”. I took that to mean that she is of another religion.
Thank you! I had it in my mind that she was Muslim, but then I couldn’t pinpoint any page in my mind that mentioned it and I was second guessing why I thought that.
She’s Muslim, so actually attending a church service (as opposed to just visiting) might still be a bit too far, even for a comparatively liberal outlook.
Definitely something I’ve been thinking. Jacob doesn’t seem too secure in his relationship- although that could just be because of his past relationships, which he’s mentioned to Raidah have been… rocky. But his insistence on Raidah basically fulfilling a “perfect girlfriend checklist” suggests to me that he’s questioning why that wouldn’t be enough, and why it wouldn’t make him happy.
Ehh, the whole “.. for you” and generally going on about how Jacob needs things to be perfect bit is kind of off-putting for me? It’s kind of overly familiar, especially considering how Becky just said she barely knows the guy, so idk why she’s making all these assumptions.
The other thing, if she really is on Team Joycob and is trying to push them together or something, that makes three women who are trying to break Jacob’s relationship for their own reasons with no respect to him or his feelings in the matter. And that has its own issues.
“For you” makes perfect sense in context of what she was just talking about last strip.
I wouldn’t call “seems” and “bet 5 bucks” as a ton of assumptions. And Jacob’s the one who said perfect
Becky’s relationship meddling is easily the worst part of what she’s doing here. Especially since this is likely to come crashing down on Joyce at some point.
The whole “Your entire personality is structured and disciplined” is a huge assumption, especially considering that this is the only time these two have honestly interacted besides Becky inviting him to the party and taking his pizza order. And in this context, I’m not really sure how Becky came to that conclusion, other than Jacob behaving at church. You know, like you’re supposed to.
Now, being structured isn’t necessarily bad, but in this context, the connotation makes it seem like it is. Otherwise, what’s the point of pointing it out and then smugly walking away?
She does admit that she doesn’t really know him in yesterday’s strip, though – “Structured, disciplined, whatever. I barely know you.” She knows she’s sort of talking from not much info here. (Not that it helps her much )
I’m pretty sure Becky is doing this deliberately. If people dislike Becky’s method of helping Joyce get some, that’s perfectly valid. But if people are disliking Becky’s actions thinking that it’s just Becky being herself, I’d suggest they examine how different this is from the usual Becky and ask themselves if Becky is prone to smug sass.
Honestly, to me, it feels like she could easily be being smug just because she’s really happy with her badass adorable girlfriend and is just like, “yeah, maybe you’re happy, but YOU don’t have Dina.” And she’s literally being smug not from any ulterior motive but because she’s confident in the belief that what Jacob wants is inherently less awesome that what she already has in her relationship.
Look, if you’re happy with your little interpretation of the comic, that’s fine, in its own way. Whatever lets you lay your head on the pillow at night, I guess. We’re just not all equipped to see things the same way, so if seeing it as ‘sincere and innocuous’ is what works for you, then you just keep doing that over there. No reason you should have to change just because other people are free of that.
(It’s sort of like that. In the sense of being exactly like that.)
Except you added a lot of little addendums that completely change the meaning (italicized fine, “in it’s own way”, “free of”) , and phrases with really heavy negative connotations like “lets you lay your head on the pillow at night”.
I don’t see any of that in either of these strips, except maybe “for you” and when she brags about Dina.
I’d disagree that Becky is trying to break Jacob’s personality. She’s jabbing him because she knows Joyce’s buttons and is creating a bonding moment between Joyce and Jacob.
Becky is saving Joyce’s church date in a selfless manner, paying back her best friend just a bit for helping her in her lowest moments.
Whatever. I barely know you. But that’s comfortable for you- work, school, relationships, I betcha it’s all safely comfortable. And that’s fine. Not everyone can see things the same, and you just keep doing you, over there.
(Still not seeing it, huh? Do I literally have to rehash the pinkies-out-for-tea-and-crapping-on-the couch part?)
honesty is not always the best policy, especially if nobody asked your opinion about someone else’s personal relationship. She’s being sincere, yes, but that’s not necessarily a good thing
Becky’s being a tad obnoxious here, but I’m mainly frustrated at the comic for seeming (so far, at least) to be framing Becky’s vague needling of Jacob’s lifestyle as some sort of witty manipulation.
It is witty manipulation. But Jacob isn’t the target of the manipulation. Joyce was on a mental road to creating space between her and Jacob, focusing on their differences and what they don’t have in common. Becky is getting Joyce to come to Jacob’s rescue, pitting them both against her.
Take your cast iron frying pan, fry up some bacon in it. Mix up a batch of cornbread mix. Crumble up the bacon into the mix, then pour it in the pan and bake it in the oven as per normal. Best cornbread ever.
Is it just me who thinks the “meets all my list of requirements” is just about the coldest way possible to describe your “perfect” partner..?
I dunno though, I’m an introvert and say (truthfully) that I married my husband because he doesn’t get on my nerves when we spend time together simply by existing.* Which might sound cold unless you understand that much as I love other friends and family I need time away from them to breathe, think and function like a rational, generally pleasant human being and the husband does not infringe on my ability to do these things and he is literally the only person I have ever met who doesn’t other than our daughter and I made her and love her enough that all being well I’m going to bring another human being into the world some point between Christmas and New Year…
*He is a wind-up merchant and frequently gets on my nerves deliberately, in the misguided belief that he’s being funny… But you can’t have everything? (And there are lots of mushy things I could say about him, but nobody wants to read that… Also, he generates body heat and sleeps heavily enough for me to use as a footwarmer in winter when my feet turn into blocks of ice. And he’s virtually 1.5 feet taller than me and doesn’t mind when I ask him to do/get all of the things I would need to otherwise own a ladder/climb furniture to do/get to myself…)
first off, miri congrats on the second baby, though, as someone who knows a few people born near Christmas, birthdays might be a bit iffy for s/he. second, i don’t know if anyone mentioned this, but a good bacon pancake is good anytime, simple as breaking up cooked bacon and sprinkling it on the uncooked top side the pancake, but for me, getting the side where the bacon was put in to come off the pan can be a bongo. (I might just be using enough butter, spray, margarine, etc.) still pretty good with syrup
It’s totally not just you. I suspect that says something of Jacob’s feelings towards his relationship- “she’s exactly what I want, therefor I should be happy with her.” Mind you, I got that only from one panel, but a well meaning and emotionally available person mentioning a checklist does not come across as happy and confident with their relationship.
However, it’s very limited information, so I look forward to more information. Right now Jacob is the character who interests me the most.
She is everything you want
She is everything you need
She is everything inside of you that you wish you could be
She says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But she means nothing to you and you don’t know why…
I… Literally cannot describe what made me fall in love with my fiancee? All I know is that in fact I love her and a lot of things about her. But there was no list of things I wanted from a partner.
Becky wants her friends to be happy. In her mind, that means arranging for her single friends to be happily partnered. Hence, her rubbing her hands in glee over the prospect of setting up Leslie with Mindy (not that she won’t both take credit, and be happy, if Leslie winds up with Anna).
Becky is not (yet) Jacob’s friend, but no one is closer to her than Joyce. If she thinks that Joyce will be happy with Jacob — and I suspect that she does — she will do what she can to bring them together. (She doesn’t know Raidah from Eve, at this point.)
I have come to realize just now that for me, the Joyce/Jacob ship is a Schroedinger’s ship — it simultaneously does and does not exit.
Now Jacob this is where you should be ignoring what Becky is saying because you don’t need to be listening to her, you’re choosing to listen to her and choosing to respond
So as much as Becky is being a horses ass (again) its on you for letting her get to you
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was perfect… for you.”
There’s a lot packed in here. Like, there’s the shipping element. Becky is pretty honed on things and Joyce has not at all been subtle about her interests and Jacob hasn’t exactly been Mr. Subtle back.
Becky wants Joyce to be happy and if playing the fool gives that a better chance than otherwise, she’s happy to play that role and distract from Joyce’s meltdown.
Beyond that, though, is the specificity. Raidah is perfect for Jacob where he is now. She’s respectful of boundaries, doesn’t force sexual intimacy he’s not ready for, sees him for his mind and kindness rather than just his sexy muscles. She’s a comforting presence that lets him focus on his career while still enjoying romantic connection and companionship.
She’s an ideal partner for where Jacob is. Now, that might be low on passion and intensity, but that’s not always what one needs at every point.
And it’s also a reiteration of her values as well. Jacob likes Raidah because she fits in his life well and he’s romantically attracted to her. She’s a comfort in a track with a lot of stress, especially for non-white wanna-be lawyers. She challenges him, but only in relaxing ways that let him learn more about the world. She’s a rock in a churning river.
But that’s the thing. That’s only the ideal for Jacob. Someone like Joyce, what she craves is kindness, passion, and a sexy chest. Someone she can go head over heels with and lose herself (in a very Christian way of course, *intense blush*).
And for someone like Becky, that sounds like a nightmare. She watched her mother destroyed by “at least its a romantic relationship that’s ‘easy'”.
She watched her and her mom get abused and her mom driving to suicide and herself having to live in fear. The perfect partner for her right now is someone like Dina, because what she needs is open space to be herself without ridicule, where she can say what she’s thinking and have that valued. Where she’s with someone who comes up with wacky things to do and pushes her to be her best self.
And that’s the thing about the “perfect partner”. It shifts with time and context and it can also be a trap. A “perfect partner” in one way may be intensely shitty in others and it can also be a role that feels more like a performance than a truly solid connection.
And the worst is with propriety. Becky’s culture and Joyce’s modeled “perfect” as an outward appearance. The “perfect couple” always smiled and held hands at church functions and volunteered and played their gender roles even when it was killing them.
Which is also probably why she’s so flippant about it. Because Jacob and Raidah are perfect on paper, but Jacob’s eye movement makes me think Joyce might be awakening things in him that’s having him doubt exactly what he wants and what “perfect” actually looks like for him.
Any hints as to ways to keep automating ads here from causing my screen to refocus on them every few seconds? Makes for very jumpy scrolling. It doesn’t hhappen on my Android tablet, for some reason.
I don’t really get why Becky is saying this sort of stuff. Is it just standard slightly rude Becky, just putting down his church and how he does relationships? Or is Becky being a bit sarky because she can tell that Joyce likes him and she still isn’t over Joyce?
You can see Jacob bristling a bit here and I’m not surprised, like the whole ‘for you’re thing seems super smug
I suspect that she’s worked out that Joyce and Jacob have a very mild attraction to each other and she’s trying to provoke them into admitting it by making them think that their current lifestyle is ‘boring’.
I’m pretty sure she’s autistic. (Like me).
I’m AFAB and was sent to subpar schools that didn’t really care how hard things were for me as long as I passed my tests ok, which I did, and Joyce was homeschooled so it makes sense if her autism wasn’t noticed.
Food pickiness, attachment to stuff (like her favorite sweater even with blood splattered on it), difficulty with changes or new things, being “weird” socially (like how quickly she sees everyone as friends, how she doesn’t always see that her interaction isn’t welcome – like with Sarah), oblivious to certain social norms/rules (like how she accidentally flirts with people even if she’s not interested in them, because she doesn’t understand that it’s flirting).
All of this is stuff I’ve experienced myself, and didn’t understand until I found out I’m autistic.
So the aversion to foods touching is a common autistic thing
You might be quite right. I always just chalked up her oddities to being from a fundie community, especially being bad with change considering what Kind of changes she had happen in her life.
Though the food thing is odd even to her family – we’ve seen them joke about it.
I don’t think he’s said, but I wouldn’t be surprised is it’s a (exaggerated?) childhood trait of Willis’s. Joyce is somewhat autobiographical.
That also makes me doubt she’s autistic.
Why would her being autobiographical make her less autistic?
I mean, a lot of autistic adults are still undiagnosed, and even those who are diagnosed don’t usually come out and tell everyone.
Well, it makes her less likely to be intentionally written as autistic and at this point you’re trying to diagnose Willis over the Internet and a step removed.
I haven’t kept up with the research, but about 20 years ago I went to a conference where both Temple Grandin and Tony Attwood spoke. If I’m remembering correctly, this was before the concept of “the autistic spectrum” had really taken off,
The point that Tony Attwood made in his speech, that the audience seemed to really respond to, was when he observed that there did not seem to be any clear dividing lines between “autistic” and “asperger’s” and “odd” and “normal.” And I am just putting words in his mouth at this point, and I wish I could remember his exact turn of phrase, but I can’t.
But his point was that people can exhibit individual traits associated with the autistic spectrum, without necessarily being at some diagnosable point on that spectrum. It would not surprise me if Joyce falls into this category. On the one hand, the seeming preoccupation with rules for sensory phenomena like food and music; on the other hand, she makes friends quickly and easily.
I make friends easily too! … I just can’t do much of the relationship-maintenance stuff afterwards. and it’s not something I have much of any control over; either I’m in manic-pixie-oblivious-girl mode or I’m not. although there was one awesome time when I *did* turn it on intentionally…
I make friends easily too
A lot of autistic people do. And a lot of autistic people don’t.
It’s more accurate to focus on the individual’s inner experience of things (how do they feel with… How do they understand… Do they get overwhelmed by…) Than their “skills”.
Possibly autism, possibly a compulsive disorder, possibly both, possibly she just enjoys taking food apart and separating it as that is how she enjoys it.
the no-foods-touching probably explains the popularity of those stupid little compartment trays of cheese and ham and crackers sold under the name Lunchables
Nah. That’s just convenience. Single serving sized crap that can be sold for far more than if packaged reasonably.
Though the crackers should be separate from the ham and cheese until you’re ready to eat them. Ham and cheese are a bit moist and would make the crackers soggy if you left them packaged together.
Ok now I seriously can’t decide on my favorite autistic fem character in the Dumbiverse because Dina but also Joyce and they are each a different “kind” of autistic and I love them so much.
And also I’m happy to have autistic representation, especially when it’s not all “white young cishet male” because that we’ve had enough of.
It is not, but she has shown several autistic behaviours such as:
*Food separation (it is common for oversensitivity to food textures or flavours).
*Only liking a limited number of foods (Becky said it was like 5 kinds before).
*Preferring plain ‘kid’ food over adult menu items (the latter is 100% more likely to have sauces, dressings, vegetables, spices etc. which can cause sensory overload or outright repulsion due to flavour or texture mixes being incompatible unless it is one of the ‘safe’ foods where everything can be left off as desired e.g. burgers).
*Doesn’t always easily recognise sarcasm or the implication of words or actions (can come across more as simply naivety or social awkwardness or eccentric lines of thought when it does happen, but remember how she asked Mary a question by interrupting her kissing Peter but didn’t connect that action with what she was asking? That’s what happens when you compartmentalise sometimes where things that should connect don’t until stated explicitly).
*The rules her parents and authority have laid out for her seemed like absolutes until confronted with something that outright convinced her otherwise and even then, she tried to bend rules to make them suit people rather than recognising those specific rules were wrong until she HAD to (the whole mess with Ethan, looking in the Bible to try to find sections that said nothing was wrong with Becky) and she will stubbornly enforce bizarre rules (as shown in this strip as who decided foods have set times of the day to be eaten?) and asked if she needed to get her parents to sign a release form for real alcohol while in Jacob’s church due to again, not wanting to break ‘rules’.
*Impressionable which combines with the above point as many autistic people can be easily influenced by what is told to them by other people, sometimes even if they have no reason to actually believe them (such as Joyce believing Sarah would kill her because Joe said it was inevitable).
*Fixation and attachment to preferred items of clothing even if teased or mocked (frequently wears sweater vests, has worn the boots Billie bought her consistently, often likes striped sweater vests, and has a clear fondness of orange and pink colours being incorporated in outfits).
*Difficulties with understanding boundaries (she doesn’t understand why wanting to brush Sal’s hair so strongly is weird, will meddle in relationships if asked to, wants to try to fix every problem even if it is none of her business to).
*Touch sensitivity (she hates the showers because of what she might touch with her feet).
So like, while she isn’t definitely autistic, she does have enough groundwork where I would say the possibility is there (especially as these things are all things I myself have dealt with or still deal with, I absolutely despise that ‘adult food’ pretty much always has bits in it personally as three times this has meant at special events I went home hungry while no one else did).
Look I respect the…whatever this is. I respect the right of readers to find ways of connecting to characters they like. But as someone that has been incorrectly diagnosed with a spectrum disorder by a litany of armchair psychologists just because of quirks I inherited from my immigrant parents, you’ll forgive me, perhaps, for being of the opinion that diagnosing Joyce with anything on that basis alone is complete and utter horseshit.
This is different because
1. She’s a fictional character
2. I’m actually autistic and not just going by stereotypes, but by actual autistic experiences that I and my fellow autistics have.
I agree with Ronnie that this is different because:
1) She is fictional, our diagnosing her will not cause her psychological harm in any shape or form – she will not be forced to go to therapy, told she is broken or otherwise be harmed by such a diagnosis which is very different from real people where it can have a negative impact to diagnose them based on a few actions.
2) Literally all the things I listed were things I myself deal with or have dealt with because I am autistic specifically. There are others, but I listed ones where I could remember examples of from Joyce.
But I do sympathise as you should never have been diagnosed just on the basis of being quirky when there are behavioural, genetic or familial reasons for why you would be like that. It is unfortunate but psychologists still have biases and don’t always look for other explanations when they should – it can be an INDICATOR for autism if you are quirky (I would call myself eccentric, not just because of how I act, but my ways of thinking and connecting things are eccentric compared to other people) but that is definitely not the end all be all of whether someone is or not.
So I am sorry that you went through that, but I also still think there is no harm in doing so to a fictional character as long as it isn’t based on harmful stereotypes and as long as there is basis for such a claim that isn’t just ‘I want them to be’.
Like I would argue someone to the death for calling Mary a psychopath or sociopath (ASPD is the correct term for sociopaths but some people with it prefer to call themselves psychopaths or sociopaths even though the former isn’t recognised as an actual condition medically while ASPD is) because that is usually based on Mary being a bad person that does bad things and has stereotyped traits and not actual criteria or actual issues people with ASPD have.
But I don’t see anything wrong with going ‘Joyce could be autistic’ because that is more based on actual experiences that actual people have and do still have.
yeah, I’m glad I don’t have that many food issues (I know several other programmers who do). being hypersensitive to bitterness and texture is quite enough for me; I’m glad I can enjoy most other things about food. (and, like, being able to comfortably eat 99% of pizza options is useful too ) … although, I do wish it wasn’t so easy to get sick of eating the same thing too often. but, like, I spent *years* (…over a decade maybe?) occasionally trying olives and being sad that I couldn’t like them. I don’t know why I wanted to like olives so much, but it wasn’t until I was in my late 20’s that some switch flipped and they became non-overwhelming.
damn, now I’m thinking about food again I’m trying not to eat sugary things right now, they’d feed the evil bacteria attacking my throat. …oh! right! olives are in the fridge.
speaking of bizarre rules… I found it fascinating that some of Brandon Sanderson’s books have rules about food based on *gender* (eg. spicy food was only for adult men). It really shows just how weird and silly gender-based rules seem when you haven’t been raised to see them as normal.
Yeah, I hate that I get addicted to eating food in one set way for a few months but then I can complete burnout and no longer want to eat it ever again for all of eternity even though it was so good before.
I am also eternally sad about things I can’t enjoy but wish I could like hotdogs, honey and strawberries because the former two favourite characters of mine from childhood enjoyed (Sonic the Hedgehog and Winnie the Pooh), the latter I just hate how relentlessly good they smell because the actual taste makes me retch.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGH BECKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY I have been pretty sure this was what you were doing for the past few comics but AUGH you are unreasonably excellent.
LOOK AT HER. look at her slytherining this WHOLE interaction. Becky. Becky you are DANGEROUS. you I just I don’t OMAN.
I’m really wondering why we’re seeing so many PO’d Joyce pictures in the preview panels is that Joyce is going to have a falling-out with Becky over her interference. This would be ironic, of course, because Joyce has the same bad habits; it’s different when you’re the target, of course!
Can’t imagine why anyone would think Becky’s good at manipulation. It’s not like she played Robin like a fiddle and is still changing policy using Robin’s online accounts or anything. Nope, totally doesn’t know what she’s doing.
Robin is not hard to trick. The strip where Becky gets Robin to hand over her phone is the same one with the punchline that Robin might not know the onomatopeia for a cow’s mooing.
Also not actually confirmed whether or not Becky’s actually succeeding in any sort of policy.
Is it me or does Joyce’s outburst in panel 6 read like comment #33596 in an argument that she and Becky have been having on when one should eat Bacon since they were about 13 years old or something?
no Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs? – what amazes me, looking back, is that kids would be liable to sprinkle sugar on their Frosted Flakes – like bringing coals to Newcastle
It just hit me that this very obvious display of smugness could be deliberate from Becky’s side. By taking jabs at Jacob and Joyce and sarcastic remarks on how they’re “structured”, she could be making herself an antagonist with the goal of giving Jacob and Joyce someone to unite against to make them realize how much they have in common.
Alternatively, this could just be Becky being young.
When I was 16, I was convinced I knew everything I would ever need to know. That I was too advanced for school and that my experiences up to that point in life were enough to carry me through adulthood.
When I was 17, I had come to the realization that, okay, maybe I didn’t know everything, but I knew I had become a lot smarter from that realization.
When I was 18, I knew I wasn’t too advanced for school and that just because I could legally vote and drink beer, didn’t mean I was an adult, but I still felt very secure that I’d recognize what being an adult meant when I got there.
When I was 19, I accepted that I didn’t know everything and also knew the realization didn’t actually make me smarter. But I still believed I knew enough to pass out valuable advice to other people and that I could see ways their lives could improve better than they did.
When I was 21, I came to the horrifying realization that: “Sweet Chocolate Satan. I don’t know SHIT!”
Becky to me seems like a very realistic representation of someone who is still growing up. Yes, that means there are going to be parts of her personality that are going to be obnoxious, overconfident and at times selfrighteous. Part of becoming more mature is to recognize the flaws in our personality and the need for adjustment. I don’t think I’m alone in looking back at who I was 10 years ago and not being proud of what I see.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. – Mark Twain
It just now occurred to me that, since Joyce doesn’t like her food touching, it’s possible she doesn’t eat sandwiches, and in particular burgers, so she’s never had a good bacon cheeseburger, which explains this nonsense.
(I have a relative who is like Joyce in this regard, and as I understand it one food item can be made of several ingredients, and this doesn’t affect the rule against touching.)
Take a thick slice of chilli cheese bread and slather it with wholegrain mustard. Now cook up some bacon until it’s crispy but not burned. You want a fast melting cheese on top of that and then another slice of the bread (this one lightly toasted while the other stays cold) to top it off.
Back when I worked in the middle of nowhere and lived in a work camp which refused to admit people working night shift might not want breakfast for supper, I would sometimes have toast, bacon and tomato sandwiches for my evening (for me) meal.
I remember ordering two or three ‘rashers’ of bacon at a breakfast in Bermuda, and learning that there is a definition for “rasher” that has it meaning multiple slices, said lesson being in the form of a plate that held Finally Enough Bacon.
This storyline is getting really uncomfortable (which is good for the viewer) because some are looking at Becky being all adorable in her machinations and Joyce being adorable because shes all flustered
But what is happening is that Jacob did a good thing, a nice thing in fact by inviting Joyce to his church and in return Joyce acted extremely rudely and now Becky is attempting to manipulate him all with the end game (I’m guessing) of making Jacob break up with Raidah so he can start a relationship with Joyce
If this all blows up in their faces, and I hope it really does, then theres no way Jacob would want to have anything to do with Sarah, Joyce or Becky and hopefully Sarah has a good, long, hard, look at herself about this because her behaviour while not being the same as Joes behaviour towards her is certainly not that far off
Eating bacon for breakfast is savagery. It’s strictly for lunch or dinner.
In fact, anything that’s fried is not breakfast, unless it’s spent a night in the fridge afterwards. The only acceptable ways to heat breakfast is through boiling or microwaving.
I really like fried tomatoes, button mushrooms or thinly chopped onions on toast for breakfast. Not on high temperatures, mind. Mushrooms and onions should be fried slowly.
Becky: Look, Joyce! Bacon-wrapped mozzarella sticks!
Joyce: *averts eyes* NO! That is an ABOMINATION, unclean in the… *glances at bacon-cheesy goodness* … eyes of the… *licks lips* God, those smell good….
My older brother would agree with you. He cannot eat any kind of red meat. Not a religious or ethical thing, he just literally finds the taste nauseating.
He’s a really good cook otherwise, which is no doubt why my sister-in-law puts up with a mostly red-meat-less diet.
Me? To misquote an often-misquoted Ben Franklin (and despite the fact that I am agnostic), pork is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Even if you never ate the bacon, and who am I kidding, you can do good things with a hot frying pan with some bacon grease in it. Seared apple slices with a squeeze of lemon and a dusting of cinnamon. Sauteed spinach.
Tofu can be weirdly pleasant in a stir fry. Not that anyone sane starts in on stir-frying to cook tofu, but once you’re into it, it’s a nice change of pace from the usual main ingredients.
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of COURSE you don’t sprinkle bacon on dinner
…you SLATHER IT ON
or you can sprinkle dinner on bacon.
Dogs don’t know it’s not bacon!
Reasons Cats are Better.
Have always had cats, can confirm.
Dogs are not known for their discerning tastes.
Hear! Hear!
How are you preparing your bacon that it is slatherable
I can only assume like this abomination.
Goddamn Swedes!
As a swedish resident, i need to debunk the existence of bacon on bottle as a thing here.
Closest thing i’ve seen is the baconflavoured tooth paste at CoolStuff
… why?
i think my cholesterol just shot up from looking at that, truly, bacon paste is mistake
Is that a veggie burger pattie under that pureed bacon?
Of course that’s from ThinkGeek. Brownie pan that makes all edge pieces? Brilliant. Squeezable bacon mayonaise? Yech.
I’m so glad the “bacon all the things” meme came and went. It is possible to have too much of a good thing!
Aaaaaaa. I refuse to eat any bacon that isn’t so dry and crispy that it shatters upon impact. Bacon chips. That’s the way to go.
Bacon jam apparently exists.
Trader Joe’s in the US has it. Only time I’ve ever had bacon and didn’t like it. It was truly bad– they tool something great and made it into an abomination.
Yeah, the US is obsessed with making everything bacon.
And then somehow getting copious quantities of cheese involved.
With dark and unholy bacon magic.
You ever see “Better Off Dead”? “You said you didn’t like all the grease from fried bacon, so I boiled it.” ;p
It has… raisins in it… you like raisins…?
Slather bacon on dinner? The dinner IS bacon! With a side of bacon. And bits of bacon sprinkled on. And then you pour hot bacon fat on it.
When I first hit refresh and got a new comic, the only comment was Ana Chronistic’s. By the time I typed in sixteen words and hit “Post Comment,” there were almost 40 comments, 75 percent of them bacon-related.
Does Willis know his audience or what?
ANARCHY.
d20monkey.com/comic/a-matter-of-alignment
Emphasis on the alt text.
Slaaaaather!
Ramen and forever and anon and ah … I dunno the rest
But… how? Bacon is a solid, and therefore fundamentally unslatherable. Unless of course you’ve managed to obtain some sort of spreadable meat-flavored paste, in which case I hate to break it to you, but that’s not bacon. I’m not sure what it is, and frankly I think I’m better off not knowing, but I know it isn’t bacon.
There’s a small but non-zero chance that it may be people.
She has just made a powerful enemy in Ron Swanson.
This is what happens when chaotic good meets lawful good
where would joyce stand on the alignment chart re:her food opinions, i wonder?
…lawful neutral, maybe?
Mmmmaybe? Her own rules are incredibly important to her, BUT, she HAS been known to break them for those she cares about- implying that morality may seldom trump lawfulness but it is still important. I would say that she’s hovering between lawful neutral and good.
Given her stance on bacon, I’d say she’s obviously lawful necktie
Alignment charts only make sense in a world where it’s literally impossible to have a divergent moral code. (After all, nobody really thinks of themself as ‘evil’, right?)
I mean, Amber thinks herself a monster, which is pretty close to believing she’s evil.
How did you know that?!
…jakes.
oh, jakes.
Okay, Becky, how much did Sarah pay you?
~ooohh, That would be sneaky, using Becky as a covert relationship disrupter.
Becky will out-cool others for free.
*can’t decide on Supertramp or the Beatles this time*
Scrambled eggs, I love your legs?
Beatles.
Personally I can’t stand The Logical Song, and Supertramp did 9/11.
Supertramp.
Every. Single. Time.
What Becky is a JoyceXJacob shipper and saw that her ship was taking some hits…so she refocused them on a shared opponent. For the sake of love.
Bacon is a breakfast food, which is what makes it doubly delicious in the evening
All breakfast food is delicious all the time.
Except steel-cut oatmeal.
by the time steel-cut oats are cooked, it’s lunch
Bacon is NOT breakfast food. You Americans keep getting these things mixed up.
At least we Americans know what bacon is. Most other folks don’t even get the right part of the pig.
Poor, naive, UTTERLY WRONG Joyce.
bacon is a sometimes food for me now
Don’t tell that to Ethan. It’s possible he might tell you that bacon is a *never* food.
Not totally true. We still have turkey bacon and veggie bacon. And some restaurants even serve beef becon
Beef bacon is tasty. Turkey bacon is definitely cardboard.
No, that’s matzah
Turkey bacon is an attempt at baconizing matzah.
Beef matzah?
And horse bacon, which is tangy with venison notes and made for the yummiest boeuf bourguignon I ever made.
Horse masquerading as pig pretending to be cow?
You’re getting the wrong turkey bacon, then.
Admittedly the stuff i like doesn’t taste of bacon, but it’s far from cardboard, and has the advantage of being already cooked.
Turkey bacon is a Wrong Thing.
…fried salmon skin is a bit like bacon tho…
Beef bacon is the closest thing to real bacon I’ve found, I like the texture more too.
Turkey bacon is usually shit, though occasionally you find good ones. The problem I have with it is that (I guess) the lower fat content means it doesn’t sort of fry itself like beef and pork do, it’s best to add a fat (usually oil) to the pan to make it cook like the others.
I added the qualifiers “possible” and “might” specifically to subvert people like you :-p
Ethan could also just not be particularly observant. I mean, I lived in Israel for a decade, and I can tell you all the best places to get bacon.
WHERE do we have these non-pork bacons? Maybe not in Israel ’cause I’ve never seen them. And since I’ve stopped having pork-bacon after learning what that industry is like I would LOVE to try the alternatives.
(I’m Jewish by birth, culture and heritage, just very secular by choice)
I’m surprised Israel doesn’t have some alternative bacons. If anywhere in the world has the market for it, it’s Israel.
But, as I mentioned elsewhere, you might have some good luck frying up strips of pastrami.
If you can’t find beef bacon, try frying up some good pastrami. It ends up being very similar flavor-wise.
That last comment from Joyce just reinstates how adorable she is, love her
I don’t really get why Becky is acting so smug right now. I grew to like her as a character over time, but this is reminding me why I didn’t at first. She shouldn’t be acting like she has it all figured out. Especially when it’s pretty obvious that she is actually profoundly ignorant about a lot of things.
She found a button, and she’s pushing it. If Jacob didn’t let her ‘structured’ comments get under his skin, she’d have left well alone.
Oh yeah, it’s other people’s fault for getting irritated by people poking at them. That makes sense.
It’s not Jacob’s fault, it’s Becky’s. I meant that Becky is like Carla; when they find people that react to that poking and prodding, that just drives them to poke and prod more. That’s kind of why she’s best friends with Joyce – Joyce is very reactive.
I suppose that makes a lot of sense.
i remember acting the same way becky did at that age.
I’m sure we all have at some point or other. It’s pretty irritating.
i dunno, i think becky started here trying to reassure joyce that she could not like jacob’s church and still support her. yeah, she’s pushing it a little far, but i don’t think she set out to needle jacob–she just wanted to show joyce that it was fine to miss some aspects of her old church.
Definitely, and I like that she supports her friends. But it’s not really done that well here.
I’m seeing a lot of Becky hate today and…I don’t get it?? She made a metaphor about Joyce, Jacob and their respective churches that was pretty on point in more ways than one. Sure Becky’s a bit presumptive when she brushes away Jacob’s objection last strip, but today?
Today all her comments sound totally sincere. There’s nothing even slightly mean or unfair or even teasing about what Becky says in today’s strip.
Well the way she’s walking away, smiling smugly while disregarding what her friends say doesn’t help her case that much.
One of those friends is spouting pretty much heresy about bacon, being ignored is the nicest possible response.
Less jokingly, as Becky already mentioned, there’s nothing wrong with needing structure. She already said there was nothing wrong with Joyce’s already-known opinion.
The smug is your read and really not that awful even if it is smugness.
You can’t tell me that last panel face isn’t smug. You just can’t lol
They…..didn’t try to?
I took it as smug too. But I don’t think it’s smug because she managed to push buttons. As Deathjavu said: Becky said it was ok to be structured. I think Jacob’s reaction is saying more that he is starting to realize that despite Raidah meeting all the check-boxes, the relationship isn’t all that fulfilling. There is something satisfying in “knowing” that you are right and seeing someone come to that conclusion.
In this case, I think Becky’s idea of being right is that structure is overrated, not as much about Raidah since she doesn’t know Raidah personally. I think she believes that Jacob needs to lighten up and shake up his life a little. Based on Jacob’s reaction, I’m thinking that she is likely right in this case. He’s placed Raidah on a pedestal that she can not live up to in the long term. It’d be no wonder if the relationship isn’t very fulfilling if they aren’t challenging one another.
Yeah, I’m pretty solidly in the “smug” camp- but here’s the thing, Becky isn’t doing much at all here. The fact that it’s getting a reaction isn’t about her- it’s about Jacob’s and Joyce’s issues respectively. And I don’t think a person deserves hate for being nice just because that sets off someone else’s issues- even if they suspect it.
Honestly, I interpreted that as subtle sabotage of the relationship to give Joyce a chance, and a smug smile that she indeed brought them closer together despite the church fiasco?
I think you may be onto something.
Another part of course is just her usual getting Joyce to react bit. And maybe happiness that she’s back to freaking out about food, not religion. Safer and more normal.
Becky is being a big tool today.
Well, yeah. If she wasn’t so profoundly ignorant, she’d know she hasn’t figured it all out.
There’s two schools of thought here. One is that Becky is still swimming in the “OMG, my partner/relationship is so perfect and awesome and I can’t believe you guys aren’t getting why it’s so perfect!” high. She’s not trying to insult either Jacob or Joyce, but it’s more of a “man, you guys just don’t get it” smugness that she doesn’t realize is actually quite aggravating. This is quite likely considering that her relationship with Dinah might be the first serious relationship she’s had.
The second school of thought is that Becky is deliberately putting doubts into Jacob’s mind about the suitability of his relationship with Raidah in order to get him to have second thoughts and hook up with either Sarah or Joyce. If this theory is correct, while that would make Becky an extremely intelligent and cunning manipulator of people, it would also be an action that severely diminishes her in my opinion. You do not have the right to break up someone’s perfectly happy and functional relationship for your own reasons, regardless of whether it’s for good or bad intentions.
Seems to be a bit of both to me. Not to say that she absolutely wants to break them up, but I feel like Becky would be happy if they did. So I feel like she knows what she is saying, and just doesn’t care about the consequences.
Try a third: Becky is manipulating Joyce. Jacob doubting his relationship with Raidah might be a consequence down the line, but Becky isn’t looking to do that. She’s pushing Joyce’s buttons in a way that’ll help Joyce have a moment with Jacob, rather than focusing on what Joyce and Jacob don’t have in common.
It’s because she’s trying to hook up Jacob and Joyce. The look on her face in the last panel is basically “Mission Accomplished”.
Oh thank god, I’m not the only one whose seeing that Becky is being a smug pretentious shithead. Just because you got out of the closet like the rest of us, doesn’t mean that all of a sudden you know when the Sun is going to rise at the exact spot of the earth at noon.
Don’t worry. People have been seeing Becky that way (or worse) since she first appeared. It’s kind of a thing.
To be fair, there’s plenty to criticize about the whole Jacob plan, but it really seems like Becky’s taking a lot more than her fair share.
And it’s not entirely clear what Becky’s doing here, unlike Joyce and Sarah who have explicitly stated their intentions.
Bacon is only for breakfast?!
Well, I hope no one tells Joyce about Chicken and Waffles!
Her head may explode~
For true head explosion — certainly for Joyce, probably for Willis, and likely for most US readers — copy this into your Google:
“post pub nosh” site:theregister.com
Or you could start with this Post-pub nosh menu.
Ah, the love of bacon. I was momentarily offended by last panel Joyce myself, and I’m a vegetarian.
The alt-text implies there’s… something BEFORE 10 AM? I don’t understand.
I believe it’s called sleep.
Food heresies you are better off just sleeping through.
Try working the graveyard shift. I’ve woken up from a nap and rushed out to the car in a blind panic, thinking I overslept and was late for work, because I forgot there’s also a 5 PM.
But what if you work night shifts, and your breakfasts are at 4pm?
We, the Emperor of the Internet, graciously grants you Official Dispensation from the rule of -when- you partake in bacon, as long as you still follow the very serious and not at all arbitrary rules on -how- you partake in it (i.e, your meal must be breakfast-like, not dinner-like).
There, now it’s all good. And this is given to all you night workers out there!
Kinda struggling with Joyce’s rule here. An imperial ruling, if I might,
your highness?
Bring heavily-salted water to the boil and add enough fettucine to serve four. While it cooks gently fry 500g of bacon cut in thin slivers in a skillet, and reduce the heat and add lots of garlic once starting to crisp. Thinly slice a head of romaine lettuce, and when the fettucine is ready drain it, take the bacon off the heat, stir the romaine quickly with the bacon, and when it starts to wilt mix all into the pasta and serve out on plates. Top each helping with a pierced egg yolk and plenty of parmesan cheese.
Dinner or not?
(not during autumn or winter, of course, that’d be gauche.)
Completely unacceptable by Joyce’s rules. For dinner or not.
Those foods are not only touching, but mixed.
And now I’m wondering how she’d cope with soup.
We’re sorry, We tried reading the case, but We kept getting distracted by a sudden need for bacon.
That sounds fantastic. I’m going to make that soon.
No bacon cheeseburgers? No Cobb salad? No bacon-wrapped scallops? NO BACON CANDY?
Heresy, heresy, HERESY! Or circadian kosherness.
Bacon candy? What will you goyim think of next?
IDK, probably some sort of bacon… gun maybe? With extra cheese. We could do that, right?
After David Brooks’s column about taking a poor friend of his to an upscale Italian deli where the sandwich ingredients were things like soppressata and capicollo, and the friend freaked out because (in Brooks’s mind) poor people can’t understand such things, Mara Wilson’s response was this:
Maybe your friend was JEWISH, David Brooks. We can’t keep track of all your fancy fucking words for ham
I didn’t know she was Jewish. That’s so cool. I love her work
Yeah!we have our own fancy words for fish and starchy dishes!
Was it really that bad?
How about potato skins?
Whoops, typo in my e-mail :v
I’d settle for plain old bacon steak.
Becky has such an innocent expression that she’s five seconds away from sprouting wings and flying off. The shipping is *on*.
She is Joyce’s perfect Winggirl.
Breaking up any relationship isn’t really cool here guys. Or “planting the seeds” honestly of doubt. “OH YOUR JUST SO PERFECT ARENT YOU JACOB” Jesus christ Becky, I know you want your galpal here to make some moves that make the oceans groove but for goodness sakes lady ya need to chill.
Hahaha, Becky is such a shit disturber, I love it.
Is… is Becky shipping right now?
It sure looks like Becky is shipping right now.
Seems like it. Would very well explain the smug grin and the subtle jabs at that relationship.
@last panel: Says you Joyce.
Joyce, there is structure, and then there is “turning into an SMT villain”.
You dare relegate bacon to ONLY a breakfast food?!
*puts on Commissar hat and jacket*
HERESY!!!
Should we prepare the Exterminatus?
No, you fool! The planet has bacon on it!
Planetary resource: Bacon
Strategic value: Absolute
Bullshit Joyce, bacon goes well with everything.
Well, that settles it.
Becky’s a witch.
All the best witches are lesbians. *nods sagely*
why is Becky being so grating right now?
Because she’s being her usual self to a character you like. She’s always had her rough edges, but she cares in the end
She’s being very iamverysmart right now. Maybe she’s trying to cause friction in Jacob’s relationship since she knows Joyce has the hots for him
Because she remembers the ulterior motive, even if Joyce seems to have forgotten.
Joyce is supposed to be trying to make Jacob wind up with Sarah, right? Becky is planting the seeds of doubt.
Becky’s a MAD GENIUS when it comes to love and relationships. She’s completely undermining Jacob’s arguments. By AGREEING with them.
what is happening I don’t like this. Is Becky meddling with other people’s love lives again? Goddamnit this is the worst. Please grow out of this Becky.
How dare you! Becky is like perfect and everything she does is whacky and fun and endearing and if you disagree then you are a bad person
Speaking as like one of Becky’s greatest fans ever…. Please grow out of this, Becky.
Ditto.
Hopefully Becky, Joyce, and Sarah will all learn not to pull this kinda thing before it causes too much heartbreak, but so far it looks like they’re gonna learn the hard way
I see no way this doesn’t blow up in Joyce’s face, and Becky and Sarah get to live with having caused that.
Heartbreak is exactly what Sarah is after, with Joyce as an acceptable collateral (which she will deeply regret).
Becky… I THINK she is just playing matchmaker, and hopefully will learn to pull back before it blows up too much.
Or maybe not to play matchmaker with someone who’s already in a happy relationship
Bacon isn’t sprinkled on dinner. It gets wrapped around dinner.
Comments like this are why this comment section needs an upvote system.
Agreed.
Bacon is good, pork is better
Huh? Bacon *is* dinner, and sometimes it gets stuffed with other food.
Becky is better at this than Joyce or Sarah are.
Agreed. But it also isn’t a very good thing to be good at.
Yes. Joyce is adorable (and still a bit annoying) in her matchmaking precisely because she is so incompetent.
A COMPETENT romantic busybody… that’s closer to Billie in highschool than any of the other busybodies we have seen – and that is not a good thing.
We’re actually asking ourselves, WWBD?
(What would Billie do?)
The alpha bongo has only been gone for an hour and we miss her already.
Although, to be fair, we ask ourselves WWBD for the same reason as Sarah – IF Billie would do it we should stop and ask ourselves if WE really should
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/tights/
I take that back. I literally forgot that Billie seemed to have no problem with the machinations we’re seeing play out here.
I was thinking more of Walky and Dorothy, which Billie tried to ship, but was already steaming out of port when she swung the Champange bottle.
And by “no problems” you mean “sex up that outfit, Joyce.”
Yes, but in the right kind of words. I’d ask Joyce “What would you wear if Tristan were at that church?”
Well yeah, but Billie specifically did dress Joyce in that dress, not the frumpy sweater.
Ah, that makes more sense. I was thinking: “what would bacon do?”.
This coming from the woman who wants sausage pizza but toppings on the side because food touching is icky?
but joyce, if bacons are only breakfast food, then how would you eat a BLT, a purely lunch food.
that just don’t make no darn sense.
She probably can’t eat a sandwich without breaking it down to its individual components, though.
Agreed.
1) This is Becky I Could Leave Playing In A Field And Drive Off From territory.
2) Of course “For You” (meaning Jacob). What the hell, is his ‘perfect’ relationship supposed to be objectively ideal for everyone or something?
3) I do happen to agree about Breakfast-for-Dinner being heretical. So there’s that.
2) Of course! If something is perfect for me, that means it’s perfect for everybody! That’s just science!
Becky’s actually repeatedly said, “It’s great for you, just not something I’d enjoy” in these last two comics. >_>
Theres ways of saying things and the infernece that Becky is making is that Jacobs relationship is not so great
Of course Jacob really shouldn’t be listening to Becky at all but because hes a decent guy he is
Then immediately turned around and implied exactly the opposite.
“And Brutus, as we all know, is an honorable man.”
I’m interested in seeing more of Jacob and Raidah- I’m curious as to why Jacob seems to be trying to convince himself here, rather than just shrugging off Becky’s words.
What we have seen of them, they seem to work just fine.
My guess is that that’s just it – they work just fine, but with cute, brave, good, endearingly naive Joyce something ha REALLY clicked for Jacob, poor sod…
“In what universe is that not compelling?”
Remember, Dorothy and Walky started out “for funsies” and that shortly became more.
Jacob and Raidah? We don’t know what, or if, they agreed they were doing together, what label they might put on it. Joyce is perhaps a variable he can’t account for.
If Raidah is everything that he wants in a girlfriend… where is she this Sunday?
Could this also be why, possibly subconsciously, Jacob is trying just a little extra hard for Joyce to like his church service?
Oh, that’s been addressed- whatever else is going on with Jacob and Raidah, he explicitly said that she doesn’t go to church with him. I can’t remember if anything else has been said about her religious leanings but Jacob said they “don’t do church together, considering”. I took that to mean that she is of another religion.
Yup.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/physical-2/
And of course, doing some things together and some things on your own is a healthy part of any relationship.
Thank you! I had it in my mind that she was Muslim, but then I couldn’t pinpoint any page in my mind that mentioned it and I was second guessing why I thought that.
She’s Muslim, so actually attending a church service (as opposed to just visiting) might still be a bit too far, even for a comparatively liberal outlook.
Maybe a girlfriend who goes to church with him isn’t a requirement?
She’s Muslim.
Becky’s powers over other peoples’ relationships is vast and frightening.
Doubt it, this would never work if Jacob’s relationship was *actually* perfect
Oh, c’mon. She’s only made Jacob and Joyce agree on stuff. I’m not seeing marriage in their immediate future.
Definitely something I’ve been thinking. Jacob doesn’t seem too secure in his relationship- although that could just be because of his past relationships, which he’s mentioned to Raidah have been… rocky. But his insistence on Raidah basically fulfilling a “perfect girlfriend checklist” suggests to me that he’s questioning why that wouldn’t be enough, and why it wouldn’t make him happy.
ooo Becky what are you planning????
Jacob: “Structure is important!”
Joyce: “Of course it is!”
Becky: “All according to keikaku.”
She played them perfectly. xD
Man, where is all this Becky hate coming from? Everything she says in today’s strip sounds totally sincere and innocuous to me.
The real question is, why does Jacob feel the need to convince himself his relationship is perfect?
In this and the last strip shes been acting really smug, superior and dismissive and people are reacting to that
Ehh, the whole “.. for you” and generally going on about how Jacob needs things to be perfect bit is kind of off-putting for me? It’s kind of overly familiar, especially considering how Becky just said she barely knows the guy, so idk why she’s making all these assumptions.
The other thing, if she really is on Team Joycob and is trying to push them together or something, that makes three women who are trying to break Jacob’s relationship for their own reasons with no respect to him or his feelings in the matter. And that has its own issues.
“For you” makes perfect sense in context of what she was just talking about last strip.
I wouldn’t call “seems” and “bet 5 bucks” as a ton of assumptions. And Jacob’s the one who said perfect
Becky’s relationship meddling is easily the worst part of what she’s doing here. Especially since this is likely to come crashing down on Joyce at some point.
The whole “Your entire personality is structured and disciplined” is a huge assumption, especially considering that this is the only time these two have honestly interacted besides Becky inviting him to the party and taking his pizza order. And in this context, I’m not really sure how Becky came to that conclusion, other than Jacob behaving at church. You know, like you’re supposed to.
Now, being structured isn’t necessarily bad, but in this context, the connotation makes it seem like it is. Otherwise, what’s the point of pointing it out and then smugly walking away?
She does admit that she doesn’t really know him in yesterday’s strip, though – “Structured, disciplined, whatever. I barely know you.” She knows she’s sort of talking from not much info here. (Not that it helps her much
)
And that’s why I said it’s a bit overly-familiar and off-putting. She doesn’t know him, but she’s going to make assumptions anyways.
I’m pretty sure Becky is doing this deliberately. If people dislike Becky’s method of helping Joyce get some, that’s perfectly valid. But if people are disliking Becky’s actions thinking that it’s just Becky being herself, I’d suggest they examine how different this is from the usual Becky and ask themselves if Becky is prone to smug sass.
I do believe Becky is prone to smug sass, yes.
Not to her friends, and not overly.
Honestly, to me, it feels like she could easily be being smug just because she’s really happy with her badass adorable girlfriend and is just like, “yeah, maybe you’re happy, but YOU don’t have Dina.” And she’s literally being smug not from any ulterior motive but because she’s confident in the belief that what Jacob wants is inherently less awesome that what she already has in her relationship.
For sure the joke from yesterday about “not everyone can have” is just Becky bragging about Dina, which she’s been doing since day 1.
Look, if you’re happy with your little interpretation of the comic, that’s fine, in its own way. Whatever lets you lay your head on the pillow at night, I guess. We’re just not all equipped to see things the same way, so if seeing it as ‘sincere and innocuous’ is what works for you, then you just keep doing that over there. No reason you should have to change just because other people are free of that.
(It’s sort of like that. In the sense of being exactly like that.)
Except you added a lot of little addendums that completely change the meaning (italicized fine, “in it’s own way”, “free of”) , and phrases with really heavy negative connotations like “lets you lay your head on the pillow at night”.
I don’t see any of that in either of these strips, except maybe “for you” and when she brags about Dina.
Honestly, the way I see it is subtle jabs at a facade in the hopes it cracks a bit and lets Joyce in as future partner.
No, it’s jabs at a fundamental part of his personality, in hopes that it’ll be broken down.
I’d disagree that Becky is trying to break Jacob’s personality. She’s jabbing him because she knows Joyce’s buttons and is creating a bonding moment between Joyce and Jacob.
Becky is saving Joyce’s church date in a selfless manner, paying back her best friend just a bit for helping her in her lowest moments.
Whatever. I barely know you. But that’s comfortable for you- work, school, relationships, I betcha it’s all safely comfortable. And that’s fine. Not everyone can see things the same, and you just keep doing you, over there.
(Still not seeing it, huh? Do I literally have to rehash the pinkies-out-for-tea-and-crapping-on-the couch part?)
Alright, I’ll eat it. Becky is definitely being somewhat smug/needling.
honesty is not always the best policy, especially if nobody asked your opinion about someone else’s personal relationship. She’s being sincere, yes, but that’s not necessarily a good thing
Oh absolutely. I don’t think she’s being insincerely rude and obnoxious.
‘Hey, your entire personality is wrong, and you need to get wild, if you want to be really happy’ is not innocuous.
Becky’s being a tad obnoxious here, but I’m mainly frustrated at the comic for seeming (so far, at least) to be framing Becky’s vague needling of Jacob’s lifestyle as some sort of witty manipulation.
It is witty manipulation. But Jacob isn’t the target of the manipulation. Joyce was on a mental road to creating space between her and Jacob, focusing on their differences and what they don’t have in common. Becky is getting Joyce to come to Jacob’s rescue, pitting them both against her.
If bacon is only for breakfast, then adding bacon to lunch or dinner makes it breakfast. Also breakfast is available 24/7.
Take your cast iron frying pan, fry up some bacon in it. Mix up a batch of cornbread mix. Crumble up the bacon into the mix, then pour it in the pan and bake it in the oven as per normal. Best cornbread ever.
Is it just me who thinks the “meets all my list of requirements” is just about the coldest way possible to describe your “perfect” partner..?
I dunno though, I’m an introvert and say (truthfully) that I married my husband because he doesn’t get on my nerves when we spend time together simply by existing.* Which might sound cold unless you understand that much as I love other friends and family I need time away from them to breathe, think and function like a rational, generally pleasant human being and the husband does not infringe on my ability to do these things and he is literally the only person I have ever met who doesn’t other than our daughter and I made her and love her enough that all being well I’m going to bring another human being into the world some point between Christmas and New Year…
*He is a wind-up merchant and frequently gets on my nerves deliberately, in the misguided belief that he’s being funny… But you can’t have everything? (And there are lots of mushy things I could say about him, but nobody wants to read that… Also, he generates body heat and sleeps heavily enough for me to use as a footwarmer in winter when my feet turn into blocks of ice. And he’s virtually 1.5 feet taller than me and doesn’t mind when I ask him to do/get all of the things I would need to otherwise own a ladder/climb furniture to do/get to myself…)
first off, miri congrats on the second baby, though, as someone who knows a few people born near Christmas, birthdays might be a bit iffy for s/he. second, i don’t know if anyone mentioned this, but a good bacon pancake is good anytime, simple as breaking up cooked bacon and sprinkling it on the uncooked top side the pancake, but for me, getting the side where the bacon was put in to come off the pan can be a bongo. (I might just be using enough butter, spray, margarine, etc.) still pretty good with syrup
It’s totally not just you. I suspect that says something of Jacob’s feelings towards his relationship- “she’s exactly what I want, therefor I should be happy with her.” Mind you, I got that only from one panel, but a well meaning and emotionally available person mentioning a checklist does not come across as happy and confident with their relationship.
However, it’s very limited information, so I look forward to more information. Right now Jacob is the character who interests me the most.
I’m pretty sure Becky is picking up the same thing, and that’s what her smile is about in the last panels.
Congrats for the baby, Miri.
She is everything you want
She is everything you need
She is everything inside of you that you wish you could be
She says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But she means nothing to you and you don’t know why…
I… Literally cannot describe what made me fall in love with my fiancee? All I know is that in fact I love her and a lot of things about her. But there was no list of things I wanted from a partner.
item-for-item match is kind of clinical, though.
An item-for-item match for what he is looking for means that everything new or unexpected he discovers about her will be a disappointment.
Great description of how there are things that cannot be placed on a list when it comes to a partner.
Also, congratulations.
Bacon for sure is not for dessert and I’ll be darned if I eat it coated in maple syrup.
Bacon Double Cheeseburger.
Checkmate, Joyce.
“No cheeseburgers! It’s too difficult to disassemble melted cheese from a hot beef patty!”
Becky: Check and mate.
No pre-marital mating!
I’m just going to leave this check here until they marry then.
Joyce, no, bacon is every meal.
Is Becky the smoothest wingman ever? Or am I reading too much into this
Ask Leslie. In another couple of weeks, comic-time.
I felt exactly the same.
She is surely doing this to get Jacob closer to Joyce.
WingWOMAN.
WingGrrl?
Bacon can be sprinkled on dessert as well
https://www.eater.com/2011/3/25/6690439/dennys-introduces-a-maple-bacon-sundae
And it was delicious, except my first one had too much maple syrup and not enough bacon.
Bacon does not belong in deserts, especially not cold ones
Bacon belongs in sandwiches, breakfast, and wrapped around steaks. It should not be sprinkled in perfectly good ice cream
…….
….. what about as a small garnish for a cheesecake? Graham cracker crust and just a hint of maple.
Actually, maple bacon is common in cookies and ice cream. Your mileage may vary, as with everything.
I make a bacon chocolate chip cookie, and also a bacon chocolate ganache cupcake, which disagree.
Wait, is Becky trying to get Joyce and Jacob to happen?
Because Becky sure looks like she’s trying to get Joyce and Jacob to happen.
That’s what I was getting too.
Becky wants her friends to be happy. In her mind, that means arranging for her single friends to be happily partnered. Hence, her rubbing her hands in glee over the prospect of setting up Leslie with Mindy (not that she won’t both take credit, and be happy, if Leslie winds up with Anna).
Becky is not (yet) Jacob’s friend, but no one is closer to her than Joyce. If she thinks that Joyce will be happy with Jacob — and I suspect that she does — she will do what she can to bring them together. (She doesn’t know Raidah from Eve, at this point.)
I have come to realize just now that for me, the Joyce/Jacob ship is a Schroedinger’s ship — it simultaneously does and does not exit.
Yuuuuuup. =D
She’s trying to make it happen, even if she needs to break down Jacob at a base level, to do it.
Iunno, to it me it just feels like she’s trying to show them that they have more common ground than differences RE: the earlier Church thing.
Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Now Jacob this is where you should be ignoring what Becky is saying because you don’t need to be listening to her, you’re choosing to listen to her and choosing to respond
So as much as Becky is being a horses ass (again) its on you for letting her get to you
Becky: Don’t mind me just sturren the pot here.
1-line analysis:
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was perfect… for you.”
There’s a lot packed in here. Like, there’s the shipping element. Becky is pretty honed on things and Joyce has not at all been subtle about her interests and Jacob hasn’t exactly been Mr. Subtle back.
Becky wants Joyce to be happy and if playing the fool gives that a better chance than otherwise, she’s happy to play that role and distract from Joyce’s meltdown.
Beyond that, though, is the specificity. Raidah is perfect for Jacob where he is now. She’s respectful of boundaries, doesn’t force sexual intimacy he’s not ready for, sees him for his mind and kindness rather than just his sexy muscles. She’s a comforting presence that lets him focus on his career while still enjoying romantic connection and companionship.
She’s an ideal partner for where Jacob is. Now, that might be low on passion and intensity, but that’s not always what one needs at every point.
And it’s also a reiteration of her values as well. Jacob likes Raidah because she fits in his life well and he’s romantically attracted to her. She’s a comfort in a track with a lot of stress, especially for non-white wanna-be lawyers. She challenges him, but only in relaxing ways that let him learn more about the world. She’s a rock in a churning river.
But that’s the thing. That’s only the ideal for Jacob. Someone like Joyce, what she craves is kindness, passion, and a sexy chest. Someone she can go head over heels with and lose herself (in a very Christian way of course, *intense blush*).
And for someone like Becky, that sounds like a nightmare. She watched her mother destroyed by “at least its a romantic relationship that’s ‘easy'”.
She watched her and her mom get abused and her mom driving to suicide and herself having to live in fear. The perfect partner for her right now is someone like Dina, because what she needs is open space to be herself without ridicule, where she can say what she’s thinking and have that valued. Where she’s with someone who comes up with wacky things to do and pushes her to be her best self.
And that’s the thing about the “perfect partner”. It shifts with time and context and it can also be a trap. A “perfect partner” in one way may be intensely shitty in others and it can also be a role that feels more like a performance than a truly solid connection.
And the worst is with propriety. Becky’s culture and Joyce’s modeled “perfect” as an outward appearance. The “perfect couple” always smiled and held hands at church functions and volunteered and played their gender roles even when it was killing them.
Which is also probably why she’s so flippant about it. Because Jacob and Raidah are perfect on paper, but Jacob’s eye movement makes me think Joyce might be awakening things in him that’s having him doubt exactly what he wants and what “perfect” actually looks like for him.
Man, what sort of person likes to analyze only one line?
(NOTE for those new to this comment field: I do. I love doing that. In fact, I have made comments based on just a single word.)
Something tells me that Becky is enjoying this situation, specifically being the advocate of chaos in two lives that are perhaps a little too orderly.
In my kitchen, bacon does not get sprinkled on dinner.
It gets wrapped tightly around chicken that’s been stuffed with garlic butter and cheese, but it doesn’t get sprinkled.
Also, the occasional bacon and cheese sandwich
*facepalm* Just, shut up Joyce. For the love of everything, just shut up.
Any hints as to ways to keep automating ads here from causing my screen to refocus on them every few seconds? Makes for very jumpy scrolling. It doesn’t hhappen on my Android tablet, for some reason.
Seriosly no Joyce. Bacon is great in lentil soup and in tortilla soup T.T And in pasta
Becky you sly dark Jedi of romance. High *five*.
I don’t really get why Becky is saying this sort of stuff. Is it just standard slightly rude Becky, just putting down his church and how he does relationships? Or is Becky being a bit sarky because she can tell that Joyce likes him and she still isn’t over Joyce?
You can see Jacob bristling a bit here and I’m not surprised, like the whole ‘for you’re thing seems super smug
I suspect that she’s worked out that Joyce and Jacob have a very mild attraction to each other and she’s trying to provoke them into admitting it by making them think that their current lifestyle is ‘boring’.
SECONDED. Becky is socially engineering the SHIT outta these wacky kids
I certainly hope not because that would be what is commonly called an *absolute dick move*.
I for one wouldn’t invite either of them back. Jacob’s a friggin’ saint.
Becky’s lucky 1) he’s nice and 2) he doesn’t know enough about her to respond in kind.
I’ve been wondering… what’s up with Joyce’s “No foods touching” attitude. Where did that even come from?
I’m pretty sure she’s autistic. (Like me).
I’m AFAB and was sent to subpar schools that didn’t really care how hard things were for me as long as I passed my tests ok, which I did, and Joyce was homeschooled so it makes sense if her autism wasn’t noticed.
Food pickiness, attachment to stuff (like her favorite sweater even with blood splattered on it), difficulty with changes or new things, being “weird” socially (like how quickly she sees everyone as friends, how she doesn’t always see that her interaction isn’t welcome – like with Sarah), oblivious to certain social norms/rules (like how she accidentally flirts with people even if she’s not interested in them, because she doesn’t understand that it’s flirting).
All of this is stuff I’ve experienced myself, and didn’t understand until I found out I’m autistic.
So the aversion to foods touching is a common autistic thing
You might be quite right. I always just chalked up her oddities to being from a fundie community, especially being bad with change considering what Kind of changes she had happen in her life.
Though the food thing is odd even to her family – we’ve seen them joke about it.
I don’t think he’s said, but I wouldn’t be surprised is it’s a (exaggerated?) childhood trait of Willis’s. Joyce is somewhat autobiographical.
That also makes me doubt she’s autistic.
Why would her being autobiographical make her less autistic?
I mean, a lot of autistic adults are still undiagnosed, and even those who are diagnosed don’t usually come out and tell everyone.
Well, it makes her less likely to be intentionally written as autistic and at this point you’re trying to diagnose Willis over the Internet and a step removed.
I haven’t kept up with the research, but about 20 years ago I went to a conference where both Temple Grandin and Tony Attwood spoke. If I’m remembering correctly, this was before the concept of “the autistic spectrum” had really taken off,
The point that Tony Attwood made in his speech, that the audience seemed to really respond to, was when he observed that there did not seem to be any clear dividing lines between “autistic” and “asperger’s” and “odd” and “normal.” And I am just putting words in his mouth at this point, and I wish I could remember his exact turn of phrase, but I can’t.
But his point was that people can exhibit individual traits associated with the autistic spectrum, without necessarily being at some diagnosable point on that spectrum. It would not surprise me if Joyce falls into this category. On the one hand, the seeming preoccupation with rules for sensory phenomena like food and music; on the other hand, she makes friends quickly and easily.
I make friends easily too! … I just can’t do much of the relationship-maintenance stuff afterwards. and it’s not something I have much of any control over; either I’m in manic-pixie-oblivious-girl mode or I’m not. although there was one awesome time when I *did* turn it on intentionally…
I make friends easily too
A lot of autistic people do. And a lot of autistic people don’t.
It’s more accurate to focus on the individual’s inner experience of things (how do they feel with… How do they understand… Do they get overwhelmed by…) Than their “skills”.
Possibly autism, possibly a compulsive disorder, possibly both, possibly she just enjoys taking food apart and separating it as that is how she enjoys it.
So many options to chose from. Almost like Joker’s multiple-choice past XD
It’s a basic childhood thing, carried by some well beyond childhood.
Come to think of it, what does the no-touching crowd do with a bowl of minestrone soup?
Dunk it down the sink, which is where all soup belongs.
the no-foods-touching probably explains the popularity of those stupid little compartment trays of cheese and ham and crackers sold under the name Lunchables
Nah. That’s just convenience. Single serving sized crap that can be sold for far more than if packaged reasonably.
Though the crackers should be separate from the ham and cheese until you’re ready to eat them. Ham and cheese are a bit moist and would make the crackers soggy if you left them packaged together.
Meh, send the kid to school with a PBJ
I’d trade a year’s worth of Lunchables for a vending machine carton of Lance Cheese-on-Wheat cracker sandwiches.
Ok now I seriously can’t decide on my favorite autistic fem character in the Dumbiverse because Dina but also Joyce and they are each a different “kind” of autistic and I love them so much.
And also I’m happy to have autistic representation, especially when it’s not all “white young cishet male” because that we’ve had enough of.
…in what universe is autism and being neurotic basically the same thing?
It’s not, but a few autistic readers have suggested that Joyce fits some of the boxes. See the thread above this one.
It is not, but she has shown several autistic behaviours such as:
*Food separation (it is common for oversensitivity to food textures or flavours).
*Only liking a limited number of foods (Becky said it was like 5 kinds before).
*Preferring plain ‘kid’ food over adult menu items (the latter is 100% more likely to have sauces, dressings, vegetables, spices etc. which can cause sensory overload or outright repulsion due to flavour or texture mixes being incompatible unless it is one of the ‘safe’ foods where everything can be left off as desired e.g. burgers).
*Doesn’t always easily recognise sarcasm or the implication of words or actions (can come across more as simply naivety or social awkwardness or eccentric lines of thought when it does happen, but remember how she asked Mary a question by interrupting her kissing Peter but didn’t connect that action with what she was asking? That’s what happens when you compartmentalise sometimes where things that should connect don’t until stated explicitly).
*The rules her parents and authority have laid out for her seemed like absolutes until confronted with something that outright convinced her otherwise and even then, she tried to bend rules to make them suit people rather than recognising those specific rules were wrong until she HAD to (the whole mess with Ethan, looking in the Bible to try to find sections that said nothing was wrong with Becky) and she will stubbornly enforce bizarre rules (as shown in this strip as who decided foods have set times of the day to be eaten?) and asked if she needed to get her parents to sign a release form for real alcohol while in Jacob’s church due to again, not wanting to break ‘rules’.
*Impressionable which combines with the above point as many autistic people can be easily influenced by what is told to them by other people, sometimes even if they have no reason to actually believe them (such as Joyce believing Sarah would kill her because Joe said it was inevitable).
*Fixation and attachment to preferred items of clothing even if teased or mocked (frequently wears sweater vests, has worn the boots Billie bought her consistently, often likes striped sweater vests, and has a clear fondness of orange and pink colours being incorporated in outfits).
*Difficulties with understanding boundaries (she doesn’t understand why wanting to brush Sal’s hair so strongly is weird, will meddle in relationships if asked to, wants to try to fix every problem even if it is none of her business to).
*Touch sensitivity (she hates the showers because of what she might touch with her feet).
So like, while she isn’t definitely autistic, she does have enough groundwork where I would say the possibility is there (especially as these things are all things I myself have dealt with or still deal with, I absolutely despise that ‘adult food’ pretty much always has bits in it personally as three times this has meant at special events I went home hungry while no one else did).
Look I respect the…whatever this is. I respect the right of readers to find ways of connecting to characters they like. But as someone that has been incorrectly diagnosed with a spectrum disorder by a litany of armchair psychologists just because of quirks I inherited from my immigrant parents, you’ll forgive me, perhaps, for being of the opinion that diagnosing Joyce with anything on that basis alone is complete and utter horseshit.
This is different because
1. She’s a fictional character
2. I’m actually autistic and not just going by stereotypes, but by actual autistic experiences that I and my fellow autistics have.
I agree with Ronnie that this is different because:
1) She is fictional, our diagnosing her will not cause her psychological harm in any shape or form – she will not be forced to go to therapy, told she is broken or otherwise be harmed by such a diagnosis which is very different from real people where it can have a negative impact to diagnose them based on a few actions.
2) Literally all the things I listed were things I myself deal with or have dealt with because I am autistic specifically. There are others, but I listed ones where I could remember examples of from Joyce.
But I do sympathise as you should never have been diagnosed just on the basis of being quirky when there are behavioural, genetic or familial reasons for why you would be like that. It is unfortunate but psychologists still have biases and don’t always look for other explanations when they should – it can be an INDICATOR for autism if you are quirky (I would call myself eccentric, not just because of how I act, but my ways of thinking and connecting things are eccentric compared to other people) but that is definitely not the end all be all of whether someone is or not.
So I am sorry that you went through that, but I also still think there is no harm in doing so to a fictional character as long as it isn’t based on harmful stereotypes and as long as there is basis for such a claim that isn’t just ‘I want them to be’.
Like I would argue someone to the death for calling Mary a psychopath or sociopath (ASPD is the correct term for sociopaths but some people with it prefer to call themselves psychopaths or sociopaths even though the former isn’t recognised as an actual condition medically while ASPD is) because that is usually based on Mary being a bad person that does bad things and has stereotyped traits and not actual criteria or actual issues people with ASPD have.
But I don’t see anything wrong with going ‘Joyce could be autistic’ because that is more based on actual experiences that actual people have and do still have.
yeah, I’m glad I don’t have that many food issues (I know several other programmers who do). being hypersensitive to bitterness and texture is quite enough for me; I’m glad I can enjoy most other things about food.
(and, like, being able to comfortably eat 99% of pizza options is useful too 
) … although, I do wish it wasn’t so easy to get sick of eating the same thing too often. but, like, I spent *years* (…over a decade maybe?) occasionally trying olives and being sad that I couldn’t like them. I don’t know why I wanted to like olives so much, but it wasn’t until I was in my late 20’s that some switch flipped and they became non-overwhelming.
damn, now I’m thinking about food again
I’m trying not to eat sugary things right now, they’d feed the evil bacteria attacking my throat. …oh! right! olives are in the fridge. 
speaking of bizarre rules… I found it fascinating that some of Brandon Sanderson’s books have rules about food based on *gender* (eg. spicy food was only for adult men). It really shows just how weird and silly gender-based rules seem when you haven’t been raised to see them as normal.
Yeah, I hate that I get addicted to eating food in one set way for a few months but then I can complete burnout and no longer want to eat it ever again for all of eternity even though it was so good before.
I am also eternally sad about things I can’t enjoy but wish I could like hotdogs, honey and strawberries because the former two favourite characters of mine from childhood enjoyed (Sonic the Hedgehog and Winnie the Pooh), the latter I just hate how relentlessly good they smell because the actual taste makes me retch.
And yeah, rules like that are odd.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGH BECKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY I have been pretty sure this was what you were doing for the past few comics but AUGH you are unreasonably excellent.
LOOK AT HER. look at her slytherining this WHOLE interaction. Becky. Becky you are DANGEROUS. you I just I don’t OMAN.
Tbh Becky would not be able to manipulate like this if Jacob was 100% confident in both his relationship and self.
I’m really wondering why we’re seeing so many PO’d Joyce pictures in the preview panels is that Joyce is going to have a falling-out with Becky over her interference. This would be ironic, of course, because Joyce has the same bad habits; it’s different when you’re the target, of course!
Becky: *Vaguely criticizes Jacob’s lifestyle*.
Joyce & Jacob: *React negatively to this odd behaviour*.
Way too friggin’ many of you: OMG you guys Becky’s such a goddamn mastermind.
Don’t you mean way too friggin’ many: Becky is grating/toosmug/disgusting?
Can’t imagine why anyone would think Becky’s good at manipulation. It’s not like she played Robin like a fiddle and is still changing policy using Robin’s online accounts or anything. Nope, totally doesn’t know what she’s doing.
Robin is not hard to trick. The strip where Becky gets Robin to hand over her phone is the same one with the punchline that Robin might not know the onomatopeia for a cow’s mooing.
Also not actually confirmed whether or not Becky’s actually succeeding in any sort of policy.
Becky has already negotiated an arms reduction treaty with Liechtenstein.
Is it me or does Joyce’s outburst in panel 6 read like comment #33596 in an argument that she and Becky have been having on when one should eat Bacon since they were about 13 years old or something?
Just part of the running family joke about Joyce’s pickiness.
It didn’t occur to me, but now that you mention it I think you’re right
Huh. I think this is the first time I’ve seen Jacob even remotely annoyed.
Savory food for breakfast is for special occasions. Breakfast is a time for sweet food.
Noooo. I have a “Nothing sweet before noon” rule. Sugar makes me queasy that early.
no Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs? – what amazes me, looking back, is that kids would be liable to sprinkle sugar on their Frosted Flakes – like bringing coals to Newcastle
Hey, Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs are kinda bland until you scoop sugar on them.
What you like is what you like, but, globally speaking, yours is a minority opinion.
It just hit me that this very obvious display of smugness could be deliberate from Becky’s side. By taking jabs at Jacob and Joyce and sarcastic remarks on how they’re “structured”, she could be making herself an antagonist with the goal of giving Jacob and Joyce someone to unite against to make them realize how much they have in common.
Alternatively, this could just be Becky being young.
When I was 16, I was convinced I knew everything I would ever need to know. That I was too advanced for school and that my experiences up to that point in life were enough to carry me through adulthood.
When I was 17, I had come to the realization that, okay, maybe I didn’t know everything, but I knew I had become a lot smarter from that realization.
When I was 18, I knew I wasn’t too advanced for school and that just because I could legally vote and drink beer, didn’t mean I was an adult, but I still felt very secure that I’d recognize what being an adult meant when I got there.
When I was 19, I accepted that I didn’t know everything and also knew the realization didn’t actually make me smarter. But I still believed I knew enough to pass out valuable advice to other people and that I could see ways their lives could improve better than they did.
When I was 21, I came to the horrifying realization that: “Sweet Chocolate Satan. I don’t know SHIT!”
Becky to me seems like a very realistic representation of someone who is still growing up. Yes, that means there are going to be parts of her personality that are going to be obnoxious, overconfident and at times selfrighteous. Part of becoming more mature is to recognize the flaws in our personality and the need for adjustment. I don’t think I’m alone in looking back at who I was 10 years ago and not being proud of what I see.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. – Mark Twain
I think she’s just trying to get Jacob to feel less sure of his relationship with Raidah. Playing winglady for Joyce.
It’s super fun when you have kids and then realize your parents probably had NO idea what they were doing at first either.
HEADSHOT.
I thought bacon belonged crumbled up in green beans in your grandmother’s casserole that you ate to be polite on Thanksgiving.
green bean casserole exists to siphon off the excess French’s fried onions, lest there’s an overload and the stockpile goes into critical mass
Pretty sure “bacon is a breakfast food” only caught on in the first place because of a marketing campaign, because there was a surplus of bacon.
I thought there was now a bacon shortage? Or was that an internet rumor?
Oh, Joyce…
It just now occurred to me that, since Joyce doesn’t like her food touching, it’s possible she doesn’t eat sandwiches, and in particular burgers, so she’s never had a good bacon cheeseburger, which explains this nonsense.
Joyce does eat burgers. They have ketchup and mustard on them and nothing else.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/onions/
(I have a relative who is like Joyce in this regard, and as I understand it one food item can be made of several ingredients, and this doesn’t affect the rule against touching.)
Take a thick slice of chilli cheese bread and slather it with wholegrain mustard. Now cook up some bacon until it’s crispy but not burned. You want a fast melting cheese on top of that and then another slice of the bread (this one lightly toasted while the other stays cold) to top it off.
You’re all welcome.
Oh, and pre-10AM only? Is Brunch against Joyce’s religion?
also beef stew, because…. touching
An item-for-item match for what you’re looking for? How romantic! You make her sound like a car.
A fine line exists between Structure, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Bacon sandwiches with butter.
I got those at a cafeteria when I was a kid. Basically a BLT on toasted white bread, hold the lettuce and tomato.
I occasionally ate peanut butter and butter sandwiches in kindergarten. I loved it at the time but now it sounds SO gross.
Back when I worked in the middle of nowhere and lived in a work camp which refused to admit people working night shift might not want breakfast for supper, I would sometimes have toast, bacon and tomato sandwiches for my evening (for me) meal.
The Door Stop:
http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/cd4f8db33590446aa6e2817eb5f57f21/bacon-sandwich-on-doorstop-white-bread-g12xje.jpg
No toast, just thick slabs of bacon, bread and lashings of butter. So much it drips down your chin.
Mug of milky tea or strong coffee extra.
I remember ordering two or three ‘rashers’ of bacon at a breakfast in Bermuda, and learning that there is a definition for “rasher” that has it meaning multiple slices, said lesson being in the form of a plate that held Finally Enough Bacon.
Joyce is just plain wrong in that last panel.
This storyline is getting really uncomfortable (which is good for the viewer) because some are looking at Becky being all adorable in her machinations and Joyce being adorable because shes all flustered
But what is happening is that Jacob did a good thing, a nice thing in fact by inviting Joyce to his church and in return Joyce acted extremely rudely and now Becky is attempting to manipulate him all with the end game (I’m guessing) of making Jacob break up with Raidah so he can start a relationship with Joyce
If this all blows up in their faces, and I hope it really does, then theres no way Jacob would want to have anything to do with Sarah, Joyce or Becky and hopefully Sarah has a good, long, hard, look at herself about this because her behaviour while not being the same as Joes behaviour towards her is certainly not that far off
Eating bacon for breakfast is savagery. It’s strictly for lunch or dinner.
In fact, anything that’s fried is not breakfast, unless it’s spent a night in the fridge afterwards. The only acceptable ways to heat breakfast is through boiling or microwaving.
That’s right.
Pancakes. Are not. Breakfast.
Fight me.
No fried eggs ?? {schedules Fatwah for the next 33rd of Nonuary}
Only if they’ve had time to cool down in the fridge.
I really like fried tomatoes, button mushrooms or thinly chopped onions on toast for breakfast. Not on high temperatures, mind. Mushrooms and onions should be fried slowly.
Becky: Look, Joyce! Bacon-wrapped mozzarella sticks!
Joyce: *averts eyes* NO! That is an ABOMINATION, unclean in the… *glances at bacon-cheesy goodness* … eyes of the… *licks lips* God, those smell good….
Well fancy that, I’m eating bacon sprinkled on my dinner right now!
Mmmmm.
Bacon doesn’t belong at breakfast, it belongs in the trash
My older brother would agree with you. He cannot eat any kind of red meat. Not a religious or ethical thing, he just literally finds the taste nauseating.
He’s a really good cook otherwise, which is no doubt why my sister-in-law puts up with a mostly red-meat-less diet.
Me? To misquote an often-misquoted Ben Franklin (and despite the fact that I am agnostic), pork is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Even if you never ate the bacon, and who am I kidding, you can do good things with a hot frying pan with some bacon grease in it. Seared apple slices with a squeeze of lemon and a dusting of cinnamon. Sauteed spinach.
From a friend of mine who cooked at some feminist/lesbian/hippy festivals in her youth: “Tofu isn’t bad if you fry it in bacon grease.”
Tofu can be weirdly pleasant in a stir fry. Not that anyone sane starts in on stir-frying to cook tofu, but once you’re into it, it’s a nice change of pace from the usual main ingredients.
I prefer my bacon in my burger, thank you very much!