Discussion (185) ¬
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social ⋅ 8hDavid M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 8d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 8d
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social ⋅ 21d
Gwen Snyder is uncivil @gwensnyder.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Ash Parrish @adashtra.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Katie @katiestp.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
Hunter S Schafer @bolt451.bsky.social ⋅ 4d
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(he/him)
⚧
“GRAPE backwash… technically… after a sense”
“IT FERMENTED”
“yeah, that’s kinda how it’s made”
…
WEEKLY communion? Ours were the first Sunday of the month ONLY… budget cuts? =p
My church always had it in separate little plastic cups. I guess here if one person gets sick, the whole flock does, huh?
God forbid someone sneeze into the communal communion cup. I think it was one of the Commandments.
Fun thing is that my family insisted I take the Eucharist every week.
I was very sickly growing up.
I managed to knock half the Catholics in my grandmother’s neighborhood out of commission because my phlegmy slime was on the only goblet they had.
They just had us dip the bread in
Were they at least the nasty, racist, homophobic old people that you don’t have to feel sorry over getting sick or were the the nice, kind old people who you feel bad about?
Also- Gravatar win! Perfect one for your response!
Bit of Column A, but of column B. Like, most of an entire neighborhood, the good and the bad, laid out and groaning in agony from the flu I was beginning to shrug off. I’d almost have felt bad if it weren’t so freaking funny.
39, 39. I hadn’t even realized that it worked so well until you pointed it out.
As much as God may want you there, I don’t think he minds you not sending him a bunch of people weeks or years early!
The last time I was in church we had the same thing happen, the poor priest had to continue with the tradition despite it being during the S.A.R.S. epidemic. Even with Papal permission, the ceremony went unchanged.
You’re much less likely to find horribly intolerant Catholics than other brands of Christianity. Not to say Catholics don’t have their own assholes, cause we do, it just seems like the concentration is less.
I went to a Catholic high school, and ha ha ha ha ha ha
I lived in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood, and ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha.
Went to a Catholic middle school, and hahaha, haha, ha ha ha ha, h a h a
I went to an evangelical grade school and then a Catholic high school, so I can legitimately compare them. The kids in the Catholic school were generally *far* more chill about it. There were some exceptions, of course.
I suspect it depends on the branch of christianity.
My family went to the United Church of Canada, which is not an evangelical in any way, and was probably more ‘forward thinking’ than any other mainstream church (including having openly gay ministers).
The sharing of it was sort of the point, to a lot of people. My church had the little separate cups you could ask for if you knew you were already sick, but still wanted to participate.
yeah God can’t do shit about germs
I’ve been to churches that were 1st Sunday of the month & Holidays only, and also ones where Communion was weekly. I always thought those churches were… um, “trying too hard”. Like, “look at us! We’re HOLY!”
Didn’t one of the Pauline letters rail against people who did communion over and over again so they could get drunk, or did I hallucinate that bit?
This sounds vaguely familiar
Yeah, pretty sure one did.
Weekly? Shit, my church had it several times a week. I don’t know about holiness. Maybe just they like wine.
My parents do it every morning, but with toast and grape juice. Sometimes they give the cats some.
The church my school took us to apparently did it weekly.
Usually more evangelical churches do communion once a month or even once a quarter (a Southern Baptist thing) and more traditional/liturgical churches do weekly. So, I’m not surprised that Jacob’s church does it ever week, but I am surprised Joyce’s does.
Growing up Polish Catholic, ours was every week, but only the priest touched the goblet. He would dip the wafer in the wine and then place it on your tongue.
Priests used to be obliged to say Mass every day, once exactly, unless they had a dispensation.
NOW KISS.
I think that this is very possible and I also think that it is not going to have a positive outcome for Joyce, at least in terms of her emotional well-being and self-image, no matter how much it satisfies Sarah and Joyce’s reaction confuses Becky.
I think a factor as to why Joyce would feel turmoil is that she still thinks she’s trying to hook Jacob up with Sarah. If she has feelings for Jacob, she would be hesitant to act on them because she’d be worried that she’d be hurting Sarah in the process, unaware that Sarah has given up on Jacob and now wants Jacob to be with anyone else.
That first panel is going to take on a life of its own.
It’s already leapt off my screen and is now hogging the couch and the remote. And wants to know if I have any grape juice in the fridge.
It’s also asking you for more cowbell.
Good thing that didn’t happen a couple stories ago, or it would have stuck a
n“AIDEYOU” sign on your lamp and baked muffins with no pants on.The rest of the strip was good, but there was no way it could live up to that first panel.
The only tragedy is that it went to waste in-universe. Basically any cast member that is friends with Joyce would’ve gotten endless amusement from a straight line like that.
I dunno, Becky would have gotten more amusement out of a gay line like that.
I can see it now. Add some sunglasses and “Dat Tushy” on the bottom.
Yes, it will: https://imgur.com/04vCiTC
Oh my god, the flirting is just too much~
What are you talking about? This is how I (a Protestant) talk with my Catholic friend all the time.
…my Catholic friend who was in theater.
…oh my
…and also he introduced me to tfs, so…
…damn I missed my prime window of opportunity, we’re in different colleges now
Don’t you mean… theater?
“Sometimes when we flirt
Our intentions are overt
And I have to roll my eyes
And smile.”
In my own college freshman year, my roommate always had his radio tuned to a soft rock station, and “Sometimes When We Touch” was omnipresent. As was “Gone Too Far” (“It had to be you!”).
I need upvoting for this kind of posts.
This is adorable.
Seconded.
Very much so.
They’re too perfect for each other
They are so perfect for each other, they cannot be allowed to get together.
First panel “Whoa, Joyce has developed total self-awareness!”
This…this is definitely flirting, yes? Are either of them aware of it?
It’s so rare that I actually actively ship something (rather than being ambivalent to whatever happens), but I’m shipping them haaaaaaaaard.
I’m gonna say no. Jacob would’ve shut it down on his end, and Joyce would’ve short-circuited.
Your assignment is to compare and contrast “flirting” and “friendly banter”.
I would like to give this assignment to several people I know.
Ime, they mainly differ in body language and facial expression. Those eyebrows in panels 3 and 5, those say flirting to me.
No they differ way more than that, unless you want to see flirting in places where it’s not there. Besides eyebrows are one of the main points of expression in comics, they’d be doing the same thing in banter.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on that point, as those eyebrows look one “oh yeah, whatcha gonna do about it?” from launching into a full on fanfic trope.
*to me, that is
Now *I* want some grape juice–
yeah I ship em
This is, honestly, the first time I’ve gone, “…okay, yeah, I can see it.” But now, I can really see it.
It’s being actively shoved down our perception filters.
What I want to know is when, in the spirit of Trying New Things, Joyce meets a Bible translation other than King James.
Willis said on Tumblr that Joyce uses the NIV.
The BEST V.
Damn boy, they gonna fuck.
But only after an appropriate-length courtship, proposal, and lovely marriage ceremony
And after Joyce is sure Sarah is also happily married.
Coupled with the bride’s mother objecting to her marrying into the high church.
they gonna FUCK:
Fight over
Unimportant minutia
Contained within the
King James Bible
Wow, I didn’t realize Christianity was so FUCKed up.
(That’s a lie, yes I did.)
You are telling me that it isn’t fucked up when a rib woman damns humanity by eating a magic apple from a magic tree because a talking snake told her to? Oh and then that was solved by the offspring of a pedophillic force that impregnated a young girl at Xmas time. Then not only did that guy get killed by a dick move by his own followers, he rose to the heavens after 3 days of respawn lag but says love me 2000 years later because I can feel it or I will fucking spank you and hand you over to be roasted alive in Hell by a guy who was cast out of heaven cos he angered my dad.
And THAT’S before you start reading the Book of Revelation.
*Reads alt text*
*Pledges to read all of Joyce’s lines in Christopher Walken’s Voice from now on*
For real comedy, read them in William Shatner’s voice.
The strip loaded slowly enough that I just saw the first speech bubble at first and thought Joe was going to be creepy. Glad it was just Joyce being creepy.
Panel 1 is how I feel when Jacob wears a suit.
Kidding aside, this is too cute. I like that we’re getting to see Jacob’s playful side, plus someone Joyce is getting comfortable with enough to have a bit of theological joking with.
I’m a bit curious how Joyce and Danny would get along. She’s certainly more religiously strict than he is, but he’s still one of the more Christian characters in the main cast.
We have been down that train before. It gets scary. Admittedly Joyce didn’t have any character development yet, but still best left to the annals of time.
Damn, that’s some masterclass Flirtamancy. When did you even learn that Joyce? Becky-osmosis, maybe?
They are too cute. I love them.
Well, no shit Joyce, you’ve been thirsting for quite a while.
*suggestive eyebrow wiggle*
*plays the Welch’s Grape Juice jingle on a nearby car radio*
Welch’s squelches that thirst!
oh my
Since I can’t find said jingle on YouTube in spite of hundreds of other such commercials available…
*plays “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” instead*
Okay, this is what I’m talking about.
It cannot be a coincidence this is running on the 30th/31st, with *that* first panel.
“I thirst…FOR BLOOD (of christ, you know)”
Harry potter and the goblet of backwash.
Harry Potter and the half blood wine (the other half is spit)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Contagion.
Harry Potter and The Ghost Map.
(Non-epidemiologists will have to trust me, this is funny.)
Harry Potter and the Communion of Secretions.
and then they
feed it to the fire ants
Plot twist!
I THIRST… FOR FEMURS.
That first panel is clear evidence Joyce has been possessed by the evil.
The rest of the strip strengthens the evidence.
I know, right? I don’t think we’ve seen that expression in the last panel since Other/Evil Joyce.
On one hand this is super cute but on the other I hope Sarah’s plan doesn’t go through
I really like the back and forth banter between these two.
Every time I see Joyce and Jacob arguing like this it makes me ship them even more.
They’re going to bang.
I mean, they’ll get married first, and then they’re going to bang.
Eventually, one day, they will bang
I don’t know how to feel! On the one hand, we have this comfortable flirting, which is excellent shipping material. On the other hand, we have the fact that Sarah and Joyce’s plan is just. so. terrible.
*sighs dramatically*
I still just don’t see it actually happening. If Raidah and Jacob break up it would be for there own reasons. Willis just love to troll us. I’m waiting for the earth shattering kaboom
I can see Jacob and Raidah realizing they don’t have much in common and want different things, and breaking up, and Jacob then going on a date with Joyce, and them hitting it off really well, but Joyce trying to hide it from Sarah for a while because she feels bad about what she sees as stealing Jacob out from under her; but then Sarah finds out while Jacob is there and is all, like, “Hooray! Our plan to break up Jacob and Raidah worked! –Um.” And then Jacob finds out about the plot and figures Joyce has just been playing him for a fool all along, and she and Sarah have just been messing with him because of Sarah’s hate for Raidah, which means that Raidah was right about Sarah all along… and it all goes downhill from there.
Calling it now.
To be fair, this is why my church went for a healthy in-between. Tear off a bit of bread from the loaf (real home-baked stuff, none of those dry wafers, with a gluten-free option because we’re all hippies) and then you dip it in your choice of either wine or grape juice. (both served in goblets) Still more formal than crackers and little paper cups, but none of the issues of putting your mouth on the same goblet as everyone else in the congregation.
And you crumble Jesus body all over the floor?
scnr
If if weren’t for Raidah, these two would be dating inside of a week (in in-comic time).
But if it weren’t for Raidah, there wouldn’t be Teh Drama if and when Jacob breaks up with her…for Sarah’s roommate, no less. If that happens, Raidah is going to be about as cool with that as she was with Sarah calling Dana’s parents.
All right alt-text, you win this round. I’ve heard this reference a thousand times, but I have no idea what that line is a reference to. There. I admitted it.
I think SNL
Yes, an SNL sketch about the song Don’t Fear the Reaper.
Arguably the most well-known SNL sketch of all. Blue Öyster Cult is still being ribbed about it all the time, and they had nothing to do with it. Bruce Dickinson is still being ribbed about it all the time, and he was only responsible for production of a “best of” CD including that song rather than the original production.
I mean, it’s a good song. And there are not a lot of songs featuring the cowbell.
Not to mention that More Cowbell’s Bruce Dickinson refers to himself as the Bruce Dickinson. If anyone had a claim to being the Bruce Dickinson, it would be the lead singer of Iron Maiden, who is most definitely not the same person.
… I feel old. Old enough to remember when Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World were SNL sketches.
There are lists of “Cowbell Songs” – any such list is invalid if it does not contain the first
Upvote for Benny Goodman.
I really appreciate the punchline. I don’t know why I’m so impressed by it but apparently no one else was.
What punch? All I see discussed is grape juice and wine.
Oh geez, for a science-denier Joyce is getting a lot of CHEMISTRY here
I think chemistry’s one of the sciences she doesn’t deny.
…. you know, so long as we aren’t talking evolving DNA chemistry, or maybe climate-change chemistry.
Nuclear decay sequences are chemistry*, and that includes all sorts of varieties of radiometric dating that indicate that the earth isn’t just a few thousand years old.
*There’s a bit of a chem-physics border area that contains them, but if you count that as part of both fields (which seems to be standard) that means it’s chemistry.
Yeah, I love how they’re BONDING
For a split second I thought she said she had THE thirst and this was about to get all Twilight n stuff… Nice dodge.
so if a certain guy ended up crushing on our little joy joy how fast would sara try to kill her/
Sarah set this up!
I have a thirst for RELIGION COMIX.
Hooray, I am sated for now.
Religion comix?
….
Joe reads Chick Tracks. …. Joe is Disappoint.
Grew up on religious comics…and Batman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Chest_(comics)
Much better than Chick Tracts. And you could read them at school.
Not too hard, ANYTHING is better than Chick Tracts.
I don’t know. We got an awful lot of laughs out of Chick Tracts. Nothing like unintentional comedy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Chick hadn’t driven more people away from Christianity than he scared back into it.
And I’m sure people have already noted this, but it’s so very nice to see Joyce feeling comfortable with a man whom she hadn’t known before.
At some point she’ll realize how much she likes him, and she’ll get all fermished, but for now I bet she just feels so refreshed.
Am I the only one who wants this relationship to remain platonic
I’m okay with either. (Shipping-agnostic?)
Why do you want them to not date?
No.
What are you talking about, this isn’t the abstract idealization of a relationship
Oh you meant the other kind of platonic
Well, it’s a coming of age comic, we can expect this relationship to be FORMative.
How? Jacob isn’t that old and Joyce certainly isn’t a young boy … ah, you mean the modern, re-imagined “platonic” … how quaint!
Little did Sara and Billie know the flirt weapon they have unleashed.
“Psst! Did you manage to overhear their conversation?”
“I dunno? Something about swapping spit?”
“VICTORY!”
“Sarah, I can now report with confidence that Joyce and Jacob have definitely reached first base.”
“Suck it, Raidah!”
“I do not follow.”
that last panel… is joyce holding a wallet the colour of the walls, or making some weird hand gesture?
I think her right hand is miming holding a chalice, and the left hand is pointing at it.
Invisible backwash goblet.
That makes sense. I was thinking wallet for the vending machine. You know, to get juice.
That first panel is so exploitable.
Wish I could post without having to walk outside to crib IGA Wi-Fi. Probably an IP issue.
My IP was getting DNC no-connection errors for about an hour this morning, UK time. It could be that Willis’s host was having technical problems.
Oh nos! Joyce put food on other food, and abandoned her rules for how to live her life! She’s completely untethered! (Just how big a sip did she take from that cup?)
This is all platonic mutual testing, teasing and flirting, I’m perfectly sure.
Wow these two are adorable together, of course this is offset by the fact that the whole scenario was engineered to try and screw over Raidah (that was her name right? pretty sure it was) in a petty move by Sarah, but hey, it’s still cute
I like seeing these two together, they seem to enjoy each others company. But the preview-panels from the Dumbing of Age tumblr makes me worry that this scene is not going to last long.
My current reading of the preview panels is that something is going to happen that’s going to leave Joyce with an emotional hangover. That and a sense of guilt for her lack of self-control is going to leave her very grumpy tomorrow, in-universe.
Hey, no spoilers. I am enjoying this, please don’t ruin my mood with foreshadowing.
Wow! Those two have gone full-out with the flirty behaviour, haven’t they? This is the sort of behaviour that can have unexpected consequences!
Could lead to dancin’!
(Requests Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” from the muzak)
When you think about the differing roles, you’d have to re-write the lyrics as “Daughter of a Fundie Man”.
“Son of a Preacher Man” has unpleasant connotations in this comic. We’ve had one.
The only one Amber cut the taint off
Was the son of a preacher man
yes he was
he was
mmmm oh yes he was
I never drink… wine
Nope. No budding relationship or flirting. I don’t see it. You people in the comments are obviously delusional. [/sarcasm]
Touche, Joyce. Touche.
“Get a room you two!”
Is pressing itself against the inside of my lips…
You know what I’m expecting. I’m expecting Jacob to give Joyce the gentlest, chastest and most brotherly kiss on the cheek imaginable. Poor Joyce’s sense of guilt is going to do the rest.
I don’t want to ship this but I kinda do.
Sassy Joyce is best Joyce
She is, she truly is.
I’ll admit, I kept drinking the grape juice to Kiddush for a while even aftervi was allowed to drink the wine
Joyce’s smiles with Jacob’s is probably the most effortless flirting I’ve ever seen her do.
And I saw her married to Walky.
That’s because she’s not trying.
Me in the comments after every strip: “Ctrl+F : C-E-R-B”
Nothing yet, today. :<
Guess I'll have to check back later for Cerberus's commentary.
I tried that and found yours.
I’m not the only one who does that!
Neither am I!
Nor me!
*mutters, joins the line*
You’re not the only one
I think Joyce is starting to forget she was playing match maker for Sarah.
“This is my blood, although by the time it gets to Judas over there, it will be mostly backwash. I’m sure that won’t cause any problems.”
Finally someone gets classical (Pavlovian) conditioning correct! The unconditioned response (desire for grape juice) has been assigned to the conditioned stimulus (Sunday) because it was paired to the unconditioned stimulus (presence of grape juice). You wouldn’t believe how often people call operant conditioning ‘Pavlovian.’
Ooo, sassy bickering. Full steam ahead!
Dont worry, Joyce. Thanks to the transubstantiation it isn’t backwash anymore. Its blood!
If only they had attended the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – that backwash would be Marinara Sauce
This Halloween…Joyce has a mighty thirst…for BLOOD.
Preferably Welch’s brand.
For all the freakout moments she had today Joyce is interacting really well.
Those expressions.
These two are getting a bit under each other’s nails.