A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Hemlock
Josceline Fenton
A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
All Known Alternatives
Karolina 'Kajotko' Jankiewicz
Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
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Overexposure to drama the previous year (with her former roommate) has left Sarah with a very low tolerance for drama. Especially unnecessary drama. In her room.
This is a good distinction! After all, Sarah fought Ryan with a baseball bat to protect Joyce way back when. But she doesn’t usually display affection, consideration, etc., and if I were Joyce right now it’d piss me off. Then again, from Sarah’s perspective, Joyce is being unreasonable and it probably annoys her that she won’t do stuff to help herself.
Oh noes! Don’t type! Rest, ice, elevation. Brace may help you keep it still & refrain from using it, if you can brace without any pain at all from the pressure. Anti-inflammatories and analgesics are so important for swollen joints!
She looks skeptical because Dorothy’s plan sounds too good to be true and Joyce is in a phase where she distrusts the existence of goodness. Sarah’s outright mocking it doesn’t let Joyce have even the weak nihilism she’s been clinging to.
Wow, I’m thinking that would be a terrible idea. I’m sure Roz would feel zero embarrassment, but her insistence on being visibly and vocally unembarrassed would probably end up attracting the very attention Joyce doesn’t want.
Becky wants to go so she can pretend she’s Joyce’s girlfriend for a minute, if only subliminally, and it’s been a fanon theory for 6 or 7 years now that Becky would catastrophically meltdown if Joyce did come out as not-straight and then not choose Becky, so seeing Dorothy playing out that fantasy is ripe fruit for drama.
But imagine what kind of tizzies Joyce and Joe will explode into if a pharmacist calls them a couple as Joyce is picking up birth control. It would be amazing.
that would be pretty messed up but even if she is upset in the moment , i think her current relationship with dina is good enough to where they’re strong enough to stay together rather than being a ‘rebound’ like sarah said forever ago
Yes. Becky is _genuinely_ attracted to Dina, and loves her. So even if Joyce came out, Becky couldn’t/wouldn’t drop Dina.
Another thing I haven’t heard raised is, (or I forgot) even if Joyce came out as the most lesbianest, she still might not be /attracted/ to Becky like that. Becky was always crushing over Joyce, but Joyce has spent her life viewing Becky as a sister/friend. If Joyce was actually attracted to Becky, then (no guarantee) I imagine it would have been bleeding showing through long since.
Though I’ve suspect that is Becky’s underlying motivation too, it works paint her bringing Joyce up when talking about her and her girlfriend hooking up in a way that could be hurtful to Dina if ever pointed out.
Yeah, at this point I think Becky’s romantic interest in Joyce has died down a little. The recent tension they’ve had has noticeably changed their dynamic. Joyce is still Becky’s closest thing to family now though so she’s overly possessive but the crush might be gone. If Joyce ever came out I think Becky would be okay. She seems to even think Joyce might be bicurious although she doesn’t trust her gaydar.
Pain + insomnia would be the worst, it’s hard to force yourself to sleep but i try to nap through a stomachache if it’s late at night or at least take some medicine before laying back in bed even if i can’t be unconscious for it
I feel like the daily release schedule is making this conversation seem longer than it actually is. It’s probably only been a few minutes of back and forth, tops.
if three or four people were berating me like this while I felt this bad after i my alarm went off and i asked for three minutes of quiet, i would probably start crying
Joyce is the sort of outgoing person who would ASK for help if she wanted it. There’s absolutely no need for THREE people to be hovering over her and nagging her about her medication.
If Joyce wants to get the pills, she will. If she doesn’t, she won’t. She’s an adult and can deal with her OWN decision on whether she’d rather endure the pain of cramps or endure the potential social humiliation of being perceived as a sexual being.
This is really the sort of thing she has to do at her own pace, and I feel like all Dorothy is accomplishing by brute forcing it is making sure that Joyce hates the idea more and more.
I know when I’m in severe pain it limits my ability to think to the extent that it’s hard for me to cope with the steps to address the pain, and for me it’s simple enough that I don’t have to leave my apartment to do it, much less have social interactions that would produce anxiety even without the pain.
Joyce’s reaction to debilitating pain are very familiar to me, and it took time for me to recognize that I do need help sometimes. What you are saying is not a universal truth, and I don’t think is accurate to Joyce.
Joyce is also in such a state that she’d probably end up missing like a weeks of classes and be unable to do any school work if someone doesn’t intervene.
I feel like debilitating pain/fatigue/depression is too normalized in general. If your able-bodied friend goes from chipper and energetic one day to literally unable/unwilling to get out of bed the next, trying to intervene and help is actually a good thing.
Yeah honestly as someone who deals with chronic pain, I’d be all over Dorothy’s offer to just take my birthdate and go get the meds for me. I’d be like yes, plz, I don’t want to leave this bed, just bring me the things so I don’t have to move.
Granted Joyce is not me, and I think there’s more stuff going on here, what with Joyce’s bad reaction to the autism diagnosis and her residual Christian discomfort over taking birth control pills at all. It’s hard to know what exactly is causing her to be stubborn about this.
I know her friends can be overbearing but also I don’t blame them for trying to offer help. She’s been utterly miserable and making it very well-known, and they are her friends and are trying to fix it. I don’t think she’s said she just wants to be left alone, but also Sarah still has to live in that room too so she can’t leave her alone completely. It’s not unreasonable to want to try to find a way to resolve this.
Especially when there IS a solution and Joyce is dragging her feet on acting on it or even accepting help with it. When my kid gets like this I take the “okay I’m gonna go now and you can come tell me when you’re ready to talk” approach, but Joyce is 1-not 7, and 2-has been like this for days and leaving her alone seemed to help even less than being proactive.
also when Jennifer took joyce to the doctor and scolded everyone else for not doing so sooner, a lot of commenters agreed and judged the group pretty harshly for not doing so, even though this level of disagreement is probably exactly why they hadn’t tried harder. they just got the notion yesterday that joyce wanted to fix this so they stepped up their game and hit an immediate brick wall.
Joyce is incredibly complicated and difficult and I don’t understand why everyone expects her friends to know what to do 100% of the time.
Honestly, I know they’re basically stupid kids and, y’know, we all know the title of the strip, but taking a step back, having to deal with someone as consistently and variously neurotic as Joyce would be… REALLY wearying. That aside from the trauma conga line they all get to enjoy. I’d have thrown my hands up and said “just get on with it” by now
You could also just… not make a big deal out of it when someone has a neurosis. Instead of making fun of that person or getting frustrated every time. The feeling of weariness would have to be mutual.
part of being an adult is making unintelligent decisions and figuring out why that was the wrong choice. Joyce is not being given the breathing room to even do this
I agree, but partly. Yes in this case, the right thing to do for Joyce is suck it up and get those meds. She’s behaving like a child not wanting to swallow aspirin even though it can’t eat because of the throat ache. Things will only get worse. Sometimes, You just have to get that nudge to swallow the bitter pill.
On the other hand, becoming an adult is all about learning to deal with stuff like this in yourself and others, and learning goes hand in hand with making mistakes. So I’m not judging.
I mean, it’s not like birth control is an instant cure-all for menstrual pain. It takes time to get into your system and start helping, if it even does help at all. Every form of BC I took only ever made me feel worse than before even months after I started taking it, but that’s neither here nor there.
Point is, while Joyce does need to get her meds and learn how to take them, it’s not like time is of the essence and every second counts.
Honestly, that wouldn’t be a bad title. Plus, I’m pretty sure Sarah has yet to get one of her quotes on a book cover. If I’m counting right, Walky and Joyce have both gotten two each, while Ruth, Amazi-Girl, Becky, Carla, Joe, Dorothy, and Dina have each gotten one. Sarah needs a turn.
Anyone notice that Sarah’s been unusually acerbic toward Joyce this time around? They seem to be having a rough time in their friendship, beyond normal quibbles.
joyce is pretty intense as a friend even without her current problem, but i can imagine you wouldn’t want certain friends as roommates even if you can get along just fine while hanging out (tho assuming this is a four year college, i can imagine ppl getting close enough to either still stay in touch or literally never get in contact again)
Those are pretty old comics, and there hasn’t been any follow-up on them, so it’d be weird for that to be what Sarah’s unusually cranky about right now. The point of OP is that Sarah isn’t usually like this towards Joyce.
I think this is probably more relevant to this particular issue, being close enough in the timeline to still be part of Joyce’s pain cycle.
Honestly I’m a little afraid of bringing the arguments back from those strips, but literally all I’m saying here is there have been recent friction points that might be relevant here. Let’s please not get back into that whole thing from those strips.
Maybe Sarah’s been coddling Joyce a bit, wants to stop doing that, and is over-correcting by being mean? I figure she has a lot of bottled up anger and frustration and it’s all spilling out right now. I feel like maybe Sarah needs to see a culturally-informed trauma therapist.
She’s also been through a lot, and Joyce has a bigger support system than she does.
Sarah’s probably processing the feelings her half-sister visiting, bonding with Joyce like crazy, Sarah finding herself having to turn to Joe (JOE of all people!) for help with “normal” sibling interactions, the sister not leaving of her own volition, the sister accusing her of wanting to sleep with Joe, etc, all stirred up in her. They evidently have a complicated, messy relationship, but there is a lot of love there.
And needing to snark a bit to help recover from reaching out to another human being makes sense for Sarah.
Also Jennifer – somebody she has always looked down on as a bag of terrible decisions wrapped in entitlement and Daddy’s money – has just called her out on being ineffectual and just accepting stuff that she shouldn’t, and retreating into her snarky shell while evaluating the validity of her words, also makes sense.
I get that it /can/ be intimate/depending on what part of the cities/states you’re in, it’d be read as romantic but I can enjoy holding hands with ppl platonically too
Think she is seriously considering the angle that Dorothy is making fun of her. It was only yesterday that Dorothy used that same smile to reassure her nothing was going on with Dina spending more time with them and I think because that registered as a lie she’s not trusting Dorothy at this moment.
That would be hilarious and probably bad for Joyce. What would her mom say to her taking birth control? I can’t imagine her mom has anything nice to say after the divorce anyway.
well idk how far her original neighborhood is from the campus/uni but hopefully it wouldn’t be like the only pharmacy around (i never went to college and the ones closest are more community rather than dorms where ppl would live away from their family but while it’s likely not ‘in the middle of nowhere’ i imagine campuses could be fairly far off from any residential houses/neighborhoods so there aren’t any unrelated cars/working passing through and giving a chance for proper space to practice living on their own and such)
and, it’d probably be a pain to deal with , or not really legally hold up but i wonder if a restraining order would be possible if parental relationships got really bad (though ruth being able to suplex unwanted visitors is more effective lol)
Bad for Joyce how? I guess emotionally depending on how much of a connection she still has to her mom, but Carol really holds nothing over her legally adult daughter. If I were Joyce and Carol tried to come at me sideways I’d take her on a nice trip to suplex city!
Because as much as she loves her mother(whatever small amount that is) she almost certainly doesn’t want her mom to know she is starting to take birth control. Even though Joyce is taking them for the help it does with her period, I can’t imagine her mom will care enough to ask why before she starts declaring her daughter a “hussy.” Also, it hasn’t been mentioned but there is a chance that Joyce’s mom blames Joyce for a part of the divorce and encountering her mom anywhere would be a bad thing.
I think Joyce blames her Mom a lot, and not just for the divorce. There’s the whole kidnapping, hostage, aggravated battery and murder thing. Mrs. Brown played a big role in that. I doubt Joyce will be spending a lot of time in La Porte in the future, particularly since Becky has moved to Bloomington.
I’m amused that they’ve considered disguising Joyce as a lesbian but have not even considered putting a ring on her finger to go pick up the medication.
It doesn’t even have to be a nice ring. Almost any ring on the fourth finger of the left hand will do. I am a real, live married person who has been wearing a silicone ring nonstop for over a year because my real ring got too small and I haven’t had time or money to fix it. I know a couple who can’t wear real rings at work so I’m pretty sure they ONLY have silicone rings! These things are like $7 for a 5 pack on Amazon for the basic kind!
rings can be pretty subtle but i’ve heard of a few people who wore fake ones /make up a spouse just to prevent ppl from hitting on them (which is kinda sad but hopefully it’d make at least some ppl back off if not all)
Yup.
My wife and I got our initial wedding rings at Walmart from the fakey jewelry section. We meant to replace them when we had more money.
Instead, we now wear silicone rings, in various colors.
I might look into a silicone ring because I misplaced my wedding band when I was working on 45KV power supplies for MW microwave transmitters in the Army and the tape made me break out when there was enough to not let my ring short out and send lethal amounts of electricity through my body.
Well people have pointed out Becky’s probably trying to subconsciously live out her fantasy of being Joyce’s girlfriend and last time Dorothy wanted her to do something spending time with her did work as a bribe.
I doubt the ring shrank, Dinajoyce’s finger probably got bigger. This can happen for lots of reasons. People may gain weight as they get older. Injuries and diseases such as arthritis can also cause knuckles to enlarge, making it difficult or impossible to put rings on. Or, even worse, make it impossible to take off a ring that’s uncomfortably tight. My mother spent some time working at a jewelry store, and once saw a customer who ended up having to have a ring cut to get it off. On the up side, the jeweler was able to resize and repair the ring.
Is it realistic that they’d expect it would help today if she’d started taking it yesterday??? Unless she has very long periods, i wouldn’t expect there to be any benefit until next time
Why should we? I don’t see anything wrong with trying to avoid a little awkwardness, and making sure people clearly understand what you say is a good thing.
Nor sure if she’s considering or just remembering how Dorothy gave her a smug grin when Joyce noted Dina was spending more time with their group then usual and Dorothy’s need to join in Becky’s lie just came off as very fake and condenseding.
Gosh, I love Sarah♡. On the other hand, Dorothy trying to use Joyce’s crush on her for make her go take her medicines is on the edge between very sweet and very wrong.
I guess nobody has stumbled on a smarter alternative…. simply get Joyce to ask a question at the pharmacy that allows her to indicate this is “not for sex”.
Something along the lines of “The doc told me these will stop cramps… how long will it take?” Even if the pharmacist doesn’t know the answer, Joyce would have at least put it in his mind that “this is for a medical condition”.
Ok, in that case Joyce will be revealing more about her medical history to another stranger, but a pharmacist is still a professional, and has to follow plenty of rules of conduct.
Let’s all descend on Joyce early in the morning when she not 100% awake and had a very stressful day before to harangue her for not completely following through on one of the stressful things that happened the day before! Let’s get THIS day started off right! Where by right I mean on track to be another very stressful and exhausting day!
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yeah, imagine if there was a magical drug that
bannedcured cancer foreverbut bc it also halts ovulation (or sperm production!), it’s still “birth control”
drugs don’t do ONLY ONE THING, that’s why there are side effects, which in Joyce’s case would be “also discourages pregnancy”
fuckin’ optics
Or imagine a drug used to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases that also happens to be an abortificant.
(note: not hypothetical. Methotrexate)
that makes sense, if you’re going through cancer no way it’d seem safe/healthy enough to also be pregnant as well
A lot of drugs that target cancer do so by targeting fast growing cells, which are also found in embryos.
“You’re mocking me, aren’t you?”
“I’ll have you know that even though you tried to terminate me, revenge is not an idea we encourage on my planet.”
What is that from? It sounds vaguely familiar but I’ve got no guesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAct7Ynxty8
Is the second quote also from toy story?
Yes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h8yyJE9uY0
Helping and being considerate aren’t really Sarah strengths anyway. Sometimes you gotta stick to what you’re good at.
Overexposure to drama the previous year (with her former roommate) has left Sarah with a very low tolerance for drama. Especially unnecessary drama. In her room.
My take is Sarah is just being an asshole.
Yeah exactly!
Helping kind of is.
Being considerate definitely isn’t.
This is a good distinction! After all, Sarah fought Ryan with a baseball bat to protect Joyce way back when. But she doesn’t usually display affection, consideration, etc., and if I were Joyce right now it’d piss me off. Then again, from Sarah’s perspective, Joyce is being unreasonable and it probably annoys her that she won’t do stuff to help herself.
I agree with what you’ve said, but if that’s the case, Sarah is coming from a place of ableism with regards to her perspective.
FAKE DATING PLOT FAKE DATING PLOT FAKE DATING PLOT FAKE DATING PLOT
FAKE DATING PLOT this is NOT a DRILL
we can dream…
Hi NG. I hope the infodump I left you yesterday was useful to your friend. Please LMK if you have any questions.
thank you so much 4 it laura, very glad, currently trying to type with my non-dominant hand while the other is swollen :/
Oh noes! Don’t type! Rest, ice, elevation. Brace may help you keep it still & refrain from using it, if you can brace without any pain at all from the pressure. Anti-inflammatories and analgesics are so important for swollen joints!
Cooking may cause your hand to swell up more by using it, so don’t cook if you can avoid it. But if you can get some of these without having to cook, somehow, these foods and spices are good for inflammation:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/13-anti-inflammatory-foods
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/anti-inflammatory-herbs
Take good care!
You have seen the last two Dork Tower comics, haven’t you?
I haven’t really kept up with that comic lately, but I do like those two girls.
So you are couple? Go on kiss each other then i sell you your husky drug
I think Otto Korrekt bolluxed your “hussy” to “husky”.
… OH..! That’s good, I was trying to work out why somebody was selling drugs to Huskies
yes
For a brief millisecond I thought the title of the strip was “Cooter.”
Phrasing!
Jennifer would tell them it’s just a phrase their going through.
Huh, same here. Must be because Becky’s here.
Dorothy cuts to the chase in the first panel. Go Dorothy!
Joyce looks skeptical of Dorothy, but looks actually mad at Sarah in the last panel.
I suspect given the state Joyce is in she has less patience for Sarah’s usual attitude
She looks skeptical because Dorothy’s plan sounds too good to be true and Joyce is in a phase where she distrusts the existence of goodness. Sarah’s outright mocking it doesn’t let Joyce have even the weak nihilism she’s been clinging to.
Oh COME ON, Dotty, even Joyce got that one past her gaydar!
Oh, I finally got it.
This ends with Joe going with her to the pharmacy.
(it won’t, but that would be the most fun development as far as that ship goes)
Honestly, at this point my guess is Roz.
Ooh, that would be interesting.
Wow, I’m thinking that would be a terrible idea. I’m sure Roz would feel zero embarrassment, but her insistence on being visibly and vocally unembarrassed would probably end up attracting the very attention Joyce doesn’t want.
Becky wants to go so she can pretend she’s Joyce’s girlfriend for a minute, if only subliminally, and it’s been a fanon theory for 6 or 7 years now that Becky would catastrophically meltdown if Joyce did come out as not-straight and then not choose Becky, so seeing Dorothy playing out that fantasy is ripe fruit for drama.
But imagine what kind of tizzies Joyce and Joe will explode into if a pharmacist calls them a couple as Joyce is picking up birth control. It would be amazing.
that would be pretty messed up but even if she is upset in the moment , i think her current relationship with dina is good enough to where they’re strong enough to stay together rather than being a ‘rebound’ like sarah said forever ago
Yes. Becky is _genuinely_ attracted to Dina, and loves her. So even if Joyce came out, Becky couldn’t/wouldn’t drop Dina.
Another thing I haven’t heard raised is, (or I forgot) even if Joyce came out as the most lesbianest, she still might not be /attracted/ to Becky like that. Becky was always crushing over Joyce, but Joyce has spent her life viewing Becky as a sister/friend. If Joyce was actually attracted to Becky, then (no guarantee) I imagine it would have been
bleedingshowing through long since.it’s also been several months, so even if it started as a rebound it’s obviously changed since
Though I’ve suspect that is Becky’s underlying motivation too, it works paint her bringing Joyce up when talking about her and her girlfriend hooking up in a way that could be hurtful to Dina if ever pointed out.
Yeah, at this point I think Becky’s romantic interest in Joyce has died down a little. The recent tension they’ve had has noticeably changed their dynamic. Joyce is still Becky’s closest thing to family now though so she’s overly possessive but the crush might be gone. If Joyce ever came out I think Becky would be okay. She seems to even think Joyce might be bicurious although she doesn’t trust her gaydar.
I think she’d be okay as long as Joyce didn’t want to date Dorothy.
Eh, I think the only reason she’d go with Joe is if she needed someone to literally carry her there.
Like, a few days a month ?
They’re all being extremely annoying. Like… let her sleep
Joyce may be in too much pain to go back to sleep, even if they let her.
Pain + insomnia would be the worst, it’s hard to force yourself to sleep but i try to nap through a stomachache if it’s late at night or at least take some medicine before laying back in bed even if i can’t be unconscious for it
I feel like the daily release schedule is making this conversation seem longer than it actually is. It’s probably only been a few minutes of back and forth, tops.
if three or four people were berating me like this while I felt this bad after i my alarm went off and i asked for three minutes of quiet, i would probably start crying
On like multiple different levels here, time for Joyce to take her medicine.
Joyce is the sort of outgoing person who would ASK for help if she wanted it. There’s absolutely no need for THREE people to be hovering over her and nagging her about her medication.
If Joyce wants to get the pills, she will. If she doesn’t, she won’t. She’s an adult and can deal with her OWN decision on whether she’d rather endure the pain of cramps or endure the potential social humiliation of being perceived as a sexual being.
This is really the sort of thing she has to do at her own pace, and I feel like all Dorothy is accomplishing by brute forcing it is making sure that Joyce hates the idea more and more.
I know when I’m in severe pain it limits my ability to think to the extent that it’s hard for me to cope with the steps to address the pain, and for me it’s simple enough that I don’t have to leave my apartment to do it, much less have social interactions that would produce anxiety even without the pain.
Joyce’s reaction to debilitating pain are very familiar to me, and it took time for me to recognize that I do need help sometimes. What you are saying is not a universal truth, and I don’t think is accurate to Joyce.
+1 Well said.
Joyce is also in such a state that she’d probably end up missing like a weeks of classes and be unable to do any school work if someone doesn’t intervene.
I feel like debilitating pain/fatigue/depression is too normalized in general. If your able-bodied friend goes from chipper and energetic one day to literally unable/unwilling to get out of bed the next, trying to intervene and help is actually a good thing.
Yeah honestly as someone who deals with chronic pain, I’d be all over Dorothy’s offer to just take my birthdate and go get the meds for me. I’d be like yes, plz, I don’t want to leave this bed, just bring me the things so I don’t have to move.
Granted Joyce is not me, and I think there’s more stuff going on here, what with Joyce’s bad reaction to the autism diagnosis and her residual Christian discomfort over taking birth control pills at all. It’s hard to know what exactly is causing her to be stubborn about this.
I know her friends can be overbearing but also I don’t blame them for trying to offer help. She’s been utterly miserable and making it very well-known, and they are her friends and are trying to fix it. I don’t think she’s said she just wants to be left alone, but also Sarah still has to live in that room too so she can’t leave her alone completely. It’s not unreasonable to want to try to find a way to resolve this.
Especially when there IS a solution and Joyce is dragging her feet on acting on it or even accepting help with it. When my kid gets like this I take the “okay I’m gonna go now and you can come tell me when you’re ready to talk” approach, but Joyce is 1-not 7, and 2-has been like this for days and leaving her alone seemed to help even less than being proactive.
also when Jennifer took joyce to the doctor and scolded everyone else for not doing so sooner, a lot of commenters agreed and judged the group pretty harshly for not doing so, even though this level of disagreement is probably exactly why they hadn’t tried harder. they just got the notion yesterday that joyce wanted to fix this so they stepped up their game and hit an immediate brick wall.
Joyce is incredibly complicated and difficult and I don’t understand why everyone expects her friends to know what to do 100% of the time.
Honestly, I know they’re basically stupid kids and, y’know, we all know the title of the strip, but taking a step back, having to deal with someone as consistently and variously neurotic as Joyce would be… REALLY wearying. That aside from the trauma conga line they all get to enjoy. I’d have thrown my hands up and said “just get on with it” by now
:/
You could also just… not make a big deal out of it when someone has a neurosis. Instead of making fun of that person or getting frustrated every time. The feeling of weariness would have to be mutual.
Sorry, but choose to stay in pain just for avoid a social awkwardness is just not an intelligent thing to do, a friend has to point out that.
Sometimes social awkwardness or social anxiety is ALSO pain.
part of being an adult is making unintelligent decisions and figuring out why that was the wrong choice. Joyce is not being given the breathing room to even do this
Pointing it out is one thing, trying to force someone into your idea of the “right” decision is quite another.
I agree, but partly. Yes in this case, the right thing to do for Joyce is suck it up and get those meds. She’s behaving like a child not wanting to swallow aspirin even though it can’t eat because of the throat ache. Things will only get worse. Sometimes, You just have to get that nudge to swallow the bitter pill.
On the other hand, becoming an adult is all about learning to deal with stuff like this in yourself and others, and learning goes hand in hand with making mistakes. So I’m not judging.
I mean, it’s not like birth control is an instant cure-all for menstrual pain. It takes time to get into your system and start helping, if it even does help at all. Every form of BC I took only ever made me feel worse than before even months after I started taking it, but that’s neither here nor there.
Point is, while Joyce does need to get her meds and learn how to take them, it’s not like time is of the essence and every second counts.
Dumbing of age book whatever
I’ve got lots of scorn and it’s gonna bleed out sometimes
Honestly, that wouldn’t be a bad title. Plus, I’m pretty sure Sarah has yet to get one of her quotes on a book cover. If I’m counting right, Walky and Joyce have both gotten two each, while Ruth, Amazi-Girl, Becky, Carla, Joe, Dorothy, and Dina have each gotten one. Sarah needs a turn.
Anyone notice that Sarah’s been unusually acerbic toward Joyce this time around? They seem to be having a rough time in their friendship, beyond normal quibbles.
joyce is pretty intense as a friend even without her current problem, but i can imagine you wouldn’t want certain friends as roommates even if you can get along just fine while hanging out (tho assuming this is a four year college, i can imagine ppl getting close enough to either still stay in touch or literally never get in contact again)
I imagine the racial cluelessness might be a little grating over time, too.
See, e.g.:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/overfriendly/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/truce/
This.
Those are pretty old comics, and there hasn’t been any follow-up on them, so it’d be weird for that to be what Sarah’s unusually cranky about right now. The point of OP is that Sarah isn’t usually like this towards Joyce.
I think this is probably more relevant to this particular issue, being close enough in the timeline to still be part of Joyce’s pain cycle.
Honestly I’m a little afraid of bringing the arguments back from those strips, but literally all I’m saying here is there have been recent friction points that might be relevant here. Let’s please not get back into that whole thing from those strips.
That’s a good point.
Maybe Sarah’s been coddling Joyce a bit, wants to stop doing that, and is over-correcting by being mean? I figure she has a lot of bottled up anger and frustration and it’s all spilling out right now. I feel like maybe Sarah needs to see a culturally-informed trauma therapist.
She’s also been through a lot, and Joyce has a bigger support system than she does.
Sarah’s probably processing the feelings her half-sister visiting, bonding with Joyce like crazy, Sarah finding herself having to turn to Joe (JOE of all people!) for help with “normal” sibling interactions, the sister not leaving of her own volition, the sister accusing her of wanting to sleep with Joe, etc, all stirred up in her. They evidently have a complicated, messy relationship, but there is a lot of love there.
And needing to snark a bit to help recover from reaching out to another human being makes sense for Sarah.
Also Jennifer – somebody she has always looked down on as a bag of terrible decisions wrapped in entitlement and Daddy’s money – has just called her out on being ineffectual and just accepting stuff that she shouldn’t, and retreating into her snarky shell while evaluating the validity of her words, also makes sense.
Dorothy, please. We have established by now that Joyce can hold both your and Becky’s hand.
HER SHIPS ARE QUANTUM
Joyce’s grumpiness is still trickling, huh. I’ll believe the HHWW when we see it happen.
In other news, here’s a Joyce and Dorothy with and wearing… undertones
Joyce didn’t even blush. She really must be in a bad shape.
I get that it /can/ be intimate/depending on what part of the cities/states you’re in, it’d be read as romantic but I can enjoy holding hands with ppl platonically too
Think she is seriously considering the angle that Dorothy is making fun of her. It was only yesterday that Dorothy used that same smile to reassure her nothing was going on with Dina spending more time with them and I think because that registered as a lie she’s not trusting Dorothy at this moment.
She’s pale-faced because she’s on her period and is anemic right now. Even without the pain, she might be too dizzy to get out of bed.
Sarah really should take five now, like get breakfast, shower, basically anything that involves stepping out of the room for a bit.
I think that might just be the best thing she could do at this point.
Honestly I feel like she’s close to snapping at someone, probably Sarah as she’s been the most openly antagonistic towards her during this whole saga
Smash cut to her and dorothy holding hands and bumping into her mom in the line lol
That would be hilarious and probably bad for Joyce. What would her mom say to her taking birth control? I can’t imagine her mom has anything nice to say after the divorce anyway.
well idk how far her original neighborhood is from the campus/uni but hopefully it wouldn’t be like the only pharmacy around (i never went to college and the ones closest are more community rather than dorms where ppl would live away from their family but while it’s likely not ‘in the middle of nowhere’ i imagine campuses could be fairly far off from any residential houses/neighborhoods so there aren’t any unrelated cars/working passing through and giving a chance for proper space to practice living on their own and such)
Several hours of driving, so not likely to casually run into her.
and, it’d probably be a pain to deal with , or not really legally hold up but i wonder if a restraining order would be possible if parental relationships got really bad (though ruth being able to suplex unwanted visitors is more effective lol)
Bad for Joyce how? I guess emotionally depending on how much of a connection she still has to her mom, but Carol really holds nothing over her legally adult daughter. If I were Joyce and Carol tried to come at me sideways I’d take her on a nice trip to suplex city!
Because as much as she loves her mother(whatever small amount that is) she almost certainly doesn’t want her mom to know she is starting to take birth control. Even though Joyce is taking them for the help it does with her period, I can’t imagine her mom will care enough to ask why before she starts declaring her daughter a “hussy.” Also, it hasn’t been mentioned but there is a chance that Joyce’s mom blames Joyce for a part of the divorce and encountering her mom anywhere would be a bad thing.
I think Joyce blames her Mom a lot, and not just for the divorce. There’s the whole kidnapping, hostage, aggravated battery and murder thing. Mrs. Brown played a big role in that. I doubt Joyce will be spending a lot of time in La Porte in the future, particularly since Becky has moved to Bloomington.
Wouldn’t THAT be an intense bit of drama? Mom showing up unannounced for a random visit?
Jocyelne also showing up would be good as well, being able to have a slightly more plesant convo together hopefully
I’m amused that they’ve considered disguising Joyce as a lesbian but have not even considered putting a ring on her finger to go pick up the medication.
It doesn’t even have to be a nice ring. Almost any ring on the fourth finger of the left hand will do. I am a real, live married person who has been wearing a silicone ring nonstop for over a year because my real ring got too small and I haven’t had time or money to fix it. I know a couple who can’t wear real rings at work so I’m pretty sure they ONLY have silicone rings! These things are like $7 for a 5 pack on Amazon for the basic kind!
rings can be pretty subtle but i’ve heard of a few people who wore fake ones /make up a spouse just to prevent ppl from hitting on them (which is kinda sad but hopefully it’d make at least some ppl back off if not all)
Yup.
My wife and I got our initial wedding rings at Walmart from the fakey jewelry section. We meant to replace them when we had more money.
Instead, we now wear silicone rings, in various colors.
I might look into a silicone ring because I misplaced my wedding band when I was working on 45KV power supplies for MW microwave transmitters in the Army and the tape made me break out when there was enough to not let my ring short out and send lethal amounts of electricity through my body.
Well people have pointed out Becky’s probably trying to subconsciously live out her fantasy of being Joyce’s girlfriend and last time Dorothy wanted her to do something spending time with her did work as a bribe.
… Your ring shrank? What on Earth was it made of?
Pretty sure it’s not that unusual for rings to shrink.
I doubt the ring shrank, Dinajoyce’s finger probably got bigger. This can happen for lots of reasons. People may gain weight as they get older. Injuries and diseases such as arthritis can also cause knuckles to enlarge, making it difficult or impossible to put rings on. Or, even worse, make it impossible to take off a ring that’s uncomfortably tight. My mother spent some time working at a jewelry store, and once saw a customer who ended up having to have a ring cut to get it off. On the up side, the jeweler was able to resize and repair the ring.
Is it realistic that they’d expect it would help today if she’d started taking it yesterday??? Unless she has very long periods, i wouldn’t expect there to be any benefit until next time
Did we ever stop doing phrasing?
no
Don’t stop. Keep going. More!
Now “that’s what she said”, on the other hand… That might be phased out. (“phrased” out?)
Why should we? I don’t see anything wrong with trying to avoid a little awkwardness, and making sure people clearly understand what you say is a good thing.
I like that there’s a moment where she at least considers it, then kills the idea on the spot.
Nor sure if she’s considering or just remembering how Dorothy gave her a smug grin when Joyce noted Dina was spending more time with their group then usual and Dorothy’s need to join in Becky’s lie just came off as very fake and condenseding.
Gosh, I love Sarah♡. On the other hand, Dorothy trying to use Joyce’s crush on her for make her go take her medicines is on the edge between very sweet and very wrong.
See for Dorothy to use Joyce’s crush she’d have to realize it exists
Dorothy totally knows about Joyce’s crush.
Yep, and even Joyce knows, she just don’t want to admit it to herself.
Yes, because Dorothy totally knows about the “crush” Joyce doesn’t even know about herself wtf
Sarah..why?
At this rate Joyce is going to walk into the drugstore with three girls on her arm calling her various pet names. (SxJxDxB ot4?? jk)
See, then the pharmacist would think they were sorority sisters, and *definitely* think it was for contraception.
you know yes Sarah is being a total bongo but shes totally exasperated at Joyce who does need to know how stupid she’s being ……..
why does Joyce need to know how stupid she’s being?
I guess nobody has stumbled on a smarter alternative…. simply get Joyce to ask a question at the pharmacy that allows her to indicate this is “not for sex”.
Something along the lines of “The doc told me these will stop cramps… how long will it take?” Even if the pharmacist doesn’t know the answer, Joyce would have at least put it in his mind that “this is for a medical condition”.
Ok, in that case Joyce will be revealing more about her medical history to another stranger, but a pharmacist is still a professional, and has to follow plenty of rules of conduct.
That is entirely too reasonable for this crowd.
and by “crowd” you mean “comic”.
Let’s all descend on Joyce early in the morning when she not 100% awake and had a very stressful day before to harangue her for not completely following through on one of the stressful things that happened the day before! Let’s get THIS day started off right! Where by right I mean on track to be another very stressful and exhausting day!
cuz that’s the one thing a (kinda sorta) ex-christian that is afraid of looking like a hussy wants.
To look like a lesbian hussy. Let’s try keeping it to 1 identity crisis at a time.
kind of weird that Dorothy was like “hey, I’ll even do the same thing Becky just offered, if that will help signal that it’s not for babies”
I totally read the hover text in Archer’s voice…
Hey that’s actually PEFFECT
“you’re just making fun of me” she wants her so bad