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I’m sure that their church taught EVERY girl in their youth group that changing is a good thing and that they should embrace and welcome it at every opportunity as a blessing from God.
There’s a comic – an early Something*Positive, I think – where the protag is babysitting, and informs the wee lad that his parents are fattening up to be eaten, and the culling happens at a place called “kindergarten”. Cut to this exchange in the final panel:
I, um, really don’t like that this discussion, whether it needed to happen now or not, is happening under the influence of Booster’s discount psychoanalysis session, which I guess Becky isn’t going to, y’know, *doubt* a little before using it as a foundation for this whole talk?
I think Becky can tell something’s up with Joyce, but Wacky Mask Becky hasn’t been able to draw it out yet.
Meanwhile, Joyce is struggling with a potent cocktail of survivor’s guilt (Mike, maybe Toedead to an extent), religious doubt (*gestures broadly at the everything*), identity crisis (“who am I now that I’m not practicing?”), and imposter syndrome (“Becky still believes, and she’s been through much worse than me, so what’s my problem?”) That last bit is holding her back from working through this with the one person out of the main cast who can most relate to her. (I’d imagine Jocelyne would understand too, but she’s supporting cast.)
Fair with regards to Becky accepting it, but not fair with regards to Becky using it as a foundation for a discussion, because the point is less whether her analysis was accurate and more whether her analysis was morally okay or remotely decorous.
Reminds me of Buffy where all the characters were keeping secrets so they wrote in an episode where everyone sang their secrets out while under the influence of a demon. Really moved the plot along.
Am I the only one that thinks this is giving Becky too much credit? Like, I get the initial thought process. Becky is shouting about religion more than usual, and she knows Joyce better than anyone else. But let’s be real—Becky is often just straight-up annoying, and not only because she’s doing it strategically. And if she knew Joyce so well, wouldn’t she know that this kind of prodding is not the best way to get to her? Wouldn’t she know that she would have better luck pretending to be less interested in god than by loudly emphasizing her devotion, which is, as we see, just making Joyce retreat further into her emotional hole? Or even that straight conversations like this would work better?
I dunno. It’s a fair theory, but people seem to be getting totally on-board to the point of fact and…I just don’t see it.
Becky brought down a Congresswoman’s reelection by hacking her Twitter account while in the same room with her. I’m prepared to give her a hell of a lot of credit.
… but I can also see her not knowing what was wrong.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it a slam dunk; I think her behavior is consistent with trying to get a friend to open up about a touchy topic she doesn’t necessarily know how to broach, but it’s not the only explanation possible if the story was actually using the setup for something else later.
As for her specific approach… It seems totally Becky to me. Joke, prod, overact, anything it takes to get the door open without having to just come out and say, “Hey, are you still going to church?” – because that’s a serious conversation, and serious conversations are scary. It’s a lot easier to talk about an important topic when you can pretend it was all a joke if it looks like it’s about to go wrong.
That said, my primary reason for believing she knows is mostly meta – Becky seems to be repeatedly coming back to this issue in a way that’s fairly specific and explicitly being shown to the reader, while Joyce was just established to have been hiding her newfound lack of faith from her best friend. The fact that Becky has done this multiple times in the last real-world month suggests that it’s acting as a setup for something, and it ties in pretty obviously with Joyce’s recent issues. But the obvious answer isn’t always the right one, and I can see other directions the plot could take this setup.
As that jerk Booster said, Joyce is afraid of admitting something she has always been. Joyce doesn’t hear the voice of god, and she is afraid to confess that truth because religion was a constant she and Becky could rely on.
Joyce, she is dating a Atheist (I think, cant remember exactly what they are), I doubt it would take her very long at all to except your change of world views.
I don’t think she’s afraid that Becky will stop liking her, but she is afraid of losing something she considers integral to who she is, and Becky is the person who has known her the longest, and the closest person to her with whom she shares her faith.
Maybe, but religious people sometimes take it very personally when someone stops believing their shared god(s) even exist. It the undermines whole faith/born-again narrative.
Atheists get weird around apostates? Please would you provide some examples to help guide my searches on this? I would like to learn more if you are willing to share.
Of course raising the question provides an example case, but I guess I’m curious if you mean atheists get weird about it in a different way, or if its just the curiosity about the apostates journey you mean.
I mean, I suppose it would depend for me only if the apostate had abandoned one religion for another, vice for atheism. (with the former not really being of any interest)
For the latter my curiosity is just about what guided their decision. Since I was raised areligiously by atheists I was left to my own devices to figure out religion and ended up first agnostic (arguably a strong agnostic) and later settled comfortably into atheism, however, it always bugs me that I don’t know if I would have found this path if I had been raised in a religious family or community.
Im an atheist who was once Christian and sometimes I think it can just be a clash of life experiences really. There was a time in my life I was kind of bitter and angry honestly because of the emotional turmoil religion put me through. Someone who has never really had those issues might rightfully feel uncomfortable or find they can’t fully grasp/understand that.
Apostates can be very emotionally charged by their feelings of betrayal and hurt of their religious experiences and tend to be fairly outspoken about it while their pain is still raw and especially if they used to believe strongly.
This makes it uncomfortable for everyone that hasn’t experienced that turmoil and can’t connect with that anger, frustration and sadness or feel they over step lines due to their emotions. Even other atheists who may somewhat agreed, but may not have the anger or hurt that drives them to an extreme that an apostate may start at while at the deepest level of hurt.
While more mild apostates might be difficult to understand by both sides just because they don’t seem hurt or all that bothered by the loss of what many people find gives them a sense of security, safety and comfort.
thank you for that, BBCC, but it may be premature, just because we haven’t burned the whole country down in political rioting yet, doesn’t mean we’re not going to as soon as the states actually finish the recounts and the court-case gets (Predictably) tossed out because the plaintiff is demanding something not only illegal, but also impossible. Save the congrats until December at the EARLIEST. This year’s been so acrimonious and nasty doesn’t mean the hilarity’s over with, it just means there’s a pause and some pundits are being smug while thinking this will prevent people from outright losing their shit in public.
Thank you so much! I was teaching liberal 3rd Graders on zoom at the time, and it was SO exciting.
@daniel if it’s any consolation, my partner has been taking one for the team by consuming conservative media all week, and they AREN’T doing the thing where they undermine the election or call for action or organize anyone against the election results. The media isn’t fanning flames, which would’ve been necessary for an all-out Civil Freakout. Like, the trumpers are sad, they might do some disorganized domestic terrorism (hopefully not) but the threat to the country as a whole is really unlikely now. Deep, deep sigh of relief over here.
Appreciated. The exchange of power may be… interesting, but it cannot possibly hurt that Biden is now the one with the formal legal backing. And that Trump’s burned his goodwill with most judges and the Secret Service, and I’m pretty sure sizable sectors of the intelligence and military branches (at least the higher-ups.) And that he’s been so egregiously out of line even the media and Republican party writ large are starting to jump ship, meaning they will not openly advocate for violence or a coup.
Yes, this is basically the lowest possible bar for such things, but here we fucking are.
No formal legal backing at this point. Most states haven’t certified, electors haven’t voted, etc.
The media calls give him the perception of legitimacy, which may be more important. Those norms and traditions that everyone keeps talking about. Which even rolls through into some of the mechanics of transition happening, despite Trump: Secret Service has bumped up the protection he gets, he’s been getting at least some of the formal briefings.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that in the end it wasn’t really at all close. A big popular vote lead and solid leads in enough states that even if legal challenges (or some of the worse shenanigans) flipped one of them, he’d still win.
Yup. Panel 3, I figured she was just doing her usual poking about making Joyce pick her real best friend, but panel 4 made me feel better, ’cause it’s plainly more than that.
Using self-awareness of her jealousy issues to mask gratitude that Joyce has someone she can confide in, or genuinely glad that someone else is affectionately messing with her?
Becky wants Joyce to talk to someone. It’s just that if that “someone” isn’t going to be here, she’d rather it be Sarah (the big sister) than Dorothy (one of Joyce’s girl-crushes).
I would agree, except that I suspect that Joyce’s preferred pace would be to keep pretending and denying as long as she possibly can, hurting herself and maybe others in the process.
Ruth wanted to get over her alcoholism. Billie didn’t want to get over hers. That’s why she kept cheating. It was never going to work if they weren’t both on the same page, and i suspect Ruth pushed Billie away to save herself.
On the other hand, it’s possible Ruth isn’t over alcoholism and something else happened between them. Or alcoholism was never the real issue with Ruth (depression was) and she still pushed Billie away as a matter of self preservation. I don’t know, i’m no psych and can’t tell you what was going on there.
Except that when we last saw Billie, she had stopped drinking and I believe even started going to therapy. We’d just had the arc where she chose Ruth over alcohol.
Of course, realistically people do relapse and some fail, so it’s definitely possible, but I’d really hate to see major character growth like that dropped off screen.
I’m definitely more mad at Willis for killing Mike than anything, though I’m also annoyed that we skipped Halloween and that Billie and Ruth are broken up.
I hope that this is all addressed during the next two years. I won’t miss Mike because he hurt people and I don’t like bullying, but I couldn’t hate him either. Unlike the axis of evil-Dads, them I could hate. Ruthilly was a true bright spot, gonna miss them.
Anyone else think that Becky isn’t actually as religiousas she claims, & it’s all a facrle for Joyce, whom she believes is still as devout as she was at the beginning of all this?
IDK, Becky doesn’t seem to put on a farce for anyone. She’s honest about herself. I think she does still see herself as Christian, faithful in a God & Christ that are loving and benevolent and not at all like the hateful people she grew up around (false prophets, if you will). I don’t get wanting to share a label with people you know are disdainful / horrible, but I know some people like Becky who might see it as reclaiming the term from people who’ve corrupted it.
Never got that impression. Becky has a lot of extremely compelling evidence that Joyce would love her all the same, and the time to hide changes to her beliefs would’ve been back when she stopped being a creationist and Joyce was explicitly mad about it. She clearly wouldn’t feel the need to hide that from Joyce. She might avoid bringing it up for Joyce’s benefit, but I can’t imagine her putting on an act to pretend nothing had changed
Plus there’s been nothing at all to suggest Becky has had any kind of crisis in faith to hide
I don’t think that really meshes well with Becky’s “God sent a real-life superhero to save me when my dad kidnapped me, I’m sure I’m fine with him” retort when she was taking communion back at her old church, and other moments like that. They’re moments that work well if her faith is sincere, and would come off as somewhat insulting if it was later revealed to be an act. At least, to me.
She seems pretty capable of the compartmentalization that allows people to support LGBTQ+ people and believe in science while remaining Christian. Remember their discussion about evolution? Becky’s response was “So yeah, it happened. It doesn’t change anything important.” Meanwhile, Joyce zeroes in on how it contradicts their foundational beliefs. They both were raised Christian in a similar way, but the way their faith works/worked is very different.
The writing on the wall for Joyce’s shift in beliefs has been there for a very long time. If anything, everything about Becky points in the opposite direction.
Hell, don’t even think about those yet. There are going to be two Senate run-offs in Georgia. It’s a long shot, but control of the Senate is at stake and that would change everything.
Donate, volunteer and if you’re in Georgia, vote!
That pretty soon they will last 365 days a year, every year. Just like Christmas. America, where doing everything to excess means we’re just getting started.
For petes sake Becky, you’re gonna end up getting your head bitten off. Joyce has shown that she bites when cornered enough, and you’ll be sorry when it happens.
Becky… This level of territorial jealousy would be unhealthy even if you were dating Joyce. She turned you down there, and you’ve been dating your own girlfriend for several months now. Maybe try backing off unless you want to damage the very friendship you’re trying to defend.
Or don’t. I suppose I’ll enjoy the story either way, but my fingers are crossed for a smoothish transition to a healthier attitude for your sake and Joyce’s.
Oh, you’re GOOD, Becky. I think she’s sussed out that Joyce’s reluctance to talk to her, not to Dorothy, but to Sarah, means that it’s something about religion.
Because Becky is willing to set aside her fits of jealousy and the bitterness she feels that maybe she and Joyce aren’t as close as they once were so long as Joyce talks to someone and gets the help that she needs.
So here’s what I think wrt that new poll: I believe Mike’s death, as it is, wasn’t the best course of action.
In the past I have been extremely (and honestly, creepily) vocal about my hate for Mike and the brigade defending his every action. I fully believe that the function Mike provided, standing off to the side and saying horrible shit about the protagonists, is something Dumbing of Age can happily live without. In that regard, him being gone is fine.
Right before Mike died we finally got two inklings of a personality underneath all of that. That he was genuinely attracted to Ethan and doing his Mike thing caused him to pull away, and the realization that what he thought was toughening Amber up was preying on her trauma and making it even worse. For the first time in years and years of comics, Mike was finally a person. There was something there, a baseline of humanity that had yet to show itself and… that’s it. Mike, after all these years, begins his journey into being an actual character, and then immediately dies in a heroic sacrifice.
Now Mike is canonized as a hero (because he threw himself off a balcony saving Amber, dangit) even though he was the absolute shittiest person imaginable for almost a decade. Now Mike is dead, but we skipped over anyone having a reaction to it so the cast wasn’t mired in grief, except the audience itself got blindsided by his death when it was revealed to us in a strip where the punchline was Lucy flirting with Walky. Now the potential growth of a queer man in the comics, where for the first time literally since he was ever created Mike was being written as having his attraction to men mean something beyond “fucks Ethan that one time in Shortpacked for a joke”, and now he’s dead and Amber, a straight girl, can feel miserable about it while Ethan disappears into the ether until further notice, his potential romance with Danny (which I am honestly not a fan of, but it’s the *only* potential mlm romance in the series now) kneecapped for now because the last time Danny and Ethan talked was a horrible argument made magnitudes worse by Mike dying in his coma.
And the one silver lining of Mike’s death, the removal of the character who bold facedly states the underlining issues of the cast in tactless, hurtful ways, has now resurfaced through Booster spending the last few strips doing that exact thing. If we needed a character who pointed out “painful truths” with no regard for how it affected the people they were being said to, then why the heck did Mike die in the first place.
That’s about where I’m at, too. I get that Booster seems likely to be set up for the ‘don’t be a shit’ arc and Mike (between the defenders who thought he was an asshole ‘for good reason’ and the years of absolute garbage) would’ve had WAY harder to go for a redemption arc, which I suspect is more of a time investment than Willis wanted to devote to him. But for one moment it looked like we’d (and more importantly, HE’D) get to examine just how much damage Mike had done to everyone around him. We could still have Walky changing roommates to introduce a brand new castmate without Mike dying (or even leaving the cast, given how unpleasant he and Walky found living together.) Plus it completely fucks over Amber and Ethan mentally, and I actually wanted Mike to make amends for the ways he’d hurt them.
That said, Ruth and Billie’s breakup represents its own thing I’m disliking – ‘soft reboot’ or not, it looks like several characters regressed from the progress they made in really disheartening ways. Amber’s mental health getting worse is obvious, but Ruth’s comment yesterday – ‘I’m not ready to date sober, get back to me after my 21st birthday’ – does not imply good things, either. Probably, it’s a joke, but the panel right after suggests she really is in a bad place. I know backslides happen, but the characters whose mental health struggles were the MOST dramatic leaving the timeskip on a hopeful note and coming back in such bad shape is… disheartening.
The other issue with Booster replacing Mike is that with Mike, we got a buildup on his ability to read people. First we saw him with his friends from high school, then it was toying with Walky, then Dorothy, and so on. A lot of his most cutting insights were with the people he knew best, then more with the others as he got to know them. His ability to read people made sense, because we got to see it develop. (The redemption arc would have been able to build on that — who has he hurt, how much, etc.)
Booster (so far) looks like they’ll have to get a “Hey, you’re being a jerk to everyone with your preternatural understanding of people” arc, but their preternatural understanding of people hasn’t been set up the same way.
Honestly, Billie and Ruth being broken up makes Dorothy’s comment about “but Ruth, we lost Billie” come off as very tone-deaf considering Dorothy is usually more socially aware than that. I consider it more a product of the text needing ‘foreshadowing’ because I’d expect that from Walky, not Dorothy.
Especially since the subject didn’t even necessarily relate to what Ruth was talking about? I mean, yeah, Billie had to change dorms, but it comes off as salt in the wound. “I was proud of not losing anybody, shame we had to lose that one person.” “But what about your ex, who had to switch to another dorm because of your relationship, and now has left you in a more literal sense of the word?” “what the actual fuck Dorothy.” as if Ruth needs to be reminded that her girlfriend is now her ex?
Dorothy never struck me as a particularly tactful, considerate, wise or politic person.
See:
1. Her hooking up with Walky during a ‘pause’ she herself declared and then dumping him right afterwards.
2. Her backfired attempt to deescalate the hostage situation with Blaine where she actually panicked him into running
3. Like, everything about her personality.
Skipping Halloween? Who lives in the singles at the end of the hall? Where is Ethan? Who is Booster’s sister and why did they switch from social work to psych? Where is Billie? Who’s that standing behind you?
DoA “Season 1” (the first semester) covered August 29th through October 21st.
Then the roughly two-and-a-half month skip happened.
“Season 2” (this chapter, post-skip) started up mid-January. When exactly is still TBD.
Season 1 followed 2010’s calendar for its days of the week, so it might be following 2011 now that we’re in January. If it is, we might be in the first week of January because the real-world IU Bloomington started their spring 2011 semester on Monday, January 10th.
Right… but that’s because it started in 2010. This season started in 2020, so it would make sense if it followed the 2020 calendar. I can see an argument for using the 2011 calendar to be specific, but it seems more likely that Willis will use the 2020 calendar here.
mike’s death was faked; he actually went into witness protection. mike, realizing he had feelings for ethan, somehow managed to contact ethan and let him know what what was happening. ethan chose to drop out of college to stay with mike.
they come back later in the season, with ethan admitting he had a crush on jacob. then jacob, who has been wondering what he really wants, off-checklist, discovers he’s bi and had a crush on ethan as well. mike, testing whether ethan still has a crush on someone from college, sleeps with both danny and ethan. love quadrangle shenanigans ensue.
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“look, change isn’t just what you get from a vending machine”
…
“actually, that’s the only place you WON’T get change”
i think you mean change isn’t just that thing from the david bowie song
Turn and faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace the STRANGE
I’m sure that their church taught EVERY girl in their youth group that changing is a good thing and that they should embrace and welcome it at every opportunity as a blessing from God.
… diaper duty is woman’s work, after all.
*disclaimer: above is depiction of other people’s attitudes, not a representation of my own.
“But it was too late and everyone associated that with Reltzik forever.”
Reltzik thinks changing babies is womens work? Wow.
Don’t mind me. I’m just trying to figure out what they change them into.
There’s a comic – an early Something*Positive, I think – where the protag is babysitting, and informs the wee lad that his parents are fattening up to be eaten, and the culling happens at a place called “kindergarten”. Cut to this exchange in the final panel:
“Did you change him?”
“Oh, probably.”
Sounds like A Promised Neverland.
Dilbert, actually.
I think that might have been an early Dilbert strip, with Dogbert as the babysitter.
take the baby, mix with two parts sacred cow before grinding for delicious hamburger.
She would also secretly text about it with Joe.
Ooh yes
B – “Wait, who’s protesting here?”
S – “…”
S – “… everyone.”
B – “Even me?”
S – “Sounds like it.”
Yay, religion comix incoming, I like these
I, um, really don’t like that this discussion, whether it needed to happen now or not, is happening under the influence of Booster’s discount psychoanalysis session, which I guess Becky isn’t going to, y’know, *doubt* a little before using it as a foundation for this whole talk?
Becky has been pressuring Joyce a lot lately without Booster’s cheap Hanibal imitation.
I would’ve gone with Sherlock Holmes, but Dr. Lecter works too.
speaking of sherlock… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKQOk5UlQSc
I think Becky can tell something’s up with Joyce, but Wacky Mask Becky hasn’t been able to draw it out yet.
Meanwhile, Joyce is struggling with a potent cocktail of survivor’s guilt (Mike, maybe Toedead to an extent), religious doubt (*gestures broadly at the everything*), identity crisis (“who am I now that I’m not practicing?”), and imposter syndrome (“Becky still believes, and she’s been through much worse than me, so what’s my problem?”) That last bit is holding her back from working through this with the one person out of the main cast who can most relate to her. (I’d imagine Jocelyne would understand too, but she’s supporting cast.)
Except Joyce agreed with the part where Booster said she was afraid of becoming a new person.
Fair with regards to Becky accepting it, but not fair with regards to Becky using it as a foundation for a discussion, because the point is less whether her analysis was accurate and more whether her analysis was morally okay or remotely decorous.
It was neither.
Reminds me of Buffy where all the characters were keeping secrets so they wrote in an episode where everyone sang their secrets out while under the influence of a demon. Really moved the plot along.
Demon Rum?
was that the one where Buffy was singing about “just going through the motions”?
I get the impression she’s just using it as an excuse to get Joyce to talk, since she seems to have been prodding her to open up a lot recently.
Am I the only one that thinks this is giving Becky too much credit? Like, I get the initial thought process. Becky is shouting about religion more than usual, and she knows Joyce better than anyone else. But let’s be real—Becky is often just straight-up annoying, and not only because she’s doing it strategically. And if she knew Joyce so well, wouldn’t she know that this kind of prodding is not the best way to get to her? Wouldn’t she know that she would have better luck pretending to be less interested in god than by loudly emphasizing her devotion, which is, as we see, just making Joyce retreat further into her emotional hole? Or even that straight conversations like this would work better?
I dunno. It’s a fair theory, but people seem to be getting totally on-board to the point of fact and…I just don’t see it.
Becky brought down a Congresswoman’s reelection by hacking her Twitter account while in the same room with her. I’m prepared to give her a hell of a lot of credit.
… but I can also see her not knowing what was wrong.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it a slam dunk; I think her behavior is consistent with trying to get a friend to open up about a touchy topic she doesn’t necessarily know how to broach, but it’s not the only explanation possible if the story was actually using the setup for something else later.
As for her specific approach… It seems totally Becky to me. Joke, prod, overact, anything it takes to get the door open without having to just come out and say, “Hey, are you still going to church?” – because that’s a serious conversation, and serious conversations are scary. It’s a lot easier to talk about an important topic when you can pretend it was all a joke if it looks like it’s about to go wrong.
That said, my primary reason for believing she knows is mostly meta – Becky seems to be repeatedly coming back to this issue in a way that’s fairly specific and explicitly being shown to the reader, while Joyce was just established to have been hiding her newfound lack of faith from her best friend. The fact that Becky has done this multiple times in the last real-world month suggests that it’s acting as a setup for something, and it ties in pretty obviously with Joyce’s recent issues. But the obvious answer isn’t always the right one, and I can see other directions the plot could take this setup.
As that jerk Booster said, Joyce is afraid of admitting something she has always been. Joyce doesn’t hear the voice of god, and she is afraid to confess that truth because religion was a constant she and Becky could rely on.
Joyce, she is dating a Atheist (I think, cant remember exactly what they are), I doubt it would take her very long at all to except your change of world views.
Dina is an atheist.
Joyce is an apostate.
That is so, so, so much worse.
I am pleased you recognize that crucial difference.
ITYM ‘better’.
And no, I don’t care what you actually think.
Worse from the perspective of their fundie upbringing, I mean.
I don’t think she’s afraid that Becky will stop liking her, but she is afraid of losing something she considers integral to who she is, and Becky is the person who has known her the longest, and the closest person to her with whom she shares her faith.
Maybe, but religious people sometimes take it very personally when someone stops believing their shared god(s) even exist. It the undermines whole faith/born-again narrative.
This, especially when the person who stops believing is a long-time close friend.
People get weird as shit around apostates, even other atheists.
Atheists get weird around apostates? Please would you provide some examples to help guide my searches on this? I would like to learn more if you are willing to share.
Of course raising the question provides an example case, but I guess I’m curious if you mean atheists get weird about it in a different way, or if its just the curiosity about the apostates journey you mean.
I mean, I suppose it would depend for me only if the apostate had abandoned one religion for another, vice for atheism. (with the former not really being of any interest)
For the latter my curiosity is just about what guided their decision. Since I was raised areligiously by atheists I was left to my own devices to figure out religion and ended up first agnostic (arguably a strong agnostic) and later settled comfortably into atheism, however, it always bugs me that I don’t know if I would have found this path if I had been raised in a religious family or community.
Im an atheist who was once Christian and sometimes I think it can just be a clash of life experiences really. There was a time in my life I was kind of bitter and angry honestly because of the emotional turmoil religion put me through. Someone who has never really had those issues might rightfully feel uncomfortable or find they can’t fully grasp/understand that.
Apostates can be very emotionally charged by their feelings of betrayal and hurt of their religious experiences and tend to be fairly outspoken about it while their pain is still raw and especially if they used to believe strongly.
This makes it uncomfortable for everyone that hasn’t experienced that turmoil and can’t connect with that anger, frustration and sadness or feel they over step lines due to their emotions. Even other atheists who may somewhat agreed, but may not have the anger or hurt that drives them to an extreme that an apostate may start at while at the deepest level of hurt.
While more mild apostates might be difficult to understand by both sides just because they don’t seem hurt or all that bothered by the loss of what many people find gives them a sense of security, safety and comfort.
That token protest is very important to Becky and Sarah’s relationship.
And oh, Becky. You’ll find out sometime, but probably not now.
Congrats to our American friends right now <3
thank you for that, BBCC, but it may be premature, just because we haven’t burned the whole country down in political rioting yet, doesn’t mean we’re not going to as soon as the states actually finish the recounts and the court-case gets (Predictably) tossed out because the plaintiff is demanding something not only illegal, but also impossible. Save the congrats until December at the EARLIEST. This year’s been so acrimonious and nasty doesn’t mean the hilarity’s over with, it just means there’s a pause and some pundits are being smug while thinking this will prevent people from outright losing their shit in public.
Thank you so much! I was teaching liberal 3rd Graders on zoom at the time, and it was SO exciting.
@daniel if it’s any consolation, my partner has been taking one for the team by consuming conservative media all week, and they AREN’T doing the thing where they undermine the election or call for action or organize anyone against the election results. The media isn’t fanning flames, which would’ve been necessary for an all-out Civil Freakout. Like, the trumpers are sad, they might do some disorganized domestic terrorism (hopefully not) but the threat to the country as a whole is really unlikely now. Deep, deep sigh of relief over here.
Appreciated. The exchange of power may be… interesting, but it cannot possibly hurt that Biden is now the one with the formal legal backing. And that Trump’s burned his goodwill with most judges and the Secret Service, and I’m pretty sure sizable sectors of the intelligence and military branches (at least the higher-ups.) And that he’s been so egregiously out of line even the media and Republican party writ large are starting to jump ship, meaning they will not openly advocate for violence or a coup.
Yes, this is basically the lowest possible bar for such things, but here we fucking are.
No formal legal backing at this point. Most states haven’t certified, electors haven’t voted, etc.
The media calls give him the perception of legitimacy, which may be more important. Those norms and traditions that everyone keeps talking about. Which even rolls through into some of the mechanics of transition happening, despite Trump: Secret Service has bumped up the protection he gets, he’s been getting at least some of the formal briefings.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that in the end it wasn’t really at all close. A big popular vote lead and solid leads in enough states that even if legal challenges (or some of the worse shenanigans) flipped one of them, he’d still win.
To me, this seems like a very underhand and… Becky way of saying “talk to someone because I think you need to takl to someone”
Yup. Panel 3, I figured she was just doing her usual poking about making Joyce pick her real best friend, but panel 4 made me feel better, ’cause it’s plainly more than that.
Using self-awareness of her jealousy issues to mask gratitude that Joyce has someone she can confide in, or genuinely glad that someone else is affectionately messing with her?
Both. Both is correct.
Wouldn’t her comment about Dorothy be pressure to Joyce to *not* discuss it with Dorothy, as she’d then be seen as hurting Becky’s feelings?
Sorry but I think Becky’s still being a self-centered asshole, who’s putting her petty games over her friend’s wellbeing.
Maybe, but following it with the comment about Sarah shifts it back in the other direction.
Becky wants Joyce to talk to someone. It’s just that if that “someone” isn’t going to be here, she’d rather it be Sarah (the big sister) than Dorothy (one of Joyce’s girl-crushes).
Drat. “Her,” not “here.” Stupid lack of an edit button.
Does she need a gardener, a plumber, or a pool boy?
(Sorry, you said she needs to takl to someone, so I came up with the three home services that are most likely euphemisms for getting laid)
Christ, Becky. Just because you enjoy nuking things from orbit doesn’t mean that everyone does. Let her find her own pace, dammit.
I would agree, except that I suspect that Joyce’s preferred pace would be to keep pretending and denying as long as she possibly can, hurting herself and maybe others in the process.
Remember the Toenail!
Sorry. I’m not sure I can remember the Toenail and the Alamo at the same time.
And then there’s the Titans, too. It’s just a bit much to remember.
Remember the 21st night of September.
We’re gonna have to recruit Pepperidge Farm to help us with all this remembering…
You’d better, or else you’ll never “Remember Me”.
Or, for something much more obscure: “Remember Tunnel 17!”
“Remember, remember, the 5th of November…”
That’s not how the Earth, Wind, and Fire song goes…
and also Walky’s
and mine tbh
Joyce doesn’t find her own pace. Joyce represses and denies until something forces her to acknowledge a change.
Spineless enabler bigots, to be exact.
Stripped of context, your comment is fascinating.
The spines need to be removed so you don’t get pricked.
Ruth: Spineless? Sorry, I only do femurs.
I’m mostly mad at Willis for spoiling what happened between Ruth and Billie.
Ruth wanted to get over her alcoholism. Billie didn’t want to get over hers. That’s why she kept cheating. It was never going to work if they weren’t both on the same page, and i suspect Ruth pushed Billie away to save herself.
On the other hand, it’s possible Ruth isn’t over alcoholism and something else happened between them. Or alcoholism was never the real issue with Ruth (depression was) and she still pushed Billie away as a matter of self preservation. I don’t know, i’m no psych and can’t tell you what was going on there.
Ask Booster, I’m sure they’ve figured it out already. And would be very happy to tell you about it.
Except that when we last saw Billie, she had stopped drinking and I believe even started going to therapy. We’d just had the arc where she chose Ruth over alcohol.
Of course, realistically people do relapse and some fail, so it’s definitely possible, but I’d really hate to see major character growth like that dropped off screen.
Still hoping to get more on that subject before 2030.
I’m definitely more mad at Willis for killing Mike than anything, though I’m also annoyed that we skipped Halloween and that Billie and Ruth are broken up.
I hope that this is all addressed during the next two years. I won’t miss Mike because he hurt people and I don’t like bullying, but I couldn’t hate him either. Unlike the axis of evil-Dads, them I could hate. Ruthilly was a true bright spot, gonna miss them.
Anyone else think that Becky isn’t actually as religiousas she claims, & it’s all a facrle for Joyce, whom she believes is still as devout as she was at the beginning of all this?
IDK, Becky doesn’t seem to put on a farce for anyone. She’s honest about herself. I think she does still see herself as Christian, faithful in a God & Christ that are loving and benevolent and not at all like the hateful people she grew up around (false prophets, if you will). I don’t get wanting to share a label with people you know are disdainful / horrible, but I know some people like Becky who might see it as reclaiming the term from people who’ve corrupted it.
What if she came to the same realization as Joyce over break, but her solution is to cover it up by playing the role of a very outspoken Christian
I guess that’s basically what you said. Imma go ahead and create a new account now.
So… you’ll turn over a new leaf?
Very funny, Nash.
Never got that impression. Becky has a lot of extremely compelling evidence that Joyce would love her all the same, and the time to hide changes to her beliefs would’ve been back when she stopped being a creationist and Joyce was explicitly mad about it. She clearly wouldn’t feel the need to hide that from Joyce. She might avoid bringing it up for Joyce’s benefit, but I can’t imagine her putting on an act to pretend nothing had changed
Plus there’s been nothing at all to suggest Becky has had any kind of crisis in faith to hide
Really don’t like that idea. Gay christens exist and I think it’s pretty cool the comic is representing one with Becky.
I don’t think that really meshes well with Becky’s “God sent a real-life superhero to save me when my dad kidnapped me, I’m sure I’m fine with him” retort when she was taking communion back at her old church, and other moments like that. They’re moments that work well if her faith is sincere, and would come off as somewhat insulting if it was later revealed to be an act. At least, to me.
She seems pretty capable of the compartmentalization that allows people to support LGBTQ+ people and believe in science while remaining Christian. Remember their discussion about evolution? Becky’s response was “So yeah, it happened. It doesn’t change anything important.” Meanwhile, Joyce zeroes in on how it contradicts their foundational beliefs. They both were raised Christian in a similar way, but the way their faith works/worked is very different.
The writing on the wall for Joyce’s shift in beliefs has been there for a very long time. If anything, everything about Becky points in the opposite direction.
Becky McIntired? Joy’s Down?
Maybe Becky is too pushy. Maybe Joyce has not met her true breaking point.
Either way, a strip during the last 10 days of December oughta do something.
Apropos of something else:
Call your doctor immediately if you have an election lasting more than three days.
The election only lasted one day. It’s the counting that….
…. wait….
*checks table of when states started early voting*
…. what does the bottle say about elections that last 47 days?
As long as the campaign doesn’t last 4 or more years you should be ok.
*Reflects on the last four years*
oh no
The posturing has already started for the next election. So get ready for the next four years.
oh no
We’ll worry about that tomorrow, though. Today we enjoy a step back toward normalcy.
Two years. The midterms are going to be crucial.
Hell, don’t even think about those yet. There are going to be two Senate run-offs in Georgia. It’s a long shot, but control of the Senate is at stake and that would change everything.
Donate, volunteer and if you’re in Georgia, vote!
Don’t let the party of “government is broken, elect me and I’ll prove it” stonewall the healing America needs, Georgia!
That pretty soon they will last 365 days a year, every year. Just like Christmas. America, where doing everything to excess means we’re just getting started.
For petes sake Becky, you’re gonna end up getting your head bitten off. Joyce has shown that she bites when cornered enough, and you’ll be sorry when it happens.
Dumbing of Age Book 11: Gaggle O’ Bigots
So the name for a group of bigots is a “gaggle”? (writes it down)
That seems like an insult to geese somehow.
Becky… This level of territorial jealousy would be unhealthy even if you were dating Joyce. She turned you down there, and you’ve been dating your own girlfriend for several months now. Maybe try backing off unless you want to damage the very friendship you’re trying to defend.
Or don’t. I suppose I’ll enjoy the story either way, but my fingers are crossed for a smoothish transition to a healthier attitude for your sake and Joyce’s.
Gotta say, between Booster and Becky, I’m getting tired of the needling/direct intervention thing.
Maybe we can go back to Sal and Danny on the steps.
Sarah “here’s to another semester having to handle kids”
Or, more accurately, having to be the wise older sister to a group of girl who really never have had decent female mentor figures.
Sarah’s new looks are dope.
Oh, you’re GOOD, Becky. I think she’s sussed out that Joyce’s reluctance to talk to her, not to Dorothy, but to Sarah, means that it’s something about religion.
So much pressure. Poor Joyce. She need to have more space for herself. And some fun.
Because Becky is willing to set aside her fits of jealousy and the bitterness she feels that maybe she and Joyce aren’t as close as they once were so long as Joyce talks to someone and gets the help that she needs.
So here’s what I think wrt that new poll: I believe Mike’s death, as it is, wasn’t the best course of action.
In the past I have been extremely (and honestly, creepily) vocal about my hate for Mike and the brigade defending his every action. I fully believe that the function Mike provided, standing off to the side and saying horrible shit about the protagonists, is something Dumbing of Age can happily live without. In that regard, him being gone is fine.
Right before Mike died we finally got two inklings of a personality underneath all of that. That he was genuinely attracted to Ethan and doing his Mike thing caused him to pull away, and the realization that what he thought was toughening Amber up was preying on her trauma and making it even worse. For the first time in years and years of comics, Mike was finally a person. There was something there, a baseline of humanity that had yet to show itself and… that’s it. Mike, after all these years, begins his journey into being an actual character, and then immediately dies in a heroic sacrifice.
Now Mike is canonized as a hero (because he threw himself off a balcony saving Amber, dangit) even though he was the absolute shittiest person imaginable for almost a decade. Now Mike is dead, but we skipped over anyone having a reaction to it so the cast wasn’t mired in grief, except the audience itself got blindsided by his death when it was revealed to us in a strip where the punchline was Lucy flirting with Walky. Now the potential growth of a queer man in the comics, where for the first time literally since he was ever created Mike was being written as having his attraction to men mean something beyond “fucks Ethan that one time in Shortpacked for a joke”, and now he’s dead and Amber, a straight girl, can feel miserable about it while Ethan disappears into the ether until further notice, his potential romance with Danny (which I am honestly not a fan of, but it’s the *only* potential mlm romance in the series now) kneecapped for now because the last time Danny and Ethan talked was a horrible argument made magnitudes worse by Mike dying in his coma.
And the one silver lining of Mike’s death, the removal of the character who bold facedly states the underlining issues of the cast in tactless, hurtful ways, has now resurfaced through Booster spending the last few strips doing that exact thing. If we needed a character who pointed out “painful truths” with no regard for how it affected the people they were being said to, then why the heck did Mike die in the first place.
Agree with all of this. I’m really not into all this. :/
Mike is not a hero nor can he permanently die.
That’s about where I’m at, too. I get that Booster seems likely to be set up for the ‘don’t be a shit’ arc and Mike (between the defenders who thought he was an asshole ‘for good reason’ and the years of absolute garbage) would’ve had WAY harder to go for a redemption arc, which I suspect is more of a time investment than Willis wanted to devote to him. But for one moment it looked like we’d (and more importantly, HE’D) get to examine just how much damage Mike had done to everyone around him. We could still have Walky changing roommates to introduce a brand new castmate without Mike dying (or even leaving the cast, given how unpleasant he and Walky found living together.) Plus it completely fucks over Amber and Ethan mentally, and I actually wanted Mike to make amends for the ways he’d hurt them.
That said, Ruth and Billie’s breakup represents its own thing I’m disliking – ‘soft reboot’ or not, it looks like several characters regressed from the progress they made in really disheartening ways. Amber’s mental health getting worse is obvious, but Ruth’s comment yesterday – ‘I’m not ready to date sober, get back to me after my 21st birthday’ – does not imply good things, either. Probably, it’s a joke, but the panel right after suggests she really is in a bad place. I know backslides happen, but the characters whose mental health struggles were the MOST dramatic leaving the timeskip on a hopeful note and coming back in such bad shape is… disheartening.
The other issue with Booster replacing Mike is that with Mike, we got a buildup on his ability to read people. First we saw him with his friends from high school, then it was toying with Walky, then Dorothy, and so on. A lot of his most cutting insights were with the people he knew best, then more with the others as he got to know them. His ability to read people made sense, because we got to see it develop. (The redemption arc would have been able to build on that — who has he hurt, how much, etc.)
Booster (so far) looks like they’ll have to get a “Hey, you’re being a jerk to everyone with your preternatural understanding of people” arc, but their preternatural understanding of people hasn’t been set up the same way.
Honestly, Billie and Ruth being broken up makes Dorothy’s comment about “but Ruth, we lost Billie” come off as very tone-deaf considering Dorothy is usually more socially aware than that. I consider it more a product of the text needing ‘foreshadowing’ because I’d expect that from Walky, not Dorothy.
Especially since the subject didn’t even necessarily relate to what Ruth was talking about? I mean, yeah, Billie had to change dorms, but it comes off as salt in the wound. “I was proud of not losing anybody, shame we had to lose that one person.” “But what about your ex, who had to switch to another dorm because of your relationship, and now has left you in a more literal sense of the word?” “what the actual fuck Dorothy.” as if Ruth needs to be reminded that her girlfriend is now her ex?
Dorothy never struck me as a particularly tactful, considerate, wise or politic person.
See:
1. Her hooking up with Walky during a ‘pause’ she herself declared and then dumping him right afterwards.
2. Her backfired attempt to deescalate the hostage situation with Blaine where she actually panicked him into running
3. Like, everything about her personality.
I thought Dorothy was just talking about Billie being moved to another dorm. I doubt Ruth was going around telling people she and Billie broke up.
My take is Billie dropped out not dumped Ruth.
Also apropos of nothing, YES, I’M PISSED ABOUT YOU SKIPPING HALLOWEEN, WILLIS!!
Don’t need no stinkin’ anonymity fer this…
Skipping Halloween? Who lives in the singles at the end of the hall? Where is Ethan? Who is Booster’s sister and why did they switch from social work to psych? Where is Billie? Who’s that standing behind you?
haven’t read this comic in years…. talk about change, look at their hair! i mean it’s been 5 years irl, that can only be what? 6 weeks in comic time?
Stuff happened when you weren’t paying attention.
Can we make fun of you now?
They just got moved in for their 2nd semester. There was a time skip when they reached mid-terms so more like…8 weeks?
It feels impossible that everything that happened to them happened in only 8 weeks, I must be doing semester calendar math wrong.
I think so. Most semesters are longer than two months.
DoA “Season 1” (the first semester) covered August 29th through October 21st.
Then the roughly two-and-a-half month skip happened.
“Season 2” (this chapter, post-skip) started up mid-January. When exactly is still TBD.
Season 1 followed 2010’s calendar for its days of the week, so it might be following 2011 now that we’re in January. If it is, we might be in the first week of January because the real-world IU Bloomington started their spring 2011 semester on Monday, January 10th.
https://registrar.indiana.edu/doc/beg-end-sem-dates.pdf
On the other hand it might be following 2020 now because sliding timescales.
Pre-timeskip, Dumbing of Age always used 2010’s calendar for determining days of the week, even though it was always set in “Current Year”.
Right… but that’s because it started in 2010. This season started in 2020, so it would make sense if it followed the 2020 calendar. I can see an argument for using the 2011 calendar to be specific, but it seems more likely that Willis will use the 2020 calendar here.
You’re right, the skip’s big enough to obscure that kind of change. We just haven’t seen enough of the Season 2 timeline to know for sure yet.
new dumb theories
mike’s death was faked; he actually went into witness protection. mike, realizing he had feelings for ethan, somehow managed to contact ethan and let him know what what was happening. ethan chose to drop out of college to stay with mike.
they come back later in the season, with ethan admitting he had a crush on jacob. then jacob, who has been wondering what he really wants, off-checklist, discovers he’s bi and had a crush on ethan as well. mike, testing whether ethan still has a crush on someone from college, sleeps with both danny and ethan. love quadrangle shenanigans ensue.