Dumbing of Age Book Twelve

Dumbing of Age

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May 12, 2026

A-ticking

by David M Willis on September 20, 2021 at 12:01 am
  • 01 – Sister, Christian
└ Tags: joyce, liz, sarah

Discussion (114) ¬

[ Comments RSS ]
  1. Ana Chronistic
    Ana Chronistic
    September 20, 2021 at 12:04 am | #

    “Why do you think Jesus can find a better role model?”

    “oh for f”

    alt: technically anyone can be a role model, just whether a good or bad one… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • Decidedly Orthogonal
      Decidedly Orthogonal
      September 20, 2021 at 1:10 am | #

      “oh for f”ishers of men, he’s pretty solid. Except for all the bits where he’s not.

      • Clif
        Clif
        September 20, 2021 at 10:20 am | #

        It should be Amazigirl. It’s not, but it should be.

        It’s Mike, isn’t it?

      • Shell
        Shell
        September 20, 2021 at 1:57 pm | #

        I don’t have beef with him. It’s his followers I tend to have a problem with. I like to think if he ever came back there’d be a lot of “Really? Really!?! You thought I was anti-immigrant? I was a refugee while I was still in diapers for Me’s sake….”

        • Olav
          Olav
          September 20, 2021 at 5:01 pm | #

          That Ghandi quote that is very like what you just said seems to be disputed. But I do agree with the sentiment, regardless of who said it first.

          “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

  2. Doctor_Who
    Doctor_Who
    September 20, 2021 at 12:04 am | #

    “Okay, if it’s not Ruth, then who could it-”

    (Joyce hits her with a pie)

    “Oh, alright. Good choice.”

    • RassilonTDavros
      RassilonTDavros
      September 20, 2021 at 12:05 am | #

      Carla is objectively the best role model.

      • HeatherJean
        HeatherJean
        September 20, 2021 at 12:22 am | #

        Jocelyne, if she’s out to Joyce. Or Carla, ditto.

      • Decidedly Orthogonal
        Decidedly Orthogonal
        September 20, 2021 at 1:09 am | #

        I mean, Carla is da Bomb, but we probably still shouldn’t be objectifying her.

        • Needfuldoer
          Needfuldoer
          September 20, 2021 at 8:47 am | #

          Carla will gleefully climb any pedestal built for her.

          • Clif
            Clif
            September 20, 2021 at 10:21 am | #

            Fair point.

            • Decidedly Orthogonal
              Decidedly Orthogonal
              September 20, 2021 at 2:22 pm | #

              Indeed, I could erect a pointed pedestal for fair Carla. But my intent was about objectifying rather than worshipping, or autoshipping. On the other hand, I suppose someone reincarneted or recast from the role of an ultracar, might very well be ok with being both objectified and people wanting to be inside of.

            • Decidedly Orthogonal
              Decidedly Orthogonal
              September 20, 2021 at 2:26 pm | #

              To the others here, what is the term (beyond creeping) for envisioning oneself fictionally in a relationship with another? I spit-balled with autoshipping (which, I mean… ultra-car) but is there something more normal?

              I feel like I’m standing in the store aisle right in front of the product I seek, and am asking a store clerk to point it out to me.

              • Needfuldoer
                Needfuldoer
                September 20, 2021 at 5:34 pm | #

                Well, there’s the “parasocial interaction” phenomenon, where audience members feel like they have a friendship with a performer or fictional character. (See also: social media “influencers”.) It should have some kind of extension that applies in that case.

                “Waifu” and “husbando” are right there, but those are terms for the character, not the relationship.

  3. Thag Simmons
    Thag Simmons
    September 20, 2021 at 12:09 am | #

    Well as far as main cast members go Ruth isn’t actually the worst choice for a role model.

    • Dave Van Domelen
      Dave Van Domelen
      September 20, 2021 at 12:12 am | #

      Which, you know, is scary.

      • Regalli
        Regalli
        September 20, 2021 at 12:47 am | #

        Absolutely terrifying, yeah.

    • Jamie
      Jamie
      September 20, 2021 at 12:13 am | #

      Yeah. She’s top 5, easy, I think.

    • RassilonTDavros
      RassilonTDavros
      September 20, 2021 at 12:31 am | #

      Not entirely sure who counts as “main cast” and who doesn’t, but I’m pretty sure Jennifer counts and she’s easily a worse choice.

      • He Who Abides
        He Who Abides
        September 20, 2021 at 12:32 am | #

        I was going to say the same thing. Anyone but Jennifer.

        • Reltzik
          Reltzik
          September 20, 2021 at 12:55 am | #

          So…. Robin?

          (She’s on the cast page, so of course she’s main cast.)

          • Thag Simmons
            Thag Simmons
            September 20, 2021 at 1:00 am | #

            Robin is at the very least able to pratfall her way into success

          • powerpowerpow
            powerpowerpow
            September 20, 2021 at 5:29 am | #

            I mean if we look at Becky… Yeah jury’s still out.

  4. Rose by Any Other Name
    Rose by Any Other Name
    September 20, 2021 at 12:12 am | #

    The sweet thing here would be “it’s you, Sarah” – but Sarah doesn’t really fit the description.

    … Dorothy?

    • RassilonTDavros
      RassilonTDavros
      September 20, 2021 at 12:23 am | #

      I think Dorothy has definitely been a role model to Joyce, although the stuff about how Liz was like Joyce but has grown past everything Joyce hates doesn’t really apply to her since Dorothy was never raised religious to begin with. Plus, Joyce seems to have some doubt as to whether the person she’s talking about is a good role model, which definitely wouldn’t make sense for Dorothy.

      I don’t think it really applies to Sarah either, since she never seemed to display any fundie tendencies at all unless I missed something– I’m guessing Liz’s dad was the fundie in their family? The only other person I can think of that that description would apply to at all is Becky– who is still a Christian, but note that Joyce’s description never explicitly mentions Christianity or faith at all, just the bigotry and shame that is often a part of it. It could be Hank or Jocelyne, now that I think about it.

      Of course, the person she’s talking about wouldn’t neccesarily have to fit the description, I suppose.

      • Nayann Martinelli
        Nayann Martinelli
        September 20, 2021 at 12:33 am | #

        I think Joyce has learned a lot from Sarah, and that’s why she might see her as a role model; but at the same time, she knows the way Sarah tries to shut people off isn’t really “role-modelry”.

        • Reltzik
          Reltzik
          September 20, 2021 at 12:58 am | #

          Sarah’s resilient, independent, studious, no-nonsense… she’s got serious role-model potential. And yes, Sarah’s asocial to the point where it’s approaching a vice, but that could still be the direction that someone like Joyce, who’s friendly to the point of approaching a voice, might benefit from moving towards.

          • Fist_of_Life
            Fist_of_Life
            September 20, 2021 at 7:35 am | #

            You never want to approach a voice. I’ve seen one break glass before. :S

        • Nono
          Nono
          September 20, 2021 at 1:50 am | #

          Yeah, Sarah’s like a big sister, but Joyce hasn’t really tried to emulate anything of Sarah.

          Meanwhile, Sal.

    • Decidedly Orthogonal
      Decidedly Orthogonal
      September 20, 2021 at 1:13 am | #

      It seems pretty clear that is what is meant by Joyce’s pointed look up in panel 5 is about. “Sometimes I think I have” (looks pointedly *at* Sarah).

    • 0phidiophile
      0phidiophile
      September 20, 2021 at 2:11 am | #

      What? No, it’s obviously Sal. Remember the leather jacket?

      • Nayann Martinelli
        Nayann Martinelli
        September 20, 2021 at 2:44 am | #

        **Yells from the back** And don’t forget the wind whooshing her hair in a cool way wherever she went!

    • Needfuldoer
      Needfuldoer
      September 20, 2021 at 9:02 am | #

      Dorothy’s balance is all out of whack. She pumped everything into “work ethic” and used “self care” as her dump stat.

      • Decidedly Orthogonal
        Decidedly Orthogonal
        September 20, 2021 at 1:36 pm | #

        You’ve got something there. Although she’s not *completely* without self care. We saw Dorothy struggle with balance when she was with Walky for sure. Part of the conflict there was that for her, she had conflicting things that felt like self care to her. Her work to her *is* that important, and so some of it _is_ self care for her. When she became confronted by alternate forms of self-care, well, she was conflicted. But yes, she’s decided to go after something that most people who set that as a goal will have no hope of achieving, and (looking at the track record) those who *have* achieved it, seem as likely to have approached it as an after thought or a joke, so didn’t have to withstand the pressure of pursuing it.

  5. Mr D
    Mr D
    September 20, 2021 at 12:13 am | #

    Hey Willis, would you mind a question? What happened at the end of shortpacked? I am not entirely sure what or how or-
    Anything really.

    • Mr D
      Mr D
      September 20, 2021 at 12:16 am | #

      I mean, I know that the amount of (and I quote:) “diversity” caused something to break in timespace but…
      what?

      • Rose by Any Other Name
        Rose by Any Other Name
        September 20, 2021 at 12:22 am | #

        Huh?
        The end of Shortpacked! involved Mallard Fillmore getting fired from 69 newspapers.
        (nice)

        • Mr D
          Mr D
          September 20, 2021 at 12:27 am | #

          It had a grand finale with “The End”. Anything past it is just bonus.

          • Regalli
            Regalli
            September 20, 2021 at 1:28 am | #

            More specifically, they’re April Fool’s strips.

        • He Who Abides
          He Who Abides
          September 20, 2021 at 12:29 am | #

          Because maybe it shouldn’t be legal for any one entity to own 69 newspapers (nice).

        • Cholma
          Cholma
          September 20, 2021 at 12:32 am | #

          The end of Shortpacked! involved Soggies taking over and ruling as foretold by the ancient texts.

          • Deanatay
            Deanatay
            September 20, 2021 at 10:57 am | #

            I seem dab to remember a dab different dab dab ending dab dab dab dab dab

    • Thag Simmons
      Thag Simmons
      September 20, 2021 at 12:52 am | #

      Shortpacked ended when they inadvertently broke spacetime through excess diversity and summoned an army of monsters from Captain Crunch commercials which proceeded to conquer the world. I think this was fairly self-evident and self-explanatory

      • Regalli
        Regalli
        September 20, 2021 at 1:26 am | #

        Huh. I posted a comment but I think it got eaten. Darn.

        Anyway, yeah. I will add that the Soggies may or may not rule and that they are also a metaphor for the seemingly endless flood of Shitty Takes by white nerdbros who think any divergence from their perceived straight white abled cis norm is ‘forced,’ and that therefore the series ending on Leslie and company staring them down ready for a fight represents Shortpacked’s core theme of dunking on said shitty takes, forever. (This was not particularly subtle at the end there but I will still say it directly because I love that ending.) Also, the specific breaking of spacetime merged fiction and nonfiction in many ways, thus the Soggening extending to the one-off universes like Batman breathing in space and Aslan’s bus stop, SG Ravage appearing with the cast, and Dina Sarazu coming back from the dead.

        Also also, because the key dialogue is Dina saying to shoo away any ‘non-white, non-heteronormative, and neurodivergent’ people specifically, prompting Leslie to ask what that makes her and Dina going ‘Uh oh.’, that is the point at which I started considering Dina as canonically neurodivergent and specifically autistic, given that line was almost certainly prompted by questions about Dumbingverse Dina including how a lot of us read her as specifically autistic. (DoA!Becky hadn’t been reintroduced yet, though I think there was the strip where Dina considers a partner in the abstract and doesn’t think gender would matter there, but yeah, the line is structured so that Dina implicitly meets all three categories she lists.)

        • powerpowerpow
          powerpowerpow
          September 20, 2021 at 7:49 am | #

          Every now and then I think “Maybe I should get around to reading the Walkyverse” and then I hear something like this and go “Nope sorry I don’t have that many brain cells to spare”

          • Clif
            Clif
            September 20, 2021 at 10:26 am | #

            But it starts off nice and easy with Sal and Danny and Joe.

          • Regalli
            Regalli
            September 20, 2021 at 5:55 pm | #

            About 80% of the time, it’s not that hard to follow. It gets complicated when discussing a big storyline like, say, the finale of a comic and end of a shared universe spanning almost twenty years, but so would discussing the events of last book.

            But the Walkyverse, and Shortpacked in particular, was a lot goofier to begin with. Half the cast were abducted by aliens as children and given literal superpowers. (I miss it, sometimes. Frequently, even.)

    • Kaidah
      Kaidah
      September 20, 2021 at 9:01 am | #

      Oh…oh no…you’ve reminded me about Shortpacked!…there goes another week of productivity as I read through it again for like the fourth time.

      I just meant to go look at this year’s April 1st strip but the pull was too strong.

    • Needfuldoer
      Needfuldoer
      September 20, 2021 at 9:03 am | #

      An interdimensional rift opened up, and the Soggies ruled.

  6. David Alexander McDonald
    David Alexander McDonald
    September 20, 2021 at 12:13 am | #

    I think how Joyce sees Dorothy fits that very well, but there’s some doubt in there too because Dorothy is overdriven.

    • He Who Abides
      He Who Abides
      September 20, 2021 at 12:30 am | #

      And the little issue of Joyce wanting Dorothy to attach a strap-on and split her like a log.

      • milu
        milu
        September 20, 2021 at 4:56 pm | #

        …ouch

        • RassilonTDavros
          RassilonTDavros
          September 21, 2021 at 12:03 am | #

          Yeah, that description sounded less sexy and more murder-y.

          …which would largely be the same thing for, say, Ruth, but… probably not Joyce.

  7. Stephen Bierce
    Stephen Bierce
    September 20, 2021 at 12:15 am | #

    Knock knock on the door
    Who’s it for?
    There’s nobody in here–look in a mirror my friend!

  8. Sirksome
    Sirksome
    September 20, 2021 at 12:15 am | #

    I mean I can see the positives and negatives to Liz here. She may seem like Joyce evolved but she also lacks certain boundaries. Less responsible.

  9. Beau Kirin Maysey
    Beau Kirin Maysey
    September 20, 2021 at 12:27 am | #

    aladdin_tell_her_the_truth.jpeg

    • Zachary R
      Zachary R
      September 20, 2021 at 12:53 am | #

      All right, sparky, here’s the deal. If you wanna court the little lady, ya gotta be a straight shooter. Do ya got it?

    • Keulen
      Keulen
      September 20, 2021 at 6:31 am | #

      “I can’t believe it. I’m losing to a rug.”

  10. Nayann Martinelli
    Nayann Martinelli
    September 20, 2021 at 12:29 am | #

    Why not Ruth, Sarah? Who better to show you the intricacies of how to break someone’s knees?

    • He Who Abides
      He Who Abides
      September 20, 2021 at 12:31 am | #

      Asher?

      • Thag Simmons
        Thag Simmons
        September 20, 2021 at 12:54 am | #

        I don’t think Asher was that sort of mobster. He could probably introduce you to one though.

        • Decidedly Orthogonal
          Decidedly Orthogonal
          September 20, 2021 at 1:15 am | #

          Oh I took this to mean the Dude was volunteering Asher to be the ‘someone’ whose knees were to be broke. Y’know, when Ruth is showing Joyce the intricacies of how to break ‘someone’s’ knees.

          • Needfuldoer
            Needfuldoer
            September 20, 2021 at 9:06 am | #

            Asher is the boss’s grandson, so he’s probably above doing the dirty work himself but he can make it happen.

  11. Madock345
    Madock345
    September 20, 2021 at 12:31 am | #

    Liz is the kind of person who does things just because they’re not supposed to.
    That’s basically running your life based on Spite.
    I think Sarah is right, Joyce shouldn’t try to be this way.

    • Sirksome
      Sirksome
      September 20, 2021 at 12:44 am | #

      I don’t think it’s spite. It’s more like a YOLO approach. Why not steal your sister’s bf if he’s into you? What’s the worst that could happen?

      • thejeff
        thejeff
        September 20, 2021 at 8:59 am | #

        Though Sarah’s claim that she didn’t tell Liz about the boyfriend “so you wouldn’t want to see him” suggests there’s a bit more to it than that.

    • adam Black
      adam Black
      September 20, 2021 at 3:12 am | #

      if sarah believed that , she would move out Joyce room herself.

  12. BBCC
    BBCC
    September 20, 2021 at 12:34 am | #

    …Yes, Sarah. It’s Ruth.

  13. Sol
    Sol
    September 20, 2021 at 12:42 am | #

    Yeah Joyce can definitely find a better role model than someone who thinks it’s cool to go after her sister’s boyfriends.

    Cuz contextually it seems pretty clear that she has a habit of doing so…

    • adam Black
      adam Black
      September 20, 2021 at 3:10 am | #

      Its a good thing Sarah is against Boyfriend stealing

      • Sam
        Sam
        September 20, 2021 at 7:25 am | #

        She is, she both backed off from trying to do so herself and tried to get Joyce to stop her pursuit of Jacob. Because Sarah realised it was not what would make Jacob happy and that it was the wrong thing to do. She wasn’t always against stealing boyfriends from people she DISLIKES but she learned and grew and decided that wasn’t the thing to do before there were any serious consequences.

        It was Joyce that didn’t stop and had no problem with trying to steal someone’s partner. So guess why Sarah may not want her to take inspiration from someone that thinks that is no big deal.

        • Clif
          Clif
          September 20, 2021 at 10:30 am | #

          Jacob may have been dating, but they were never partners.

  14. brionl
    brionl
    September 20, 2021 at 12:45 am | #

    Ooh! I know, it’s Walky! Right?

  15. Jamie
    Jamie
    September 20, 2021 at 12:49 am | #

    I vote Sierra.

    • Moonie
      Moonie
      September 20, 2021 at 12:57 am | #

      Probably one of the best choices honestly

      • Clif
        Clif
        September 20, 2021 at 10:30 am | #

        Shoes are overrated.

  16. Amos Batista
    Amos Batista
    September 20, 2021 at 1:33 am | #

    Ruth was inserted here in a so randomly way. So funny.
    Also, Sarah, let Joyce go full-devil; post-christian children deserves to walk through the dark side, at least for a while…

    • Throwatron
      Throwatron
      September 20, 2021 at 2:17 am | #

      Yes, but Sarah knows that, unlike her sister, Joyce absolutely is not ready for and cannot handle the full-impact version of that, yet.

  17. Rabisch
    Rabisch
    September 20, 2021 at 3:13 am | #

    Sad to see Joyce so desperately wants to change that she starts imitating others. She can’t see how much she has already done so far and She’s so insecure. Sarah seems able to understand how deeply she wants to change and she’s really worried for her and what she could become. Sarah is a good friend.

  18. Bagge
    Bagge
    September 20, 2021 at 3:52 am | #

    Sierra?

  19. Queezle
    Queezle
    September 20, 2021 at 4:25 am | #

    I can see why Sarah was not to thrilled to see Liz. I really wanted to like he but some of the things she said are kind of off putting to me. And there is the “stealing boyfriends is a “fun” thing sisters do to each other” thing. I mean I wouldn’t know since I only have a brother and I am aroace so that was never an issue, but I would not categorize doing something that upsets or hurts him as fun.

    • BenRG
      BenRG
      September 20, 2021 at 5:34 am | #

      Yeah, I have gone off of Liz fairly quickly. She’s basically everything that would send Joyce, in her current mental and emotion place, down the most completely self-destructive path.

  20. Arianod
    Arianod
    September 20, 2021 at 5:14 am | #

    “It’s you, Sarah. It’s always been you.”

    • BenRG
      BenRG
      September 20, 2021 at 5:33 am | #

      Naturally, Sarah would never be able to believe it or accept that Joyce has made anything but a calamitous mistake.

  21. BenRG
    BenRG
    September 20, 2021 at 5:35 am | #

    I wonder if this chapter is going to have a “The Anti-Joyce Collection” for DoA – Various characters who highlight what future Joyce could be and their various good and bad points.

    • RassilonTDavros
      RassilonTDavros
      September 21, 2021 at 12:00 am | #

      As long as she doesn’t shoot any of them in the face this time.

  22. Alex
    Alex
    September 20, 2021 at 5:36 am | #

    I think people are being a little too harsh on Liz for the boyfriend thing. She said Sarah told her she wasn’t seeing the guy. We only have Sarah’s perspective that Liz would have been even more into him if she knew the truth. I like Sarah but she’s pretty cynical on a good day.

    • KingoHrts
      KingoHrts
      September 20, 2021 at 6:27 am | #

      Also remember Sarah’s take on boyfriends. Use them for what you want but nothing outside of that. No concern for the boy’s feelings or needs. Stealing a boyfriend from her would be so easy you could do it without knowing you were doing it. Just by being nice and concerned and nearby when the boy figured out what Sarah did and didn’t want, which is how this might have happened.

      Not to mention the fun of poking the bear that is Sarah on a regular basis which sounds so little sisterish.

      • Sam
        Sam
        September 20, 2021 at 7:09 am | #

        Actually, Sarah’s take was that she is only really into guys for a few hook-ups and she backed off personally from going after Jacob herself when she recognised that he was looking for a long-term relationship which she was unwilling to give him. In fact, she also tried to call off Joyce’s pursuit of him too.

        If anything Liz’s stealing of her boyfriends is likely why she is so adverse to committing to a long-term relationship because what is the point if you know your sister will one day show up to take him from you because that is a thing she does and doesn’t deny that she does, defending it as her being more fun than Sarah so of course they like her better.

        • Spencer
          Spencer
          September 20, 2021 at 8:27 am | #

          I don’t think Sarah ever actually dissuaded Joyce from stealing Jacob from Raidah, she just eventually went hands off as Joyce did it herself.

          I doubt Liz being a super homewrecker for Sarah would be dropped so casually, especially with how that exact plot point happened with Sarah and Joyce, so I’m inclined to believe it was more that Liz “stole” one guy that Sarah said she wasn’t into but was lying.

          • Sam
            Sam
            September 20, 2021 at 12:33 pm | #

            I could have sworn she said to forget it at some point but she did try to apologise for tricking Joyce into it and that kind of carries the implication to me that she expected her to stop. And from that point it was entirely Joyce’s choice to continue and actively do it rather than just accidentally being endearing to Jacob.

            • Spencer
              Spencer
              September 20, 2021 at 12:37 pm | #

              I do not remember that. The last I remember was Joe laying into Sarah for it and Sarah defending herself by saying she was giving Joyce what she wanted, and once the truth came to light and Joyce had herself done wrong she let it go.

              • thejeff
                thejeff
                September 20, 2021 at 3:12 pm | #

                I think this is the scene in question.

    • Mano308gts
      Mano308gts
      September 20, 2021 at 6:38 am | #

      Or, that might be a way of implying that this was a behavior that had caused splits between them beforehand, but had never reached a full fruition before the case in reference.

    • milu
      milu
      September 20, 2021 at 5:09 pm | #

      Yeah, right now Sarah’s reaction tells me her pride was hurt maybe, not that her sister crossed a red line

  23. Keulen
    Keulen
    September 20, 2021 at 6:35 am | #

    I’m assuming Joyce’s “better role model” that she’s not so sure about is Sarah.

  24. Spencer
    Spencer
    September 20, 2021 at 7:40 am | #

    Agatha, of course.

    • hof1991
      hof1991
      September 20, 2021 at 9:35 am | #

      It was Agatha all along.

      • Rectilinear Propagation
        Rectilinear Propagation
        September 21, 2021 at 12:04 am | #

        Every time I read that I have to go listen to the trap remix.

  25. Josh Spicer
    Josh Spicer
    September 20, 2021 at 7:46 am | #

    Sarah…

  26. hof1991
    hof1991
    September 20, 2021 at 9:34 am | #

    That was the info Sarah was guarding. Child from a previous relationship. Not a previous marriage. Does she see her biological father? How did she fit in her mother’s marriage when there was a new baby? What’s her stepdad like? This family dynamic was unlikely to produce a happy daughter from a previous relationship. Liz might be a reminder that there was a happy family that she wasn’t really a part of.

    • Needfuldoer
      Needfuldoer
      September 20, 2021 at 10:12 am | #

      Given their relatively close ages, I wonder if Liz is the result of an affair? Even if Sarah’s mother and biological father were never married to each other, they could’ve had a steady relationship that their mother violated and/or Liz’s father intruded upon. That could have been the foundation of Sarah’s trust issues.

      (I could’ve sworn Sarah once told Joyce her parents were divorced, but that could’ve just been a little white lie she thought Joyce would more easily accept at the time…)

  27. Fetch85
    Fetch85
    September 20, 2021 at 11:07 am | #

    Joe for a role model? Joyce, I never would have guessed!

  28. Wakeangel2001
    Wakeangel2001
    September 20, 2021 at 11:55 am | #

    what, would you prefer she became a misanthropic hikiomori like you?

    • Eldritchy
      Eldritchy
      September 20, 2021 at 1:22 pm | #

      Yeah on misanthropy but isn’t she far too educationally and socially active to be a hikikomori?

  29. Ragingagnostic
    Ragingagnostic
    September 20, 2021 at 1:50 pm | #

    Joyce really wants to be a beau-snatcher? Because that’s the kind of thing that makes other women despise you.

    • Eldritchy
      Eldritchy
      September 20, 2021 at 1:56 pm | #

      Didn’t she kind of already did that? With Jacob?

      • Spencer
        Spencer
        September 20, 2021 at 2:00 pm | #

        On accident, sort of.

        She wasn’t deliberately trying to swipe Jacob from Raidah but when ultimately called out on it by Jacob she didn’t stop. I don’t think it was intentional but the way she phrased it, where she knows Jacob likes her and if he wants her to leave she will, seemed weirdly manipulative of Joyce, like she’s putting the onus of doing the right thing onto Jacob when Joyce herself can take the blame for the thing she is doing and walk away.

        • thejeff
          thejeff
          September 20, 2021 at 2:54 pm | #

          She was absolutely doing it deliberately, at least before that meeting with Harrison. And in the aftermath she talked about wanting to be free of morals like atheists and how that didn’t work out, which seemed to be a reference to her actions with Jacob.

        • Regalli
          Regalli
          September 20, 2021 at 3:28 pm | #

          Yeah, her talk with Dorothy in the aftermath is pretty revealing, since she starts it with ‘I don’t want to talk about it because it involves me being a bad person’ and then goes onto the monologue about how she believed not believing in God meant she was free from consequences and morality, but then she hurt someone and doesn’t like that fact. It’s the flip side of the idea that all morality comes from God, and thus atheists (and people who aren’t in your particular sect) are amoral and damned. If you don’t believe atheists can be good people who have their own sense of morality, then if your faith shatters, it doesn’t matter what you do, right? Because you won’t be judged by God for your actions, because God doesn’t exist!

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/freeing/

          So yeah, Joyce did something she knew was a bad idea, something she deemed immoral, but decided to go through with it anyway thinking that if she was losing faith, what did it matter? And then the obvious ‘God won’t judge you but OTHER PEOPLE will’ set in, and Joyce discovered she didn’t like that, and also that you can have a functioning moral code without belief in God and specifically God’s punishment.

          • thejeff
            thejeff
            September 20, 2021 at 10:38 pm | #

            Not even necessarily that other people will judge you, but that you have empathy and will judge yourself.
            “people still have feelings and you still care about those feelings”.

  30. milu
    milu
    September 20, 2021 at 5:03 pm | #

    Joyce really believed in Fuckface as a role model for a moment

    • Needfuldoer
      Needfuldoer
      September 20, 2021 at 6:49 pm | #

      Fuckface is a great role model, f you want to spend your days chillin’, eating lettuce, riding on top of peoples’ heads and getting spritzed while basking under a heat lamp.

      Sounds like a sweet gig to me.

  31. JA
    JA
    September 20, 2021 at 10:56 pm | #

    Why can’t it be Ruth? What’s wrong with beating people with their own femurs?

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