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Barb O. Saur 
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No Joyce, it’s not about “earning” a sister, you deserve her for reals. T_T
It’s about people only really being able to be themselves once we’re in environments where we’re not violently persecuted.
I think the part of her that knows that is warring with the part of her that worries that she might have been part of the problem.
She might be feeling that, if she’s not part of the solution, by default she is part of the problem, even if just a little.
Her TRUST had to be earned, though. If not for Joyce’s enormous personal growth since starting college, it’s unlikely she’d know she had a biological sister, because Jocelyne wouldn’t have felt safe telling her
Is true, my point being she feels personally guilty for not having been the kind of person her sister could trust, when it’s down to pervasive, pervasive circumstances which aren’t really her fault.
Heck given that going to University and collecting sisters is how Joyce was even able to break free of her bigoted cult and her indoctrination as much as she has, as sad as it is, getting to know Jocelyn as her real sister now in *hindsight* was probably the only realistic way it was gonna happen at all ;-;
Agreed, joyce has primarily broken put of the hateful upbringing ginger she was taught.
If jocelyn told ber at the start of this comic she’d have had an entirely different reaction.
I’m just going to cry over these weird ass typos and auto corrects.
Figuring “put” is “out”; that’s easy enough. Can’t tell what “ginger” was supposed to be.
ber is her. I think “hateful upbringing ginger” is just Morningstar hating on us redheads.
I always have auto-“correct” off,
because to be honest the whole concept is just a myth
Yes, but Becky had the almost exactly the same upbringing and still managed not to fully buy into the bigoted stuff. While yeah, it’s no shock Joyce ended up how she did and she’s done an incredible job climbing her way out of that muck, there still was a non-trivial chunk of her life when she would not have been safe for Jocelyne to come out to. Hell, even BECKY didn’t come out to her until her entire life had been upended and she had literally no one else to turn to
For someone as caring as Joyce who loves her friends as hard as she does, it’s no doubt an unavoidably painful thing to realize, even if she doesn’t blame herself for anything she couldn’t control. Which to me makes it all the more admirable that she’s still choosing to face it and make sure she’s doing everything she can to fix what had made her unsafe to her sister in the past
It kind of bothers me that not only did Becky apparently manage to avoid any of the bigoted stuff completely, but we didn’t even get to see her reaction and any minor struggles she might have had. Or insight into why she didn’t.
I did like the idea of the last couple days that Joe has some hangups here. It doesn’t leave Joyce as the only one who isn’t instantly accepting and without traces of prejudice (other than actual villains of course.)
So if I were to guess? Becky clearly has faith. But because her religion vis-a-vis the church of her childhood rejects her and what she is (i.e. queer), she has more or less *had* to reject a lot of the more hateful bits in order to square the circle of her personal identity and her connection to God.
I mean, that’s not a biological sister, c’mon – the whole point of transgenderism is that identity can transcend biology
she probably does need to earn it, at least somewhat, Joyce has a lot of deprogramming to do, but look at this page, actual growth. ~<3
Someone who’s already trying their best doesn’t need to “earn” having a sibling. She’s not obligated to immediately get to having the best possible opinions on everything.
It’s not about effort, it’s about whether or not she’s actually safe to come out to yet. It’s not an abused dog’s fault it was raised to bite, but you still have to be wary around it until it’s been retrained. That’s not a punishment for the dog, either — giving people or dogs the space to grow or heal helps keep BOTH of you safe.
Also, a lot of people don’t tell their family first when they come out. Hell, most of us probably don’t tell our family first. Why? Because the stakes are higher. If you lose a friend, that’s not great, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. Being rejected by family? That suuuuuuucks. Ask me how I know.
So, coming out to Dina and Becky first? Very low stakes, and very little chance of being rejected. Low risk, high reward. It’s pretty simple, really.
It’s understandable that family isn’t first, but it’s normally your own friends, not your sister’s best friend. That’s the part that’s a bit weird.
I don’t really see it being weird! She would have also grown up with Becky being a friend too and a familiar safe person. Having someone like that have already come out would have told Jocelyne that that’s a person who is going to be okay to tell because they’re going to Get It.
Maybe, but Becky’s a lot younger and a lot closer to Joyce than to Jocelyne. That’s what makes it weird.
It’s not about telling your friends before your family, it’s telling your sister’s best friend before telling her.
Taken in isolation sure, but the circumstances make a difference. Given that Jocelyne still didn’t know how Joyce would react, but being easily confident that Becky and Dina would take it well, they could be relied on to be friendly voices if need be, and potentially also be able to give Jocelyne insight on whether or not Joyce was ready to hear it.
Becky also just had her own big dramatic coming out. So yeah she’s about as experienced as Jocelyne when it comes to coming out.
Sure there’s an age gap, but I’m not surprised Becky is a bridge between ‘relatable’ and ‘familiar’.
Fwiw, there’s absolutely no evidence anywhere in the comic regarding how many, or which, friends were told first. That we see Becky being told first does not mean that Becky’s the first, it means that Becky’s the first we are privy to… Jocelyn could well be out to a large circle of personal friends, and *is* out to a certain online circle, *and* has talked with Ethan about this in the past… Possibly even before talking to Becky (I forget the exact timeline).
I mean, Jocelyn would probably go, “Joyce, it’s not that I didn’t trust you to love and accept me after Becky. Before too with a lot of confusion. It’s that I worried you’d tell mom and she’d have me kidnapped or murdered.”
Yeah, she probably figured the parents finding out would be a one way ticket to the troubled teen industry, the reparative therapy camp, or the grave.
And given Carol’s indifference to people dying for the lord…..
Maybe Carol should die for the Lord next, to prove how devout she is.
There likely could also have been an element of Jocelyne being afraid of how telling Joyce might change their relationship in unforseeable ways even if Joyce was accepting and discreet
Would’ve made telling Becky a lot easier simply because she’s not as close to her, so shaking up that relationship isn’t nearly as anxiety-inducing
She might have also worried about the strain she’d be putting Joyce under. After all, pre-college and first semester Joyce had a very difficult time with lying and defying her parents. And Jocelyn likely did not want to put Joyce in that sort of a bind.
Though if it went badly with Becky that could have spilled over into Joyce finding out, so not entirely risk free.
It’s probably more like Jocelyne would go, “Joyce, I tried to tell you, but you kept ignoring my calls.”
I feel like that is something that is a little too smooth an answer.
Especially since Jocelyne explicitly said “Becky is trustworthy and can keep a secret.”
Yes. Practically the only area of my life where I’m NOT gloriously, unashamedly out is around my own biological relatives, because they remain the most transphobic people that I know. So, because even a terrible relationship is better than no relationship at all, when we visit them, I wear exclusively male-coded clothes and no make-up. Even my church is a place where I can be more myself than that.
considering events, a reasonable worry. ~<3
And then we just sidled on by and moved on to the real crux of the matter!
OOF, the earning a sister is real thing. That was painful
Have a feeling joe is gonna catch some mental/emotional pain when he’s been doing his best to be better than e was when that last wa made he was a different person
So is everyone else.
yeah I’d feel bad too
whether you “earned” it isn’t up to you, kiddo.
I honestly don’t think that’s how she’s taking this. It seems more that she’s grappling with the guilt of not reaching the point of earning Jocelyne’s trust earlier. She seems (mostly) past how the revelations made HER feel and is more beating herself up about how she made JOSS feel.
yeah like what’s with the “earning” shit anyway?
it’s still the reactionary fundamentalist mentality, in which the reward for doing good comes directly from God and other authority for passing tests of integrity and showing that you’ve “stayed on the path”
but here Joyce must understand that the reward for doing good isn’t about “proving herself worthy” as an individual, but about making long-term collective efforts towards a more inclusive society for the sake of her sister and thousands of others being able to be themselves and be safe — that the natural result of our good actions over time IS the reward.
I think what would be “earned” here is Jocelyne’s trust, which is an essential element of sisterhood.
But I would also acknowledge that Jocelyne’s coming out to Joyce was more about Jocelyne being ready than Joyce earning Jocelyne’s trust.
Their dad found out/was told, that’s why she came to Joyce. She wanted to tell her in person.
On the other hand, Joyce telling Jocelyne that their dad was fine with Becky might be the reason she came out to him. That’s a kind of trust, too.
Honey, give Joss a little grace. First she had to realize and accept it for herself AND get to a place she was comfortable telling ANYONE. Given your parents, that probably didn’t happen until she was on her own and financially independent. She’s not much older than you – that was probably very recently.
The important thing is you got there and became someone she could trust when she was ready.
I see this not as her not giving Jocelyne grace, but as her not giving herself grace. Joyce holds herself to a high standard and it looks like she’s blaming herself for the perceived lack of trust. Jocelyne clearly loves her and trust her, even before she knew just how much her little sister had changed. Joyce has a lot of guilt and anger towards her past self and the coming out is just bringing those thoughts to the forefront.
In this case I think it’s Joyce unintentionally not giving Joss grace because she is very much not giving herself grace. She thinks the best of everyone else and the worst of herself.
She hadn’t said anything to Jocelyne about her thoughts yet though, only voicing them to Joe. I can see her probably apologising soon (maybe this visit, maybe in a future phone call) for not being someone to rely on and being told to stop being so hard on herself. For all her changes, Joyce has always had extremely high expectations on being good and is probably something she will always have to work through.
What I mean is her word choice here is unintentionally framing it as Jocelyne doing this because of not trusting her. Maybe slack or credit would be a better word, but I don’t think that’s what it boils down to on Joss’ end. I think this was more about Joss’ own confidence vs trusting Joyce. And I think you’re right, that’ll be made clear sooner or later.
Both the good and bad part of the comment section is that we are all talking about the current strip when there is so much more ahead that we don’t know. It can be chaotic but also fun. Reading people’s different opinions on things can be really interesting!
Absolutely! I often enjoy seeing what people think, even if I see it differently.
It is possible that here is finally the authentic starting point for Joyce’s development.
eh, I reckon the “starting point” of development like this is always completely arbitrary, no less than where you place the zero point of a coordinate grid for measuring changes in height and gravitational potential energy XD
You and I are reading different comics, I think. She’s been solidly developing for the entire run of the comic. Sometimes forward, sometimes backwards or sideways, but always moving.
Since she became an Atheist, it was evident that obstacles would be present.
And what happens…
That in this comments section a rather peculiar dynamic emerged, which is “Joyce is right and her friends don’t support her, she deserves real friends.”
That was day after day, in every strip, and that’s exactly why I couldn’t take Joyce’s trial seriously, however, when she finally recognized that she had been an idiot and that she would do her best to be impeccable in her words when To address Dina, there is note of sincerity in her.
But now that Jocelyn is here, I consider that the starting point begins here.
Like I said, that all sounds like development, it’s just not all positive development. That’s how growth and change works. I generally disagree with your point here, but you can feel how you feel about it!
True, but I think Jocelyne’s child drawings are haunting her right now. Joe even mentioned it not long ago to be sure she (and us) are still remembering.
I do get where she’s coming from. I hope this doesn’t hurt Joe’s feelings, too.
…honestly, I don’t see this as a healthy mindset by Joyce.
She’s had to deal with a lot. And that’s before she even arrived on campus. The progress is real and important and she’s always trying, that’s what counts.
But also… Joyce is falling back into this “how does it relate to me” trap. I get why, she’s dealing with a lot and having to question a lot of stuff, and that is about her.
But Jocelyne told Dina and Becky because she was confident and comfortable that those two would be super supportive and welcoming. She makes that decision for her, and who she’s hesitant on shouldn’t be seen as judgement, its always going to feel like a risk.
The movie “Happiest Season”, which came out a few years ago on Hulu I guess, I’m not the biggest fan of. It’s a little simplistic and a little sappy and a lot “MUST RAM IN HAPPY ENDING AT ALL COSTS”, because Christmas movie, gotta deal with the genre. But the scene they had, talking about coming out and how scary it is, its really stuck to me, because it does nail just how terrifying that can be, even with those you’re certain love you.
Blegh. This strip has too many feels, I need to go shoot some demons or something >_>.
At some point, Jocelyn will realize this, and will give Joyce the opportunity to dialogue with confidence.
Thing is, the way she’s relating it back to herself is taking a self-reflective form, and this level of self-awareness is a huge character development for Joyce. The reason she was told after Becky and Dina was about her, and whether or not she was reliably a safe person to tell.
She’s acknowledging that and mourning it a little, which is a perfectly reasonable reaction and feeling to have. As long as she manages to avoid spiraling, this is excellent groundwork for continued growth.
Ah, the magnificent duality of the real-as-hell severity of this strip… and the comedic sniper round of a one-liner in the alt text.
S+. No notes.
I’m just gonna say I do really like this conversation they’re having.
I remember when I was a teen I went to a convention and ran into my best friend who with other friends. One of them offhandedly asked him something about dating boys and I felt super out of the loop and asked “Oh, you’re gay?” and he was just like “oh, yeah.”
And like I was happy for him, being out and unashamed but also part of me felt really left out. Here was an entire group of people who knew he was gay like it was common knowledge and I was left out. I always suspected he might have been gay but as far as he had told me he wasn’t. I couldn’t help but wonder if I hadn’t made him feel like he couldn’t have been honest with me and since I considered him my best friend I felt really bad. So I tried to make it really overtly clear how cool I am with him being gay and stuff. Probably stressed myself out much like Joyce is doing right now.
Glad to see you comment again tonight, Yotomoe.
Yeah, it’s hard not to be a little insecure when you feel like the last person to learn something that might be sensitive about someone you care about. All you can do is try to be gentle with yourself and remember that it probably isn’t a lack of trust.
It’s a perfectly normal reaction, to say “Was I hurting them? Was I sending messages that I wasn’t a good friend?”
What Joyce is going through now isn’t healthy, but it is 100% normal. I feel like she has enough good friends to come out OK on the other side.
For me on a different perspective, a friend of mine in college was coming out to people.
I was one of the middle folks who was told, but I wasn’t really in the loop of who knew what when, so I was always stressed about accidentally letting something slip at the wrong time.
Things wound up going fine. It was acknowledged weird with some of the last friends told because “I’m sure they’ll be fine with it, but, well, they actually go to church, so I dunno.” No issues on that front.
I do hope things went better than he feared they would when he told his parents. We lost touch after college, though he and his husband are married now. He was worried about winding up in a, well, in a Becky situation.
There’s an important point here, about giving people potentially dangerous secrets to keep for one. When you’re such a friend, treasure the trust you’ve been given; when you’re the one, treasure the friends whom you can trust that far.
Speaking as a gay person, in my experience, you tell the people who matter to you the most last. Because it’s so much harder to face the fear of their rejection over anyone else’s. Even if you’re 99.9% certain they’re going to accept you, you’ll never be 100% certain. And the 0.1% chance can be paralysing. And I think if he was really serious about hiding it from you, he would’ve told his other friends not to mention it to you.
Iveexperienced this dynamic with myself. O can out myself to strangers and casual friends, but being upfront with my parents and siblings? Much harder.
You normally earn a sister by asking for Mr. Stork. This is way different, you don’t earn Jocelyne.
Does alt-text want to go to a D&B? ‘Coz same
I initially misread that as “Mr. Spock”.
Something something “pon farr”.
I can completely get why this would hurt Joyce so much, and I also completely understand why Jocelyn chose to tell in the order she did. I have people I’ve never come out to because I know they won’t be able keep their mouth shut around people I *dont* want to be out to.
Ha, yes. The “I tell my mum/partner/best friend everything” kind of people that can be otherwise be so lovely but you can’t fully trust with really sensitive information.
“I want to be someone people can trust, Josh.” https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/removed-2/
Nice callback.
Jocelyn asks Joyce for a gut check on their dad in that strip. A sister may not actually be something you need to earn, but if she was I think Joyce might be closer to pulling it off than she believes.
Well, that wasn’t enough for Jocelyne…
Wasn’t enough?
Sometimes people don’t understand these things until it affects them personally. Now that Joyce realizes she has a sister, she thinks back to all the things she would have done differently, said differently. Now she feels she has failed her sister.
Which, hey. Recognizing this stuff is the first step to improving.
Ahhh, Joyce. If I said ‘be less hard on yourself’ I guess I’d be saying don’t be who you are. But, honestly, you have been told because you do deserve a sister. When that happened is not so important.
For what it’s worth, my family was also the last set of people I came out to. It went… mostly well.
That’s… mostly good! *limp thumbs up*
(but seriously, congrats and I hope you are doing well)
Orange Cassidy vibes intensifies… Well, sorta intensifies. OK, maybe not really intensifies at all. But they are there.
Also congrats to Serendipity!
When I started coming out as a teenager, my mom definitely thought she was the first person I came out to. Really, she wasn’t even in the top ten. My parents thought they were obviously supportive (my dad was blatantly homophobic –has improved a lot!– and my mom was mostly cool with others but sometimes weird); meanwhile, I packed a go-bag and put it under my bed in my first month of high school.
I still think my sister doesn’t understand I’m bisexual. It’s hilarious.
I was literally going to just bite the bullet and tell her in the car one day because we were talking about something going on with the community in our area, and she just dead ass spouts out.
“I don’t understand the whole bisexual thing. I get straight, I get gay, but I don’t get bisexual.”
Que to me just… Staring into the Void.
And then a 45 mins dissertation using dishware and utensil theory to try and explain that some people are just cool eating anywhere.
“I still don’t get it.” My sister turns to me and (again!) just hits me with
“Anyway! Where do you want to get lunch from?”
“Oh, I’m good anywhere.” *POINTED STARE followed by internal screaming all the way home as it sails over her head.*
What is there to not “get”?
I wish I knew. I wish I could fathom the complexities of her mind.
Some people view the world in overly simplistic, binary ways, because that’s just how they think. “Either this or that.”
It’s really crazy to me just how actually narrow minded some people are. Like, how does somebody have that small an imagination?
Could “I don’t get it” mean “I can’t imagine myself into that”?
Not really. I *think* she sees attraction as this black/white binary thing. Brain wired for boob or balls and no cross contamination.
Only one kind of Orb allowed.
When I came out as bi to my parents, my dad was very understanding and immediately started chatting with me about gay rights, about his thoughts on relationships and bisexuality (he doesn’t identify as bisexual but from what I’ve learned and what he’s said to me, I do think he’s bi. He’s just, you know, not really aware of that himself yet and that’s fine). I also went on to come out to my dad as non-binary, which he was also accepting of and he’s pretty open minded about how fluid gender is.
My mom, meanwhile, kept forgetting I came out. She’d tell me things like “oh if you were gay I’d still love you” but no matter how many times I came out to her, she’d always forget. I don’t know if it’s due to chemo brain, or some brain damage she had as a child (she was electrocuted and her short term memory WAS consistently kinda spotty. And seeing how the accident resulted in her being partially deaf/blind, I think it stands to reason it affected her ability to hold onto memories too). Overall, though, not the worst coming out! The rest of my family at large is pretty much every ‘ist’ though so they don’t get to know me.
I think one thing Joyce isn’t considering is that the more you care about someone, the scarier it is to tell them, regardless of how you think they’ll take it. I mean, yeah, with Becky and Dina it’s easier to tell that they’d be accepting, but if they weren’t it would be a bad experience that would hurt but eventually heal. But Joyce is Jocelyn’s baby sister, and risk of losing that relationship, no matter how small, is terrifying.
This is the one! The most important people are often told later or last.
And sometimes, not at all. If all goes according to keikaku, some people will be dead and buried before they know me.
Don’t worry, your legacy will endure for a thousand generations in the form of snarky webcomic comments.
Not permanent enough. I’m gonna have to make some drastic changes to the walls of the Grand Canyon. Actually, is the Canyon like, sacred ground for anybody? It’d be impolite to leave 10-meter-deep carvings in the wall if someone already has dibs.
HUG HER JOE! HUG HER!
Sorry, caps lock got stuck on. I’ll try again: HUG HER!
well fortunately joyce you don’t earn family members, and it’s because becky and dina weren’t family that they got to know before you did.
also i guess nobody tell anyone that wasn’t ethan like the first person to know?
You know what, that first part, that is so true. People often don’t tell their families first and I definitely did not!
The thing is Becky was family all but name to the Browns. She earned that. Therefore Joyce feels like she is family merely by coincidence; that despite loving her siblings and trying to grow for her family, she was still judged less trustworthy than not only Becky, but Dina, who as Becky’s “fiancée” is also in this weird circle of familial like bonds, yet practically a stranger to them.
I am not saying this is true, just that it seems to me Joyce would think this way.
Until proven otherwise, I’m saying Becky and Jocelyn confided in each other well before college. Close enough to trust, far enough away to not get caught.
Based on this, I don’t think either came out to each other pre-college
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/chat/
That or Becky’s just that smooth when it comes to keeping secrets.
There’s also the bit a little when they first met Jocelyne at lunch and she high-fived Becky for coming out. Becky’s reaction seemed far too shocked to have already known about Jocelyne.
I don’t think Becky confided in herself before college.
I 100% feel this. As a 90s kid growing up in the Midwest. When I first started realizing that what I was taught was wrong and actively hurting people. You feel like a real shitbag.
But at the same time, it’s not easy to just flip that switch in your brain. I did literally all the things Joyce did – freak out about the terminology, the details, agonize about every slip up. And you feel like a monster all the time. I spent a good near-decade feeling like a secret transphobe specifically because stuff I read online told me that if you were hetero and weren’t attracted to a trans woman, you were transphobic. I could not shame myself enough to feel the same way towards a trans woman as I did a cis. And it took someone looking at me like an idiot and saying, “no, people like what they like,” for that weight to be lifted.
Which, in retrospect, is why I freaked out so much yesterday. Again, sorry, guys.
I think it’s fantastic that Joyce has such a supportive, understanding friend group. That they *get* that she’s putting in as much effort as she can, not just because she loves her sister and wants to make sure she’s accepted as who she is, but because she’s trying to make herself a better person. This is the best environment to try to learn these things and deprogram yourself. She’s incredibly lucky to have such understanding and caring friends.
I’d also say that bigotries are on a gradient; not everything that is transphobic, for example, is on equal ground, and not all people who have some element of transphobia are shitty people. This stuff is baked into us in so many ways. You can work to be better and to make your unconscious biases conscious so you can try to work through them.
Even if you’re a kind and compassionate person, you may have some harmful biases. They may not be biases you agree with. Being a human is hard. You don’t have to be (or insist you are) completely free of bias to be a good person.
Thank you for being right and good at words.
achievement unlocked
BIOLOGICAL SISTER
Poor Joyce. She didn’t make the right choices to unlock the secret sister quest early. She should’ve looked up a guide online. Turns out she had to learn to skateboard back in grade 5 of primary school and choose the Supergirl costume for Halloween. Then if she’d stayed up past midnight on Jocelyne’s 18th birthday the event unlocks. Very convoluted route. Personally I blame the devs for being too cryptic.
I mean if you look into the development history of the game, it was rough. Insane levels of crunch and constantly changing project requirements. That route was going to be a lot simpler, but instead it’s an amalgamation of routes from like five different iterations of the game. It’s a shame, there really was a lot of potential.
I mean there’s always more potential in hindsight, but the devs still got my respect for having the guts to do something that I’ve only done a couple of times, and that’s actually finishing and releasing a game
(heck I released my first steam game a few weeks ago on Xmas and i still tuckered from it, was like giving BIRTH @-@)
Yeah, there’s a lot to be said for just getting the damn thing out the door, even if it’s not perfect. That’s part of why I tend to respect flawed games that clearly have spirit and were going for something, because even if they couldn’t fully get there you can see the goal and how close they did get, and that counts, damn it.
[applause]
At least it’s better than that weird 4chan parody game where Jocelyn discovered she was never trans or end up doing a school shooting. (Cookie for whoever get what I am referring, it is a real thing)
i dont know, but please chill with mentioning that kinda stuff, it’s really gross, especially given the current subject matter of the dangers which prevent trans folk from coming out and lead us to living in fear all the time
Could you be specific on what kind of stuff I shouldn’t mention?
Collecting sisters in a box. To be displayed in a glass case at my house. Come look at my sisters!
OF COURSE I lock the glass case but I let them out for a little exercise everyday in the bathtub. And then I lock them back in.
I think one of them isn’t moving is that normal?
That’s Debbie. She’s a little bit lazy in the afternoon.
Sisters should be free range
Look, Joyce, if it bothers you that much you can just reset the run, clip out of bounds in level 3, and hit the trigger to earn the achievement. Still hasn’t veen patched.
I’m fully prepared for the reality to be that Jocelyne tried to tell Joyce first, but she kept hanging up on her calls or leaving her on read.
Like, it not being that she felt like she couldn’t trust Joyce, but because Joyce kept blowing Jocelyne off when she’d try to text and call due to making assumptions about why she was trying to reach out. Becky getting to know first because Jocelyne had to tell someone she was coming out and she picked up the phone first.
I really don’t think so. Out of all the family, Joyce was the most True Believer.
Pre-College Joyce would have gone right to their mom, or the Church, to try and save Jocelyne from “Desecrating God’s Holy Creation” though the works of the Devil.
There wouldn’t be any animosity or hatred, Joyce would see it as making sure her ‘brother’ was saved from sinning against the Holy Work.
Sometimes you want to tell people but you’ve known them as a narc for their entire existence, because they were brainwashed/trained into being one.
I would put more weight on Becky coming out to Jocelyne in the before-times, and them keeping each others’ secrets because they were The Only Queer Kids in the middle of Bible Thunderdome.
According to Joss herself in this strip from last month
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/02-the-one-where-jocelyne-returns/pilled/
Fearing that Joyce would’ve run to their mom is precisely why she didn’t get to learn she has a sister earlier
I don’t think either came out to each other pre-college because of this strip
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/chat/
Somehow that doesn’t sound like Joyce to me. I would expect her to have tackled the issue herself. She was already well equipped to do so from a religious POV. She would have searched Scripture for support. And I think she’d find that much of what the people around her were saying and doing isn’t there. That might have given her furiously to think.
I think Joyce would have had a hard time with it and might have confided in a church leader. I think said church leader would have then immediately turned around and informed their parents.
Like she did when Becky came out to her?
Did she come out to herself during college, or before?
I legit don’t remember, but you said she wasn’t out even to herself before college.
We’re explicitly talking about pre-college Joyce; this feels like a “gotcha” that is missing the point.
Joyce started changing before Becky came out to her– Becky basically said so with, “Remember when I asked you not to let this place change you? I’m so glad it has.”
Not to mention how people often have a harder time accepting trans people than with gay people, even if they’ve been brought up with views against both.
Oh sweetheart. Y’ don’t “earn” the people in your life. You do right by them, and try to be a good person, and listen if those people tell you theres a problem.
But the problem is you love them, and not having always DONE right by them can wear on the mind a bit. And then maybe you find out it wasn’t anything you did anyways anyhow.
Boy, I don’t miss being in college.
Well said.
Damn it Willis. Feels time again. Joe if you don’t give Joyce a comforting and not at all sexual hug I will
Oh, I certainly believe worrying how Joyce would react pre-character development is why Ethan got to know before either of them.
But, while I might not understand the timeline fully, we saw as early as during Joyce’s “I’m an Atheist now because I know better” spat with Becky that Jocelyne was trying to reach out to Joyce about something around the same time Becky and her weren’t on great terms…
Damn, meant that to be a reply to GholaHalleck above. Oh well.
Oh yeah, Joyce has just been showing her worst colors at the worst possible times for Jocelyn to open up.
I’m just trying to think like someone who grew up for basically a decade+ with the fear of being Clockwork Orange’ed, and to *me* I would have been like “Nope.. not safe yet, can only trust 67%, let’s go get a chicken nugget happy meal and head home.”
To be fair, Ethan was largely a plot device to let the readers know.
Coming out to Ethan was probably easier than coming out to someone she knew and cared about for a long time. She seems to have a pretty good feel of people
Golly, the time travel goin’ on in her brain right now is somethin’. I get it, knowing he’s had a weirdness about trans people would probably be something to weigh before taking him to meet Jocelyne, if she had known beforehand, but that’s hypothetical whiteroom optimization of her own thoughts in retrospect. In her lived reality she didn’t know before finding out, he didn’t misbehave like she may have worried he would, so there was no problem in the moment. Now the problem exists, and they’re literally talking it out right this second, so if it pops up again later it likely won’t be as severe as it might have done without the knowledge.
I dunno, just seems like getting tied up in knots over events that didn’t happen isn’t much use.
unrelated to your insightful comment
I love your stupid-sauce Ragatha PFP
It’s my favorite part of that episode. It’s neat to see all the characters basically behaving the exact opposite of how they normally would, just from how oppressively mundane their “adventure” is.
Joyce, you should have taken SkeeBall lessons from Amethyst.
She could earn her sister by burning down the ROTC building. I mean that figuratively, meaning “a grand gesture”, not literally suggesting anyone commit arson in a way that I’m legally or civilly liable.
I wish I hadn’t told my siblings about me. Not because they weren’t accepting and great, but because they keep outing me to people I don’t want to tell yet by referring to me with my correct pronouns. It’s nice feeling but also terrible feeling at the same time.
Oof.
Sorry I can’t add more but that does seem like a thing.
This too. I had a friend casually mention about one of her adult children (a friend) being asexual. Jeez! I wasn’t thinking fast enough, but wanted to say, don’t tell me that! It’s not yours to tell!
Shortly followed by the thoughts: I shouldn’t tell this person any sensitive information, and: don’t let me be that person, either!
Well, there’s a chance the kid in particular is fine with it being casually mentioned.
Maybe a silly question, but have you told them that you’d like them not to do that?
Look at that communication! Joyce is doing so well!
No joking. This went a *lot* better than I was expecting from the previous strip.
The commentariat loves to catastrophize.
Yeah, it gets bad sometimes. Like yesterday, when that one bigot threatened to come to my home, staple me to the tree in the front yard with solid gold staples, paint occult runes across my chest to prevent me from getting into Sovngarde, and then blast me into oblivion with an M202 FLASH rocket launcher, just for mentioning cisgender people.
I remember that, I saw everything, but unfortunately I cannot confirm because I’m not a snitch.
It went better, but largely because Joyce dropped questioning Joe’s issues in favor of focusing on her own. None of those questions have been resolved.
“I didn’t get a good grade in sister. Something which is both normal to want and possible to achieve.”
She does look up to Dorothy’s brand of neuroticism soooo x’3
Yuuup >_<
But Dorothy was exempt from that course because she’s an only child.
I can relate to both Jocelyne and Joyce. There are people I knew, friends and family and co-workers, who I never told about aspects of myself because I wasn’t sure how they would take that information about me. At the same time, I was friends with some people in college who didn’t tell me things about themselves at the time, and I wish they had known they could trust me with that info back then.
I see Joyce trying to make a grand gesture for Jocelyn and it backfiring.
“Yeah! Burn down Bulmeria! DOWN WITH BULMERIA! BOO!”
“We’re for Bulmeria, Joyce.”
“Oh.”
I have to say as a trans girl, some of the comments on yesterday’s comic gave me the ick, here’s hoping this trend doesn’t continue with the current storyline.
solidarity fistbump as a trans dude. people were. sure fast to use it to Say Some Wild Shit.
Here’s to hope, sis
Yet another example of how characters in the comic don’t see the changes each other goes through. Joss didn’t want to tell Joyce because she thought she might have still been aligned with her mom or at the very least inherited some of her rigid thinking (she wasn’t entirely wrong). To Jocelyne, all she’s seen is Joyce standing up to and breaking from mom a few times. I’d be willing to bet Jocelyne got an earful from their mom about Joyce’s new rebellious atheist phase and that told her “oh okay she’s safe, perfect”
Carol’s initial response upon Joyce being safe from the kidnapping was rage.
I can only imagine what she said behind closed doors.
All of this ties in a lot to how hard the final panel of https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/chat/ hit Joyce, I’m thinking. She’s having a degree of Imposter Syndrome regarding being a “real-ass” sister to Jocelyne, a position she stumbled into be happenstance of shared parents.
Wrong link?
*checks* Yes, yes it is. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/02-the-one-where-jocelyne-returns/wackycollegehijinks/ was the one intended.
Unrelated to anything, I don’t want to call anyone out specifically, but could we all make a larger effort to spell Jocelyne’s name correctly? It’s got an E on the end. It’s right up there in the strip if you need to confirm.
I had to scroll up and check the spelling literally three times while trying to type a comment. Has it now cemented itself itself into my brain? No. The y and e’s are ever moving mysterious creatures to me.
Jocyleny
The name of the game is shame folks
Awww. Good introspection.
Panel 5 Joyce clearly needs a hug. Joe, you’d best be hugging her tomorrow.
Past you is gone, you cannot change what she did, or how she felt, or what she may have said. All you can do is own it, move forward, and live in a better way today. I believe in you, woman in a comic I am trying to give a pep talk to.
Friends, I think my brain broke again.
Wow, whoever said Joyce was also projecting yesterday nailed it.
She was, but she also wasn’t wrong.
Once you transition far enough your family WILL figure it out regardless. When I was having laser on my face and my grandmother realized I was getting breasts the jig was up. They WILL find out, so in the end hiding it is pointless.
Ooookay?
The point is if you transition your family WILL find out sooner or later, its not difficult to understand. You might as well tell them sooner or later they will figure it out regardless. Does that clarify it or do you require smaller words? Ooookay?
I am more confused as to what that has to do with anything? Besides being about trans people? Like, genuinely confused where did that come from. And yes sometimes I do need to see things say in simpler terms in order to get it because I am not all that smart and also the autism so thanks for that kind of hurtful comment.
U want small word? No be rude, not need insult ppl 4 not get what u mean.
Is everything okay in your personal life? You’re awfully rude for zero reason in here the last couple of days
I? guess it depends what parts of transitioning you do but yeah, I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess it’s been a minute since Jocelyne saw either of her parents.
There have been hints that she’s out to Hank now, intentionally or not.
Looking back, “I need to tell you before you hear it from dad” is more than a hint.
Yes. It’s better find out who will discover first, if it is inevitable.
Joyce, no, expecting yourself to somehow immediately see through all the bullshit you were raised on and then instantly become the most woke person ever is not a reasonable expectation to have. That’s not how people work, and not having done it means absolutely nothing about who you are as a person.
In a way, she’s as much of a perfectionist as Dorothy is, and if she keeps trying to be emotionally/developmentally “perfect”, especially with autism (which can actively work against that), she’s heading to a burnout of her own where she beats herself up for perceived failure.
I cannot words good but thank you Willis and commenters this has been worth the long wait. Looking forward to how it will play out.
Joyce shouldn’t beat herself up, sometimes it’s much easier to tell these things to strangers rather than your own family.
It’s like now that Joyce has lost God, so now she thinks she has control of everything good or bad that ever happens.
Can we just do a time-skip, but with lots of therapy instead of a training montage?
Control, or just responsibility?
For someone who was originally depicted as a doctrinaire fundamentalist and who’s on the spectrum (“the sash MUST be blue!”), Joyce is a surprisingly complex character. As Dorothy noted, “she brings out the best in everyone”. And although, or perhaps because, she demands a lot of herself, she brings out the best in herself too. Even when she doesn’t realize it.
Genuine question, why do her being on The spectrum have to do with being a complex character?
It makes her sexy, and some folks still buy into the stereotype that sexy people are shallow and simplistic.
This tracks.
Joyce, Joyce Joyce Joyce, as a transwoman myself, sometimes it’s easier to tell people who are close but not too close(like Jocelyn telling a family friend Becky and her girlfriend before her own sister) especially if there is a clear indication that said close but not too close would definitely be accepting(they are in a lesbian relationship, they would probably be chill about queer people).
Heck my friends have known me by my chosen name for over a year at this point, but my own mother was only told within the last week and my sister hasn’t been directly told at this point.
You don’t earn a sister in your life, but you can earn not having one in your life. The best and worst thing about family is that they’re there by default whether *anyone* likes it or not.
Man I just don’t know where I fall on the scale. On the one hand, I am way too either selfish or emotionally dead and drained from all the horror shows that my life has been witnessed to recently for me to be part of the solution.
But I am also too empathetic, moral, and human to be part of the problem.
So like where do i fall on the scale here? Am i part of the problem cause i don’t give a fuck if someone is male, female, potted plant, frying pan, or motorcycle? If my opinion is just “what fucking business of yours or mine is it what someone who isn’t me or your identifies with? I have other actual problems to deal with that could result in me either being homeless or dead, possibly both.” Am I considered a problem cause i don’t actively support those who are struggling?
You could also, not say anything? Staying quiet about something that you either don’t know about or have the energy to engage with is always an option.
Eh, it’s fine to just not weigh in, if you’re already dealing with a full plate. Not everyone has to do everything all the time.
you’re not part of the problem! nothing about what’s happening to you right now is okay, heck that’s why we cooperate to spread awareness of struggles we all face, if only because all struggles are ultimately one struggle
none of us are free until all of us are free
#TheStruggleIsReal