I remember how on the second to last strip that featured Becky someone named Airyu left a comment that made a lot of sense.
That Becky’s declaration that God isn’t real is less about Joyce being gay for Dorothy instead of her and more about how it didn’t cost Joyce anything unlike Becky.
Unlike Becky Joyce didn’t get booted out of school despite her coming out moment being a literal front page scandal, unlike Becky Joyce’s father and remaining family casually excepted her, unlike Becky nobody died over it.
But the biggest contrast of all, unlike Joyce up until now Becky faith didn’t wavered she’s stayed true throughout and despite all of everything she’s been through only to see Joyce get cosmically rewarded for the same dilemma.
At that point you think either God isn’t real or he is real and your life is nothing more than a fucking joke of his.
could be a mix of that and Becky still holding a flame for Joyce as well.
But hey, Joyce hasn’t lost anything YET. Knowing Willis, I’m sure there’s gonna be some sort of cosmic balance that will get her attacked by a parent at some point. Probably her mother and her new far right friends.
Does Joyce have any real far right friends at this point? I feel she’s distanced from her old church to the point where her friendships with any of the other younger members her age wasn’t going to survive and can’t think of anyone else she’s friends with.
her mom does, or at least seemed to heavily side with Toedad after the whole kidnapping arc. Plus I figured Willis was setting up Joyce’s mom to be slowly becoming more radicalized, in contrast to Joyce.
Dorothy and Joyce aren’t going to lose anything because they’re the author’s favorite. Their universe will tie itself into a pretzel if it means keeping them together with no lasting consequences for hurting the people they allegedly care about.
I’m sadly thinking Needfuldoer’s salty comment will ultimately be accurate. It feels like Willis is so enamoured by his OTP that he just wants to make cutesy comics of them cooing at each other (+ some smut).
I feel like it means they’ve definitely read some books, though lol.
In all seriousness, it depends on the author and plenty of us are tempted (and frankly I’ve read at least one book series that was made 1000x worse by the obvious and badly-thought-out “kill off your favorite character and instead make Everyman Lumpfuck the protagonist”. It’s all about what’s right for the story you’re actually telling- which I’m sure you know.)
I mean I don’t think it’s super common for actual published books to protect their favorite characters from all consequences, either! But many of us love to specifically torment our favorite characters. The more they suffer, the more beloved they are.
It’s not super common for it to make it to print, no! It’s just… I dunno, “kill your darlings” is one of those 201-class memes and I have Opinions.
None of which really have to do with feeling like I know whether Willis would fall on either side of that dichotomy or elsewhere, in case for some reason that’s not clear.
Are people actually taking that advice literally, because “kill your darlings” does not mean “kill off your favorite characters”…….
It means “delete things from your story that don’t serve the story”. Whether that’s a line that you really love but which breaks the flow of the scene or a character you love that doesn’t make sense in the world, it’s……. it’s about making changes in the rough draft state. It’s about deleting words, not about adding in fictional murder.
Ehhh, Sarah’s reaction to Joyce’s “Do Not Disturb” sign being the newspaper front page of her and Dotty kissing kind of insinuates that Joyce lost Sarah as a friend and the only reason why they’d be sharing the same room is because they HAVE to be. But if Dotty does decide to “move in” like Joyce wants, that’s gonna have a lot of negative consequences.
WAIT HEAR ME OUT NOT SAYINGS BECKYS FAULT, but alot of Joyce’s loss of faith and distance from her old church, was because of how they treated becky, and how she was ostracised for being gay and getting her dad arrested, even tho he went to the campus with a gun.
Pretty much every bit of joyce losing her faith and her relationship with her mother was over becky.
But the thing is, joyce doesn’t really have that to lose now. Her dad is begrudgingly accepting of it, but if her mom was still in the picture somehow she absolutely would not have tolerated it.
Joyce lost things she would have lost jad she come out before becky, by defending becky.
If that were the main focus of what Becky was upset about, there’d be no reason she’d be afraid to talk to Dina about it. “I should’ve just kept my stupid mouth shut” was clearly about the other thing. But yeah, hopefully we’ll see more about her feelings on the above at some point as well.
Never denied that her still having clear feelings for Joyce didn’t play a part in this, it’s just that her her declaration of “There is no God” came right after seeing Joyce dad hand wave away any drama of Joyce having a girlfriend and not repeating the same actions of her dad despite coming from the same fundie community.
Good on Hank but how’s Becky not suppose to look at that ontop of her current feelings and not be dejected when she just keeps losing everything.
In the same conversation she also got yet another instance of Jorothy and Doyce pushed in her face by circumstances. She saw them once again devolve into romance-driven distracted babbling at each other, calling each other “girlfriend” and accidentally “wife”, using specifically the word “love” which she hadn’t seen before. This was right after the first one, which she didn’t even get the chance to process because she immediately had to step in for Jocelyn (which means she knows they weren’t wrong to do that, which means she can’t even let herself be angry at them for it and it’s more like “fate” that made her see it again).
So I don’t reject the possibility that Becky has feelings along those lines (I believe she’s probably envious of anyone with a non-terrible alive parent) I disagree that that scene or its timing are evidence of them.
I like that on a super meta level, God is real for Becky. And her life is nothing more than not a joke per se, but entertainment to them. In that sense, that interpretation of her statement would prove her right
I feel like there are quite a few mangas that have this as a plotline (normally isekai and reincarnation ones). Some are done more humorously, while others take it more seriously.
Whenever the comments start talking about how God is real for Becky, all I can think of is the classic Merrie Melodies short Duck Amuck where Daffy is tormented by a cartoonist. Becky is Daffy, and Willis is Bugs.
Not only that, but there’s an argument to be made that Joyce’s coming out has been so easy specifically because of Becky’s trauma. All of the crap she went through paved the way for Joyce and her dad to reach their respective degrees of acceptance of queerness. Becky was like the proxy through which they processed their emotions and now she seems to have outlived her usefulness.
I love this attitude because neither side has proof. Yet, people on both sides behave as if they know FOR SURE what’s going on with things no one on Earth can possibly know for sure. People on both sides think the other side is misguided at best and dangerous at worst.
Sides being: belief in a higher power vs belief there is no higher power.
I tend to fall into the “we can’t possibly know for sure” category, which isn’t really either side (in case people thought I wasn’t allowing for nuance when specifically talking about two groups of people). There might be a sky daddy, mommy, or any gender parental sky unit at all. We can’t say with any certainty one way or another lol.
We can’t say with certainly, but that’s true of an awful lot of things. God is one of the very few where there’s strong social pressure to at least be neutral.
There’s no reason other than tradition and it’s social ubiquity to believe in or even suspend judgement on God.
It’s a claim presented without evidence and we don’t treat other such claims that way.
The point isn't "remain neutral, suspend judgement, or believe in" anything. My point is that stating either claim with certainty (that there Is or Is Not a higher power) is a claim presented without evidence. And I find it funny (in the same way I find people who are DEAD certain aliens do or don't exist funny) that both sides have people dead certain the other side is the only one guilty of presenting claims without evidence.
I would appreciate not continuing to have to debate some pressure to be neutral that I neither said nor implied <3
Except that there’s vast amounts of evidence. Literally an entire universe of it. And the more of that we gather, the more evident it becomes that there is no room for a deity that’s meaningfully distinct from the implacable execution of impersonal physical laws to exist.
This doesn’t rule out everything that could reasonably be described as a god, but we’re down to things like a creator deity that set the machine in motion and doesn’t interfere with its running, or one that’s so perfectly good at retconning that any changes it makes cannot be observed, and these aren’t what Becky or Joyce mean when they say “God”. They’re talking about one that specifically did a bunch of blatantly ahistorical stuff in the Middle East a couple thousand years ago.
Well assuming that you believe in the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (I don’t. I think it’s rather silly) there is plenty of non-deterministic wave collapse available for a randomly generated deity to pull the strings to control what happens.
And as I’m sure Sirksome would have said at one point, don’t trust the people who record history.
The whole universe is evidence to the judeochristian God’s absence. You can abstract words away to talk about a “higher power” but by “God” people don’t mean a higher power like “Gravity” or “Mathematics” they mean an intelligent omnipotent being that interacts with the world and with humanity specifically.
If someone claimed that we have no good evidence against the existence of Zeus or Thor or Princess Celestia would you agree with them? Or are you in fact as absolutely certain as a person can be about every aspect of reality that Zeus and Thor and Princess Celestia don’t exist, but somehow you claim it’s silly for atheists to have the same certainty about the mythological fantasy characters of Christians?
This isn’t you finding unfaith silly, this is you being biased in favour of one particular religious belief of one particular religious group, for which we must supposedly must pretend that we aren’t certain is false.
Nonetheless.
Even many non-believers raised in a Christian society will respond in this kind of “Well atheists don’t have any proof either” way about the Christian God, but not about other mythological figures.
No, not nonetheless. aelfwine has repeatedly responded to Nymph in a way that only makes sense if they think Nymph is only pretending to be agnostic and is secretly actually trying to advance Christian arguments.
“Are you just as agnostic about Zeus existing?!” …Yes. Why wouldn’t an agnostic be just as agnostic about Zeus existing. I get that aelfwine thinks there’s something somehow more silly about believing in Zeus or Thor Odin, especially given that their other comment compared both to believing in specifically the Easter Bunny (a commercial entity not worshiped by anyone), but like. Arguments from incredulity do tend to fall flat when your incredulity is not shared by your audience.
And if it’s actually coming from a place of believing that Nymph is truly agnostic, it’s even more nonsensical as a line of attack.
Is this because obnoxious Nu Atheists often get accused of only actually knowing anything about Christianity? Because “only knowing anything about Christianity” wouldn’t be a problem if that specific type of atheist stuck to saying “all religions are equally made up”
instead of so frequently saying “all religions are equally oppressive”, “all religions are equally homophobic”, “all religious people are equally brainwashed”, etc.
fff I was about to apologize for replying on your behalf because I saw your other comment and was like, oh, they did not want this to become a conversation, I’m not helping
but also: c’mon, baby atheists, “some atheists are silly” is not a personal attack
Nah honestly it’s a relief to not be fighting this weird tidal wave of people kinda proving my original point tbh.
I think I monkey-pawed this into being by saying anything at all about religion in this particular comment section (no matter how many times I tried to clarify) so I take some of the blame for thinking people could be chill lmao.
I wasn’t finding a lack of faith silly. I was finding the repeated insistence on arguing with me about faith/nonfaith when I’ve made several comments to the effect of “I was discussing a very specific instance, have underlined that, and was not inviting theological debate so I won’t be participating in that”.
I’m being biased in favor of “I have an opinion that this particular thing is funny” and have offered ZERO opinions in the direction of faith or lack thereof being silly or wrong or otherwise.
You personally are arguing with shadows and the fucking wind <3 And that's silly <3
I didn’t know the name of it, but having looked it up I do know a version of it. As I said to Jeff (and will continue saying absolutely zero times after this because at that point people are just willfully misinterpreting me) ~both~ the claim that there is definitely No God and the claim that there definitely is a God have the same amount of proof. Are the same amount of unproven and unfalsifiable claims. And people say them with the same amount of certainty and that tickles me.
I literally don’t care what side of “does god exist” or which version of god someone believes in if they do. I wasn’t saying anything about that lmao.
Do you feel the same about the existence vs absence of Zeus, or the existence vs absence of Thor, or the existence vs absence of Santa Claus, or the existence vs absence of the Easter Bunny, or is it somehow only the One God of the Abrahamic religions where evidence for and against are somehow so coincidentally completely balanced?
Point to me where I brought up Abrahamic religions?
Yes I do feel the same about all religions, religious figures, and lack thereof.
Moreover, it’s actually super weird you expect me to owe you any kind of answer at all about something I found funny. You’re literally so pressed about such a minor opinion and that’s a waste of both your time and mine. But keep on wasting if it’s super important to argue with someone who wasn’t arguing in the first place lmao.
But that’s the point. If you want to be strict about it, we can’t be absolutely certain about anything. Last Thursdayism is unfalsifiable. I could be a brain in a vat somewhere being fed false sense data.
In that sense, I’m agnostic about everything, but none of us hedge everything we say with the giant pile of conditions and uncertainty that really should be there.
But when it comes to God, so many people apply different standards. Want us to have absolute proof before we dismiss the idea, like we dismiss so many other things that we can’t actually disprove. I don’t think we should apply different standards to the concept of God.
And I don’t think most atheists intend to say anything more. “There’s no sky daddy” is an offensive way to put it, but it’s not an explicit claim that “I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no god”, it’s just a claim, like “there is no Bigfoot”.
This isn’t really a response to Nymph’s comments, though.
Nymph didn’t say you had to join them in being agnostic. Nymph didn’t demand “absolute proof before you dismiss the idea” of a deity. Nymph just pointed out that some atheists posture as though they DO have absolute proof.
All y’all would do well to remember that Nymph’s comment was in response to “Well, whatever breaks the delusion.”
“Proof” isn’t a thing. Evidence is. And the no-god folks have a lot more than that than the no-god folks. Even as someone who believes and worships myself, it’s pretty undeniable that the evidence overwhelmingly tilts in one direction. That makes sense for my faith – it makes less sense for most others, with god so personal and powerful and with no reason to hide.
By “most” others, do you by any chance mean specifically Christianity?
I don’t think the Shinto / Hindu / Norse / Greek pantheons are especially personal, and I don’t think any of them are supposed to be omnipotent, either.
Actually I’m also very curious as to what evidence there specifically is that no god(s) exist?
AFAIK, what we’ve got is some very solid ideas about how various things in the universe came to be without requiring a deity, but I didn’t think there was anything to specifically suggest that a deity couldn’t exist.
Exaaactly! Like maybe physics works because it was set in motion, maybe it works by chance, maybe we’re on a soap bubble, maybe we’re at the center point of a giant honeycomb. No one fucking knows.
And saying that apparently makes a lotta people pupset. Oh well.
@Nymph: and like, no one’s saying atheists need to disprove the soap bubble theory.
I understand why a lot of atheists are more focused on trying to specifically disprove Christianity, as evangelical protestant calvinistic Christianity is the specific force impacting the lives of most American atheists.
Why would they spend equal effort on trying to debunk non-evangelical religions on the other side of the world that don’t impact their day-to-day lives?
But if they don’t wanna be annoyed by being challenged to prove we’re not all living in a soap bubble, maybe they shouldn’t start existential fistfights with other people about how you can’t call yourself agnostic unless you’re apparently equally agnostic about the existence of deities and the existence of Coca-Cola’s specific version of Santa Claus.
Exactly! I don’t care what people believe or what they can prove, I’m not making demands of any kind. I just think the “We’re DEFINITELY on a soap bubble” crowd has a lot of similarities in argument-style with the “We’re DEFINITELY NOT on a soap bubble” crowd.
And that was interesting and funny to me. It felt ironic in a way I wanted to put a light on.
The existence or unexistence of the supernatural are not a 50 / 50 split. Etraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The whole world is reduced to absurdity if everything is thought to have the probability of a coin flip.
The theory that there is a skyfather who sees all and judges everybody is a truly wild claim. Such a hypothesis requires a lot of evidence to be taken seriously, and there is literally none that stands up to scrutiny.
I think Atheism isn’t so much about “I am arguing there 100% isn’t a god” as “There isn’t good reason to believe there is”
Maybe there is a god… You are right in that we really can’t prove anything one way or another… but that doesn’t really matter to an argument about whether it is justified to believe in god, because whether or not is it justified doesn’t depend on the truth of the belief, but rather on the evidence available.
Sure “there’s no sky daddy” seems like a positive assertion, but I think it is really more of a casual quip. The point isn’t to say “I have 100% proof for this thing that can’t be proved” as to say “it is ridiculous how we keep treating this thing that has zero evidence as at best a 50/50”. It is fundamentally an expression of frustration with the double standard that society has towards religious beliefs, and how religious superstition harms society.
– atheism is about…
– there is/isn’t a god
– it’s wrong/right to have an opinion that is definite/neutral about a higher power
– please debate with me about a thing I find funny like it’s a serious situation
I was saying:
– I think this specific attitude is funny because it implies certainty in a way that sounds similar to religious certainty.
– I don’t think either side of this very specific branch of these very specific arguments have more proof or less proof than the other one.
People are WAY too excited to disagree with me and argue like it’s a philosophical point I wanted to defend or a statement of moral judgement when, again, I really just found the similarities funny between people who aggressively believe it’s stupid to believe in god and people who aggressively believe it’s stupid not to believe in god.
It’s quite ironic that we now have four atheists acting holier than thou against Nymph lol
Y’all are missing the point! To use a metaphor, Nymph basically said ”sleep good” and y’all went on a condescending tangent about grammar without acknowledging the kind message.
Stop yucking other’s yum. Let individuals have their faith or atheism or agnosticism and have some fun with it. I’m gonna try a spell when I get home
I just sincerely pray none of y’all ever, ever have to be in a situation with someone who’s having a for real dangerous paranoid delusion, because you’re just going to be standing there yelling some bullshit trying to “convince them to come to their senses” imagining you’re helping and then someone’s gonna get hurt.
Someone should tell Becky the parable of the Prodigal Son. The point of the Prodigal Son being that they were welcomed back with all of the love and affection of the father despite the Older Son never going astray and getting the same love.
“Which is kind of crappy now that I think about it!” – Becky
Joyce is getting all the karma despite Becky suffering faithfully.
I was definitely thinking this too, but I think it’s still in Becky crashout time. She needs the space. It might not even have been an hour. I don’t know how long it takes J&D to fuck.
I guess that depends on how long you think they both spent annoying Asma or Joyce spent giving Lucy graphic details about her sex life. Maybe it’s been 3 days. Maybe Becky should be over this.
Becky should’ve been over this before it started. It didn’t help that nobody shut her down when she was going on about her Schroedinger Rivalry with Dorothy.
@UrsulaDavina
Fuck yeah! 3.5/Pathfinder 1e forever!
Everyone always goes on about 5e being more player friendly, but what about the GM? The 3.5 mechanics are so completely open and consistent that they are insanely easy to adjust, allowing for maximum creativity on the GM’s part while still having consistent mechanics.
/soapbox
The 3.5 was fun, for its toolbox ways. 5 was meh. (we shan’t mention why we skipped from 3.5 to 5.) PF2e (first one or remaster) are more enjoyable, mefeels. Plus I like the distinct world setting; reminds me of Gloranthan stuff from RuneQuest.
Agreed. Pf2e gives me plenty of crunch and a system that just works consistently.
I played a lot of 3.5/PF1, but it got to be a massive chore especially at high levels
O Sirksome of the Comments, won’t you grant us your wisdom on what not to trust? Should we not trust half-baths? Or medication-induced hallucinations? Or SEMME? Or?
We’re sorry, but Sirksome has recently been informed that regularly warning the masses what or who not to trust has been both obnoxious and problematic. It is not the wish of Sirksome to impede any readers active enjoyment of this comic or the robust discussion experienced. As a result of such complaints all Sirksome authored advice on trust related matters have been put on hiatus until a formal review process has been completed. Thank you and have a nice day.
Don’t trust the people who are trying to deprive us of your wise advice. By doing so, you are actively impeding our full enjoyment of the comic. Caving to these obnoxious complaints would be highly problematic. Please don’t do it!
This is very kind of Dina, but I’m also absolutely being destroyed by her look in the last panel. Dina better have everything turn out alright for her, or I’m going to be very upset.
Not angry like the last group of “upset” people were, just really sad and disappointed that the world would do my girl dirty like that and not make things okay.
As am I. None of her friends feel like they can be close to her. She’s fully alone. And the next story arc is “I’m the problem,” echoing what she said, but it might be about everyone else thinking the same thing about what she did to herself.
Hooooooooo boy. Grimacing with every Patreon email from now on.
I get the idea, but neither of them have any reason to think she needs to be actively checked on and either of them checking is likely to be another stressor rather than a comfort.
Does a family history of suicide mean you put someone on suicide watch whenever they’re upset? Especially when you’re the proximate cause of them being upset?
Sure, in-universe it’s not particularly surprising. But narratively, we’re establishing that no one has seen Becky since Dina left the room, and no one will check on Becky until tomorrow at the earliest, giving a large window for something to happen without anyone knowing.
While I agree that Becky should be happy with Dina rather than focusing on Joyce; I’m not sure referring to Joyce as “some blonde floozy” is appropriate.
If the present is all around us, it only makes sense that some of it is behind us and requires hindsight. Otherwise why did my mom have eyes in the back of her head?
NGL I kinda hope we get to see some of these Head Alien hallucinations of Amber’s in-comic. Like, he doesn’t really fit in in a mundane setting like this, obviously, but damn do I miss him sometimes.
Plot twist: it’s actually not a hallucination; post-sogpocalypse Amber is in there along with Galasso Prime and a multidimensional portal, and they’re trying to recruit a team to go back in time and stop the Drama Tag from ever being pulled.
And you’ll all look at this and go “Ha ha yeah right” but in a year’s time when Walky runs into a friendly Mike lookalike at the bar of Galasso’s Pizza (and subs) along with a very much alive Ronald Regan and Historical Jesus, I’ll point back to this and go, “See, this is clearly the point where they crossed over.”
They could have characters from this comic getting superpowers and using them to fight the Head Alien. And for some reason after they retire from working for the secret government agency that fights the aliens, they end up working at a toy story run by Galasso. I think that would make for some interesting story arcs.
so it looks like Dorothy is actually going along with Joyce’s “let’s move in together and leave the clearly emotionally damaged and suffering Becky alone in her own room” plan… Kinda a difficult position since while I doubt Becky is going to be happy at all seeing Dorothy’s “I get to be romantically involved with the woman you loved your whole life” presence there’s the greater problem of her negative state of mind is not the kind person you should be leaving alone… She could be at a high risk of self harm or other destructive habits, including one unique to chronically depressed and bitter redheads of potentially winding up dating Billie.
yeah though Sarah is rather stubborn so their hanky panky fun may be dampened by the ever presence judgemental stare of a disaproving big sister figure.
I was going to say that’s not a great solution given how lash relationships have been ending lately but I suppose that would also apply to Dorothy and Joyce’s relationship, especially if Dorothy finds out Joyce never broke up with Joe.
It’s a tough situation because Dorothy entering their room right now could absolutely set her off, but also it’s kinda fucked up to ask Dina for favors after inadvertently blowing up her spot. It’s not quite as diabolical as Joyce using the weighted blanket Joe gave her to snuggle Dorothy, but it’s close.
I mean I willing to give Becky and Dorothy a grace period here, but if it goes over a day I think that’s when it gets a little ridiculous. They’re both big girls who can cohabitate. Becky’s situation does seem a little distressing but I trust her not to fall so deep into depression without seeking help she broaches anything near self harm and I also don’t believe any of her friends Joyce and Dorothy included would just abandon her to her misery. If Becky is in a danger zone after being alone for a hour or two her mental health has been a much bigger concern than anything in this comic ever even hinted at.
I believe the only people with any accurate idea of her state of mind are Dina and Amber, and Amber less so.
The last time Joyce and Dorothy saw Becky, she’d been trying to distract Hank and then Joyce jumped on the coming-out-the-closet grenade to save her sister.
Becky was still there up until they left for lunch, but I don’t think Joyce or Dorothy were paying much attention to her.
They definitely aren’t aware that Becky has suddenly converted to atheism due to heartbreak.
The “need to not be anywhere” line prior to the sudden Hank appearance was disconcerting, but, again, they did see Becky putting on her cheerful mask for Hank.
Long story long, while they know Becky is feeling some type of way, I don’t think they’re privy to the most recent things she’s said that make us readers increasingly more concerned for her.
Due to her upbringing, I fear Becky has learned how to conceal her true emotional state a little too well. I don’t think she’s even told anybody in the cast about walking in on her mom yet.
Everyone in her life is scared of talking to her because they feel like they betrayed her. She then feels alone, and she’s not wrong to do so, thus stewing in her thoughts that she is the problem.
And then Raidah told Joyce “you never cared about anything other than yourself.” Thus setting up a potential examination of herself and that she is why Becky did something bad.
I said it when Dina left Becky alone but there’s no way all the “I’d rather kill myself than be with a man” isn’t leading to something.
She said that once, and it was part of a larger spiral over the idea of sexuality being fluid. That has been building to something, part of which we’ve already seen.
I do not think it is going anywhere near “Becky attempts to be with a man”, if that’s what you’re implying.
Maybe she is, but “move in together” is a bit much at this stage. It’s the first day. You could see it as giving Becky some space
There’s a risk of that going wrong, though I doubt any of them have even thought of it, but there’s also a risk in going back in and provoking another confrontation.
If in the next storyline Joyce tries to pull the “See? We’re the same now” maneuver on Dina again like in the autism arc, I don’t wanna see a single fucking person judge her for crashing out.
I don’t really begrudge this being explored, especially since I think this goes a bit deeper into Becky’s issues than just “Joyce is queer, but still doesn’t want me”.
And apparently even if we focused on the ones who were cheated on, it wouldn’t be about the cheating anyway.
Why is it dumb to care about the person who has a family history of suicide, when they are ACTIVELY having suicidal ideation? The boys are sad, but seem to be coping well enough.
Yes, god wrote them as not caring, so we’d focus on Becky. After all, she was attracted to Joyce and was her really good friend, so obviously she should have a say in who Joyce dates.
“”God”” didn’t write them as not caring, he wrote them as not being suicidal and as not exposing their vulnerabilities to the girls who hurt them. There is a difference. We’ll be getting back to both Joe and Walky. It’s just also understandable that the characters of Joyce and Dorothy are currently more worried about Becky, who they actually KNOW is upset.
I remember months ago when things started looking like Joyce and Dorothy were gonna get together I was stressing out because I felt like “Oh God, this is going to Nuke the friend circle” because as much as we knew Becky still had feelings for Joyce, I thought it’d be more because Dina (who never really cared much for Joyce as a friend) would be pissed on Joe’s (who *is* Dina’s friend) behalf.
(Also Sal and Jennifer being pissed on Walkys behalf, Dan joining Sal in being pissed for Joe but also “C’mon Dorothy, I literally told you this was a shitty thing” etc etc) Having all the “Consequences” of this entire arc come down to what people in the comment section dread pointing towards a potential Self-Harm/Attempt on her own life from Becky over this feels wrong, almost. Not that she hasn’t shown signs of troubling thoughts (to the audience, I don’t think nor blame her friends for not clocking her comments) just after then handing of the Gaza Protests, I’m a little aprehensive of if going that way.
Sal not caring lowered my opinion of her. She may be pissed at her brother but he’s done a lot to try to reach out to her including alienating their parents.
So when Dorothy was crashing out Becky dropped her fake rivalry with her to be a comforting presence and look out for her needs, and when Becky is in the same spot due to Dorothy’s own actions she’s decided to move out and further avoid Becky?
I mean I guess in that position you get someone else who’s close to her to check up on her?
But right now her and Dina are in a rocky spot in their relationship and I don’t think they have Leslie and Robin on speed dial…they may not be close but maybe this is a job for Ruth.
I like that it’s kinda scumbags all the way down on this one. Becky’s crashing out over stupid shit and Dorothy giving her space while also being an avoidant coward after selfishly choosing to play her part in burning down their friend group by fucking Joyce! Everybody sucks! It’s great! 😁
Dorothy didn’t dump Walky, for the record. She dithered until Joyce charged in and drop-kicked him out a window, and Dorothy latched on to that as good enough.
Yeah but, they knew. I don’t blame them for Becky’s messed up head, but they knew, they knew before and immediately after they kissed them pursuing their romance would hurt people. Emotions are powerful but we’re not controlled by them. Joyce and Dorothy hold some accountability there, even if just a tiny bit to Becky for knowing she would be hurt and acting on it anyway.
Nah, they’re not obligated to conduct their love life in any way so as not to make third parties sad. That’s like saying a girl has an obligation to date the creepy dude with a crush on her because otherwise he’ll be hurt. Tough shit. Life is hard, you don’t always get to be with the person you want. Grow the fuck up.
It’s not about obligation. It’s just simple fact that they acted selfishly knowing it would hurt people. Becky is included in that group not because they’re obligated to act in accordance with her desires or in preservation of her mental stability, but because they simply knew it would hurt her and others.
They do need to own that. They didn’t stop and think, they didn’t care about anyone else, they just went for it, screw the consequences (which turns out weren’t many)
For my opinion I stand by them and agree Becky should get over it. But J&D do hold some responsibility.
Idle curiosity: are you genuinely unfamiliar with the cultural notion that it’s inappropriate to engage in romantic relationships with people that you know your friends harbour pre-existing romantic feelings for?
Because, not to be too on the nose about it, but even Dorothy recognised that what she was doing was going to break Becky’s heart.
Bluntly: this, along with the idea that it’s wrong to date a friend’s ex, is straight-people-culture.
Queer friend groups are much more commonly “everyone has been everyone else’s ex at least once”, because we just have smaller dating pools to work with and cannot as easily risk hitting on strangers.
Dorothy has a specific cowardice born from a life obsessed with “not making any mistakes” that’s going to keep burning her socially, emotionally, and even politically without some kind of hard reality check.
Not sure we’re reading the same comic if you don’t see how Becky letting go of that facade was a pretty strong empathic moment for her.
And I don’t see how just not coming back to the room is ‘giving Becky space’. Like she’ll know that if Dorothy doesn’t come back then she’s obviously staying with Joyce. That’s just gonna make Becky feel worse. Dorothy could at least try to have a one on one conversation first to clear things up. Neither her nor Joyce has even tried to check in on Becky, and every conversation they had was just them flirting with each other
Dorothy is in absolutely not way responsible for Becky’s state of mind right now and she has no reason to think that Becky wants to see her or that it would be good for Becky to see her. She’s Becky’s roommate, not her mother.
The thing is Dina, understands that none of this is Dorothy’s fault. Becky had feelings for Joyce all this time, and recent events only brought that to light.
Looks like if Dorothy wants to get some of her clothes and other stuff from her dorm room, she’s gonna have to do it herself and deal with Becky and the fallout from her and Joyce’s shitty behavior.
Except she’s not. Whatever Becky’s going through is not the result of their shitty behaviour. Their shitty behaviour isn’t being gay for each other, and that’s what made Becky go to a downward spiral. If Joyce had cheated on Joe with another dude, Becky would’ve been just fine.
Becky spiraling isn’t fallout from what Joyce and Dorothy did wrong. This would have happened even if they’d been single when they kissed – a point I’ve made repeatedly. A big issue with the fact that Joyce and Dorothy cheated on their partners is that all of the narrative consequences have been from them being gay, not from having cheated.
In real life being gay has more consequences then cheating, so it kinda makes sense.
Cheating in real life might ruin some relationships, but as long as the people were not married to eachother, it probably won’t go any further then that unless a friend or partner gets violent because of it.
Joyce and Dorothy have probably ruined some relationships, it has also made their social standing go down a bit. Which is what happens irl.
Being Gay is what will get you actually punished in the current society, there are a ton of people who will just hate you for no other reason and some who actively want you dead, people in the government who actively want to ruin your lives.
I wonder what is gonna happen when the church finds out about Joyce being in love with a girl, will her mother come back and try to pull some shit? Will her Father react more poorly then we think, considering he doesn’t seem to accept Joyce’s sister being a girl?
Will Mary pull some shit?
It has only been like 2 days since the first kiss happened, and unless people read the newspaper and KNEW who they were, they wouldn’t know it was even “Cheating”. Joyce and Dorothy have been by clinging to eachother for MONTHS at the school, so anybody not in their social circle would just think they were always dating. If your looking to see their whole school shun them or something for cheating, that would be VERY unrealistic. Hell its rare irl for Friends to berate their Friends for cheating unless it was a really bad incident and they were also friends with the partner.
More Consequences could happen once more people know the situation, but I think for now its being accurately handled.
A couple of people have said they either wanted or expected Joyce and Dorothy to lose all their friends, though.
It’s just been a few months, and no one expects that to happen anymore, so a lot of folks have switched to “please, SOMETHING, any kind of consequence at all”.
Yep, sure is shitty for Joyce & Dorothy not to accept that Becky had dibs and Joyce and that Joyce isn’t allowed to date any woman other than Becky. That’s what you’re saying, right? Because it’s the only way in which you could possibly describe their behavior as being shitty to Becky.
Dina feels it through Dina’s lens because she is herself. It’s fine and real. Becky’s story is long and sad. I even think it’s pivotal that Joyce came out without telling Becky, after Becky has gone through so much alone. Becky was rejected by Joyce but could accept it on the basis that it was just a mismatch. Now Becky is confronted with having to accept that the person she loved just didn’t love her. Just like her mom didn’t love her enough to keep living; her dad didn’t love her enough to not try to imprison and abuse her. The three closest people in Becky’s life all functionally rejected her. And Becky could blame it on religious brainwashing until Joyce coming out. Now there’s no excuse. They all just didn’t care about her enough, even Joyce when it came down to it.
Hope that she comes around to realizing that Dina has loved her unconditionally.
hear hear! Mooniee has the best explanation. nothing happens in a vacuum. the people saying “she should just get over it” “whatever, Joyce wasn’t hers to begin with” are shallow, unempathetic people.
Except that Joyce does love Becky. That’s been made plentifully obvious. Joyce doesn’t want Becky sexually, and confusing eros and agape is a hangup that Becky had best get past before it leads her into some truly unfortunate life choices. (I wasted over nine years of my life married to the wrong woman because I hadn’t learned the difference.)
It doesn’t help, of course, that both Becky and Joyce come from a belief system that actively downplayed the importance of one of those things, while making the other an obsessive ideal, in hopes of erasing women’s agency to have preferences, or otherwise choose. Like, how were they both not supposed to end up in this place? They were both taught that romantic love was the only thing that would ever validate their life, and that their sole purpose was subservience to their romantic partner. Now, that toxic belief is actively destroying both of their lives around them, and neither can see the problem, because they can’t separate their feelings from the belief system that indoctrinated them with toxic ideology.
every day, like 60% of the commentariat are shallow, unempathetic people; it’s just not the same 60% every day, and most of us are not fully innocent of it. there’s a few outliers but, well, yeah.
Joyce came out without telling Becky? She didn’t have a chance to tell Becky, because she was outed by the newspaper. Nor does she have a moral obligation to tell Becky she might not be straight the second she realizes it herself. By these standards, we could condemn Becky for not coming out to Joyce the second she ‘came out’ by being caught making out at Anderson.
90% of this comment is insane. It’s like we’ve been reading two completely different comics.
Becky hasn’t gone “through so much alone”. The exact moment she showed up from Anderson, Joyce (and Dorothy, tbh) have done little else than bend over backwards as much as they can to accommodate her. Joyce has spent every interaction with Becky (and plenty without her) showing how much she loves Becky. She’s just not IN love with her. She’s not in love with a lot of people.
The notion that Joyce doesn’t care about Becky might be the most insane take I’ve seen all year, about anything.
Becky and Joyce are STILL a mismatch. Joyce isn’t in love with Becky. That’s the only mismatch that matters. It’s the only mismatch that has EVER mattered.
Becky’s crash didn’t happen just because of Joyce’s new passion. It happened after Hank was accepting and understanding. Joyce had her sister’s support. Becky had nothing and no one. Just as Dina correctly notes Joyce had an easy path on her diagnosis, Becky can see that her best friend’s path to sapphic bliss was relatively uneventful. Becky’s involved suicide, kidnapping and murder. Homelessness was the easy part. Becky has identified the factor in the disparate results. It is Becky. She is the cause of her problems. Self harm is a real risk.
As for Dina, Becky was the only one who saw her. As a real person. As an equal, not a pet or a child. As someone to love. As someone period.
I’m hoping Dina goes to Becky now. They both need it.
Plus in plot logic, Becky and Dina rooming together solves a bunch of issues.
I hope for this as well, although I don’t think Becky is in a space to understand that right now. I’ve commented on this strip more than I have commented on all the others put together because I understand suicidal ideation. You can have EVERYONE in your life telling you that you are loved and needed and wonderful, but it doesn’t make you believe it. You will convince yourself that you are a waste of resources and that the world would be better off without you. it really sucks.
Looks like we’re bringing back the Walkyverse! Sorry y’all this is my fault. I was talking about how I love watching Dumbiverse Sal do Walkyverse-esque shit on Blue Sky when talking about the comic. Willis must have saw.
I’ve been in Becky’s situation where I fall in love with my best friend. And I was roughly Becky’s age as well. Didn’t help that my bestie showed up at my graduation (she was a year older than me and graduated early) and had graduation dinner ALONGSIDE MY COLLEGE GIRLFRIEND! It’s gonna take more than a day for Becky to even leave the dorm, much less get over her feeling of betrayal and give her whole heart to Dina. Again… you never really get over your first love, ESPECIALLY at that age.
Thanks to DYW for posting the Bluesky post about Crankshaft otherwise I never would have seen the trending thread about Joyce Carol Oats roasting Elon alive on his own platform since I got permabanned for quote-tweeting a Trump post about te poors and saying it should happen to him as well.
Immediately thinking of my one friend who likes to exclaim “do not perceive me!” but never seems to flinch from her bf’s attention
but then also my own autistic self and realizing that yea, it’s easy to fall hard if you find someone who regularly makes you feel seen in a world that doesn’t
It’d be funny if Amber, in her head, went on the same journey as Robin did in “Shortpacked” and saw the Walkyverse versions of her and her friends fighting Head Alien. I wonder how she would react once she saw that she was not only married to Mike’s clone but that they had a baby together as well. (What would their daughter be, now? A teen?) I also wonder what Walkyverse Joyce would think of DoA Joyce once she sees that she’s now in a romantic relationship with the woman that almost ruined her wedding.
So is Dorothy going to stay with Joyce for a few days or is she literally going to “move in” like Joyce wants to add another check in Joyce’s speedrun to become Mrs. Keener? I’m still sure Joyce is going to propose on Valentine’s Day and plan to have their wedding in May.
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Dina… :pleading_face: :t_rex:
This was the best she could do.
But is still very painful for her.
She don’t deserve to be hurting like this! Not at all!
:confounded: :confounded: :confounded: :sob: :sob: :sob:
*plays “A Grim Fate” from Dragon Ball Z Soundtrack on hacked muzak*
gaaaaaaaaah forget this post exists, my kingdom for a delete button :/
Want a bunch of us to report it for you?
that works, yes thx
I’m sure Willis can delete it if necessary.
I remember how on the second to last strip that featured Becky someone named Airyu left a comment that made a lot of sense.
That Becky’s declaration that God isn’t real is less about Joyce being gay for Dorothy instead of her and more about how it didn’t cost Joyce anything unlike Becky.
Unlike Becky Joyce didn’t get booted out of school despite her coming out moment being a literal front page scandal, unlike Becky Joyce’s father and remaining family casually excepted her, unlike Becky nobody died over it.
But the biggest contrast of all, unlike Joyce up until now Becky faith didn’t wavered she’s stayed true throughout and despite all of everything she’s been through only to see Joyce get cosmically rewarded for the same dilemma.
At that point you think either God isn’t real or he is real and your life is nothing more than a fucking joke of his.
I think it’s actually both, but as of right now, she’s def letting the former do all the work in her head.
I mean, he’s real, he’s talking to Amber in her dreams right now. Long term Willis-verse fans know what’s up.
Hey, we need a two-year detour into Amber’s dream.
Well, I need it anyway.
How do you know we aren’t already in the middle of a two-year detour into Amber’s dreams?
* fifteen
No, it began here: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/04-vote-for-robin/sighting/
(Spooky Head Alien voice): Amber, listen to me….you are needed in another dimensional plane. Follow the light, Amber…. ooooooooo
… and bewaa~aare the Chee~eese…
Always good advice.
(which i always ignore)
All hail the Cheese
I meant Becky but ‘ll take it.
Well that was cheesy. BADUM PSHHH.
Didn’t see that one, will have to find it later.
could be a mix of that and Becky still holding a flame for Joyce as well.
But hey, Joyce hasn’t lost anything YET. Knowing Willis, I’m sure there’s gonna be some sort of cosmic balance that will get her attacked by a parent at some point. Probably her mother and her new far right friends.
Does Joyce have any real far right friends at this point? I feel she’s distanced from her old church to the point where her friendships with any of the other younger members her age wasn’t going to survive and can’t think of anyone else she’s friends with.
her mom does, or at least seemed to heavily side with Toedad after the whole kidnapping arc. Plus I figured Willis was setting up Joyce’s mom to be slowly becoming more radicalized, in contrast to Joyce.
So far her mom has been the type to go into denial every time Joyce does or says something she doesn’t agree with but could happen
I imagine her two daughters here are gonna really make that difficult lol
Joyce hasn’t lost anything. As long as you don’t count Sarah. Or Becky. Or Joe (although she didn’t lose him so much as set him aside).
I see them being distant for this moment in time but I still see them coming to her aid when it matters.
She hasn’t lost Joe yet, Joe is convinced he’s cool with this.
Sarah being disappointed in Joyce and Dorothy doesn’t mean they’ve lost her. That’s basically business as usual with her, they’re fine.
Dorothy and Joyce aren’t going to lose anything because they’re the author’s favorite. Their universe will tie itself into a pretzel if it means keeping them together with no lasting consequences for hurting the people they allegedly care about.
I’m sadly thinking Needfuldoer’s salty comment will ultimately be accurate. It feels like Willis is so enamoured by his OTP that he just wants to make cutesy comics of them cooing at each other (+ some smut).
Thinking being the author’s favorite means nothing bad will ever happen to them tells me you’ve never been an author.
I feel like it means they’ve definitely read some books, though lol.
In all seriousness, it depends on the author and plenty of us are tempted (and frankly I’ve read at least one book series that was made 1000x worse by the obvious and badly-thought-out “kill off your favorite character and instead make Everyman Lumpfuck the protagonist”. It’s all about what’s right for the story you’re actually telling- which I’m sure you know.)
I mean I don’t think it’s super common for actual published books to protect their favorite characters from all consequences, either! But many of us love to specifically torment our favorite characters. The more they suffer, the more beloved they are.
It’s not super common for it to make it to print, no! It’s just… I dunno, “kill your darlings” is one of those 201-class memes and I have Opinions.
None of which really have to do with feeling like I know whether Willis would fall on either side of that dichotomy or elsewhere, in case for some reason that’s not clear.
Are people actually taking that advice literally, because “kill your darlings” does not mean “kill off your favorite characters”…….
It means “delete things from your story that don’t serve the story”. Whether that’s a line that you really love but which breaks the flow of the scene or a character you love that doesn’t make sense in the world, it’s……. it’s about making changes in the rough draft state. It’s about deleting words, not about adding in fictional murder.
You’d be wrong thinking I’ve ”never been an author”. I suggest not trying to pigeon hole people like that.
Ehhh, Sarah’s reaction to Joyce’s “Do Not Disturb” sign being the newspaper front page of her and Dotty kissing kind of insinuates that Joyce lost Sarah as a friend and the only reason why they’d be sharing the same room is because they HAVE to be. But if Dotty does decide to “move in” like Joyce wants, that’s gonna have a lot of negative consequences.
I mean she’s lost plenty because Becky was gay
WAIT HEAR ME OUT NOT SAYINGS BECKYS FAULT, but alot of Joyce’s loss of faith and distance from her old church, was because of how they treated becky, and how she was ostracised for being gay and getting her dad arrested, even tho he went to the campus with a gun.
Pretty much every bit of joyce losing her faith and her relationship with her mother was over becky.
But the thing is, joyce doesn’t really have that to lose now. Her dad is begrudgingly accepting of it, but if her mom was still in the picture somehow she absolutely would not have tolerated it.
Joyce lost things she would have lost jad she come out before becky, by defending becky.
Excellent points.
If that were the main focus of what Becky was upset about, there’d be no reason she’d be afraid to talk to Dina about it. “I should’ve just kept my stupid mouth shut” was clearly about the other thing. But yeah, hopefully we’ll see more about her feelings on the above at some point as well.
Never denied that her still having clear feelings for Joyce didn’t play a part in this, it’s just that her her declaration of “There is no God” came right after seeing Joyce dad hand wave away any drama of Joyce having a girlfriend and not repeating the same actions of her dad despite coming from the same fundie community.
Good on Hank but how’s Becky not suppose to look at that ontop of her current feelings and not be dejected when she just keeps losing everything.
In the same conversation she also got yet another instance of Jorothy and Doyce pushed in her face by circumstances. She saw them once again devolve into romance-driven distracted babbling at each other, calling each other “girlfriend” and accidentally “wife”, using specifically the word “love” which she hadn’t seen before. This was right after the first one, which she didn’t even get the chance to process because she immediately had to step in for Jocelyn (which means she knows they weren’t wrong to do that, which means she can’t even let herself be angry at them for it and it’s more like “fate” that made her see it again).
So I don’t reject the possibility that Becky has feelings along those lines (I believe she’s probably envious of anyone with a non-terrible alive parent) I disagree that that scene or its timing are evidence of them.
*So while I don’t reject
Excellent gravatar, btw. Very clear. Says it all.
Thank you, I worked on that!
I like that on a super meta level, God is real for Becky. And her life is nothing more than not a joke per se, but entertainment to them. In that sense, that interpretation of her statement would prove her right
I feel like there are quite a few mangas that have this as a plotline (normally isekai and reincarnation ones). Some are done more humorously, while others take it more seriously.
Which ones?
Whenever the comments start talking about how God is real for Becky, all I can think of is the classic Merrie Melodies short Duck Amuck where Daffy is tormented by a cartoonist. Becky is Daffy, and Willis is Bugs.
https://youtu.be/tJBeih6JZrs?t=31
Well, it’s nothing more than entertainment for us. For her god, it’s (part of) his livelihood.
Oh hi it’s me :3
Not only that, but there’s an argument to be made that Joyce’s coming out has been so easy specifically because of Becky’s trauma. All of the crap she went through paved the way for Joyce and her dad to reach their respective degrees of acceptance of queerness. Becky was like the proxy through which they processed their emotions and now she seems to have outlived her usefulness.
Well whatever breaks the delusion.
No life isn’t fair and there’s no sky daddy. Of any flavor. No sky mommy either.
I love this attitude because neither side has proof. Yet, people on both sides behave as if they know FOR SURE what’s going on with things no one on Earth can possibly know for sure. People on both sides think the other side is misguided at best and dangerous at worst.
Sides being: belief in a higher power vs belief there is no higher power.
I tend to fall into the “we can’t possibly know for sure” category, which isn’t really either side (in case people thought I wasn’t allowing for nuance when specifically talking about two groups of people). There might be a sky daddy, mommy, or any gender parental sky unit at all. We can’t say with any certainty one way or another lol.
We can’t say with certainly, but that’s true of an awful lot of things. God is one of the very few where there’s strong social pressure to at least be neutral.
There’s no reason other than tradition and it’s social ubiquity to believe in or even suspend judgement on God.
It’s a claim presented without evidence and we don’t treat other such claims that way.
You have completely missed my point <3
The point isn't "remain neutral, suspend judgement, or believe in" anything. My point is that stating either claim with certainty (that there Is or Is Not a higher power) is a claim presented without evidence. And I find it funny (in the same way I find people who are DEAD certain aliens do or don't exist funny) that both sides have people dead certain the other side is the only one guilty of presenting claims without evidence.
I would appreciate not continuing to have to debate some pressure to be neutral that I neither said nor implied <3
Oh, there’s evidence both ways. It’s just not very conclusive evidence.
Except that there’s vast amounts of evidence. Literally an entire universe of it. And the more of that we gather, the more evident it becomes that there is no room for a deity that’s meaningfully distinct from the implacable execution of impersonal physical laws to exist.
This doesn’t rule out everything that could reasonably be described as a god, but we’re down to things like a creator deity that set the machine in motion and doesn’t interfere with its running, or one that’s so perfectly good at retconning that any changes it makes cannot be observed, and these aren’t what Becky or Joyce mean when they say “God”. They’re talking about one that specifically did a bunch of blatantly ahistorical stuff in the Middle East a couple thousand years ago.
lmao this is so silly.
Well assuming that you believe in the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (I don’t. I think it’s rather silly) there is plenty of non-deterministic wave collapse available for a randomly generated deity to pull the strings to control what happens.
And as I’m sure Sirksome would have said at one point, don’t trust the people who record history.
The whole universe is evidence to the judeochristian God’s absence. You can abstract words away to talk about a “higher power” but by “God” people don’t mean a higher power like “Gravity” or “Mathematics” they mean an intelligent omnipotent being that interacts with the world and with humanity specifically.
If someone claimed that we have no good evidence against the existence of Zeus or Thor or Princess Celestia would you agree with them? Or are you in fact as absolutely certain as a person can be about every aspect of reality that Zeus and Thor and Princess Celestia don’t exist, but somehow you claim it’s silly for atheists to have the same certainty about the mythological fantasy characters of Christians?
This isn’t you finding unfaith silly, this is you being biased in favour of one particular religious belief of one particular religious group, for which we must supposedly must pretend that we aren’t certain is false.
Based on listening to the things they’ve said, Nymph isn’t Christian, so.
Nonetheless.
Even many non-believers raised in a Christian society will respond in this kind of “Well atheists don’t have any proof either” way about the Christian God, but not about other mythological figures.
No, not nonetheless. aelfwine has repeatedly responded to Nymph in a way that only makes sense if they think Nymph is only pretending to be agnostic and is secretly actually trying to advance Christian arguments.
“Are you just as agnostic about Zeus existing?!” …Yes. Why wouldn’t an agnostic be just as agnostic about Zeus existing. I get that aelfwine thinks there’s something somehow more silly about believing in Zeus or
ThorOdin, especially given that their other comment compared both to believing in specifically the Easter Bunny (a commercial entity not worshiped by anyone), but like. Arguments from incredulity do tend to fall flat when your incredulity is not shared by your audience.And if it’s actually coming from a place of believing that Nymph is truly agnostic, it’s even more nonsensical as a line of attack.
Is this because obnoxious Nu Atheists often get accused of only actually knowing anything about Christianity? Because “only knowing anything about Christianity” wouldn’t be a problem if that specific type of atheist stuck to saying “all religions are equally made up”
instead of so frequently saying “all religions are equally oppressive”, “all religions are equally homophobic”, “all religious people are equally brainwashed”, etc.
Thank you, Li.
Lmfao, jeff.
fff I was about to apologize for replying on your behalf because I saw your other comment and was like, oh, they did not want this to become a conversation, I’m not helping
but also: c’mon, baby atheists, “some atheists are silly” is not a personal attack
Nah honestly it’s a relief to not be fighting this weird tidal wave of people kinda proving my original point tbh.
I think I monkey-pawed this into being by saying anything at all about religion in this particular comment section (no matter how many times I tried to clarify) so I take some of the blame for thinking people could be chill lmao.
Speaking strictly for myself, I’m interested in what evidence that aelfwine (or anyone really) has that Thor doesn’t exist.
I wasn’t finding a lack of faith silly. I was finding the repeated insistence on arguing with me about faith/nonfaith when I’ve made several comments to the effect of “I was discussing a very specific instance, have underlined that, and was not inviting theological debate so I won’t be participating in that”.
I’m being biased in favor of “I have an opinion that this particular thing is funny” and have offered ZERO opinions in the direction of faith or lack thereof being silly or wrong or otherwise.
You personally are arguing with shadows and the fucking wind <3 And that's silly <3
Nymph, I’d bring up Russell’s teapot, but I assume you know about it already.
I didn’t know the name of it, but having looked it up I do know a version of it. As I said to Jeff (and will continue saying absolutely zero times after this because at that point people are just willfully misinterpreting me) ~both~ the claim that there is definitely No God and the claim that there definitely is a God have the same amount of proof. Are the same amount of unproven and unfalsifiable claims. And people say them with the same amount of certainty and that tickles me.
I literally don’t care what side of “does god exist” or which version of god someone believes in if they do. I wasn’t saying anything about that lmao.
Do you feel the same about the existence vs absence of Zeus, or the existence vs absence of Thor, or the existence vs absence of Santa Claus, or the existence vs absence of the Easter Bunny, or is it somehow only the One God of the Abrahamic religions where evidence for and against are somehow so coincidentally completely balanced?
Point to me where I brought up Abrahamic religions?
Yes I do feel the same about all religions, religious figures, and lack thereof.
Moreover, it’s actually super weird you expect me to owe you any kind of answer at all about something I found funny. You’re literally so pressed about such a minor opinion and that’s a waste of both your time and mine. But keep on wasting if it’s super important to argue with someone who wasn’t arguing in the first place lmao.
But that’s the point. If you want to be strict about it, we can’t be absolutely certain about anything. Last Thursdayism is unfalsifiable. I could be a brain in a vat somewhere being fed false sense data.
In that sense, I’m agnostic about everything, but none of us hedge everything we say with the giant pile of conditions and uncertainty that really should be there.
But when it comes to God, so many people apply different standards. Want us to have absolute proof before we dismiss the idea, like we dismiss so many other things that we can’t actually disprove. I don’t think we should apply different standards to the concept of God.
And I don’t think most atheists intend to say anything more. “There’s no sky daddy” is an offensive way to put it, but it’s not an explicit claim that “I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no god”, it’s just a claim, like “there is no Bigfoot”.
“But that’s the point. If you want to be strict about it, we can’t be absolutely certain about anything.”
Yep. That’s the point I was making. It made me laugh on exactly this level. Everyone else wants it to be more serious, but it just wasn’t.
This isn’t really a response to Nymph’s comments, though.
Nymph didn’t say you had to join them in being agnostic. Nymph didn’t demand “absolute proof before you dismiss the idea” of a deity. Nymph just pointed out that some atheists posture as though they DO have absolute proof.
All y’all would do well to remember that Nymph’s comment was in response to “Well, whatever breaks the delusion.”
“Proof” isn’t a thing. Evidence is. And the no-god folks have a lot more than that than the no-god folks. Even as someone who believes and worships myself, it’s pretty undeniable that the evidence overwhelmingly tilts in one direction. That makes sense for my faith – it makes less sense for most others, with god so personal and powerful and with no reason to hide.
By “most” others, do you by any chance mean specifically Christianity?
I don’t think the Shinto / Hindu / Norse / Greek pantheons are especially personal, and I don’t think any of them are supposed to be omnipotent, either.
Actually I’m also very curious as to what evidence there specifically is that no god(s) exist?
AFAIK, what we’ve got is some very solid ideas about how various things in the universe came to be without requiring a deity, but I didn’t think there was anything to specifically suggest that a deity couldn’t exist.
Exaaactly! Like maybe physics works because it was set in motion, maybe it works by chance, maybe we’re on a soap bubble, maybe we’re at the center point of a giant honeycomb. No one fucking knows.
And saying that apparently makes a lotta people pupset. Oh well.
@Nymph: and like, no one’s saying atheists need to disprove the soap bubble theory.
I understand why a lot of atheists are more focused on trying to specifically disprove Christianity, as evangelical protestant calvinistic Christianity is the specific force impacting the lives of most American atheists.
Why would they spend equal effort on trying to debunk non-evangelical religions on the other side of the world that don’t impact their day-to-day lives?
But if they don’t wanna be annoyed by being challenged to prove we’re not all living in a soap bubble, maybe they shouldn’t start existential fistfights with other people about how you can’t call yourself agnostic unless you’re apparently equally agnostic about the existence of deities and the existence of Coca-Cola’s specific version of Santa Claus.
Exactly! I don’t care what people believe or what they can prove, I’m not making demands of any kind. I just think the “We’re DEFINITELY on a soap bubble” crowd has a lot of similarities in argument-style with the “We’re DEFINITELY NOT on a soap bubble” crowd.
And that was interesting and funny to me. It felt ironic in a way I wanted to put a light on.
The existence or unexistence of the supernatural are not a 50 / 50 split. Etraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The whole world is reduced to absurdity if everything is thought to have the probability of a coin flip.
The theory that there is a skyfather who sees all and judges everybody is a truly wild claim. Such a hypothesis requires a lot of evidence to be taken seriously, and there is literally none that stands up to scrutiny.
Is that the one that’s short and stout?
When it gets all steamed up it does appear to shout.
I think Atheism isn’t so much about “I am arguing there 100% isn’t a god” as “There isn’t good reason to believe there is”
Maybe there is a god… You are right in that we really can’t prove anything one way or another… but that doesn’t really matter to an argument about whether it is justified to believe in god, because whether or not is it justified doesn’t depend on the truth of the belief, but rather on the evidence available.
Sure “there’s no sky daddy” seems like a positive assertion, but I think it is really more of a casual quip. The point isn’t to say “I have 100% proof for this thing that can’t be proved” as to say “it is ridiculous how we keep treating this thing that has zero evidence as at best a 50/50”. It is fundamentally an expression of frustration with the double standard that society has towards religious beliefs, and how religious superstition harms society.
I wasn’t saying:
– atheism is about…
– there is/isn’t a god
– it’s wrong/right to have an opinion that is definite/neutral about a higher power
– please debate with me about a thing I find funny like it’s a serious situation
I was saying:
– I think this specific attitude is funny because it implies certainty in a way that sounds similar to religious certainty.
– I don’t think either side of this very specific branch of these very specific arguments have more proof or less proof than the other one.
People are WAY too excited to disagree with me and argue like it’s a philosophical point I wanted to defend or a statement of moral judgement when, again, I really just found the similarities funny between people who aggressively believe it’s stupid to believe in god and people who aggressively believe it’s stupid not to believe in god.
It’s quite ironic that we now have four atheists acting holier than thou against Nymph lol
Y’all are missing the point! To use a metaphor, Nymph basically said ”sleep good” and y’all went on a condescending tangent about grammar without acknowledging the kind message.
Stop yucking other’s yum. Let individuals have their faith or atheism or agnosticism and have some fun with it. I’m gonna try a spell when I get home
Odo, that isn’t atheism, that’s a particular shade of agnosticism.
My understanding is those things aren’t mutually exclusive. Theism/atheism and gnosticism/agnosticism are different axes on the belief graph.
Wow, you seem like a real fun person to be around
Why thank you.
Your username sucks. Makes you look racist.
Space has deprived your comment of context. I don’t know whether to dogpile or argue.
Dot and Taffy are replying to GreyICE, not you, Clif
agreed tbh if you mean the person with sarah’s bf as their gravatar
I suspect it’s a cyberpunk reference rather than an endorsement of the Gestapo.
After a certain point, does it matter?
I’m not prepared to cede ownership of any reference to the solid state of water, even ones that long predate the creation of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to the fascists.
There is no Easter Bunny, there is no Tooth Fairy, and there is no Queen of England.
Queen Camilla drove past me just the other day.
I just sincerely pray none of y’all ever, ever have to be in a situation with someone who’s having a for real dangerous paranoid delusion, because you’re just going to be standing there yelling some bullshit trying to “convince them to come to their senses” imagining you’re helping and then someone’s gonna get hurt.
There are far easier ways to have a discussion with yourself about your faith than a fucking depressive episode. Don’t be a dick.
“There must be a God. Someone up there is out to get me.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in G-d?”
“I do for the bad things”
Becky really needs to talk to her adoptive lesbian couch mom Leslie. So so much.
Someone should tell Becky the parable of the Prodigal Son. The point of the Prodigal Son being that they were welcomed back with all of the love and affection of the father despite the Older Son never going astray and getting the same love.
“Which is kind of crappy now that I think about it!” – Becky
Joyce is getting all the karma despite Becky suffering faithfully.
oh </3
Dorothy, you should have the courage to go to your own room; don’t make Dina do it for you.
Also is Amber hallucinating, or seeing other timelines?
I was definitely thinking this too, but I think it’s still in Becky crashout time. She needs the space. It might not even have been an hour. I don’t know how long it takes J&D to fuck.
That’s fair; maybe she’ll give it a day or two before being in the same room.
They said “45 minutes, twice” a few strips ago
So it’s been at least an hour since Becky had her meltdown?
I guess that depends on how long you think they both spent annoying Asma or Joyce spent giving Lucy graphic details about her sex life. Maybe it’s been 3 days. Maybe Becky should be over this.
Becky should’ve been over this before it started. It didn’t help that nobody shut her down when she was going on about her Schroedinger Rivalry with Dorothy.
Becky would fall on her like a dog atm
And not in a friendly way
I’d so much rather see that.
As long as she doesn’t start calling some of us out by name. Then we’ll know she’s pierced the veil and can see beyond the fourth wall.
A: “Taffy, are all of you host angels or fallen angels?”
T: “Yes.”
The hell’s a host angel?
“Call me Legion, for we are many.”
Don’t feel this is about courage.
Just Dorothy giving Becky a breathing room for the time.
Yeah, that’s rough.
Becky has a high passive perception. She also gets advantage against Dinas.
her vision is based on lesbian movement.
In 3.5 Becky had +2 circumstance bonus on all spot checks made to detect Dina.
3.5 is still the best, but my friends have all converted to 5.
I do a 5e and Pathfinder 1e camapign Pathfinder 1e is basically 3.75
It’s been a while since I’ve played; narcolepsy makes it hard to be consistent with being awake when it’s time to start.
Some of the changes they made to Becky’s in the new PB are a bit controversial. Lacking a lot of flavor.
@UrsulaDavina
Fuck yeah! 3.5/Pathfinder 1e forever!
Everyone always goes on about 5e being more player friendly, but what about the GM? The 3.5 mechanics are so completely open and consistent that they are insanely easy to adjust, allowing for maximum creativity on the GM’s part while still having consistent mechanics.
/soapbox
The 3.5 was fun, for its toolbox ways. 5 was meh. (we shan’t mention why we skipped from 3.5 to 5.) PF2e (first one or remaster) are more enjoyable, mefeels. Plus I like the distinct world setting; reminds me of Gloranthan stuff from RuneQuest.
Agreed. Pf2e gives me plenty of crunch and a system that just works consistently.
I played a lot of 3.5/PF1, but it got to be a massive chore especially at high levels
O Sirksome of the Comments, won’t you grant us your wisdom on what not to trust? Should we not trust half-baths? Or medication-induced hallucinations? Or SEMME? Or?
We’re sorry, but Sirksome has recently been informed that regularly warning the masses what or who not to trust has been both obnoxious and problematic. It is not the wish of Sirksome to impede any readers active enjoyment of this comic or the robust discussion experienced. As a result of such complaints all Sirksome authored advice on trust related matters have been put on hiatus until a formal review process has been completed. Thank you and have a nice day.
FWIW, I liked the gag ❤️
Don’t trust the people who are trying to deprive us of your wise advice. By doing so, you are actively impeding our full enjoyment of the comic. Caving to these obnoxious complaints would be highly problematic. Please don’t do it!
Don’t trust Sirksome.
Dina… 🥺 🦖
This was the best she could do.
But is still very painful for her.
She don’t deserve to be hurting like this! Not at all!
😖 😖 😖 😭 😭 😭
*plays “A Grim Fate” from Dragon Ball Z Soundtrack on hacked muzak*
Oh oh (having dreadful lab explosion flashback)
Amber can pierce the veil and see on the the other side.
And by “us” she means “us but not me”
Yes in that timeline she is but a humble toy store worker cosplaying as a costumed adventurer, married to Mike and raising their child
Not you, Amber. Just Joyce and Walky.
And Dina.
Also Robin
Don’t forget Dan.
I meant Joe. Whoops.
Also Mike.
And their biology prof (and whatever topic DoA Alan teaches again)
Well at least Rees gets to be human in this timeline. And no one has heard of the Cheese, his equivalent is a mere youth minister
I don’t think Doc was an abductee? From what I remembered he wasn’t knocked out on New Year’s like most of them.
Yeah there were exceptions but it was just the Special Twins and someone who was still new to the whole thing.
Hope that isn’t foreshadowing for her…
There’s a universe for everything.
plot twist: amber is head alien in this continuity
Oh, Dina. 😥
Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.
nightmare nightmare nightmare nightmare
Dina deserves a hug. Or sympathy via light physical contact. Or something. I’m sorry Dina. 🧸
This is very kind of Dina, but I’m also absolutely being destroyed by her look in the last panel. Dina better have everything turn out alright for her, or I’m going to be very upset.
Not angry like the last group of “upset” people were, just really sad and disappointed that the world would do my girl dirty like that and not make things okay.
Every time I think Dina is gonna break my heart, she breaks my heart.
Becky has always been able to perceive her, but does she perceive her still?
“Why comfront an uncomfortable situation, when you can avoid it all together.”
-Someone Who Said This
I do appreciate it when people give accurate citations for quotations.
Accurate too. How much could a new wardrobe cost?
I continue to not be ok with the fallout of events affecting Becky and Dina. Neither of them drserve this pain
God DAMNIT! Why Dina!?!? Why’d she have to get caught up in all this?!?!
fumes reads INCESSANTLY
I got to hand it to Willis here, he found a way to tear at my sapphic heart. I hope things work out for Dina, Becky lost a great partner in her.
Oh no they’re actively avoiding checking on her. I’m getting concerned about the self harm theory.
As am I. None of her friends feel like they can be close to her. She’s fully alone. And the next story arc is “I’m the problem,” echoing what she said, but it might be about everyone else thinking the same thing about what she did to herself.
Hooooooooo boy. Grimacing with every Patreon email from now on.
I get the idea, but neither of them have any reason to think she needs to be actively checked on and either of them checking is likely to be another stressor rather than a comfort.
um hello history of familiar suicide knocking…
That’s something WE know. It is not necessarily something Dina and Dorothy know.
It’s something Joyce should know.
If you mean “she should be told”, I agree.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/indebted/
But it Hank explained things to Joyce after this strip, it must have been off-screen.
Does a family history of suicide mean you put someone on suicide watch whenever they’re upset? Especially when you’re the proximate cause of them being upset?
Sure, in-universe it’s not particularly surprising. But narratively, we’re establishing that no one has seen Becky since Dina left the room, and no one will check on Becky until tomorrow at the earliest, giving a large window for something to happen without anyone knowing.
TFW your girlfriend is too busy having an existential hissy fit over some blonde floozy to appreciate what’s in front of her smh my head
Many such cases
While I agree that Becky should be happy with Dina rather than focusing on Joyce; I’m not sure referring to Joyce as “some blonde floozy” is appropriate.
I prefer spaceport floozy.
I know; her hair doesn’t look that blonde to me.
Canonically, Joyce’s hair is considered a dirty blonde.
No it’s a “Churchy” blonde.
Also I am so sorry I accidentally hit report instead of reply.
Joyce Melissa Brown is a turbo floozy, that’s just canon.
No, she’s not a floozy. She’s a hussy. People always get those confused.
Jon is correct; Joyce is a hussy. She even takes the pills for it.
We’re concerned with Joyce Hannah Brown, and she’s no turbo floozy.
She’s either a naturally aspirated or a supercharged floozy.
18 year olds unfortunately do not have the hindsight to think this way.
The hindsight required to see the present
Dumbass kids.
If the present is all around us, it only makes sense that some of it is behind us and requires hindsight. Otherwise why did my mom have eyes in the back of her head?
Eyes in the back of the head is just basic mom magic.
NGL I kinda hope we get to see some of these Head Alien hallucinations of Amber’s in-comic. Like, he doesn’t really fit in in a mundane setting like this, obviously, but damn do I miss him sometimes.
I miss Joyce waiting for Walky to be done repairing, but I don’t miss the HA.
Plot twist: it’s actually not a hallucination; post-sogpocalypse Amber is in there along with Galasso Prime and a multidimensional portal, and they’re trying to recruit a team to go back in time and stop the Drama Tag from ever being pulled.
And you’ll all look at this and go “Ha ha yeah right” but in a year’s time when Walky runs into a friendly Mike lookalike at the bar of Galasso’s Pizza (and subs) along with a very much alive Ronald Regan and Historical Jesus, I’ll point back to this and go, “See, this is clearly the point where they crossed over.”
Crossed over as in jumping the shark or as in You Are Now Entering the Walkyverse?
I don’t think they’re term crossover applies to jumping the shark.
Yeah, it’s more of a jumpover.
Yep I miss the big ham myself
Imagine if someone made a whole webcomic about Amber’s pain med hallucinations
That’d be crazy
I’m thinking of a few chapters in Sin City.
That could not be more different from It’s Walky
They could have characters from this comic getting superpowers and using them to fight the Head Alien. And for some reason after they retire from working for the secret government agency that fights the aliens, they end up working at a toy story run by Galasso. I think that would make for some interesting story arcs.
It could work. At least, it’s never been done before….
so it looks like Dorothy is actually going along with Joyce’s “let’s move in together and leave the clearly emotionally damaged and suffering Becky alone in her own room” plan… Kinda a difficult position since while I doubt Becky is going to be happy at all seeing Dorothy’s “I get to be romantically involved with the woman you loved your whole life” presence there’s the greater problem of her negative state of mind is not the kind person you should be leaving alone… She could be at a high risk of self harm or other destructive habits, including one unique to chronically depressed and bitter redheads of potentially winding up dating Billie.
Also sarah didn’t ask to share a room with their nonsense
yeah though Sarah is rather stubborn so their hanky panky fun may be dampened by the ever presence judgemental stare of a disaproving big sister figure.
Sarah’s got a hot football boyfriend who has a single room. Something tells me she’ll figure something out l.
I was going to say that’s not a great solution given how lash relationships have been ending lately but I suppose that would also apply to Dorothy and Joyce’s relationship, especially if Dorothy finds out Joyce never broke up with Joe.
Hard for Dorothy to find out something that didn’t happen.
Thank you.
Billie/Jennifer is too busy trying to get with Alice to notice Becky; I know that’s hard to believe what with the red hair, but it’s true.
It’s a tough situation because Dorothy entering their room right now could absolutely set her off, but also it’s kinda fucked up to ask Dina for favors after inadvertently blowing up her spot. It’s not quite as diabolical as Joyce using the weighted blanket Joe gave her to snuggle Dorothy, but it’s close.
I mean I willing to give Becky and Dorothy a grace period here, but if it goes over a day I think that’s when it gets a little ridiculous. They’re both big girls who can cohabitate. Becky’s situation does seem a little distressing but I trust her not to fall so deep into depression without seeking help she broaches anything near self harm and I also don’t believe any of her friends Joyce and Dorothy included would just abandon her to her misery. If Becky is in a danger zone after being alone for a hour or two her mental health has been a much bigger concern than anything in this comic ever even hinted at.
I believe the only people with any accurate idea of her state of mind are Dina and Amber, and Amber less so.
The last time Joyce and Dorothy saw Becky, she’d been trying to distract Hank and then Joyce jumped on the coming-out-the-closet grenade to save her sister.
Becky was still there up until they left for lunch, but I don’t think Joyce or Dorothy were paying much attention to her.
They definitely aren’t aware that Becky has suddenly converted to atheism due to heartbreak.
The “need to not be anywhere” line prior to the sudden Hank appearance was disconcerting, but, again, they did see Becky putting on her cheerful mask for Hank.
Long story long, while they know Becky is feeling some type of way, I don’t think they’re privy to the most recent things she’s said that make us readers increasingly more concerned for her.
Due to her upbringing, I fear Becky has learned how to conceal her true emotional state a little too well. I don’t think she’s even told anybody in the cast about walking in on her mom yet.
Damn, I think that’s right. At least not on panel. It was obvious she was good at it but that puts a pin on just how good.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/indebted/
I don’t think she’s told anyone in the cast that her mom was suicidal yet? I’ve been looking and not finding anything.
Everyone in her life is scared of talking to her because they feel like they betrayed her. She then feels alone, and she’s not wrong to do so, thus stewing in her thoughts that she is the problem.
And then Raidah told Joyce “you never cared about anything other than yourself.” Thus setting up a potential examination of herself and that she is why Becky did something bad.
I said it when Dina left Becky alone but there’s no way all the “I’d rather kill myself than be with a man” isn’t leading to something.
My main hope is that Dina knows Becky better than her other so-called friends and will be there for her even though she needs her own space.
She said that once, and it was part of a larger spiral over the idea of sexuality being fluid. That has been building to something, part of which we’ve already seen.
I do not think it is going anywhere near “Becky attempts to be with a man”, if that’s what you’re implying.
Maybe she is, but “move in together” is a bit much at this stage. It’s the first day. You could see it as giving Becky some space
There’s a risk of that going wrong, though I doubt any of them have even thought of it, but there’s also a risk in going back in and provoking another confrontation.
Becky needs to spend time with some uninvolved but supportive third parties. (Well, no more closely involved than Sarah, anyway.)
i wonder hte rules of that then again ruth prolly wouldn’t bother enforicng it unless it becomes an issue
If in the next storyline Joyce tries to pull the “See? We’re the same now” maneuver on Dina again like in the autism arc, I don’t wanna see a single fucking person judge her for crashing out.
gotta deplete Joyce’s clothes supply now
Great, now it’s SEMME-autobiographical…… WE’RE ALL INSIDE SOME KID’S SNOWGLOBE
Oh no the Tommy Westphall Universe now includes the Walkyverse and Dumbiverse
I mean, underlying dram a aside, a shopping montage/trip would be cute
I confess I would have preferred the drama to be about anyone other than Becky.
1. Because Becky and Joyce never even dated.
2. Because Becky was in another relationship.
I get having a crush but the drama being here instead of Joe and Walky seems underwhelming.
It’s the dumbest thing that we’re spending so much time on the person that wasn’t cheated on in EITHER cheated-on relationship.
I don’t really begrudge this being explored, especially since I think this goes a bit deeper into Becky’s issues than just “Joyce is queer, but still doesn’t want me”.
And apparently even if we focused on the ones who were cheated on, it wouldn’t be about the cheating anyway.
Why is it dumb to care about the person who has a family history of suicide, when they are ACTIVELY having suicidal ideation? The boys are sad, but seem to be coping well enough.
Yes, god wrote them as not caring, so we’d focus on Becky. After all, she was attracted to Joyce and was her really good friend, so obviously she should have a say in who Joyce dates.
“”God”” didn’t write them as not caring, he wrote them as not being suicidal and as not exposing their vulnerabilities to the girls who hurt them. There is a difference. We’ll be getting back to both Joe and Walky. It’s just also understandable that the characters of Joyce and Dorothy are currently more worried about Becky, who they actually KNOW is upset.
I remember months ago when things started looking like Joyce and Dorothy were gonna get together I was stressing out because I felt like “Oh God, this is going to Nuke the friend circle” because as much as we knew Becky still had feelings for Joyce, I thought it’d be more because Dina (who never really cared much for Joyce as a friend) would be pissed on Joe’s (who *is* Dina’s friend) behalf.
(Also Sal and Jennifer being pissed on Walkys behalf, Dan joining Sal in being pissed for Joe but also “C’mon Dorothy, I literally told you this was a shitty thing” etc etc) Having all the “Consequences” of this entire arc come down to what people in the comment section dread pointing towards a potential Self-Harm/Attempt on her own life from Becky over this feels wrong, almost. Not that she hasn’t shown signs of troubling thoughts (to the audience, I don’t think nor blame her friends for not clocking her comments) just after then handing of the Gaza Protests, I’m a little aprehensive of if going that way.
Sal not caring lowered my opinion of her. She may be pissed at her brother but he’s done a lot to try to reach out to her including alienating their parents.
Becky needs to get her shit together and just start a lipstick vlog like a normal person
Look Willis, let Dina and Becky be happy please. Together or apart, whatever; let them be happy.
DYW: *cackles in glee; rubs hands together; pets white persian cat
So when Dorothy was crashing out Becky dropped her fake rivalry with her to be a comforting presence and look out for her needs, and when Becky is in the same spot due to Dorothy’s own actions she’s decided to move out and further avoid Becky?
When Dorothy is the last human being on the planet that Becky would want to see, Dorothy is not forcing her presence on her
I mean I guess in that position you get someone else who’s close to her to check up on her?
But right now her and Dina are in a rocky spot in their relationship and I don’t think they have Leslie and Robin on speed dial…they may not be close but maybe this is a job for Ruth.
In my head canon anyway, Leslie and Robin are still in jail. 🙂
Well yeah, Dorothy’s a scumbag. I don’t think she’s “moving out” though, so much as staying the night at Joyce’s because she’s terminally avoidant.
I like that it’s kinda scumbags all the way down on this one. Becky’s crashing out over stupid shit and Dorothy giving her space while also being an avoidant coward after selfishly choosing to play her part in burning down their friend group by fucking Joyce! Everybody sucks! It’s great! 😁
All she had to do was not fuck Joyce. Everyone else in the cast managed it.
‘I would date you, but think of the dynamics of our friend groups!’
Dorothy was not obliged to not date Joyce on THOSE grounds. She even dumped Walky before doing more than kissing.
Dorothy didn’t dump Walky, for the record. She dithered until Joyce charged in and drop-kicked him out a window, and Dorothy latched on to that as good enough.
Yeah but, they knew. I don’t blame them for Becky’s messed up head, but they knew, they knew before and immediately after they kissed them pursuing their romance would hurt people. Emotions are powerful but we’re not controlled by them. Joyce and Dorothy hold some accountability there, even if just a tiny bit to Becky for knowing she would be hurt and acting on it anyway.
Nah, they’re not obligated to conduct their love life in any way so as not to make third parties sad. That’s like saying a girl has an obligation to date the creepy dude with a crush on her because otherwise he’ll be hurt. Tough shit. Life is hard, you don’t always get to be with the person you want. Grow the fuck up.
It’s not about obligation. It’s just simple fact that they acted selfishly knowing it would hurt people. Becky is included in that group not because they’re obligated to act in accordance with her desires or in preservation of her mental stability, but because they simply knew it would hurt her and others.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/live-jocelyne-reaction/
They do need to own that. They didn’t stop and think, they didn’t care about anyone else, they just went for it, screw the consequences (which turns out weren’t many)
For my opinion I stand by them and agree Becky should get over it. But J&D do hold some responsibility.
Idle curiosity: are you genuinely unfamiliar with the cultural notion that it’s inappropriate to engage in romantic relationships with people that you know your friends harbour pre-existing romantic feelings for?
Because, not to be too on the nose about it, but even Dorothy recognised that what she was doing was going to break Becky’s heart.
Bluntly: this, along with the idea that it’s wrong to date a friend’s ex, is straight-people-culture.
Queer friend groups are much more commonly “everyone has been everyone else’s ex at least once”, because we just have smaller dating pools to work with and cannot as easily risk hitting on strangers.
Scumbag? Jesus. What do you call thieves and rapists?
Just a guess but like… “thieves” and “rapists”? People can be shitty without being monsters.
I call thieves “thieves” and I call rapists “batting practice”.
Definitely think most of Dorothy’s kindness is performative.
Dorothy has a specific cowardice born from a life obsessed with “not making any mistakes” that’s going to keep burning her socially, emotionally, and even politically without some kind of hard reality check.
Lol, it’s funny how that whole paragraph says nothing.
Wow, Becky let down a “fake rivalry” she created herself. The courage!!!
Wow, Dorothy is ginving a close friend some breathing time for themselves, since her presence would obviously make things worse. The Horror!!!
Not sure we’re reading the same comic if you don’t see how Becky letting go of that facade was a pretty strong empathic moment for her.
And I don’t see how just not coming back to the room is ‘giving Becky space’. Like she’ll know that if Dorothy doesn’t come back then she’s obviously staying with Joyce. That’s just gonna make Becky feel worse. Dorothy could at least try to have a one on one conversation first to clear things up. Neither her nor Joyce has even tried to check in on Becky, and every conversation they had was just them flirting with each other
Dorothy is in absolutely not way responsible for Becky’s state of mind right now and she has no reason to think that Becky wants to see her or that it would be good for Becky to see her. She’s Becky’s roommate, not her mother.
Ah she’s so out of it she’s dimensionally phasing.
B’aww. 🥺
Oh no Amber is crossing over into the Walkyverse 😱😱
I’m not saying that Dina should slash open Dorothy with her raptor dew claw and eat her alive but I think she is thinking it.
The thing is Dina, understands that none of this is Dorothy’s fault. Becky had feelings for Joyce all this time, and recent events only brought that to light.
Yes, but Dorothy is delicious.
That’s what Joyce says, anyway.
I left room for that line or a variant on purpose – Lying Liar who Lies.
😀
The dewclaw is on the first toe. What you’re thinking of is on the second.
I would assume Dina would say that. 🙂
No, she’s not, because Dina is not a violent, irrational asshole.
No, she’s a violent rationale velociraptor in human form.
See this comic:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/5footturkey/
I think Dina should be legally allowed to gut anyone she wants.
oh nooo
I hope Amber discontinue those meds as soon as possible. That stuff sounds like it’s highly addictive.
All the good stuff is.
I hope Amber gets hooked on phonics.
Only hugs for Dina!!!!
And cookies. She deserves some cookies, or one of those sets with the mini boxes of cereals. Those cereal variety packs…or both.
Dinosaur cookies… 🦖🍪🥺
😭😭😭
Somehow the least rancid comments section of the current arc
“…and that used to be a good thing.”
Oh, Dina….
Looks like if Dorothy wants to get some of her clothes and other stuff from her dorm room, she’s gonna have to do it herself and deal with Becky and the fallout from her and Joyce’s shitty behavior.
Except she’s not. Whatever Becky’s going through is not the result of their shitty behaviour. Their shitty behaviour isn’t being gay for each other, and that’s what made Becky go to a downward spiral. If Joyce had cheated on Joe with another dude, Becky would’ve been just fine.
Becky spiraling isn’t fallout from what Joyce and Dorothy did wrong. This would have happened even if they’d been single when they kissed – a point I’ve made repeatedly. A big issue with the fact that Joyce and Dorothy cheated on their partners is that all of the narrative consequences have been from them being gay, not from having cheated.
In real life being gay has more consequences then cheating, so it kinda makes sense.
Cheating in real life might ruin some relationships, but as long as the people were not married to eachother, it probably won’t go any further then that unless a friend or partner gets violent because of it.
Joyce and Dorothy have probably ruined some relationships, it has also made their social standing go down a bit. Which is what happens irl.
Being Gay is what will get you actually punished in the current society, there are a ton of people who will just hate you for no other reason and some who actively want you dead, people in the government who actively want to ruin your lives.
I wonder what is gonna happen when the church finds out about Joyce being in love with a girl, will her mother come back and try to pull some shit? Will her Father react more poorly then we think, considering he doesn’t seem to accept Joyce’s sister being a girl?
Will Mary pull some shit?
It has only been like 2 days since the first kiss happened, and unless people read the newspaper and KNEW who they were, they wouldn’t know it was even “Cheating”. Joyce and Dorothy have been by clinging to eachother for MONTHS at the school, so anybody not in their social circle would just think they were always dating. If your looking to see their whole school shun them or something for cheating, that would be VERY unrealistic. Hell its rare irl for Friends to berate their Friends for cheating unless it was a really bad incident and they were also friends with the partner.
More Consequences could happen once more people know the situation, but I think for now its being accurately handled.
I don’t think most people who wanted fallout from the cheating wanted “to see their whole school shun them or something for cheating”.
One of the people directly involved actually being bothered by was more the idea.
A couple of people have said they either wanted or expected Joyce and Dorothy to lose all their friends, though.
It’s just been a few months, and no one expects that to happen anymore, so a lot of folks have switched to “please, SOMETHING, any kind of consequence at all”.
Yep, sure is shitty for Joyce & Dorothy not to accept that Becky had dibs and Joyce and that Joyce isn’t allowed to date any woman other than Becky. That’s what you’re saying, right? Because it’s the only way in which you could possibly describe their behavior as being shitty to Becky.
hello, person with hamsick icon & fondness for becky, seems we have much in common
New Head Canon, the entirety of, “It’s Walky!”, is made up in Becky’s head, in a drug induced haze.
So why is Amber talking about it?
Silly Amber! You’re not going to fight the aliens, you’re going to work at a toy store!
And fight a giant mutant honey bun!
“Toy store”? Whazzat?
*quick googling
“Ohhh, like in one of those ‘malls’ that paleontologists always talk about.”
The only actual error Willis ever made was not making Booster’s last name Rodriguez.
Would their middle name have been “Boosting”?
I think we need an exhaustively explored subplot where Booster does a Fast and Furious.
Dina feels it through Dina’s lens because she is herself. It’s fine and real. Becky’s story is long and sad. I even think it’s pivotal that Joyce came out without telling Becky, after Becky has gone through so much alone. Becky was rejected by Joyce but could accept it on the basis that it was just a mismatch. Now Becky is confronted with having to accept that the person she loved just didn’t love her. Just like her mom didn’t love her enough to keep living; her dad didn’t love her enough to not try to imprison and abuse her. The three closest people in Becky’s life all functionally rejected her. And Becky could blame it on religious brainwashing until Joyce coming out. Now there’s no excuse. They all just didn’t care about her enough, even Joyce when it came down to it.
Hope that she comes around to realizing that Dina has loved her unconditionally.
hear hear! Mooniee has the best explanation. nothing happens in a vacuum. the people saying “she should just get over it” “whatever, Joyce wasn’t hers to begin with” are shallow, unempathetic people.
Except that Joyce does love Becky. That’s been made plentifully obvious. Joyce doesn’t want Becky sexually, and confusing eros and agape is a hangup that Becky had best get past before it leads her into some truly unfortunate life choices. (I wasted over nine years of my life married to the wrong woman because I hadn’t learned the difference.)
It doesn’t help, of course, that both Becky and Joyce come from a belief system that actively downplayed the importance of one of those things, while making the other an obsessive ideal, in hopes of erasing women’s agency to have preferences, or otherwise choose. Like, how were they both not supposed to end up in this place? They were both taught that romantic love was the only thing that would ever validate their life, and that their sole purpose was subservience to their romantic partner. Now, that toxic belief is actively destroying both of their lives around them, and neither can see the problem, because they can’t separate their feelings from the belief system that indoctrinated them with toxic ideology.
Amen
every day, like 60% of the commentariat are shallow, unempathetic people; it’s just not the same 60% every day, and most of us are not fully innocent of it. there’s a few outliers but, well, yeah.
Joyce came out without telling Becky? She didn’t have a chance to tell Becky, because she was outed by the newspaper. Nor does she have a moral obligation to tell Becky she might not be straight the second she realizes it herself. By these standards, we could condemn Becky for not coming out to Joyce the second she ‘came out’ by being caught making out at Anderson.
90% of this comment is insane. It’s like we’ve been reading two completely different comics.
Becky hasn’t gone “through so much alone”. The exact moment she showed up from Anderson, Joyce (and Dorothy, tbh) have done little else than bend over backwards as much as they can to accommodate her. Joyce has spent every interaction with Becky (and plenty without her) showing how much she loves Becky. She’s just not IN love with her. She’s not in love with a lot of people.
The notion that Joyce doesn’t care about Becky might be the most insane take I’ve seen all year, about anything.
Becky and Joyce are STILL a mismatch. Joyce isn’t in love with Becky. That’s the only mismatch that matters. It’s the only mismatch that has EVER mattered.
put today on the walkyverse shout-out list
(actually, does every strip where someone’s wearing a yellow stripe go on that list?)
Becky’s crash didn’t happen just because of Joyce’s new passion. It happened after Hank was accepting and understanding. Joyce had her sister’s support. Becky had nothing and no one. Just as Dina correctly notes Joyce had an easy path on her diagnosis, Becky can see that her best friend’s path to sapphic bliss was relatively uneventful. Becky’s involved suicide, kidnapping and murder. Homelessness was the easy part. Becky has identified the factor in the disparate results. It is Becky. She is the cause of her problems. Self harm is a real risk.
As for Dina, Becky was the only one who saw her. As a real person. As an equal, not a pet or a child. As someone to love. As someone period.
I’m hoping Dina goes to Becky now. They both need it.
Plus in plot logic, Becky and Dina rooming together solves a bunch of issues.
I hope for this as well, although I don’t think Becky is in a space to understand that right now. I’ve commented on this strip more than I have commented on all the others put together because I understand suicidal ideation. You can have EVERYONE in your life telling you that you are loved and needed and wonderful, but it doesn’t make you believe it. You will convince yourself that you are a waste of resources and that the world would be better off without you. it really sucks.
So Dina moves in with Becky, and…Dorothy moves in with Amber? But Amber and Dina are such a good pair.
Sarah getting kicked out would be so messed up. If anything Joyce should leave.
Looks like we’re bringing back the Walkyverse! Sorry y’all this is my fault. I was talking about how I love watching Dumbiverse Sal do Walkyverse-esque shit on Blue Sky when talking about the comic. Willis must have saw.
I’m genuinely hoping becky gets her head out of her ass. Becky and Dina are perfect for each other
I’ve been in Becky’s situation where I fall in love with my best friend. And I was roughly Becky’s age as well. Didn’t help that my bestie showed up at my graduation (she was a year older than me and graduated early) and had graduation dinner ALONGSIDE MY COLLEGE GIRLFRIEND! It’s gonna take more than a day for Becky to even leave the dorm, much less get over her feeling of betrayal and give her whole heart to Dina. Again… you never really get over your first love, ESPECIALLY at that age.
Thanks to DYW for posting the Bluesky post about Crankshaft otherwise I never would have seen the trending thread about Joyce Carol Oats roasting Elon alive on his own platform since I got permabanned for quote-tweeting a Trump post about te poors and saying it should happen to him as well.
This is weird. Shouldn’t the third panel be the last considering that’s the punchline? 😛
sometimes, the story has to end on a gut getting punched rather than a line TuT
Life truly is the ultimate punchline.
So does Becky now share a bathroom with her (maybe) ex and a bedroom with her childhood crush’s girlfriend… because that really sucks.
Immediately thinking of my one friend who likes to exclaim “do not perceive me!” but never seems to flinch from her bf’s attention
but then also my own autistic self and realizing that yea, it’s easy to fall hard if you find someone who regularly makes you feel seen in a world that doesn’t
my partner and i on every count every day
It’d be funny if Amber, in her head, went on the same journey as Robin did in “Shortpacked” and saw the Walkyverse versions of her and her friends fighting Head Alien. I wonder how she would react once she saw that she was not only married to Mike’s clone but that they had a baby together as well. (What would their daughter be, now? A teen?) I also wonder what Walkyverse Joyce would think of DoA Joyce once she sees that she’s now in a romantic relationship with the woman that almost ruined her wedding.
So is Dorothy going to stay with Joyce for a few days or is she literally going to “move in” like Joyce wants to add another check in Joyce’s speedrun to become Mrs. Keener? I’m still sure Joyce is going to propose on Valentine’s Day and plan to have their wedding in May.
Donna is 13 years old.
“The actual reality from your alt-universe is the paranoid/medical delusions of people in your main universe” is one of my favourite tropes. xD
time to rob a local store then. and oof. Amber’slnot loopy she simply reminds all timelines subconsciously 8D;
Didn’t someone mine that we have a Dina arc coming up?
I mean “I’m the problem, it’s me” and “What a RARR mood I’m in”
are pretty self explanatory i think 🥺
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApruNQhJ7I
What a day this has been
What a rare mood I’m in
Why it’s almost like being in love…
(It could still be a negative chapter, don’t get me wrong, but if so Willis would be subverting expectations based on the song reference.)
Any minute now, some deranged fan is going to put up some Joyce/Dorothy/Becky three-way action on one of those “Rule 34” sites.
It’ll be hilarious.
Amber: “Someone pulled the drama tag! That’s why everything sucks!”
The second I read that line about the Head Alien, I had the Tracey quote in my head. I’m so happy to see that it was the mouseover text.
Absolutely loved the original It’s Walky! reference!