Charlie and Dina did their quantum-wave-collapse thing, ended up at Jocelyne’s home, and they all talked and hit it off nicely. Thankfully, Jocelyne’s mother wasn’t home.
It’s not entirely clear. I’m guessing she didn’t know yet the last time she and Joss shared panel time, when the trio broke into Becky’s house, but I could see her finding out at basically any point after that.
Dina knows because she was secretly in the room the whole time and heard everything.
Joss did accept Becky as her ‘poopface new sister’ so it’s really sweet to see that Joss took that to heart and even came out to her already! Adorable.
I agree, and I think Becky took place in line before Joyce because Becky has had to come out too, and Joyce was still going through a lot of learning. Kinda like Joyce asked Ethan, sometimes having similar experiences is what people need to come out or begin talking about changes.
I now want a buddy cop movie with Becky and Dina. They would not be good at being cops and would likely somehow destroy the system, but I still want the movie.
Six if you count the TV show with Riggs, and then with Cole. They really should have kept that going with Seann William Scott and Maggie Lawson in the cast – it kept getting better.
I feel tremendous relief. I wasn’t expecting Becky to be shitty or anything, but I mean, glad she ISN’T.
I do hope that Joyce doesn’t take this as Joss saying she CAN’T keep a secret, I just imagine Joss knew it was going to be tougher for her to come out to Joyce, same as Ethan knowing first (of this group) isn’t an indictment of Joyce, either.
And Jocelyne gets to tell her little sister in front of Joe and Becky why taking photos like that and having them uploaded to the cloud automatically because everyone’s phones do by default these days is a bad idea, because you don’t know what the recipient’s default setting is…
I’d say the recipient is still far more of a threat than them just being on the cloud. Photos are far more likely to be spread deliberately by the person you sent them to (maybe after a breakup) than hacked off the cloud.
Or in Joyce’s case, since she already sent them to the wrong person, that wrong person could have been far worse than Dorothy.
It’s likely to FEEL shitty to Joyce though. ‘Literally everyone knew already except me, and you’re only telling me because you thought Dad was about to, not because you actually wanted me to know. Thanks for the love and trust, favorite sib.’
And that’s the sort of thing that Becky is, historically, going to be shitty about. Because she likes making Joyce upset because she enjoys the facial expressions of traumatized/upset Joyce.
It is interesting that Joyce seems to recognize that something’s going on with Dorothy and her stated desire to transfer to an Ivy League College, even though she’s been kept in the dark about the specifics.
Yeah, my entire comment was ‘oof, poor Joyce’. Pretty much everyone got to know but her, and apparently Jocelyne’s only telling her because she thinks their dad is about to.
I mean, of course Jocelyne gets to come out in her own way and time but still… it’s got to sting for Joyce to be the person least trusted/respected in her favorite sib’s sphere. And for Becky to be keeping yet more secrets.
As Jocelyne was actually present to witness both Joyce’s willingness to oppose their parents AND Joyce’s full-throated and absolute support of Becky, claiming that Jocelyne could have reasonably thought that Joyce was still a total fundie robot even as late as early October feels very odd to me.
Two actions versus the entirety of a lifetime of knowing someone, no matter how strong the actions were, doesn’t always help the deep anxiety of being disowned or harmed by coming out to the wrong people. Jocelyne could reasonably assume Joyce wasn’t safe even now, because plenty of people are unsafe. Even when they seem to be safe.
I agree that it might emotionally sting for Joyce that Jocelyne told others first, but it does make sense that Jocelyne would be nervous about telling Joyce. While Joyce has made progress, it can be hard for Jocelyne to assess how much, especially since tolerance of gay people (like Becky) does not necessarily mean tolerance of transgender people. Becky is LGBTQ+ herself (and went through difficult things as a result) and she is not Jocelyne’s little sister. Jocelyne probably felt more confident that Becky would accept her, and she may have been much more afraid of Joyce’s rejection than Becky’s rejection. Also as Joyce demonstrated in the previous strip, she can have a rigid view about how things should be (in the previous strip it was about the colour of picture bible Jesus’ sash) and perhaps Jocelyne was also concerned she might not handle a change well.
It’s honestly a weird mix of sarcasm and not sarcasm. Becky does act like a loose cannon, so it can be literal, and it can be figurative because the act is just that, and becky actually does strategically withhold information.
Unfortunately for Becky, withholding information was a survival strategy for the longest time. Never forget, she’s the one who regularly broke out of her house overnight.
Well, she snuck out when her parents weren’t looking. But what I wonder about is what was she sneaking out to do, and with whom? It certainly wasn’t to get up to mischief with Joyce, or this would be a different strip.
Well, no, actually. Dina is blunt if asked for an opinion. She normally doesn’t engage with most people beyond what she sees as an appropriate level of surface politeness, since she finds them confusing. But if someone wants to know how she feels, there’s no truth shading involved.
It’s possible Jocelyne was fine with her letting Dina know, or that Joce even called Becky when she and Dina were together and just told both of them. (Mostly Becky, but knowing that Becky’s girlfriend was in the conversation as well.)
Though the casual “Hi, Dina” and “Hello, Jocelyne” seem like they’ve already met physically, rather than just Dina being in on a phone conversation Becky had with her.
Becky is very good at giving people the IMPRESSION that she always says everything that’s on her mind, but that actually just makes it way easier than normal to keep secrets, particularly secrets that might betray some sort of emotional vulnerability on her part. It’s a textbook coping mechanism, which <a href'"https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/everybodyeverything/" Leslie has called her out on HARD in the past . It’s also pretty good for maintaining sexuality/gender closets, though, as it happens (at least, until the time comes around to nuke the closet from orbit)!
Based on yesterday, it sounds like Jocelyne already does have contact with him. It’s their parents (plus John probably, and Joyce incidentally due to her age) who don’t.
There is way too many pink or pink and white patterned clothes in this strip. They are all blurring together like a herd of pink zebra (which one must assume are secret villains behind crimes in the Pink Panther franchise).
“I outed Carla” might be similarly derailing. You could intercut a frame of her on the cover of Time. Presumably with a headline like “Ruttech invents women.”
The Browns have to keep people guessing about exactly how much nothing they know.
Now for some clarifications.
1. I imagine Amber using “Boku” cuz she’s kinda tomboyish but I could see her simply using Watashi as well. However Amazi-girl would probably use “Ore” as a way to sound intimidating and powerful.
2. I imagine Becky using “Boku” for similar reasons to Amber, in addition to her just being a silly goofball. That said I feel like she’d use the more feminine “Atashi” whenever affirming herself as a lesbian or her love for Dina, as she wants to be explicit that it’s a very feminine love.
3. Ruth using “Ore” comes from the idea of her trying to come off as a very threatening and scary RA early on. In her quiet moments with Billie and others she would probably use “Watashi”.
4. Similarly Joe might use Ore when trying to portray himself as this incredibly trashy manwhore, but may use “Boku” when around Danny or Joyce.
5. I gave Sal “Uchi” because I like the idea that Japanese Sal has a Kansai accent.
6. I really REALLY like the idea of Carla simply referring to herself using her own name, partly as a sense of her narcissism but also personal affirmation. When she’s not boasting she probably just uses Watashi though.
7. Jennifer probably uses Atashi to come off as the more ideal cutesy feminine person she tries to outwardly appear, contrasting with her prickly personality.
8. I just like the idea of Booster using somewhat feminine language to refer to themselves. Just feels right.
9. Roz and Robin use Atashi for different reasons. Roz because she’s very female forward. Robin because it makes her come off as cute to contrast her often madcap antics. Though I also believe Robin just truly thinks she’s very cute.
There’s so much to go on about, like how the way certain people think of themselves affects the honorifics they demand from others.
Does Robin tell her students to call her Robin-chan, Robin-chi, Robin-chama, or Robin-chensei? I think I made the last one up, but Robin is the kind of person who would make it up too.
Does Carla demand Carla-dono or does she tell everyone to drop the honorifics because they distract from “Carla”?
Alright, but at least take their coats before the piss thing. Some of those bigots got money for them real nice coats, and there’s a lotta broke folks who’s cold tonight.
Somehow I think millions all over the world remembering Dorothy fondly is less important to her than looking back over her accomplishments at the end of her life and remembering herself fondly. In an “I did good” way, not “wow am I good or what?”
I feel like a lot of people have kept secrets from Joyce….Or maybe it’s just two people. Still feels like something about Joyce makes people nervous to share personal stuff with her,
In a weird way, I think it has to do with how much people care about Joyce. They might be afraid of her reaction because she means a lot to them, or they might not want to let her down. Some of it might be the idea that she would judge them, but that matters more because their feelings are more impacted by what Joyce thinks of them.
Like many on the spectrum, Joyce is lousy at keeping secrets. Would YOU tell her (or Goddess forbid, Amber) anything you didn’t want her blurting out?
Now that I think about it, it’d be worse with Amber; she’d take your sexual secrets and use them in her fan-fic.
Dead ass it’s because she was a good lil church girl who was so sheltered as to shatter like a pane of glass if anyone she cared about wasn’t on the “Right Side” of the Superdickhead branch of the church her mom indoctrinated her into. Joyce would have snitched to “Save their souls” because that’s all she knew.
Also, lets remember… Toedad tried to kill them. Joyce’s mom would have probably sent them into conversion camps or worse.
Joyce was *not* a safe ear to come out too before she came to school
Speaking as an autistic person: don’t tell me your secrets! I hate keeping secrets and I’m a terrible liar! Telling me your secrets will literally give me a panic attack! Why do you want to give me a panic attack?
Also as an autistic: Don’t tell me your secrets, because I don’t fucking care. If it’s something other people aren’t supposed to know, I don’t want to know it either! If you tell me, I’m sat here with information I can’t use for anything until others know it too, which makes it useless to me, so I don’t want or need it. I’ll either resent you for telling me or forget it was a secret after not using the information for long enough, and then I’m probably gonna slip up and tell someone, and then you’re gonna be mad at me for a chain of events you started. And then it’s gonna be “How do you ‘accidentally’ tell my other close friend I’m the Green Gorilla!?” and then I have to fucking explain all of this again, which is gonna cause even more of a strain on our relationship, because how did you not know me well enough to understand this before you went and shared your secret identity, you’re a bad secret superhero and you need to decide whether this kind of double life is worth that strain or if it’s time to go public like the rest of your team and what were we talking about again?
It depends on the secret I think.
Some are things that you can do things with, even if you can’t talk to others about it. Maybe you can help the person with the secret, for example.
Others yeah, if it’s just for the sake of being in on the secret, maybe not so much.
Joyce is canonically a terrible liar. Even if that’s an autistic trait, it’s not ableism to recognize that she’s a terrible liar and not confide secrets to her that you want to stay secret.
Okay what is that expression on Joe? Is he getting overwhelmed? I probably would be in his shoes, with four different people to deal with at once. Maybe I’m just projecting? Normal people at this point wouldn’t be drawing up mental maps of how these girls all think of each other, and think of each other’s thoughts of each other to the 4th degree?
I think he’s just feeling a little lost. He came down to support Joyce in a difficult conversation, but the conversation turned out to be (mostly) joyful and he’s not really in it, just looking on from the outside. He’s present but has no role as yet.
It is a completely neutral expression because he is on the background of this conversation so it isn’t really important to have him show any particular emotion.
Kinda love how Dorothy’s arc has been affected by the changing zeitgeist around the presidency in the time since the comic started. The audience has learned to understand the what was wrong with the presidency in about the amount of time it took Joyce to understand what was wrong with Christianity. The result is a really interesting parallel in these two characters’ arcs that doesn’t really come from anything in-text. That’s fascinating. Woah.
It also leads to weirdnesses in Dorothy’s own arc.
And I’m not sure that the current zeitgeist around the presidency is anymore correct or a matter of learning than the previous one was. Attitudes have shifted, at least among the liberal/left audience of this comic, but that’s not the same as “learned the truth”.
I don’t think Dorothy’s arc needs to have been impacted by the, uh, President DeSanto inspiration. It’s a pretty clear thing that the President is expected to be involved in things involving war as well as dealing with unpleasant people as a basic element of the job.
Dorothy, after seeing a murder and stabbing in RL, realizes she wants nothing to do with any form of violence.
I had a love of my life come out to me … I was first after her family…my reaction ..was “WELL DUH!!!” Cause I kinda had it figured out well in advance. I was incredibly honored, and it was one more thing I love about her. It’s not working out, alas. But the future…well, who knows?
Just when you think you can’t love Jocelyne more, she surprises you. Also, kudos for Becky that knew it and didn’t tell Joyce, how good of her! But now I wonder if Becky will be there when Joyce sees the photo sent by Dorothy… Her reaction could be interesting.
Kind of weirded out by Becky knowing. More by us not seeing it and thus getting Becky’s reaction.
Like, Becky’s a lesbian obviously, but she’s still a fundie girl who didn’t even know bisexuals existed a few months ago. There’s no interest at all in seeing a different angle on the journey out of fundie-dom?
I struggle with the assertion of Becky’s fundie-ness given her (eventual) full-hearted embrace of her sexual orientation and appetite. I would be totally unsurprised to learn that she was never sold on all aspects of what she was taught. Maybe we use different definitions.
The argument between Joyce and Becky about religion was pretty much Joyce renouncing the fundie stuff and saying “How can you believe in that stuff” and Becky responding “that stuff was never what I believed in” so… pretty much! Becky seemed to take in the part of her religion that was about being a good person and rejected the stuff that didn’t matter.
I’d say Becky’s probably viewing it from the perspective of “everything I was taught growing up was wrong so I’m open to junk”. After all, she’s into science and evolution.
She was at least raised in it and some of it we got to see her start to unlearn and work through – like some of the science stuff.
She certainly had less trouble than Joyce, but she did have stuff to deal with.
Getting out of fundie programming is rarely completely painless, even if it never really took all the way.
It also makes Joyce look worse if Becky has absolutely no hangups from their shared upbringing.
And even beyond that, apparently Jocelyne knew upfront without any question that Becky would be fine with it and even hide it from Joyce?
Mostly, I wish we’d seen some of this. It wouldn’t even spoil anything, since the readers knew it was coming.
Absolutely would have liked to see more about Becky processing these things. That said, I do think that her views on things are understandable, if unseen– I only have gotten spillover of religious dogma, but in that, I don’t hear bisexuality come up much. Gay people, absolutely; nowadays, trans people as well. With the sliding timescale, I imagine Becky would have grown up hearing trans people condemned in the same breath as gay people, so the breaking of those beliefs might go together.
But again, I do support things like her learning about Jocelyne being onscreen.
I hope she’s not gonna throw a big fit about not being told first.
a) yes Joyce you needed to unlearn a lot of things before it was safe for her to tell you (so far you had been deemed unsafe to tell, and rightfully so)
b) coming out is SO hard. It means taking the chance that you lose the person you just came out to, or worse. Putting it off makes *sense* unfortunately, and also, there’s most at stake with the people you love the most / the people closest to you / the people with the biggest power over you (like Jocelyne is afraid Joyce might tell their mum).
It doesn’t mean you matter less to that person. You might have been the *most* important person to tell, and others were easier for practice.
It’s also worth noting that from the sound of things her coming out to Joyce now isn’t exactly by choice, she said “I need to tell you before you hear it from dad” which implies
1: that Hank knows
And 2: that Jocelyne has reason to think he’d out her to their family
Me if I ever see Tony Hawk: Hey you’re Tony Hawk the famous skateboarder. That’s right I recognise you. Won’t be able to get any content out of this will you, you piece of shit
How to read all 28 issues of my Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run on Marvel Unlimited:
1: The first four issues were published as the miniseries "Mary Jane."
www.marvel.com/comics/serie...
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 3d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 2d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 3d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 12d
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then it turns out that Joss’s apartment is one of the places where Dina and Charlie ended up, and it just went from there
Dina AND Jocelyne??!?!??! DINA AND JOCELYNE?!?!
STIMMING SO MUCH EEEEEEEEEK!!!!! ^^ <3
*plays “Welcome to Jurassic Park” on hacked muzak*
The world wasn’t ready for this.
oh shit this is not a drill, we’re getting Dina AND Jocelyne! ~<3
wonder how mad joyce is gonna be about people knowing before she did
Well there’s still Ethan to go.
Ultimately she has all the information she needs to realize that Ethan knew.
Once she thinks to recontextualize that conversation.
But what happens when Joyce tries to introduce Jocelyn to her other sister, Carla?
….. oh no.
Oh yes!
Welcome to tomorrow. It’s not too bad.
Wait, since when has Becky known?
Before Joyce did apparently.
I can see that, I’m more curious as to when it happened.
Could really be anywhere between a day ago and immediately after the day they broke into Becky’s old home together
But it kind of sounds like Joss knows Dina? Did they have an offscreen adventure we didn’t get to see?
I’m just gonna file that under “places Dina and Charlie went during their reality-bending escapades last storyline”.
Headcanon accepted.
Charlie and Dina did their quantum-wave-collapse thing, ended up at Jocelyne’s home, and they all talked and hit it off nicely. Thankfully, Jocelyne’s mother wasn’t home.
I think it was in fact during the home break-in but I don’t have links to it.
Jocelyne and Becky have met for the diner/break-in
Dina wasn’t there
Since that one Tuesday.
Just guessing, but maybe shortly after https://www.dumbingofage.com/scanner/
That would make a lot of sense actually
Joyce will have to change that phone contact from Big Brother #2.
It’s not entirely clear. I’m guessing she didn’t know yet the last time she and Joss shared panel time, when the trio broke into Becky’s house, but I could see her finding out at basically any point after that.
Dina knows because she was secretly in the room the whole time and heard everything.
I’m guessing Jocelyn came out to her off-screen to get advice about how Joyce would react.
Could be as simple as Becky answered her phone when Jocelyne called, unlike Joyce.
Probably with Dina in the room.
This feels like how Joyce knew who Liz was for months before Sarah knew Joyce was aware she even had a sister.
Becky MacIntyre: Super Suave
Finger guns.
Joss did accept Becky as her ‘poopface new sister’ so it’s really sweet to see that Joss took that to heart and even came out to her already! Adorable.
I agree, and I think Becky took place in line before Joyce because Becky has had to come out too, and Joyce was still going through a lot of learning. Kinda like Joyce asked Ethan, sometimes having similar experiences is what people need to come out or begin talking about changes.
I now want a buddy cop movie with Becky and Dina. They would not be good at being cops and would likely somehow destroy the system, but I still want the movie.
so a variant of Lethal Weapon
Which one? There’s four choices.
Six if you count the TV show with Riggs, and then with Cole. They really should have kept that going with Seann William Scott and Maggie Lawson in the cast – it kept getting better.
The neuro-queer buddy cop movie we all need.
+1!
I feel tremendous relief. I wasn’t expecting Becky to be shitty or anything, but I mean, glad she ISN’T.
I do hope that Joyce doesn’t take this as Joss saying she CAN’T keep a secret, I just imagine Joss knew it was going to be tougher for her to come out to Joyce, same as Ethan knowing first (of this group) isn’t an indictment of Joyce, either.
Don’t feel too much relief yet. Becky is now on hand for when Joyce receives the pix.
Pffft… Bwahahahahaahahaha!
And Jocelyne gets to tell her little sister in front of Joe and Becky why taking photos like that and having them uploaded to the cloud automatically because everyone’s phones do by default these days is a bad idea, because you don’t know what the recipient’s default setting is…
I’d say the recipient is still far more of a threat than them just being on the cloud. Photos are far more likely to be spread deliberately by the person you sent them to (maybe after a breakup) than hacked off the cloud.
Or in Joyce’s case, since she already sent them to the wrong person, that wrong person could have been far worse than Dorothy.
It’s likely to FEEL shitty to Joyce though. ‘Literally everyone knew already except me, and you’re only telling me because you thought Dad was about to, not because you actually wanted me to know. Thanks for the love and trust, favorite sib.’
And that’s the sort of thing that Becky is, historically, going to be shitty about. Because she likes making Joyce upset because she enjoys the facial expressions of traumatized/upset Joyce.
Or because it’s the surest, fastest way to get Joyce’s undivided attention.
Oh dear, Joyce is feeling the guilt of making characters based on your friends.
People change every day,, so trying to keep up in real time with someone can be difficult.
Also, I’m happy Jocelyne is naturally fitting in with this group, and that she can finally be the older sister she wants to be. Can you ask for more?
It is interesting that Joyce seems to recognize that something’s going on with Dorothy and her stated desire to transfer to an Ivy League College, even though she’s been kept in the dark about the specifics.
Wasn’t Joyce there when raidah was being an asshole to Dorothy about being president?
Also, Dorothy has stopped talking about it, and it is possibly why Joyce is realizing something is wrong.
No that was Walky.
Dorothy explicitly told Joyce already. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/03-trystin-in-the-wind/miscreants/
derp, i are a dummy.
Then again, they were both like three sheets to the wind at that point, entirely possible they both forgot? >_>
I mean… that’s gonna sting a… well, a lot.
Yeah, my entire comment was ‘oof, poor Joyce’. Pretty much everyone got to know but her, and apparently Jocelyne’s only telling her because she thinks their dad is about to.
I mean, of course Jocelyne gets to come out in her own way and time but still… it’s got to sting for Joyce to be the person least trusted/respected in her favorite sib’s sphere. And for Becky to be keeping yet more secrets.
To be fair, she’s grown a lot in a relatively short time. August/September Joyce absolutely would have gone running to Carol if she found out.
As Jocelyne was actually present to witness both Joyce’s willingness to oppose their parents AND Joyce’s full-throated and absolute support of Becky, claiming that Jocelyne could have reasonably thought that Joyce was still a total fundie robot even as late as early October feels very odd to me.
Two actions versus the entirety of a lifetime of knowing someone, no matter how strong the actions were, doesn’t always help the deep anxiety of being disowned or harmed by coming out to the wrong people. Jocelyne could reasonably assume Joyce wasn’t safe even now, because plenty of people are unsafe. Even when they seem to be safe.
But even her last line “Becky is trustworthy and can keep a secret”
Implying that Joyce is not trustworthy.
For Becky growing up, keeping a big secret was a matter of survival.
Joyce was an open book by comparison.
Sure, it’s true.
But having your sister say you’re not trustworthy has got be at least a twinge.
I agree that it might emotionally sting for Joyce that Jocelyne told others first, but it does make sense that Jocelyne would be nervous about telling Joyce. While Joyce has made progress, it can be hard for Jocelyne to assess how much, especially since tolerance of gay people (like Becky) does not necessarily mean tolerance of transgender people. Becky is LGBTQ+ herself (and went through difficult things as a result) and she is not Jocelyne’s little sister. Jocelyne probably felt more confident that Becky would accept her, and she may have been much more afraid of Joyce’s rejection than Becky’s rejection. Also as Joyce demonstrated in the previous strip, she can have a rigid view about how things should be (in the previous strip it was about the colour of picture bible Jesus’ sash) and perhaps Jocelyne was also concerned she might not handle a change well.
dense comic! this is characterization for, like, half the cast!
And a situational set-up besides.
Dina is the soul of discression.
*discretion
I feel like she’s… let’s say, shading the truth, to support Becky, and I wonder if it caused her distress. Even though it was for love.
It’s honestly a weird mix of sarcasm and not sarcasm. Becky does act like a loose cannon, so it can be literal, and it can be figurative because the act is just that, and becky actually does strategically withhold information.
Becky can be a loose cannon and Dina is both perceptive and perspicuous.
Unfortunately for Becky, withholding information was a survival strategy for the longest time. Never forget, she’s the one who regularly broke out of her house overnight.
Well, she snuck out when her parents weren’t looking. But what I wonder about is what was she sneaking out to do, and with whom? It certainly wasn’t to get up to mischief with Joyce, or this would be a different strip.
Well, no, actually. Dina is blunt if asked for an opinion. She normally doesn’t engage with most people beyond what she sees as an appropriate level of surface politeness, since she finds them confusing. But if someone wants to know how she feels, there’s no truth shading involved.
Dina is the soul of digression.
…Especially about dinosaurs!
And now four out of five characters in this strip are wearing vaguely to explicitly trans-flag-colored outfits.
Joe, go back to your room and put on one of those preppy-ass pink golf tees, I know you own at least one.
Joe already wears a lot of purple, so maybe he just needs some gray and white to be the asexual pride flag.
Which would be deeply ironic.
To be fair, she clearly can’t keep a secret that well if Dina also knows.
I remember her doing very well in keeping it a secret that she had sex with Dina. Absolute no one knew that.
She had sex with Dina?!
She had Dina with Sex!?
Dina!?!???
Dr. Scott?
Janet!
It’s possible Jocelyne was fine with her letting Dina know, or that Joce even called Becky when she and Dina were together and just told both of them. (Mostly Becky, but knowing that Becky’s girlfriend was in the conversation as well.)
Though the casual “Hi, Dina” and “Hello, Jocelyne” seem like they’ve already met physically, rather than just Dina being in on a phone conversation Becky had with her.
Yeah, I guess I was picturing a video call. In person could have happened at some point, like over the break.
Becky found out from Dina.
Becky is very good at giving people the IMPRESSION that she always says everything that’s on her mind, but that actually just makes it way easier than normal to keep secrets, particularly secrets that might betray some sort of emotional vulnerability on her part. It’s a textbook coping mechanism, which <a href'"https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/everybodyeverything/" Leslie has called her out on HARD in the past . It’s also pretty good for maintaining sexuality/gender closets, though, as it happens (at least, until the time comes around to nuke the closet from orbit)!
I’m gonna venture a guess that the next bomb drop is Jocelyne finding out about Joyce’s potential autism diagnosis.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Jordan had one himself, knowing what little we do about him and his parallels with Joyce.
… Could this arc be setting the stage for him to possibly reestablish contact with his sisters and Hank?
Based on yesterday, it sounds like Jocelyne already does have contact with him. It’s their parents (plus John probably, and Joyce incidentally due to her age) who don’t.
There is way too many pink or pink and white patterned clothes in this strip. They are all blurring together like a herd of pink zebra (which one must assume are secret villains behind crimes in the Pink Panther franchise).
Ethan shows up next.
“ETHAN, YOU ALSO KNEW??”
“YOU DIDNT?””
“We had a whole conversation!”
“That was about Carla!”
And then Jocelyne gets a solid five seconds of silence out of “Wait, Carla’s trans?”
Joyce: OMG I OUTED CARLA IM SO SORRY
Joss: HAHA already knew
Joyce: DAMMIT
“I outed Carla” might be similarly derailing. You could intercut a frame of her on the cover of Time. Presumably with a headline like “Ruttech invents women.”
The Browns have to keep people guessing about exactly how much nothing they know.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jocelyne knows who Carla is from the news, but would be very surprised to find out she lives on the same floor as Joyce.
Part 2 of my “What if DOA was Japanese” thought experiment. In Japanese, there is not simply one “I”. There are actually a LOT of ways to say it that help describe how one sees themselves.
Tier list on how I think the DOA cast would self identify in Japanese
Now for some clarifications.
1. I imagine Amber using “Boku” cuz she’s kinda tomboyish but I could see her simply using Watashi as well. However Amazi-girl would probably use “Ore” as a way to sound intimidating and powerful.
2. I imagine Becky using “Boku” for similar reasons to Amber, in addition to her just being a silly goofball. That said I feel like she’d use the more feminine “Atashi” whenever affirming herself as a lesbian or her love for Dina, as she wants to be explicit that it’s a very feminine love.
3. Ruth using “Ore” comes from the idea of her trying to come off as a very threatening and scary RA early on. In her quiet moments with Billie and others she would probably use “Watashi”.
4. Similarly Joe might use Ore when trying to portray himself as this incredibly trashy manwhore, but may use “Boku” when around Danny or Joyce.
5. I gave Sal “Uchi” because I like the idea that Japanese Sal has a Kansai accent.
6. I really REALLY like the idea of Carla simply referring to herself using her own name, partly as a sense of her narcissism but also personal affirmation. When she’s not boasting she probably just uses Watashi though.
7. Jennifer probably uses Atashi to come off as the more ideal cutesy feminine person she tries to outwardly appear, contrasting with her prickly personality.
8. I just like the idea of Booster using somewhat feminine language to refer to themselves. Just feels right.
9. Roz and Robin use Atashi for different reasons. Roz because she’s very female forward. Robin because it makes her come off as cute to contrast her often madcap antics. Though I also believe Robin just truly thinks she’s very cute.
aw, you didn’t leave me anything to go on about this time xD
co-signed, pretty much sounds right to me
There’s so much to go on about, like how the way certain people think of themselves affects the honorifics they demand from others.
Does Robin tell her students to call her Robin-chan, Robin-chi, Robin-chama, or Robin-chensei? I think I made the last one up, but Robin is the kind of person who would make it up too.
Does Carla demand Carla-dono or does she tell everyone to drop the honorifics because they distract from “Carla”?
Of course there is, but that’s a different topic. I mean this one.
well okay maybe one addendum:
Carla uses Atashi with her parents. I’d bet money on it.
And Mary, specifically to piss her off.
at this point i wanna see Mary drink her own piss
This comic’s Rule 34 content is like 90% inflation, do you really wanna open the door for another easily-spammed fetish?
I wanna open the door to bigots like her being humiliated and becoming a spectacle as they drown in their own tears and piss
Alright, but at least take their coats before the piss thing. Some of those bigots got money for them real nice coats, and there’s a lotta broke folks who’s cold tonight.
Plays Circle of Fear “Pay to Play (The Ballad of Jimmy Z)”on hacked Muzak. It’s the only song I’ve ever heard related to this topic.
10. Faz goes all the way and says ore-sama.
A: Weeeeeebest thing ever
B: Yes Ruth is definitely an Ore-user
Interesting exercise, though I have no comments.
Dude you don’t know how good this scratches my autism rn this is like so my shit
The worst most horrible thing Willis ever did to Joyce?
The realization Joyce has the next 15 years plotted out including her becoming President.
Dorothy gotta stay and have adventures!!!!
if Dorothy wants to be President, she can be president of the Julia Grey game world!
complete with an office that’s actually shaped like an oval, her face on coins, and best of all, no need to become a war criminal
ironically this way she’d be remembered much more fondly by millions more all over the world than if she actually became POTUS
Somehow I think millions all over the world remembering Dorothy fondly is less important to her than looking back over her accomplishments at the end of her life and remembering herself fondly. In an “I did good” way, not “wow am I good or what?”
I feel like a lot of people have kept secrets from Joyce….Or maybe it’s just two people. Still feels like something about Joyce makes people nervous to share personal stuff with her,
In a weird way, I think it has to do with how much people care about Joyce. They might be afraid of her reaction because she means a lot to them, or they might not want to let her down. Some of it might be the idea that she would judge them, but that matters more because their feelings are more impacted by what Joyce thinks of them.
Like many on the spectrum, Joyce is lousy at keeping secrets. Would YOU tell her (or Goddess forbid, Amber) anything you didn’t want her blurting out?
Now that I think about it, it’d be worse with Amber; she’d take your sexual secrets and use them in her fan-fic.
Dead ass it’s because she was a good lil church girl who was so sheltered as to shatter like a pane of glass if anyone she cared about wasn’t on the “Right Side” of the Superdickhead branch of the church her mom indoctrinated her into. Joyce would have snitched to “Save their souls” because that’s all she knew.
Also, lets remember… Toedad tried to kill them. Joyce’s mom would have probably sent them into conversion camps or worse.
Joyce was *not* a safe ear to come out too before she came to school
Subtle ableism
And in some cases, not so subtle.
Hi, Dorothy.
Speaking as an autistic person: don’t tell me your secrets! I hate keeping secrets and I’m a terrible liar! Telling me your secrets will literally give me a panic attack! Why do you want to give me a panic attack?
Also as an autistic: Don’t tell me your secrets, because I don’t fucking care. If it’s something other people aren’t supposed to know, I don’t want to know it either! If you tell me, I’m sat here with information I can’t use for anything until others know it too, which makes it useless to me, so I don’t want or need it. I’ll either resent you for telling me or forget it was a secret after not using the information for long enough, and then I’m probably gonna slip up and tell someone, and then you’re gonna be mad at me for a chain of events you started. And then it’s gonna be “How do you ‘accidentally’ tell my other close friend I’m the Green Gorilla!?” and then I have to fucking explain all of this again, which is gonna cause even more of a strain on our relationship, because how did you not know me well enough to understand this before you went and shared your secret identity, you’re a bad secret superhero and you need to decide whether this kind of double life is worth that strain or if it’s time to go public like the rest of your team and what were we talking about again?
As another autistic: Tell me your secrets, tell me your secrets, I am great at shutting up and my gremlin brain is fueled by Forbidden Knowledge.
It depends on the secret I think.
Some are things that you can do things with, even if you can’t talk to others about it. Maybe you can help the person with the secret, for example.
Others yeah, if it’s just for the sake of being in on the secret, maybe not so much.
Don’t “it depends” me about my own brain, you colonist.
Joyce is canonically a terrible liar. Even if that’s an autistic trait, it’s not ableism to recognize that she’s a terrible liar and not confide secrets to her that you want to stay secret.
As an autistic, no it is not. Many thing are subtly or unsubtly ableistic, this isn’t one of them.
As someone who’s autistic and queer, I’ve involuntarily had a lifetime’s worth of practice keeping secrets.
but it don’t mean I like people treating me as their information safe deposit box either 0-0
Not many secrets, but they’re big ones.
Dina just gets cuter with every iteration.
This isn’t even her final form?
A 30-year old Dina is going to be fucking unstoppable.
This. (She’s already mostly there, but.)
I doubt it will even take her that long ^^ :0
Okay what is that expression on Joe? Is he getting overwhelmed? I probably would be in his shoes, with four different people to deal with at once. Maybe I’m just projecting? Normal people at this point wouldn’t be drawing up mental maps of how these girls all think of each other, and think of each other’s thoughts of each other to the 4th degree?
I think he’s just feeling a little lost. He came down to support Joyce in a difficult conversation, but the conversation turned out to be (mostly) joyful and he’s not really in it, just looking on from the outside. He’s present but has no role as yet.
It is a completely neutral expression because he is on the background of this conversation so it isn’t really important to have him show any particular emotion.
you’re projecting
The real question: Who did Dorothy send those nudes to?
Will they end up on Joe’s phone since he’s next to Joyce?
I think that sequence happened in parallel with this one. We rolled the clock back a few minutes, she’s currently taking the pictures.
She also could have sent it already and Joyce hasn’t checked yet because she’s in a conversation.
OUT. A. CON. TROL.
“You’re a loose Cannon Becky, turn in your badge!”
It’s queer telepathy.
Bisexuals need an external antenna. It’s a whole thing.
She’s a maniac! Maaaaaaaaaaaniac and out of control!
[The “Evil Chopsticks” part of the song intensifies]
And she’s dancin’ like she’s never daaaanced before!
This is what you get for ignoring your texts from your sibling, Joyce.
This is a vengeance for drinking first time without Becky, Joyce.
“Maybe she wants to stay and have adventures” What adventures? And are you– is Julia in them?
At this point, what would Becky say ’bout Julia Gray
pfffaaahahaha i love them. peace and love on planet earth
“Peace on earth, goodwill to all genders, sexes, identities, and all.”
[Vash the Stampede]Peace and love! Peace and love![/Vash the stampede]
What’s with Joss’ weird teeth hands in the last panel
Upturned palms.
And now I can’t unsee hand teeth.
drawing hards is very hard >.<'
Kinda love how Dorothy’s arc has been affected by the changing zeitgeist around the presidency in the time since the comic started. The audience has learned to understand the what was wrong with the presidency in about the amount of time it took Joyce to understand what was wrong with Christianity. The result is a really interesting parallel in these two characters’ arcs that doesn’t really come from anything in-text. That’s fascinating. Woah.
It also leads to weirdnesses in Dorothy’s own arc.
And I’m not sure that the current zeitgeist around the presidency is anymore correct or a matter of learning than the previous one was. Attitudes have shifted, at least among the liberal/left audience of this comic, but that’s not the same as “learned the truth”.
I don’t think Dorothy’s arc needs to have been impacted by the, uh, President DeSanto inspiration. It’s a pretty clear thing that the President is expected to be involved in things involving war as well as dealing with unpleasant people as a basic element of the job.
Dorothy, after seeing a murder and stabbing in RL, realizes she wants nothing to do with any form of violence.
I had a love of my life come out to me … I was first after her family…my reaction ..was “WELL DUH!!!” Cause I kinda had it figured out well in advance. I was incredibly honored, and it was one more thing I love about her. It’s not working out, alas. But the future…well, who knows?
Just when you think you can’t love Jocelyne more, she surprises you. Also, kudos for Becky that knew it and didn’t tell Joyce, how good of her! But now I wonder if Becky will be there when Joyce sees the photo sent by Dorothy… Her reaction could be interesting.
Did you just drop that wallpaper to the ground
….newspaper
Kind of weirded out by Becky knowing. More by us not seeing it and thus getting Becky’s reaction.
Like, Becky’s a lesbian obviously, but she’s still a fundie girl who didn’t even know bisexuals existed a few months ago. There’s no interest at all in seeing a different angle on the journey out of fundie-dom?
I struggle with the assertion of Becky’s fundie-ness given her (eventual) full-hearted embrace of her sexual orientation and appetite. I would be totally unsurprised to learn that she was never sold on all aspects of what she was taught. Maybe we use different definitions.
The argument between Joyce and Becky about religion was pretty much Joyce renouncing the fundie stuff and saying “How can you believe in that stuff” and Becky responding “that stuff was never what I believed in” so… pretty much! Becky seemed to take in the part of her religion that was about being a good person and rejected the stuff that didn’t matter.
I’d say Becky’s probably viewing it from the perspective of “everything I was taught growing up was wrong so I’m open to junk”. After all, she’s into science and evolution.
Becky didn’t get over everything that easily. She had a lot of anxiety about God being angry with her if she had sex with Dina.
It’s a good thing I didn’t say she got over everything that easily then.
But that was about sex before marriage, not being a lesbian if I recall correctly?
That’s true!
She was at least raised in it and some of it we got to see her start to unlearn and work through – like some of the science stuff.
She certainly had less trouble than Joyce, but she did have stuff to deal with.
Getting out of fundie programming is rarely completely painless, even if it never really took all the way.
It also makes Joyce look worse if Becky has absolutely no hangups from their shared upbringing.
And even beyond that, apparently Jocelyne knew upfront without any question that Becky would be fine with it and even hide it from Joyce?
Mostly, I wish we’d seen some of this. It wouldn’t even spoil anything, since the readers knew it was coming.
It’s not a contest where one person is worse for not being able to meet the same targets as someone else.
Absolutely would have liked to see more about Becky processing these things. That said, I do think that her views on things are understandable, if unseen– I only have gotten spillover of religious dogma, but in that, I don’t hear bisexuality come up much. Gay people, absolutely; nowadays, trans people as well. With the sliding timescale, I imagine Becky would have grown up hearing trans people condemned in the same breath as gay people, so the breaking of those beliefs might go together.
But again, I do support things like her learning about Jocelyne being onscreen.
Yeah, that’s basically it. It’s certainly plausible, but it feels weird for it to be passed over and just completely assumed she’d be fine with it.
Jocelyne is the doing the raptor hands too! eeeeee! >w<
I think those are her palms facing us.
Becky can keep a secret when it’s truly important.
Willis, you can try trick me, but I’m a front-end developer. I know CSS more than sex. I know Jocelyne’s hair is a very bit more clear than Joyce’s.
I hope she’s not gonna throw a big fit about not being told first.
a) yes Joyce you needed to unlearn a lot of things before it was safe for her to tell you (so far you had been deemed unsafe to tell, and rightfully so)
b) coming out is SO hard. It means taking the chance that you lose the person you just came out to, or worse. Putting it off makes *sense* unfortunately, and also, there’s most at stake with the people you love the most / the people closest to you / the people with the biggest power over you (like Jocelyne is afraid Joyce might tell their mum).
It doesn’t mean you matter less to that person. You might have been the *most* important person to tell, and others were easier for practice.
It’s also worth noting that from the sound of things her coming out to Joyce now isn’t exactly by choice, she said “I need to tell you before you hear it from dad” which implies
1: that Hank knows
And 2: that Jocelyne has reason to think he’d out her to their family
Iiiiih! Golfriends in matching, unbuttoned, shirts! ^_^<3!