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⚧️ Alexandra Merideth Erin [she/her]
Yeah Joyce, you must be rather scared right now having recently deconverted, but don’t worry! In a short order, you’ll find the fun in exploring the unknown, that just adds to the great adventure that is life!
And to make things better, Joe has joined your party! Happy adventuring or something, I don’t know!
*plays “The World of Adventurers” from Hunter x Hunter OST on hacked muzak*
Speaking as someone neuroatypical, there’s in fact an entirely valid argument that exploring the unknown is neither fun nor desirable and the ideal life is to find things you like and stick to them as well as routine until your carbon unit becomes other matter.
Which is to say, upended life is not always a grand adventure but a great annoyance.
As a differently neuroatypical person I’ve found that I like my housing to stay the same but don’t like looking at the same walls or walls in general. Rather than redecorating all the time, living in my car means the outside view is a variable I can change on a whim.
The only real thing I miss is a regular place to poop. I feel like I’m inconveniencing people if I take my time in a public stall.
Yeah, but how does one “find things they like” without exploring if “exploring the unknown is neither fun nor desirable”.
Asking for a friend.
You have a point, but also Joyce kinda doesn’t have a choice here. She has to explore the unknown because she’s rightly rejected everything she did know. She might as well have a positive attitude about it!
And then the questions begin. If I am not that person anymore, then who am I? If I’ve rejected those rules, what are my rules now? How do I get myself organized, so that I don’t spend all of my time thinking about what I should do and not doing it?
oh no
*Now* the sugar has hit!
However, Joyce is not unshackled from her bladder size
I have not even considered THAT interpretation of her facial expression last panel!
yeeeep
But why so SUDDEN? It’s not like she recently drank 2 liters of fluid or anything.
The nerves might be getting to her stomach, and thinking about it pushed it over the edge?
I’m a cis-male so I don’t know the effects of BC on the bladder for females. I know the effect of primitive attempts at male BC on the bladder, and they were not good.
Hubris.
And the “Billion Dicks Clock” ticks one minute closer to midnight.
Or at least Joe’s
I absolutely love the idea of an apocalypses clock of dicks.
Her tears of joy will cause the Sanzu River to flood, and demons like me will rule the world once more!!!
“So, what time is it if the big dick is on the twelve, and the little dick is on the eight?”
Yes, I’m easily amused some days.
It is now two minutes to midnight.
This clock is within sight of Blowjob Cat, isn’t it?
Not sure if existential crisis or impending sugar crash.
Going strong fro existential crisis.
Porque no los dos? Why can’t sugar stimulate the brain and cause it to think wildly about existential stuff?
What, you’ve never had an Existential Sugar Crash?
I used to have one every year on the day after Halloween.
Sounds positively diabetic!
two tastes that taste great together
My money’s on both
Maybe also a bladder emergency
yeah I feel that
You know what? The artistic decision behind that final panel is growing on me.
Goldie Hawn had a really great moment in Seems Like Old Times that this strip reminds me of.
It’s In THIS Clip.
Mood, Joyce.
Also, she’s going to have to piss like a race horse after that 2-liter.
Hey, if you want to be free of your baggage, just check it with American Airlines at O’Hare.
Snort! Very nice!
That’s the spirit, Billie. Encourage what she’s actually accomplished instead of griping that she hasn’t already done something else.
And that’s also the spirit, Becky. Just go along with what the properly supportive friend says, whether you subscribe to it or not.
Joyce, you’re doin’ great.
Hooray hooray hooray!!! 🥳
Yup, you kids are all going great here, good job. Quick we need some kind of dumb joke though, everyone is getting too mature. That’s the last quarter panel I guess!
Woohoo! Yippee!!
I cannot agree more. But I’m not sure if I can praise Billie or Jennifer for today…
She’s fine!
We’re all fine.
Everything is fine! Nothing is the matter!
I was hoping for burning dog comic and now I’m sad. Gotta keep reading until she gets help.
ALL aspects?
But it’s just the price I pay / Destiny is calling me / Open up my eager eyes
When your capacity is a teaspoon, cut it down to a liter or less.
Ohhhhh sweetie. That’s one hell of a ‘this is fine’ face.
And Jennifer’s way of being supportive is sweet and I’m glad to see it but I am very glad I’m not Joyce because I hate people talking to me in therapy speak. I know they don’t mean it to and so I don’t say anything to them but it always feels condescending
“yes, thank you, corporate validator”
I think the ‘we validate’ comment is partly directed at Becky who needs a nudge to be supportive. I think beckys disappointed Joyce has accomplished the task already without her.
Oh! The elbow and “oof”. I didn’t process those until your comment.
Yeah, the ‘we validate’ remark, and also the elbow.
I’m betting Jennifer heard that line from her new friends, and is using it on Joyce specifically because she hopes it will encourage Joyce as much as it encouraged Jennifer. I have to say, though, Jennifer’s new friends remind me of my mother’s “pals” from Alcoholics Anonymous who started using her as a maid/ATM/Chew Toy.
Oh hey, I think that might be Joe’s drawing on the wall? (Just below the Dexter poster, if you can’t find it.)
can’t wait to see how becky reacts to itMaybe, but it seems to have something in the upper left hand corner that wasn’t there in Joe’s drawing.
“Now what the FUCK do I do with Joe???”
The answer is in the question
Damnit.
“The answer is in your question.”
Stop It I am Like Thirty I am Too Old to be called out in This Way
oh. oh no.
Did Joyce…fart?
Now there’s something this comic needs — more fart humor!
butts disease is spreading
Now besides more farting, what else should we expect in stage two of Butts Disease?
2 litres of fizzy will do that to you
That or she’s trying to hold in a burp.
Sugar high?
the sea of possibilities is still a sea, full of waves, whirlpools, monsters and treasures
Also optional boss fights that give you new upper-mid-tier summons and tons of EXP.
unfortunately, the bosses have a terribly low drop rate and the grind will kill you sooner than you will “retire set”
Seeing a few comments about Joyce having a sugar rush/crash/high, and I’m a little confused. I’ve had way more than 2 liters of soda in one sitting and all it did was make me have to pee constantly for a few hours. She’s 18, she could eat deep-fried styrofoam with kerosene sauce and be completely fine.
That sounds like something Walky or the King of Town would eat.
Fantastic reference, A+.
I have no idea who the King of Town is, but if he has a habit of eating backyard napalm, I’m sure him and Walky would get along well.
No idea who…? gah… ack, I’m so old!
Okay get yer butt over to homestarrunner dot com and watch a bunch of old flash videos right now!
Homestarrunner dot net! It’s dot com!
Oh, it’s from that thing people keep demanding I know about. Maybe one day.
If you only ever let yourself succumb to peer pressure once, do yourself a favor and let it be for Homestar.
That’s because, just like studies have shown, “sugar rush” isn’t a thing that actually exists.
I miss my 18’s, where I could eat an entire cake without ruin my week diet.
Just change from driving to riding a bike. I used to ride 100 miles a week just commuting to/from work and I was eating roughly 4k to 4.5k calories/day and still losing weight. I kept that rate of exercise up for a decade and now I’m 64 and still eating like a teen.
I like Jennifer
Whelp, I’m convinced. Let’s go find some real drama.
ooooooh the cracks in the façade are starting to show
Jennifer did a good one. Also, Joyce’s outfit of the day is really cute ^^ i just like the color scheme!
she flinched
You know what’s next, Joyce… PRE-MARITAL HANKY PANKY! Which your dead grandma is in NO WAY watching from Heaven and giving you the judgiest stink-eye ever.
DoA Book 13: A Future of Possibilities That Are Not At All Existentially Frightening To Me, Free Of The Baggage Of All Aspects By Which I Self-identified.
TLDR: Oof!
I wonder if my sister would tattoo this on me…
The time they spent in that art class with Joe and learning of his “anxiety” seemed to relieve her of her depression funk, at least for a time. It’d be cool if we see a scenario here where Joyce is going to continue having anxiety over this birth control stuff and the only time she’s going to feel not anxious is when she spends time with Joe.
Half expecting Joyce to belch deeply, mumble “what do I do?” and walk face first into a garage door.
Joyce’s problem is continually running into the wall she’s decided she hated everything about herself and her friends really liked who she was. Threading that needle is not a task I envy.
In that last panel, Joyce suddenly became present to the ghost of Satre entering her body.
I do have a class currently on horror genre and the first class, the teacher just said: The reason why we have fear is because of an uncertain future and i’ve never been the same since
Definitely my experience after walking away from my faith. I simultaneously felt unshackled and free, but also terrified of this new, unknown future.
Hah! I just zoomed in and noticed the little marks indicating that Jennifer was elbowing Becky in the chest! I didnt catch that at first
Man. Now i wonder what other little details I’ve missed because i read this on my phone and without glasses.
Sigh.
Yes, i just said the word ‘sigh’ out loud…..
So relatable. I deconstructed my faith in my early twenties and decided to go out to a bar in a tight mini dress to stick it to purity culture. I ended up having a panic attack and having to leave early because I felt so exposed and embarrassed. Almost thirty now, and I still deal with conflicting feelings about “modesty.”
I’m proud of you.
Be proud of who you are
*internal screaming*
Oh my!
Joyce just sharted.
i’m afraid your butts disease may be terminal
Jennifer really knows how to support a friend. Let’s hope she will be able to stop Joyce’s internal screaming too. Joyce’s ideas are good, but for her are also very scary.
Oof. I know people have Opinions about Joyce’s friends “infantalising” her, but for my money, there’s nothing worse than your friends telling you how proud they are that you are a self-actualised adult, when what you hear is that you have to keep being that or they’ll be so disappointed in you.
I can totally see that! I think it’s different here, since change is the thing Joyce is afraid of but wants, and her closest friend doesn’t want her to change (or at least, not in this way). I read Jennifer as realizing that Joyce comes from a culture that is very much against change – you believe what you were raised to believe by people who were also raised in that faith from birth, and you are expected to continue that unbroken cycle. Jennifer isn’t trying to change Joyce here, she is pointedly trying to give Joyce the room to enact the change Joyce herself explicitly wants to explore, that her closest friend has been actively trying to get her to not explore. I can see this words, in a different situation, being an exhortation of specific actions with an implied threat of disappointment, but I don’t think it’s true here – I don’t think Jennifer cares that much, and that instead of wanting specific things for Joyce, she wants everyone else to climb off Joyce’s back.
Sure, probably. That’s probably what my friends meant as well. It’s not what I heard. And I don’t know if it’s what Joyce heard, but that thousand-yard stare looks very familiar.
Luckily Joyce probably doesn’t give a damn about whether or not Jennifer is disappointed in her. It’s not like she has some kind of moral high ground.
How … how does one not give a darn about whether or not someone is disappointed in you? Whether it’s someone whose opinion you value, or don’t value, or have literally never heard of before? They’re disappointed in you.
“Have literally never heard of before”???
That’s not normal for someone with any sense of self-esteem at all.
I am aware.
I remember when I left fundamentalism and several associates were annoyed with me as my new goal became, “Find a new faith that is worth believing in.”
It’s okay, Joyce. Despite it being actual adulting, it’s okay to take baby steps. The important thing is just to have any progress, no matter how small.
Awwww, Jennifer. I don’t think she would be this constructive or positive if she was still spending most of her time with Ruth. This strip helps give me confidence she’ll be able to weather whatever betrayals she will inevitably go through with her own friend group.
Isnt Jennifer hanging out with Asher? Who helped Ambers dad kidnap everyone?
And isnt she also hanging with Radiah? Radiah keeps giving me vibes like she’s conniving something.
I dunno. Its hard to tell. It seems like literally every main character could use professiinal therapy. Amber has a split personality? She said therapy wasnt helping? Ruth is just vaguely better. Sometimes manic. No longer suicidal. But just barely it seems. Billie would die for Ruth, multiple times. Serious codependency issues going on there. Her giving healthy kudos to Joyce here seems almost out of character for Jennifer.
Oh man, I can kind of relate to Jennifer here in that I am aware of a lot of therapeutic or mental-health concepts, but I wouldn’t say I *understand* them, at least not in the sense that I can reliably an effectively apply them to my own life. I think Jennifer is going to therapy and has become literate in things like validating others or assessing changes in interpersonal relationships, but she is maybe not ready to apply those to herself yet. Like, if someone else came to her with the kind of unresolved feelings she has about Ruth? She’d probably give them a pretty coherent breakdown of what’s going on. But she can’t do it for herself. This is why every time I go to therapy, I sit there and say the things I know are “correct,” like I am the good student I always was, and then continue feeling pretty terrible in real life because my mastery is just not there yet. I assume it’ll come with time and repetition, but right now I feel a little like a fraud. This seems to me like where Jennifer is: she’s learned the new material, but she hasn’t mastered it. I think hanging out with Raidah and her crew, who make such a big show of bEiNg GrOwN uP and above petty mortal rivalries (Which…ha, given what we’ve seen of Raidah’s internal monologue and external social-climbing behavior), has gotten her adept at bluffing, but it’s probably holding her back from the level of honesty needed to make real progress. She can’t let the front slip, or else she might get kicked out of the group, kind of thing.
is it me, or is the 6th panel mostly truncated?
It is for everybody, probably as part of the joke.
It’s just you !
I think Joyce was the top.
I want a Slipshine Comic of Joyce dominating Joe in bed.
Joyce is Sharon Stone, and Joe is Michael Douglas.
That bright cheery smile has new context!
She looks down at Joe.
“Good Night, sweet Prince!”
Joe screams.
Joe is the Sub of the Joycatrix.
Joe is a Beast of the Patriarchy being Ritually Sacrificed to Joyce’s Sexual
Awakening.
Joe: “I need an adult!” Joyce: “I am an adult.”
The joys of posting while black-out drunk.
I’m not drunk.
I’m overcaffeinated.
I remember caffeine.
the last panel is accompanied by the sound of glass breaking
or possibly a record scratch.
That is the visual equivalent of a perfectly cut scream and I love it so much.