I really think she is considering the possibility vis a vis her family, more than Becky… Like that’s genuine fear, not just fear of a faux pas.
When you consider that this is a published photograph of a major incident, showcasing her gay kiss & also featuring Jocelyn- this is nuclear-level incident in a family that’s already fallen apart- & does exercise some control over her continued stay at the University.
It’s a photo in the school paper.
She has no reason to think it has circulated to non school related news outlets, so the “everyone” that she’s referring to is probably not her family.
Is it possible the picture will be in other outlets that her family could see? Sure.
But it’s more likely that she’s worried about Becky.
I’m certain that her father at least will see the paper. He was following the story on the news, and the paper almost certainly has an online edition. And if it gets somehow to the attention of anyone in her old church, then it will be quickly known to just about her entire pre-college circle of friends and family.
My first thought was family, but yeah, this is probably Becky-related.
The IDS is more of a local publication than simply a “school paper”. It is distributed widely throughout Bloomington, and it isn’t uncommon for alumni and parents of students to get online editions. Additionally, these things are available in large quantities for free in multiple locations in every university building, plus several other public locations throughout the city.
Fundie groups like the one her mother is a part of and her father was a part of make a point of showing up on campus semi-regularly to try and recruit the students through their proselytization, with varying levels of success. When I was a student there was one spot on campus that I would see them at nearly every day the weather was at least decent doing their hateful preaching, and I made a point of standing next to them and loudly singing the dirtiest songs I knew whenever my schedule brought me past them and I had some time to kill.
There is an *extremely* good chance of that picture making it’s way to and through the community of her hometown and former church, and therefore catching the attention of both of her parents. Such a good chance that I’d call it more a matter of “when” than “if”.
We know that she sent her dad a copy of the first issue with her comic in. It would surprise me if he didn’t get it regularly just because she’s published in it.
I kind of assumed Dorothy was supposed to already be telling Walky, in parallel to Joyce talking to Joe. Regardless both of them seemed far more concerned about Becky finding out.
As for being expelled, I doubt they’ve thought of it and there would be nothing she could run off and do about it anyway.
“Becky!” will be her first thought. On the way rushing to see Becky she will realize Carol will also see it, and Hank, and others. Each realization will be another explosion in her head. Becky will also figure this out. Everyone’s gonna be a mess.
For real. Unbelievable dereliction of responsibility to not even let a valuable reporter on your staff know about this absolute bombshell you’re about to sideswipe her with
Joyce is a recent escapee of a christofascist cult that tried to have her best friend assaulted and kidnapped for being gay, I think she’s allowed a bit of damage control time right now.
As much as I’m on Joe’s side here, this may *literally* be a matter of life and death for Joyce.
Her dad “has her back” in a obviously conditional way. He is definitely better then the mom, but he is still willingly in that cult. If he sees Joyce kissing Dorothy in a paper like that, he will not be as on her side as he once was.
We know that the dad was trying to find the sister at the rally and Joyce was scared of her dad finding out that his son was now his daughter, me thinks that he isn’t as open minded as you seem to think.
IIRC dad left the cult. He still goes to church, but he found himself a somewhat less toxic congregation. As to why he was looking for Josh/Jocelyne, it’s entirely possible he was just worried for their safety, a concern that we’ve seen amply justified.
the cult members are selling their homes to fund the cult. that isn’t broke. And even if that were the case, all Carol needs is an address and a shotgun, just like Ross did. Every single thing that happened to Becky is now potentially on the table for Joyce. That should be horrifying
Oh man, I just had the worst theory. Evil mom rampages, Joe takes a bullet or whatever meant for dorothy, since he doesn’t want Joyce heartbroken.
Alternatively, Sal saves amazi girl but gets badly hurt in the process. That’s the sort of tweeeeests I’d expect now that the action drama tag is back on the table.
From a psychological point of view, sure that’s on the table. From a narrative point of view it would be boring to rehash the exact same conflict again.
You don’t need money to terrorize people. You don’t have to care what your mom says for her to have an impact on your life at this stage. And despite being an actual, legal adult, I’m pretty sure Joyce isn’t paying for her own degree right now.
This is just really needlessly dismissive of real fears Joyce could reasonably have. It’s fair for Joyce to realize everyone will see that newspaper and panic, she’s only out to like three people. Even in a totally safe environment (which she is not at all in) it can be awful and scary to be forcibly outed.
Is the cult so broke that they can’t afford ~$500 for a hunting rifle and gas for Carol to get there? Toedad was incredibly threatening on that budget.
And at minimum, one “Joyce’s SSN” worth of access to the bursar’s and registrar’s offices, and one “Joyce was raised in a very honor-your-father-and-mother home” worth of “FERPA” waiver if I were a betting man.
Great point. And Joe loves Joyce and wants her to be happy. This could work out for him as well. He’s doing yoeman’s work in emotional labor and deserves whatever threesomes come his way.
Not sure why we’re calling it a cult when a very pressing and distressing matter is that it is by all accounts a perfectly regular right-wing American Christian church. I would suggest that it’s more interesting to address what that says about Christianity as a social force in the United States than label it as a cult, which by definition is outside of the mainstream.
if people need to “escape” from a religion, its a cult. its deeply reductive to not call a spade a spade just because the spade happens to be a very popular option. if the *victims* are calling it a cult, its a cult.
If leaving the church is grounds for threats of excommunication and exiled from your community and loved ones, its a fucking cult. Many religions exist that won’t burn interpersonal bridges for you leaving the faith.
Former Mormon here. It’s the high-demand religion with the best reputation, but just as much lifelong indoctrination and fear. For a cult or high-demand religion to persist, it needs to tie safety and salvation to a very narrow range of church-approved experiences.
An example: Mormons are famous for not drinking coffee while chugging Diet Coke and Monster throughout the workday. It doesn’t matter that coffee is objectively healthier than two 44 oz. caffeinated sodas; 180 years ago, Joseph Smith told his followers God didn’t want them to drink coffee and it went on the list of Things that Damn You.
The brain is infinitely detailed about categorizing sensory data. Cigarette smoke in the summer might make you think of an amusement park, while cigarette smoke in the winter might make you think of shivering at a bus stop. (With Aslan, of course.) It took a lot for me to work up to my first cup of coffee as a 40+ adult. The aversion had been reinforced for so long.
For people rebuilding their worldview after their life disproves their extreme beliefs, it’s not a matter of just accepting the truth about sexuality and applying it to everyone who could find out. Every reveal becomes another test of a lifelong promise of destruction, the same uh-oh kind of feeling you’d get as a kid when you made a mistake and worried your parents would never love you again.
Some Mormon couples divorce solely over one spouse leaving, because if you don’t check every box, then you won’t live with your family in the afterlife. You’ll be isolated with your regrets, separated from God, and have no personal relationships in a hellish paradise with a nice ambience. And if you’re a woman who still believes, you have to come to terms that you and your kids will be paired with a different man as a plural wife in order for you to qualify for the only heaven that matters.
This isn’t a logical, objective reaction from Joyce. It’s an authentic one that captures the depth of someone tripping another wirehair trigger in their minefield of indoctrinated fear.
I agree. Joe looks hurt, but things may still go his way. Hold on Joe.
Joyce, on the other hand, is always in a tizzy, but she always seems to come out on top, so I don’t worry about her.
It’s mostly because of the revelation that Joyce was going to dump him for Dorothy (see the “I kissed Dorothy, and I plan on doing so again, so that means I have to dump you.” Ergo, that means that Joyce’s connection to Dorothy is more important than Joyce’s connection to Joe.) Even if Joe is willing to be part of a throuple, the knowledge that Joyce deems you as less important than a third person has to hurt.
Joe has to decide what he deserves and, for now, this is what he decided. I’m sure it will all go smoothly and he’s made the best decision of his life and nothing is going to break my heart any further. Right?
Yes, yes, never mind that Joyce and Dorothy have just been outed to the world, including violently homophobic members of Joyce’s family and her violently homophobic former church. The important thing here is how terrible Joyce and Dorothy are! For :checks notes: kissing after Joe deliberately pushed them together.
While Becky will definitely give her hell, she saw this coming a mile away and likely bears little animosity. However, Mrs. Brown has already stated her determination to sacrifice herself for her daughter’s well being. I fear that she believes Joyce’s soul is at risk and will stop at nothing to secure her salvation. Will a new masked character emerge?
I think folks are underestimating Joyce’s dad. He’s shown growth, and I think breaking free of her mom is going to give him the freedom to start learning. Is he going to understand any if this? Probably not very well, but he’ll put in the work, for both his girls.
I think Joyce has good reason to underestimate her own dad. I personally think he’ll come down on the right side eventually, but his daughters have several more reasons than me to be cautious, not least of which is that they love him and don’t want to be on the wrong side of his disappointment even as long as it takes to remove his head from his ass. A public double outing would suck for everyone.
Not to mention, in the past like 4 months for him, his daughter got kidnapped, his family friend(kinda) got murdered in front of her, he learned his wife is partly responsible for that, then he got divorced and lost his house.
Mr. Brown will absolutely be on the right side of things eventually, but having all the shit happen, then learning your two kinds you have the best relationships with are both queer, which your life-long religious upbringing has told you that that will damn them to hell for all eternity, might be a little too much for him. He might have a bit of a breakdown tbh.
Still think it’s possible thst this gose right over Carols head, she didnt take Joyce seriously when she said she was atheist and Joyce’s face isn’t in the picture.
Or if a major protest and police action on campus causes the news media to pick up the story and use the student newspaper’s photos (which are certainly in full quality in the online version, which is going to exist because its not 1995 anymore).
And, ya know, Joyce’s parents might get a little worried about their child given the use of force on students at their daughters’ university and might try to learn more about it.
Straight-up… This visual reaction does not read like “I just crossed my best friend in a way that’s going to hurt her” fear. It reads like the realization that she is about to have problems with her family members, people who control her finances (and some level of emotional support/connection remains at least with her dad)… While also having incredibly bad history with her & her college experience.
Maybe. I think her focus is, *right now* primarily on Becky, because if Joe saw the student newspaper enough to see the pic, then Becky almost certainly is going to too.
Because its just the student newspaper, parents don’t read silly stuff like that!
I think Carol will see the picture, I just don’t think Joyce is cognizant of the steps that will likely happen to cause her to see it.
Parameters have changed. Previously she could control the conditions under which Becky learned about things. Now there’s a ticking clock and every second that passes Becky is more likely to learn from seeing the paper, which is far worse than Joyce getting to tell her under ideal conditions. It’s lighting a fire under her ass.
Again it’s completely possible it’s about Becky. Especially if Willis, as someone who only came out as nonbinary after their mom’s death, wasn’t thinking of Carol’s reaction as something it made sense for Joyce to fear, then it’s not even an option! Sometimes you just don’t think of something.
But I certainly don’t think it would be weird for Joyce to be freaking out about that instead.
To me this reads like Joyce realizing all of it at once. Her family, her church, Becky, the rest of her social circle at the dorm. Hence the dissociation face as she tries to prioritize where to run first, and the compass probably points to Becky.
Her dad saw the other photo of Jocelyne at the protest, and that was definitely less newsworthy. He’s probably following the online version of the paper or something.
For starters. Also means that her parents may well see it (depending on how far the picture ends up reaching).
Also, I couldn’t see in the newspaper image, but based on how she’s tagged in the strips featuring the newspaper, it also seems to show Jocelyne… which, uh, yeah, that could be a pretty serious concern as well.
Don’t trust agreeing to talk about things later. You must settle everything in one long mega conversation then never talk about anything again! That’s called honesty!
To Dorothy, she’s all “take my hand.” To Joe, she’s “I gotta go. Gotta go. Right now.”
Joe, I understand that this is the first woman you’ve ever loved like this, but just becaue you spent your entire life trying not to be your father, doesnt mean you should springboard into being your mother.
I wouldn’t say he has become THAT submissive, but when your partner tells you they need to do something alone, its usually the good choice to listen to them.
Also the situation is very different right now, she is most likely running to Becky to try and work this situation out with her, it would not at all help Joyce if Joe was also there, she does not need distractions or another chance to mess things up by saying the wrong thing in front of Joe.
I love how that has become a thing. it pleases me. Joe turning into his mom. maybe we’ll get to see his mom show up and tell him he’s falling into the same pitt she was in.
This whole “Joe is turning into his mother” take just reeks of victim-blaming if not outright misogyny. What the fuck is his mother alleged to have done wrong exactly?
Joe’s mom stayed with a cheater who didn’t care about her as much as she deserved to be cared about.
Its not victim blaming to point out she was being used by Joe’s dad and that’s a bad place to be.
It’s not misogyny to point out that in Joe’s fear of being an abuser, he’s power sliding into becoming a victim.
The stance would remain the same if Joe’s mom was the cheater, and his dad was the one who stayed. Gender has nothing to do with this outside of Joe’s parents being in a het relationship.
Well for one thing, they’re divorced, so no she didn’t.
Allow me to put words in your mouth for a moment, though. “But!” you say “There was an amount of time between when he started cheating and when she divorced him!”
To which I say that A: we don’t actually know how long that time was. B: presenting it as some equal/equivalent moral failing to Richard’s cheating is a bad look regardless. C: It’s an even worse look when you take a moment to consider that being a single mother is pretty tough both emotionally and financially.
There’s a very easy thing you can do to solve all of this where you just talk about Joe, the character in this story, witthout pointing to his mother, a character we have never seen and barely know anything about, as some cautionary tale.
What are you even talking about? The comments you’re replying to aren’t misogynistic and haven’t characterized Joe’s mom as having any moral failings, just pointed out that she was mistreated by a cheating partner until she ended things. You’re tilting at windmills.
1. We know it was more then once because Joe has repeatedly said Serial Cheater.
B. I never said it was an equal moral failing. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire doesn’t make them *equal,* it just means you try to escape one Bad Thing and fall into another Bad Thing.
三. If you can’t understand how “In trying to be less like his father, he’s fallen into the same bad justifications his mom used to stay with her cheating partner” without it being some kind of gendered attack, I will have to agree with Taffy on the dihydration issue.
Thank you for articulating far better than I could.
I do feel like Tan does have a point – we don’t for certain know everything that happened between Joe’s mother and father, and what the circumstances are of his “serial cheating.” Assuming that Joe’s mom continued to stay with him over the years and endure this is a relatively safe assumption, but it’s still an assumption. What we do know, is that she was aware of the cheating and decided to stay, at least for a period of time.
And I’m 100% not going to criticize someone who decides that they’re going to take the hard road of trying to build your marriage back up after infidelity. That’s an incredibly difficult, incredibly brave task, and we should not look down on those people who selflessly give others second chances who absolutely don’t deserve it.
But I would never, EVER encourage someone to do that for someone they were dating. Especially for the short amount of time that he and Joyce were. Are. Argh.
It’s just those looks, like on the very last panel. Looking after her, with slightly watery eyes, not knowing what the future will hold. Joyce knows what the future will hold, and it will be kissing Dorothy, many times. He’s got so much of his hopes and emotions pinned on her still being in a relationship with him, that he really isn’t giving me poly vibes – even though Joyce 100% is.
it´s kinda awful seeing people defending cheating, even if it is with another woman.
Joyce has a lot of mitigating circumstances but she´s definitely cheating and avoiding responsibility nevertheless.
I’m not sure who in the thread you’re responding to is justifying cheating, I can’t see any instance that looks even remotely like that here.
What I do see not getting acknowledged at all here is Tan’s excellent point about *why* Joe’s mom would have stayed, if she did. Because being a single parent is hard, because putting your kid through that is a nightmare, I went through a pretty low stakes, low emotion divorce with zero kids and it still took me years to recover. My daughter has nightmares frequently about her dad cheating on me or us divorcing, she woke me up at 4 am the other night to get a hug and some reassurance that no, we weren’t in a bad place. Parents stay in the face of infidelity because the marriage isn’t about them, it’s about their kids. Joe’s dad is a doctor, right? He makes good money and is a reliable provider even if he isn’t a good father/husband, meanwhile if they divorced then Joe’s mom would have to start worrying about doing it all on her own, with no support. Even if there weren’t religious/community concerns, that is so daunting.
So all that to say, Joe’s mom had her reasons for staying and trying to make it work until she got fed up, and most importantly they are not and can not be Joe’s reasons.
It’s toxic as hell to have such a fairytale view of romantic love where you think you own somebody and if they love someone as much or more than you that they are somehow sullied forever and you need to cut your losses. It’s like throwing away a glass of water on a hot day because someone put cucumber in it. Yes, it’s different from how people are raised these days but it’s absolutely not a natural state to be in, to decide to cut your arm off because it couldn’t flip a pancake right. Joe already saw this situation coming, his interference prompted it to manifest, he intended that outcome, he did it because he does value Joyce and does want her to be happy and doesn’t want to lose her. Breaking it off with her or her breaking it off with him would be losing her. People have a lot of love to give, he will still get her love and her time, but yes, it will not be literally all of the love and time she has available.
So saying, what I wondering if this is what’s impacting him in this page is that before she -would- have pulled him along on any adventure, but she is instead saying “something I’m deeply afraid of may have happened and I don’t intend to face it with you by my side.” It suggests no matter what she has already recontextualised the dynamic they share where he is less important, at least for the moment.
She is really being supremely shitty to him here, yeah. It seems like she’s got bandwidth for everyone else’s emotions except Joe’s, and that’s pretty bad. He’s always been there for her, even when they were more like frienemies than anything else. Getting tossed aside over and over so Joyce can be there for others is unfair to him on a lot of levels.
Taking him with her would not be kind or fair to him at all. She can’t rely on him as her boyfriend until she’s sorted out if he still is, as well as preferably the implications for their relationship and how they’re going to present it, and what happened, to other people – as a united front, since that’s the only way taking Joe along won’t make things even worse. Which Joe knows, and would act like, which means Joyce dragging him along while they’re still in relationship limbo would require incredible feats of effort, love, patience and support of him.
Joyce running off to handle her own shit is the most considerate thing she could have done on this panel tbh.
…Yeah, that’s probably a good reason to recalibrate.
I am really worried about this relationship. Poly (including ‘ranked’ poly with a primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. Forgive me, I don’t know the technical term for this relationship structure) can be great and healthy but I worry that some of this is coming from a place of low self-esteem and fear of losing Joyce for Joe and that’s not a healthy place for any relationship – mono or poly – to come from. Doesn’t mean he can’t get better while in the relationship but I worry it will be choppy sailing for a while.
which is why im against them being in a Poly relationship. neither Joe or Joyce are in the headspace to be sharing like that. Joe would end up very hurt within a month of it happening and Joyce would let it go right to her head and end up trampling on both of their hearts, or at least Joe’s, by mistake.
I want all three of them to be happy, and thats not gonna happen if they attempt a Poly relationship like the one Joe is suggesting.
Honestly I think you’re underestimating all three of them. Will it be a hilarious mess? Yes. Will they truck on sorting it all out as they go without accumulating lingering bad feelings? Also yes. If anything, I expect Dorothy to show the kind of respect and consideration to Joe as Joyce’s other partner that will actually help Joe’s self-esteem and self-respect in this area. Sometimes you need someone in your corner willing to go “excuse me, they asked for no pickles” and Dorothy visibly radiates this energy.
The guy she literally called a cheating asshole to his face, like three days ago? That also told him, again, to his face, that he never had to try for anything in his life, when he was literally forgoing any kind of actual loving relationship for the sake of others?
You really think that she’s going to go to bat for him, after she taught Joyce how to masturbate to get rid of him?
ALL of this is coming from from a place of low self esteem on Joe’s part. He doesn’t think he deserves Joyce, so he’ll be happy for any kind of attention she’ll give him.
As opposed to the truth, that he actually doesn’t deserve Joyce, because he’s grown past her.
I don’t think it’s 100% coming from a place of low self esteem, but it mostly that. I think he said he didn’t think he got to feel jealous, not that he didn’t feel jealous.
He said he did not. He only said he don’t get to right after. It is true of course that he may have lied, and even to himself. I’m really hoping he didn’t.
hm, maybe you’re right. I’ve had a hard time finding the strip. Maybe I remembered it the other way because I took it as him lying to himself, the qualification showing that.
I hope he’s lying to himself. Everything working out nice and neat, and Joe not having any issues is boring.
I can’t decide whether I wanna see a Becky crashout or not. Part of me wants her character to be so past this semi-toxic Joyce possessiveness crush, but part of me also thinks seeing the drama would be entertaining.
I really hope that Becky doesn’t fall into some sort of deep obsession drama over this. She’s got a good thing going with Dina, and I’d really hate to see that get damaged over Joyce.
How much of the archnemesis schtick is “ha ha only serious”? She’s clearly playing it up as a joke. But there’s also clearly a kernel of truth in it. The question, which she’s been quite effective at obfuscating, is where the joke ends and the truth begins.
I’d prefer the drama come from Walky as one of the parties actually wronged in this situation. It’d be really weird if both the guys were chill about it and the only people crashing out over it were ones who are external to the situation.
Especially if they can clearly be framed as wrong because they’re upset about her coming out as gay or about the potential poly or on behalf of someone who isn’t actually upset about it themselves (Like if Sarah stays mad at Joyce for betraying Joe while Joe actually happily stays friends with her).
The thing is, Dorothy and Joyce being one step away from making out has long been an open secret to everyone in their circle but them. Walky and Joe very much included. Both of them entered their respective relationship with one of them without worrying about it – Joe because he’s thought it through and concluded that he’s poly enough for it, and Walky, imho, because he sees a sexual/romantic relationship as friendship with sexy privileges plus whatever hangups his current partner has about it.
A random outsider dude would be justifiably upset and surprised about this. But neither of them are dating random outsider dudes. Both Joe and Walky pretty much knew they were signing up for girls’ love romantic drama, and wouldn’t have entered the relationship without being ok with that.
Let me rephrase, then: it would be insanely boring if both of the guys were cool with it, and I would be right back to absolutely despising this storyline.
I really want Becky to be perfectly okay with it, maybe take some exception to the cheating thing for religious reasons but otherwise not be bothered at all. The way everyone keeps building up Becky’s reaction is telling me that seeing her be okay would be funniest.
Walky who is 100% perpetually forgotten crashing out is what I want lol. I need a solid “wtf bro this whole operation was your idea” followed by him going on a grump arc. Bro needs friends, he needs to find his people because this group has never been it.
I’d also like to see Billie upset because 1.) She Didn’t Actually Say That and 2.) I just wanna see her be nice to Walky some. Stand up for her lifelong friend that she drops at every convenient opportunity, y’know?
Also hoping for Becky to either be completely okay with it (completely over Joyce) or (more realistically, especially for Becky) pretending to be completely okay for it both for Dina’s sake and her own pride(/’face’/dignity). Even if you’re in a relationship with someone else, learing someone important to you feels about you “I like having you as a friend, but I wouldn’t want you as a life partner” (friendzoning) is an uncomfortable revelation (which might weaken the relationship between Becky and Joyce more than other things so far).
Is it weird that I think Walky doesn’t have friends? Not in the traditional sense. It’s not that his friend group has failed him as much as their judgement is skewed by constantly wanting to fuck him. Jennifer may be his only actual platonic friend that supports him in anyway without romantic intent. Even Amber has admitted to it, and Joyce taking petty joy in stealing his girl really takes a lot credibility out of the friendship, it’s very solidly toxic and not so much the cute sibling dynamic people like to pitch it as.
So Walky is left kind of hanging. That’s why he seems forgotten. No one is thinking about him. There’s just Jennifer and maybe Booster, but Booster doesn’t seem very solid as a friend yet.
There’s Sal, increasingly. But yes Walky has a problem where all his friends are Joyce and Dorothy’s friends. I’d like him to form more of a friendship with Joe like in the Walkyverse, but then the problem repeats itself.
Not at all, I don’t consider Walky having any friends. Friends are people who will stand in your corner when pressed. Maybe not when the chips are down, maybe not to the death, but like… if Linda came and said something bad about Sal in front of their friends, I can see several people getting uncomfortable or even saying something. I cannot picture that with Walky. I don’t think Walky has anybody in his life who actually has his back and it makes me profoundly sad for him. Dorothy was the absolute closest and she cheated on him lol.
Walky should go hang out with Ethan and Asher. They’d actually be a pretty nice friend trio with similar enough interests before Asher’s inevitable embrace of evil.
I’m trying to remember. Did someone in her family say that they were getting the paper now that her comic was in it? Would that even be possible, for a college newspaper?
Yeah. Hank would… well, I believe he’d be in a similar place as where Joyce was when Becky came to her.
But Carol would turn the rest of her family against her, and then disown her, “for her own good.” And all the while they would tell her that they were doing it because they loved her.
Yeah, Becky is what I HOPE that horrifiee face is referring to.
Hank would work past it, and I kind of doubt she cares about the rest of the family if they make it an issue either. What are they going to do other then shun them.. which.. thanks, shunning is pretty awesome.
I do not think Joyce would find shunning by not only most of her family but also everyone she grew up with to be “awesome”.
Plus, again, PTSD trigger. Her mom literally called her up after the shotgun incident to let her know she identified with Ross and felt the same way Ross does.
In the long run though, even if she herself was straight, she’s going to face shunning from Carol and John and a lot of that church. Or she’s going to cut them off herself. She’s not giving Becky up. She’s an atheist now and isn’t going back to church. Jocelyne’s on HRT which means she’s pretty much coming out or going no contact soon enough and Joyce will fight for her if needed.
It won’t be awesome and she may not be ready to accept it, but the tracks are laid and the train is rolling.
Speaking from experience: it’s different to be shunned by someone because they’re a bigoted asshole (generic) in a way that only affects you because you’re a human being with compassion than it is to be shunned by someone because they hate an intrinsic part of who you are.
Carol has an uncanny ability to deny what’s right in front of her when it’s something she doesn’t want to acknowledge. it’s possible she will deny it’s Joyce in the picture or say Joyce is just lashing out for attention. Not great but the less seriously she takes her daughter the better.
It’s possible for them to be emailed it. College newspapers are online, like other papers, and without a paywall (at least the ones I’ve looked at). My guess is that Hank got the first photo of Jocelyne from some sort of alum or parent email newsletter from IDS.
idsnews.com has at least three buttons on the front page to subscribe to get emailed their “daily rundown” newsletter, one at the very top of the page.
“Are you mad dad?”
“Of course I’m mad! You lied to me! You told me [deadname redacted] wasn’t at the protest but [pronoun] was! And on top of that, you were getting freaky in public!”
I actually think the lie is going to bother him more than the kiss, like in this hypothetical phone call Joyce is a couple of hours away from getting.
I don’t remember them saying they were getting the newspaper, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one or both of Joyce’s parents are getting copies of the college newspaper, either in mail or online.
It’s a major incident. Any eye-catching photograph surrounding a major incident like that is going to make the real news- & then social media.
Add in the fact that she was in the news for a kidnapping/murder case just a few months ago & she’s going to be headline material.
Which all adds up to- her family (or whatever is left of it) is going to see this. & They are going to see Jocelyn as well. & They have some level of financial hold over both of them.
Or maybe that’s a conversation that needs to include more than just the two of them to resolve. A poly relationship would need all members involved to be consenting, no? And even relationship stuff aside, there’s a very real chance Joyce is worrying about the fallout of a publicized coming out, as discussed in the 13 comment threads above this one.
Joyce isn’t bailing out on this because she needs time to think about it or because she needs to consult with Dorothy. She’s bailing out becasue she’s either:
– going to deal with parental fallout, which, fair: she’s dependent on Hank, so that might top her priority; or
– going to deal with Becky fallout, which, unfair: if relationship talk with Joe isn’t her priority after she cheated on him over talking to Becky because she might had her feefees hurt because Joyce wasn’t romantically into her, Joe should bail out now. All the bails. Forever.
She has already had a relationship talk with Joe and needs to process what he said now. He already WAS her first priority before Becky. Joe does not get full dibs on her “processing the entire disaster, including parts that are not about him” time, that would not be good to either of them.
Even as she was running out the door with horror face, Joyce remembered to turn around and reassure him that she’s coming back. That aays enough about how much she prioritizes him, I think.
Unpopular opinion, but I don’t actually think your college boyfriend needs to be your first and only priority when you and your sister have just potentially been double-outed to everyone you know.
But she’s not really, though, or at least it doesn’t look like.
The clothes she’s wearing at the protest aren’t gendered, so she’s not being outed in that angle – to change her gender presentation she’d need to cut her hair short every time she sees them so she’d look more like she did at the start of the strip (as far as I can tell, she’s been growing it out for a while now).
And even if this picture gendered her it wouldn’t out her to the parents anyway, because Hank already has a picture of her at the protest.
I suppose this changes if Daisy interviewed her for the article, but Joyce hasn’t READ the article so she can’t be reacting to that.
I would direct you back to the strip where she was waiting anxiously downstairs for Joyce and specifically said out loud to herself that if she chickened out, she could just keep her jacket on and it would hide the feminine clothing and the changes HRT has made so far.
That wasn’t the part of your comment I was disagreeing with.
I do think that “Joyce told Hank that photo wasn’t her” followed by “another photo of the person who looks like her and now Joyce is also in the photo” is still potentially relevant? But yeah, I was just replying to argue with the idea that Jocelyne hasn’t been portrayed as closeted and hiding her transition, because she has been, at least with her family.
It’s actually very reasonable to not be able to give an on-the-spot answer to “would you like to break your deeply ingrained beliefs about how relationships work in order to continue seeing me”
It’s fine for her to need time to think and put out some more urgent fires before coming back to actually talk and give Joe’s proposal the consideration it deserves. Also, Dorothy should probably know about it before she agrees to anything.
Agreed. Joe’s said his piece, snd while them hanging out while Joyce thinks it over would be ideal for their relationship, Joyce has too many urgebt problems she just found out about to do thay. Joe had her undivided attention for the key part of the conversation, then the other implications caught up.
For Joe to come with her now would imply she has already made all the decisions relevant to this and they’re operating as a duo all on the same page. Which at this point would be unfair to Joe, because Joyce is obviously still processing; he would be expected to.back her up without having the slightest idea of what might come out of her mouth next, because she’s Joyce and she’s panicking.
Not to .mention, both Dorothy and Becky deserve a private conversation with Joyce about this, without Joe also there.
In short: Joe is not the one caught gay kissing on the front page of the newspaper, this time.
How is Joyce supposed to give him “an answer” before she’s even spoken to Dorothy about the idea, dude?
How exactly would that work? “Yes, let’s be poly together, I’m sure Dorothy, whom I have not spoken to about it, and who is even now breaking up with her boyfriend, will be delighted with the idea!” This only works if the only person yr considering in the situation is Joe.
I want the polyamory talk to happen so bad, but also Joyce may have just realized she has a ticking clock over her head until her violently homophobic mother calls out a hit on her to “save her soul” or something.
And there was a protest with a massive police retaliation at the school that the Browns’ youngest child was at. They are going to find out about that, odds are high they’ll look up what happened online, and that kind of picture is absolutely the sort that would be picked up by social media and other media agencies.
Figure the odds that they *don’t* see the picture are pretty negligible, all told.
I doubt Mrs. Brown gets the campus paper. However, the front page image might be used by other more mainstream publications or shared around on social media, where Mrs. Brown is more likely to see it.
news (and iconic protest photography) spreads fast in this day and age
Honestly, even if Joyce’s parents and community were all supportive, Joyce and Dorothy might be getting targeted by *cops* for this for the rest of their lives. Real world protestors in these photos have been assassinated. And Joyce’s mom *is not supportive.* She has openly stated she’d “die for” Joyce, which by her definition, means violently attacking her and her loved ones. If she catches even a single whiff of this from anywhere, which she almost definitely will knowing her cult’s creepy ass behavior, this is *dire*.
Whoever said yesterday that these two should be suing the campus newspaper over this cover picture, uh. Like I was too caught up in the moment to really think about it, but that person was DEEPLY correct, this is an actual life threatening situation they were put in for no reason.
On the campus the last act of homophobic terror happened on!!! TWICE!!! Daisy is now at the bottom of my tier list, whoa holy fuck.
I mean, the IDS in real life has an e-mail subscription option and could easily be bookmarked by someone already annoyed at happenings surrounding her kid at that campus.
While I agree this is going to filter back to Hank and Carol and that’s going to cause drama (possibly on the same level as The Toe That Walks and Blain were able to cause) given that it’s a college paper I’m not sure yet that’s occured to her yet and she’s worried about people on campus seeing it. Including and especially Becky who both her and Dorothy seemed to agree was going to be harder for them to tell than Joe and Walky would.
The whole reason Joyce and Dorothy went to the protest was because her father had seen a photo of Jocelyne there, and that was definitely a less newsworthy photo. He’s almost definitely following the news and Joyce knows that.
yeah like a huge part of the last chapter was Joyce trying to keep her queer sibling safe from her parents, who were finding things out they had no reason knowing. that was in-universe a day ago TToTT
Sure, but it doesn’t matter – Hank already has a photo of Jocelyne at the protest, meaning that photo is already out there making the rounds. This photo might out Joyce and Dorothy (to a limited number of people, seeing as everyone else is going ‘no shit, sherlock’ about this), but it doesn’t really change Jocelyne’s visibility.
There was plausible deniability of the first one, since Hank was asking if it really was her. A second image, with Joyce also there, makes it more clear.
Maaaaaaan I hope everyone’s fears are wrong and Becky is not the concern here. I like Becky and I’m gonna think less of her if her reaction is “how dare you not date/smooch/be attracted to me instead”
If Becky feels hurt over it I think it’d be more than it means (to her) that Joyce didn’t not want her because she was straight but because there’s something wrong with her.
Or it could bring up more of her anxiety around identities being fluid or feelings of abandonment. Y’know, Becky has a lot of insecurities she tries to hide now that I think about it.
That’s fair, just all the comments about “Becky’s gonna be sooooo mad at Joyce not wanting to date her originally if she turns out to like girls” have left such a bad taste in my mouth. Not least because well, it’s a possible emotional reaction a young adult could have! But I hope not 🙁
I’m with you there. There’s a lot of predictions that seem a little bit mean spirited or based in bad faith. I think Becky is more emotionally mature than she sometimes comes across, but she’s got her vulnerabilities.
I think Becky will be mad that Joyce didn’t come out to her before she was on camera smooching her girlfriend.
Like, she’ll be mad that Joyce might think Becky was still holding a torch for Joyce, while she had Dina, the Best GF ever. so she didn’t tell Becky because she’d try and smooch Joyce.
she should be good once she realizes that 20 second speech unlocked her bisexuality like the “Link Finds a Boomerang” Song.
I have been wondering if this is going to be the switch-up on the obvious, as well. Becky’s not mad Joyce is bi, Becky is mad that Joyce and Dorothy felt like they had to go behind her back, when she actually does quite a lot to have theirs.
Having a wonderful girlfriend doesn’t automatically magic away whatever lingering complicated feelings one might have over one’s childhood best friend one was in love with for years.
To be fair, I think Becky has noticed that Joyce and Dorothy are in aggressive denial and lying to themselves, not her. Not teleporting to her mid-protest before teleporting back to br non-consensually photograped, I think she’ll understand.
This. Becky will likely be chill, but… I think if Joyce did not prioritize talking to her about this, she *would* end up deeply hurt inside. And Joyce probably knows this about her: that Becky would not make a scene, but that does not mean she’d fake it well.
Just the confirmation that Joyce absolutely does care about her and think about her and understand why she would be upset is worth a lot.
yeah everyones been expecting Becky Incel Moments for a while now, but its like. Becky is an entire adult woman with a happy months-long relationship. She already took the rejection, recovered, got mad at Joyce for something else, recovered from that too, and is still going strong.
Becky’s fine. If anything, she’s not going to get mad at Joyce, she’s going to have depression about the fluid identity insecurity thats been eating at her *while also* trying to support her newly gay best friend.
I mean, probably, at least. I’ve been having so many hard reads with Joe and Dorothy and whatnot that eventually I have to be wrong sometime, but like. Becky doesn’t read as incel to me
Wait… What if, instead of being hurt that Joyce just left, he is actually worried about her and her impending confrontation? Since Hank saw Jocelyne in the paper, I’m pretty sure Joyce realized that her parents will likely see this. Granted they are divorced now, but I bet Carol would still find out…
My thought is this is an impending misunderstanding–Joe is taking this as a soft “no,” while Joyce has just realized that either her parents or someone else might also be seeing this on the news, and that fire needing putting out has driven everything else from her head at the moment
People who were all like “man I don’t get how Joyce is just whirlwinding through all of these steps so fast to get from the start of today, to macking Dorothy in the middle of a protest, without stopping to think for a second?”
Like, this is the most who she is, that she can be. She only stores one thing in her head at a time, but she’s fully involved in whatever comes up. She doesn’t stop to consider, she immediately does whatever new thing she suddenly feels is the most important thing to do, right this moment.
On a meta level, it also makes her a great protagonist for certain kinds of stories. If the plot ever starts dragging a bit, wave a distraction at Joyce and she’s off like a dog after a squirrel.
But has Joe had the same revelation about what it being in the paper might mean that Joyce just had? (Whatever that is. We don’t actually if she’s thinking about Becky or about her parents.)
Probably not. Remember the porn tape? Joe was completely chill about that even as it DID have tangible negative consequences for him. He’s never been in the kind of precarious emotional&social situation Joyce is in right now.
And he has a pretty good reason to be distracted with the personal relationship drama right now!
Which leaves him wondering what’s going on and why she’s running off.
If he’s still focused on personal relationship drama, he’s got to thinking it’s a reaction to what he said.
Everybody saying Becky, kinda ignoring that Joycelyne has been tagged everytime the newspaper was shown, and the whole reason she was at the protest was to warn Joycelyn about their father.
I wager that Becky is on Joyce’s mind more immediately, and then she’ll get ambushed by her parents finding the photo after she’s done with *that* fire…
Everyone who reads the school newspaper will see it. And I wonder how many people actually read it. I know when I was in college I rarely read the newspaper.
I only read my school newspaper if the front page grabbed my attention and was clearly about something I’d be interested in. Otherwise… yeeeah I didn’t read that thing.
If there’s a major disruptive event that happens on campus, then yeah, I think a lot of people are going to give it a look. Its also a front-page picture, so you just have to walk past the stand to see it.
I mean, FFS, *Joe* saw the photo. He’s pretty low on the list of people you’d expect to read the student newspaper regularly.
More likely that Becky is who she is worried about.
Although I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dad knows because he was IN TOWN to try to find her Sister and either picked up the paper or maybe even saw the kiss from afar.
I expect “Oh no, her parents!” to be the next major plot line we’re building to. Mostly “Oh no, Carol!” Hank is less likely to try his hand at kidnapping or murder. Or hiring someone to attempt those.
No, it’s a student paper and I think her current worry is other students who might see it. Mostly Becky.
I think Carol is the physical/financial danger, but Hank is the emotional danger. He’s had Joyce’s back so far, and in her place I’d be more afraid of losing that than the mother I’d already lost. Plus he’s the one whose reaction we’ve been primed to dread, given how this all kicked off.
I think people are really underestimating Hank. Recall the storyline where Joyce and Becky go back to their hometown to get Becky’s documents? Hank was 100% there for Becky, she was like his daughter.
He flat out told her “Your mother would be so proud of the woman you’ve become.”
Hank will 100% have Joyce’s back. He might not understand Joycelyn, but if there is one thing Hank knows it is that he loves his children. I think that will see him through.
No one is underestimating Hank. The observation is that this storyline started with a text from Hank asking Joyce if it was her “brother” in a photo of the protest for reasons we don’t yet know.
Also, it doesn’t matter how irrational it might be to fear losing Hank, that’s still what goes through your head when you’re outed. Coming out to important people pretty much never stops being scary. You never can be completely sure that even seeming okay with other people being gay means they’ll be okay with it for their own children. Sometimes? They’re not.
We the adults removed from the situation can predict Hank will be kind. Spiders Joyce, who has just had two kidnappings over a gay friend happen on campus, one of them funded by LITERALLY HER OTHER PARENT (who she also did not used to think was evil) is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
Just continuing to be annoyed at Daisy here (*side eyes own Gravatar*) thinking that even if she got to the part where she was going to run the image, she could have at least given a heads up to Dorothy, who she definitely has contact info for and a work relationship with.
(It’s hard to say exactly how identifiable they’re supposed to be in the picture to people who don’t know them well, but Dorothy at least seems like she might be, and definitely to those close.)
I don’t really know the law enough to speak on this, but is there any grounds to sue? There’s no real expectation of privacy in a public area like that, we see photos of protestors used in newspapers very often and they don’t need public releases for that stuff or anything.
Its absolutely a dick move by Daisy (girl, you being horny on main 24/7 is amusing when it doesn’t get people hurt, dang it), and probably unethical too, but I don’t know if its actionable…
I really don’t get the Becky thing. Obviously anyone has the right to be upset about anything they want, but nobody owes Becky anything. The person she was crushing on rejecting her is a reasonable thing to say “Poor Becky” about, but that happened ages ago, and that rejection remains a rejection regardless of whether Joyce is straight or bi.
If a guy made a move on a girl and she rejected him telling him she was a lesbian, but six months later she started dating a guy… okay she’s not a lesbian anymore, but I wouldn’t see much of a reason to go “Poor guy”, any more than crushing on anyone who isn’t interested back.
I can understand why Becky would be upset but that almost feels like a regression of her character, maybe even unappreciative in some ways. I’d personally feel more sympathy for Dina who might have to watch her girlfriend spiral because her childhood crush does like women but just not her. It feels as if Dina has not been good enough this whole time despite being exceptionally patient with Becky’s numerous insecurities in their relationship. It would sadly validate that rebound narrative Sarah proposed so long age.
Becky’s done so well forming connections and coming into her own security and development that don’t directly involve Joyce. It would just kinda sting that she’s still holding onto that bit of bitterness even though I know emotions often don’t make sense.
Also she kinda treats Dorothy like junk specifically when it comes to Joyce not the performative rivalry thing. It would be nice to see that end.
At least a part of Becky’s performative rivalry with Dorothy is Becky expressing “I can see with my own two eyes that Joyce has a crush on you and the both of you not acknowledging that is making me feel like I’m crazy and seeing an alternate reality, so *I* will acknowledge it at least in a joking fashion”. I expect her to drop at least half the act now that they’re no longer unintentionally gaslighting her.
Becky will not cause a scene about this, and will try to be her usual cheerful self to Dina, because she knows she is not entitled to Joyce’s gay affection.
But if Joyce does not come talk to her about this, check on her, reaffirm that she does still care, that will cause a much deeper wound than the rejection itself.
The parent of a young adult in college can make their life difficult in many ways, in addition to the baseline horrible feeling of “my mom hates me now for being a [slur redacted]”
To be perfectly logical, still a lot. She is just as terrible as toe head was and also has anger/control issues.
Joyce could very easily lose access to most of her family forever, get taken out of the Will, of if Carol was really gunning for her, she could make a big fuss to the school leading to Joyce getting taken out of school to save face (like how the school is handling the protests), or she could attempt to do what Toe Head did.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m underestimating Carol but I feel like a lot of her narrative influence was spent in the big Toedad bailout plan. Once Ruth body slammed her that kind of undercut her threat potential to me. Now she’s just a old bitter divorced lady that lives in a studio apartment because she foolishly sold her house to give money to the church. Maybe she still has some sway in her church community but I really don’t know what she can do beyond making Joyce feel bad.
Well, if her main source of power is the sway she has over her church community (the church she sold her house and donated the proceeds to, that gets you a lot of sway I’d think) then the real question isn’t what can she do it’s what can she convince her church community to do.
You know, thinking about it selling her house and donating the money to the church might have gotten her a hell of a lot more than she lost. My wife’s fundy aunt didn’t even do anywhere near for her church and when she died we disovered that despite her complaining about her cramped apartment and how she was so poor it turned out she had living in half of a very nice duplex provided by her church and receiving a very generous ammount of money from their widows and orphans fund (not a widow, divorced) on top of her social security. And I bet the congregation is still bringing Carol food and offering to do her chores . . .
I’m not sure we’ve really thought through how much power this actually gave her. I mean, she’s no where near as powerful as whoever’s running the cult, but this likely put her right up there with the official or unofficial leadership just below him. Probably somewhere above his goons and below his fixer. And below any “prophet” or “miracle healer” that might be part of the church if he doesn’t take that role.
With them divorced and Hank the sole income in the family, I don’t see Carol having any financial control over Joyce – whether college tuition or Will. As far as the family goes: Carol and Jon are lost causes. Jocelyne’s the sister she always wanted and Hank’s probably at least winnable. He won’t be influenced much by Carol anyway.
If she had the money to pay towards Joyce’s education, it too would have joined the money from selling the house. No, the expenses are being paid completely by Hank. Almost certainly.
Or a combination of college savings in Joyce’s name, scholarships, government grants, and student loans. I mean, Hank could be paying and we could get drama from him pulling that but Willis seems to like action with his drama so when this finally comes home to roost I’m expecting to see an evil mom actively causing trouble on campus.
Isn’t Hank a dentist? I could be wrong but I think I remember Hank being a dentist and dentists make pretty good money. Regardless of what he does for money Carol did not seem like she worked so I feel like Hank is definitely footing the bill. Pretty impressive he’s managed to put at least 3 kids through college so far.
Honestly it is actively WEIRD to me how dismissive some commenters are being about this.
Even if Carol hadn’t literally called Joyce up to tell her the exact same spiel Ross gave Becky, even if she was completely powerless in every material sense, coming out to your family is almost always scary, and I’m sure at least John would join Carol in disowning her.
Then there’s also, like, everyone Joyce knew growing up.
It doesn’t matter that rationally she “shouldn’t” care what any of them think of her. That’s still a terrifying thing to have happen to you at any age, and she’s 19. She doesn’t even have a job. She is not financially independent.
Realistically, she wouldn’t wind up on the street, because she has a lot of people who care about her, but again: terrifying situation.
Carol doesn’t actually need to come after Joyce with a gun for her PTSD to be screaming at her right now.
Yeah, the PTSD alone is enough to cause her to panic – adding a forced outing that is completely beyond her control to her peers is vulnerable too. I think enough folks reading this comic are alright with LGBT+ being visible, but unless you’re in something akin to Joyce’s position, it’s hard to understand how mind-killingly scary and life-altering it is to come out.
As someone who was disowned by my run-of-the-mill Catholic parents, I can tell you that it feels like actual death when it first happens. If I hadn’t had someone to turn to, I might not be here anymore. Joyce may or may not be consciously fearing that, but it can reach levels of existential terror that go well beyond the dread of the words a mean parent might say. It takes a long, long time to pull yourself back together when that baseline human-instinct level of “my clan is my lifeline, and now I’m in the wilderness” has been triggered. No matter what community you have around you, it’s a wound that lingers. This fear dictated most of my life and ended up being true – Joyce is only just recently woken up to how much of an irrational death cult she has been raised in. And boy HOWDY was it an awakening, losing Mike and seeing her best friend orphaned, on top of multiple friends being in grave danger.
Now, if my mother was on record of being willing to die for me, adjacent to my best friend being kidnapped by her father for coming out as a lesbian, that would NOT help, and that fear would spill out everywhere. The stakes with Becky alone no doubt feel astronomically high, no matter how Becky actually responds. Becky might be hurt Joyce didn’t talk to her, might still be carrying a torch, might even just be like “oh hell yeah high five dude”, and it wouldn’t matter, because PTSD means fear of a repeat of old helplessness and pain. Joyce and Dorothy both have the terrible experience around a friend coming out as gay and nearly being taken away because of it, and PTSD is not logical by design. It is our most basic biological programming trying to protect itself, and the rational mind has been compared by mental health professionals to a flea riding an elephant.
Joyce’s panic is totally understandable given everything, whether it leads to consequences or not. I feel sad for Joe, but Joyce is potentially in an emotional trigger state right now, and that possibility makes me feel sad for her, too.
This exactly. Honestly, the fact Joyce had the emotional maturity to not drag Joe with her like an emotional support teddy bear, and also to turn around and reassure him that she hasn’t forgotten he has a stake in it too, feels like amazing progress for her.
Oh probably, but that headline is definitely going to go through news outlets and social media. Her parents and former church community are bound to find out…Ohhh, and Jocelyne is in the photo too. Never mind, guess they’re both coming out lol.
I know Becky is the bigger worry (and somewhat justifiably so, though honestly I think it’s most likely there’s gonna be a “fucking knew it!” celebration and she’ll gripe behind closed doors) but “everybody” also happens to include Mary who is not going to be anywhere near friendly or kind about this.
I’m honestly trying to come up with a way that Mary is the one who gets the informaton to Hank and/or Carol but I think she’s in a different cult than the one Joyce left. Although, with the Hank/Carol divorce I suppose Hank may have wound up going to a different church. Which could be the one Mary’s parents attend.
Joyce and Joe have been together long enough that they’re probably a publically known couple, but who all actually knows that Walky and Dorothy are back together?
But even if she does, what’s she going to do once Dorothy’s talked to Walky? In theory she could try to run straight to Joe or Walky now to show them, but her style is more to hold secrets and use them for advantage and there aren’t going to be any secrets here in about 5 minutes.
In general people vastly overestimate Mary as a threat. The only thing she’s ever been able to do was blackmail Ruth for a bit, and that blew up in her face.
The thing is that Mary is a hateful bigot who wants to be a threat. One of these days she’s going to figure out how to actually do something as terrible as she wants.
I mean, is she? Her entire character is wanting to be that but always failing in humiliating ways. She’s the Dr. Doofenshmirtz of christofascism. If she was ever able to be legitimately threatening, something would be lost.
If you’re familiar with Buffy the Vampire Slayer there’s the concern she might be the Warren of the comic. Who was a joke villain, right up until he tried to shoot Buffy and hit Willow’s girlfriend instead. And even if Mary herself remains useless that doesn’t mean she can’t be responsible for motivating other Christofascits to come start trouble.
WELP. There could be several reasons for Joyce running away now:
– Jocelyne has been tagged (and the reason she’d gone to the protest was TO WARN JOCELYNE about laying low!
– Her parents are going to see it (not impossible if they’ve got an email subscription)
– Does Dorothy know of the picture?
– Oh god, BECKY.
HOWEVER. There is one reason Joe looks like that in the last panel:
– She broke his heart.
Poor dude, y’all. He’s doing his best here but no way he’s not in pain.
Dude has known that he would never be her priority, he comes after Dorothy, then Becky, her Sister, then Sarah, then him.
He has always known that, but it always hurts to be proven right.
Well, it feeds into his need to be better, as toxic as that is right now. Don’t think of your own happiness, make others happy, you don’t deserve jealousy or boundaries, you’re making it up to the world for who you were, so shut up and take it, you’re a man and can take it, HAVE TO take it.
Except… has that been proven? It would’ve been better if she’d given an answer now, but she’s clearly never even considered the poly possibility before. They could talk it over, but she obviously believes there’s some kind of crisis (though it’s yet to be revealed precisely what she’s worried about, others have speculated on possibilities).
So… she’s hurried off in a panic, but still cares enough about Joe to promise to get back to him about this. There’s no evidence that whoever she’s worried about matters more to her than Joe does — it seems more likely that she thinks whatever it is simply can’t wait.
Put another way: if Jocelyne were actively getting kidnapped by a member of Joyce’s sect, to be taken to some sort of conversion camp or something, would you still think Joe’s being mistreated by having to wait a little bit before they finish discussing this? It probably isn’t anything that serious, but Joyce’s hardly the sort to react calmly to events.
Also she needs time to process what Joe has sugested. It’s better that she take time and think before answering than give a hasty answer she’ll regret later. And whether it’s her parents or Becky she’s worried about seing the photo that needs dealt with now not after she takes time to think this through and give Joe a proper reply.
There is the fact that when she was saying she has to break up with Joe because she kissed Dorothy and plans to keep doing so. Joe brought poly, which she potentially could be open to. But the reality is she is shown that she mayne open to both but if she HAS to pick one person its not going to be Joe.
Joyce has not actually “picked” Dorothy at all. Sure, she impulsively did all the sexy things with her, but in the same period of time she *also* impulsively gave Joe a blowjob. She’s just an impulsive person! Whose morals were telling her that since she *has* impulsively cheated, she now owes Joe a breakup, *because that is the decent thing to do when you’ve cheated*. Even if she would have preferred to keep Joe and stay friends with Dorothy if faced with the choice.
(Making out in the middle of an extremely intense life and death and political values situation is not being presented with that choice. Joe was not there. Considering all the factors and making a choice based on your ultimate long term priorities is not how impulsiveness works)
I’m not sure what to make of the last panel, honestly. He might be worried about Joyce, or it might be other feelings he was previously suppressing shining through… we’ll see.
Upon consideration, I think I’m reading his expression as “if she says no, I’m shaving my head and leaving for Alaska to work at a fish farm forever” (specifics pending)
I don’t think the Dorothy conclusion is breaking his heart, but Joyce saying she’ll get back to him on their relationship status sounds terrifying for him.
She is now in a picture with her sister at a protest her dad is convinced her sister is at.
And while she technically did not lie to her father that her brother was not in attendance…
Hang in there Joe, I’d put money on it being ok.
(Also I am further convinced that Becky’s reaction to this is going to be somewhere between “KISSING GIRLS IS RAD” and “I *knew* it” and then in private confess that she has conflicting feelings but she’s ok with it and she’ll be more ok with it the more time she has with it to Dina)
Same. But I do think a lot of Becky’s emotional reaction will depend on whether Joyce comes to talk to her about this. Just the fact of a check in will mean a lot.
Place your bets, everyone. What or who is Joyce afraid of seeing this?
-Mr. Brown
People is understandably wary of Hank. He’s just recently broken up this wife because things went too far. But we don’t know if he’s going to choose to love his family or to hold on to whatever is left of his old life. He might be a new man, but he could also give up on his kids for going too much on the other direction. That would devastate Joyce and hurt Jocelyn.
-Ms. Brown
Carol is a horrendous person, we all know that. And we already know that anything new she learns about her family isn’t going to sit well with her. That being said, is there much she can do? Maybe, we’re not sure what either of them could do. They’re not Thumb-man, but he was one extreme of a very messed up spectrum.
-Incelerator
Or any of his like-minded losers really. We’ve already seen Ryan’s friends going to extremes in his name. And there’s no lack of them.
-Becky
She’s probably going going to be very hurt by this. As much as she insists she hasn’t gotten over Joyce. Her newfound queerness exploding in public with the girl she already disliked for taking what she considers her place in Joyce’s heart is going to be a hard blow. And she’ll be exposed to it for a while.
-Walky
Somewhat like Becky, but we don’t know for sure if he’ll be hurt of if he’ll be nonchalant about Dorothy’s love life. Joyce is probably more concerned about Dorothy’s reaction to it.
Any other individuals we should keep in mind? I’ve already commented on the more general repercussions this could have but in here Joyce is clearly concerned for something or someone specifically.
Most likely Becky. That she realizes Joycelyne doesn’t know about it, is less likely, but as someone else pointed out, Willis has been tagging Joycelyne every time the paper has been shown. A somewhat distant third is that she realizes Dorothy doesn’t know and is about to approach Walky who might have seen it.
oh doesn’t know about the ARTICLE. I thought it was ‘Jocelyn doesn’t know they kissed so Joyce needs to tell her right away,’ and was like “but she does know, and also that’s not really an emergency.”
Deliberately wrong answer: Mike. Joyce knows that he’d never let a little thing like death stop him coming back to comment on recent events… which would be fine, but she needs to go and warn Ethan that his ex has returned.
Of the potential candidates listed here, I’m going to say the most immediate concern is Becky, because:
1) While Hank is somewhat conservative, he’s nowhere near as bad as his wife, as he’s been shown to be more concerned with the well-being of his children and their happiness than with the will of God.
2) Carol was honestly my second choice here, because while you are correct that she is a terrible person and will most likely be sometihng to worry about further down the line, she’s not the immediate choice here of people Joyce would/should be concerned about.
3) Incelerator would be a surprise concern here, considering how little of a threat he actually was to the group. All he did was skate around them indoors and shout things at them, before being swiftly incapacitated by both Amazi-Girl and Tony.
4) Dorothy’s already going to speak with Walky (or at least that was the plan), so Joyce would hopefully have faith in Dorothy to do that.
Becky, meanwhile, is the one person both Joyce and Dorothy have been dreading to tell about the situation, as it’s her reaction they’re fearing the most.
I genuinely expect Walky’s reaction to be along the lines of “next time you send boob shots to joyce i get to be cc’d”. This is “I would blow a dude for a pizza” guy, there’s no way he would think much about it beyond “sweet, I win every bet about you two eventually making out”. Like, I don’t think it’d even ping his insecurities, Dorothy has broken up with him before over a much more hurtful reason and he took her back without blinking. At least Joe follows Joyce’s logic, I expect Walky to be stumped over why Dorothy would think he’d be upset about this for at least a few seconds.
I don’t even want to say it because I think it will upset people, but I think she’s worrying about Dorothy – or more specifically, Walky finding out before she has a chance to tell him herself.
OK, I’ll venture a prediction: Joyce and Jocelyne look similar. There is great fear of what will happen when the picture is seen, but actually (apart from those who know) it is assumed that the person kissing Dorothy is “Josh” (ie Jocelyne) and the person watching is Joyce.
There is much confusion.
It’s really odd to me that the students we see are almost always on campus. If any of you went there, or to a seemingly similar school, was that what it was like? Or are the characters in DOA at school more than usual? (other than Sal when she had her bike)
I’m asking because I never lived in college residence (I didn’t want to share a room and it was more expensive than renting a two bedroom with a roommate anyway), but even my friends who did weren’t really hanging out on campus except for classes and when they were “home,” eating in the caf or hanging out/sleeping in their rooms. The rest of the time we’d hang out downtown, or go to the mall or an off-campus coffee shop, or otherwise wander the city.
I’d say it depends. I lived in a college residence my first year, then later I lived in off-campus housing. While on-campus, I did primarily just spend my time in the dorms or attending school events that they had at the time. The school sponsored events were free, and I had neither disposal income nor a car, so I really only left my campus to grocery shop, occasionally going out somewhere with my roommates, or to visit my family. When I lived off-campus, of course I only spent time on campus during classes and very rarely did I attend those school sponsored events, mainly because it was no longer convenient since I still didn’t have a car and relied on school shuttles to go back and forth. If I had disposal income and a car freshman year I probably would have explored my city more.
I didn’t go to IU but lived in my college dorms freshman/sophomore year without a car. I was close enough to home and my dad worked at the university so I went home on weekends (to do laundry and go to church mostly) but the rest of the week was spent entirely on campus. There were a few things in walking distance and my roommate had a car, but we didn’t have a ton of spending money lol.
So the characters being always on campus isn’t unrealistic to me. That’s just how dorms are, especially for freshmen.
Thank you (and doopyboop) for answering . I guess it probably also made a difference that we had free bus passes and downtown was a ten minutes with no transfers away. Me and my friends who lived in residence didn’t have cars (or gas money) either, but we were always out places, mostly free ones. It was also probably a smaller campus than IU, which means, I assume, that people wanted to go out more.
(nb I tried to send this last night but I did it wrong so it got filtered)
I spent most of my time on campus when I was in college. I found a group of friends with similar nerdy interests and we hung out in each others rooms and in common areas a lot when we didn’t have classes or work to do for those classes. If I didn’t feel like hanging out with people during my free time I would play video games or read books or watch TV in my dorm room. I went home and stayed with my family for the Summer and Winter breaks, but other than that I was almost always on campus during my college years.
A lot of it depends on the school. My campus was rural with little within easy walking distance but a few shops (and bars) that were there because of the campus market. So while we were there, we spent most of our time on campus itself. Probably more than the characters here do.
IU is in the middle of a city, so I’d expect more time in the city itself.
What strikes me as odd is that no one goes home for weekends basically ever. Joyce did once, after an attempted kidnapping. Though not after the second one. In my experience some people went home every few weeks and almost everyone a couple times a semester at least. Narratively it makes sense though: keep the cast together so they can interact. Especially with the slow pace of the comic where someone going home for a weekend would mean they were cut off for months of real time.
Joyce’s home is several hours away by car and she does not have a car, so it would require Hank coming to pick her up. Several other characters are from even further away. Doesn’t seem weird to me at all.
Sure. It’s not weird everyone isn’t going home every couple of weeks.
It’s weird that no one at all does ever. (Except for Joyce for the big post happy-fun-gun-time confrontation.)
I’m sure plenty of unnamed characters go home. Maybe even some of the minor named characters.
But the main cast is always here on the weekends. (Sure, you could probably do a detailed study and find that there was a weekend where someone didn’t appear on panel and thus could have been home unmentioned, but that’s stretching.)
It’s not that big a deal. It doesn’t actually bother me and there are definitely good narrative reasons for it. I just would find it a bit odd in reality.
Looking at this and other comments, I must have worded this badly. I didn’t mean going all the way home, I meant going off-campus in general, like out into town, or on day trips to parks/beaches/hiking, or to restaurants that weren’t on/adjacent to the campus or visiting friends (not that this last one is really relevant to DOA, since as far as I know Marcie is the only person living off campus, presumably doesn’t have room to host in her shared place, and only three people of the cast are likely to visit her).
We did all get free bus passes included in our tuition though, so maybe that makes a difference? And it was probably a smaller campus.
Contrariwise, I knew a lot of people in my dorm who basically never went home — we had enough of those types that some dorms stayed open (for a small extra fee per resident) over the major breaks, including winter break.
Hell, my parents only lived 90min from campus, and I went home once a month at MOST.
I went to a much smaller school in a suburb, but I essentially never left campus except for vacations and College Bowl competitions at other schools. Then again, I basically had Amber’s attitude towards leaving my room, so I’m hardly an average example.
I went to PSU — for a lot of the big state schools, in my experience, you can spend 100% of your time on-campus or directly adjacent to it.
All the clubs meet on campus.
The dorm cafeteria food was pretty great, actually.
Gyms and pools on campus.
Most of the student-welcoming bars and restaurants are across the street from “on campus”.
The campus has parks and outdoor hangout areas — lawns, gazebos, we even had a nice shady walking path.
Even the kids I knew who lived off-campus would routinely take a bus into campus at 8-9AM and either go home at dinner time or take the late bus home after getting dinner and going to club meetings on-campus.
Even half the fraternities and most of the sororities had their meeting places and hubs on-campus — only the big party frats had actual frat houses, and those were mostly 1-2 blocks “off-campus”.
as someone who avoided frats like the plague and thus doesn’t know anything, I actually assumed it was normal that other than maybe a party house, frats were on-campus
As a fraternity guy, but a music fraternity that allowed non-music majors, there were frats and there were frats.
At my university, there were basically three categories:
The (basically all-male) party and old-school frats had huge old houses/mansions in which dozens of college kids could sleep two to a bedroom, bought by alumni, and took themselves very seriously in terms of networking but that’s about it.
The sororities that were of similar age/membership to those tend to have agreements with the campus that certain floors/wings of certain dorms have preference for members of specific sororities. There are no sorority houses to my knowledge.
The co-ed and professional fraternities (in which I was comfortably ensconced) tended to have no house or transient houses, and used university resources like ordinary clubs — we had a “house” for a while that was just a random rental in which we arranged to grab all eight bedrooms in a two-story, two-apartment house, but our meetings were invariably in a conference room in the music building, for example.
And realistically, my frat had six-eight separate music rehearsals a week (split among 3-4 groups), one business meeting, and 0-1 parties per week, so I felt pretty good about it. We also maintain a couple of alumni groups that are pretty much spaces for getting men some emotional support from friends without the toxic-masc culture of judging guys for, y’know, having normal emotions and needs.
The worry is about Becky – Dorothy and Joyce have already stated that they are super afraid about telling Becky. Also there’s the fact that Joyce thought that “if she were gay she would be gay for Becky”, turns out that actually, no she wouldn’t!
Becky has been very fearful of sexuality being fluid which is going to present itself here in a very painful way. I think now Joyce is going to rush back to Dorothy and either Becky will be there already or will turn up shortly after.
I’m not saying Joyce has romantic feelings for Becky – I’m saying that previously when she was thinking about her sexuality she thought she was straight because if she did have any queer feelings, she would expect to feel them for Becky.
I don’t have the exact strip, but it came up yeaaars ago when Becky first came to the campus and confessed to Joyce
Joyce has repeatedly expressed extreme fear about revealing this to Becky and extreme reluctance to talk to her about it because she knows what a difficult conversation this is going to be and yet has consistently since this began insisted that the news must come from her because it would break Becky otherwise.
The problem is Becky. Everything else is secondary.
I gotta be honest, if you’re looking at that first link and not seeing “extreme fear” in the last panel I don’t think we can have a productive discussion because we apparently operate in entirely different realities. Like what do you think those faces are about or that suggestion about faking their deaths? Same thing if you’re seeing the second panel and seeing anything other than “extreme reluctance to confront the issue.”
Like, are the characters joking? No. But that first link is definitely “comical expressions of dread”. The second link features exasperation from Joyce that Dorothy is being so avoidant about telling Becky when she should have been more prepared for difficult conversations.
Today’s second and third panel, by contrast, look like fresh panic to me.
The way Joe looks reminds me so much of a depression crash. Everything inside stops, no internal dialogue, no background ‘music’, unable to initiate anything. Ruth described something similar the Billie once. Horrible thing.
Conversely Joyce has had every neuron fire at once. Lock n load, people!
Joe has been a consistent friend as she decompartmentalizes the toxic parts of her upbringing. He’s worried about her and the fall out affecting her from lots of angles.
He’s also balancing by not being smothering. I think Joyce realized that he truly loves her as a person and not a posession or conquest when he said that he couldn’t fulfill the same niche Dorothy does, and he’s emotionally mature enough to understand that.
She was texting Joe when she visited home. He has always made time for her, Dorothy has had her own spiral time, but that doesn’t mean Dorothy doesn’t love Joyce. Joe has just been more gentle like he doesn’t want to scare Joyce away.
Joyce got through the relationship convo with him until the natural “now gimme five minutes to actually process this” stopping point, at which point she realized what all this might actually mean for her social and family life. I wouldn’t call that deprioritizing Joe.
Of course he’d be worried and upset over her lack of an answer before runnjng away. But the fact is, their relationship right now is significantly less on fire than the rest of everything else. And if anything, Joyce is being thoughtful&kind towards him by not enlisting him to help her put it all out while still in a limbo.
It’d be really funny if people were right about Carol showing up, maybe even with a gun and/or hired goons (from the church mafia, idfk), but then some random passerby just decided to pepper spray her and not stop.
YES! i am in agreement that i think the panic is regarding here sister and father before becky, but her mom showing up is absolutely a thign that could happen, and it would be honestely funny to me if her involvent in toedad incedent means she’s known to campus security, and we get a shot of joyce and friend moving between classes, and carol in the background just getting wiped out by campus security.
But if Joyce was writing her comic for the newspaper wouldn’t she know what days it comes out? Seems weird for a paper to not run comics on a Sunday and I know that Roomies! Had special strips on weekends. I know Joyce got super intricate with the plotting and dates of the comic for pacing purposes.
I’ll check back tomorrow because I’ve been getting heck for being hyper focused on the comic too much by my partner.
I think the joke is that the IDS does *not* have a Sunday edition, and why would a student newspaper have one? Despite its name, I don’t think it’s even a daily, it’s published once a week.
The in comic one is daily. Joyce has far too comic strips for it to be otherwise.
And why wouldn’t a student newspaper have a Sunday edition? It’s not like students aren’t on campus over the weekend.
This is about Becky and I don’t know why this is a matter of speculation. Becky is the person whose reaction Joyce and Dorothy have most vocally feared. There could be some concern about Joyce’s parents creeping in now that this is becoming wider news but what Joyce is concerned about here, and what she can do something about right now, is Becky.
Like I said: neither of them look afraid to me. Joyce looks a bit incredulous as she points out to Dorothy that she would’ve had to have difficult conversations as a president.
This strip looks like panic to me, which is just completely different from “comical faces of dread” followed by “jeez, all the way down at 700+, huh?”
The second strip shows more dread from Dorothy than from Joyce.
Willis might still be going there, I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying I personally think fear of being outed to her family makes more sense to me.
“Carol sucks and Joyce shouldn’t care about her” okay but emotions don’t care about those things. PTSD certainly doesn’t.
So many folks today dismissing Joyce’s PTSD as something that obviously won’t be triggered because they personally don’t think Carol is a credible threat. Weird, but then again, this is the same comment section that kept acting like Dorothy’s flashbacks to Joyce’s kidnapping were an insult and unfair to Joe, as if they were a choice she was making on purpose.
Sigh. Sorry. I’d delete this if I could. I am obviously frustrated about the dismissal I keep seeing, but this is a rant I shouldn’t have aimed at you. It’s just kind of leaking out.
I love Joe, I don’t like that last panel! But it is rough seeing so many people not only focus entirely on Joe’s feelings in response to this strip but be kinda rudely dismissive of Joyce’s anxiety. Whether it’s over Becky or her family, it’s not a reaction she is choosing to have because she doesn’t care about Joe.
On that much we can agree! Joe’s thrown a lot at her, none of which was she was expecting, and she’s got a lot of fires to go put out right now. She’s handling things and treating Joe probably the best she can be right now, circumstances permitting.
Which of course doesn’t mean Joe has no right to feel hurt! Just that it’s not fair for folks who are upset on his behalf to be treating this strip like Joyce went, “Oh dang, I forgot I had a load of laundry in the dryer, I’d better go move it over.”
Or something else equally nonurgent but I can’t think of a good example that isn’t a metaphorical meme now, heh.
Agreed fully & exactly. This is shit timing for their relationship to be at a vulnerable point at the same time Joyce’s entire life is on fire, but it is what it is. From the moment Joyce got her shit together to talk to him, she’s been as kind, thoughtful and caring of him as she possibly physically could.
Like, her options as of this moment are:
– stay in Joe’s room, talking through her realizations and worries and hangups one by one with him until she reaches a conclusion. Joe would undoubtedly prefer this, but it would mean basically abandoning the rest of her social life in his favor. If anything, it would effectively make him responsible for the results of this neglect (which can be minor or not), making this not the kindest option to him at all;
– ask him to come with her while she handles the Everything without having actually given him an answer about their continued relationship status. In this arrangement Joe would be expected to silently stay behind Joyce, either looming or making himself invisible depending on context, implicitly or explicitly supporting her in everything she says and decides to address this, even as, with her still not having processed it all, it can be literally anything including “actually we ARE breaking up right now, I just decided”. Needless to say, this would be an option that EXTREMELY takes advantage of Joe’s kindness towards her, and has great potential for him to be personally hurt while also humiliated in public. Bad;
– blurt out an answer to Joe that she hasn’t considered, hasn’t thought through and hasn’t processed the implications of. Which is also unkind to him, because Joyce’s not-thought-through default settings are fairly terrible. She knows this, which is why these days she tries to take her time when confronted with a novel situation;
– this, here: put off answering Joe until she can think about it, and run off to handle her shit by herself in the mea t ime.
The only better option I could see would be to tell him what she suddenly realized she needs to run off to do, which would reassure him it’s not her freaking out about his suggestion.
Of course that would kill the suspense for us of who she’s actually most worried about finding out right now. Especially if we’re cutting away from her tomorrow.
Joyce did say “oh shit, EVERYONE is going to see this”. Which, honestly, I think covers her panic. Becky’s probably first on the list, but I really think it’s sorted by proximity.
I’m bad at faces; sometimes, it’s nice when characters overreact like they’re in a classical Greek tragedy so they’re unambiguous… but yes, it does risk taking something that’s deliberately exaggerated for humorous effect by the characters themselves as though it’s their sincere reaction. I’m still confident Joyce cares a lot about Becky’s reaction, but am not certain it’s her priority right now.
But… I was distracted in my reasoning by much the same thing you were, Li; over the last while, there’ve been a number of comments that seem to treat Joe as the only character in the strip who matters and regarding Joyce’s concerns as entirely irrelevant.
Yes, Joyce cheated. Yes, that’s bad. That doesn’t make her an unperson, just a horny teen making mistakes (much as Joe has). Some of the comments seem to regard her as having permanently crossed the moral event horizon, and almost make me feel like a few of the people who chose the “frightening body horror manifesto” option in the poll maybe weren’t actually joking.
I’m not actually sure what my point was here. Maybe I should take a break from commenting outside of blatantly jokey stuff and perhaps the occasional filk or whatever.
but if they had not cheated, this picture would not exist, and there would be no panic. therefor this is a direct consequence of the cheating. and for someone of joyce’s history, publicly being outed as at minimum BI as well as cheating is a pretty damn big consequence.
it may not be the consequence wanted by the palladins, but it is still 100% a consequence of their cheating.
That seems like a big stretch or a complete misunderstanding of what the paladins mean.
If she hadn’t been dating Joe at all, that same sequence of events at the protest could have played out with the wedding verse and the archway of teargas and the Kiss caught on camera without any cheating and all these consequences for coming out as bi would still be the same.
It’s because they kissed so publicly, but not because that public kiss was cheating.
removeing the context of the events that actually occurred does not change the facts of what occurred. that is no different than saying that they could have just as easily had all the same events witout kissing and not ended up front page news.
joyce is dating joe
joyce attends protest to warn sister
dorothy while at protests decides to make a statement regarding her beliefs (what beliefs are only known to willis atm)
joyce seeing dorothy taking a risk, and barely escapes harm herself, decides to go after her.
they confront each other and discuss their love being intense and mutual. (at this point it would be easy to remember their suroundings and run)
they decide to kiss. an act we can define as cheating in the mind of the participants and the victim of the cheating)
everything that follows is a consequence of the act of cheating. hypothetically removing the victim of the cheating doesnt mean anything as that is not the facts of what occurred.
just because the consequence you want to occur has not yet happened (there is a good chance that she loses joe as a romantic partner and friend, dont’ want it to happen but i do acknowledge that it could) doesnt mean that what is currently occurring isnt not a consequence of their actions.
Becky will probably be hurt, and Joyce may be concerned about her feelings, but Joyce and Dorothy didn’t wrong her.
Joyce wronged Joe, and plot armor protected her from that by having Joe set it up.
I got a horseshoe theory about sickos and paladins, and the un-monikered middle who want a shake up with everything working out and nobody really doing anything wrong.
I don’t think it’s plot armor. I think it’s “the writing has been on the wall for months, and both Joe and Walky knew what they were walking into”. If either of them had been dating a person new to the social circle, like Walky with Lucy, it would have played out different. But a guy who knows them this well who would be opposed to “my girlfriend has a girlfriend” simply would not have started datjng either of them.
i actually wonder if we get Joe going wait and following her out the door, to me his last panel face has a strong FEAR element to the mixture of emotions, and he knows about her family. i could see him trying to catch up, with “ok is this a mike moment and if so how can i help”
I am praying to all the gods for polyamory. Listen, if my friend group could be a near perfect circle of venndiagram of sexy to sexyish leanings, so can my favorite webcomic, damnit! lolololol
a side observation regading the comment section reactions, it does help demonstrate how easy it is to get tunnel vision when speculating. like i am guilty of projecting what i want to my prdiction just as much as anyone here, and seeing the variety of takes helps remind me of the possibilities of views is as endless as the universe itself!
Something that just occurred to me is that Joycelynn was the one who wrote the article, right?
… how does that make sense though?
She hid her identity so thoroughly from the family for so long and then publiclly shares that her little sister is queer as well so soon after learning?
It doesn’t make sense because, while Jocelyne is a writer, she’s not a writer for the paper in question, and is unaffiliated with the school beyond having graduated from it.
The character we’ve seen who has authority over the paper’s contents is Daisy, who’s both a lesbian and a monomaniac over women doing anything remotely gay.
It really doesn’t seem likely to me that Joyce’s parents are going to see this photo. Even if they do, Joyce has her back to the camera with about one-eighth of the side her face visible. Would they even recognize her. As for Jocelyne, she’s in the background and partially obscured by the title text. Even if she is recognizable, she doesn’t look noticeably more femme then she did in the strip where Hank commented on her growing her hair long. (That might have been a bonus strip.) I don’t think she’d be clocked as trans just from this photo. Now, if Willis decides to go there, it’s plausible enough that I’ll buy it, but as it stands, it doesn’t seem likely to me. To be fair, I didn’t think we’d end up seeing the protest or that there would be a photo so I’m not doing great on predictions recently.
As for Becky, I can see her having pretty much any reaction from ‘outwardly chill, but inwardly hurt,’ to ‘nuclear explosion,’ but I lean towards the former. I expect that, like Joe, this isn’t going to be a big surprise for her. She’s shown on several occasions that the attraction between Joyce and Dorothy hasn’t escaped her, and when Joyce told Becky about her autism diagnosis, Becky first guessed that Joyce was going to tell her she was gay. On that occasion, while Becky didn’t seem thrilled at the prospect, she also didn’t seem like she was going to explode.
Her dad already saw a photo of *Jocelyne* at the protest! He wants to know if she’s there! It’s not out of the bounds of insanity that he would check in on the protest (besides if there’s snipers on the roof then it’s making the local news and he’s relatively local), and in doing so come across the front page image.
I think it’s odd how many people are incredulous that Hank or Carol could possibly see this photo of the protest, given that Hank has literally already texted Joyce about a photo of the protest.
She’s realized Dorothy’s going to see an upcoming Julia Gray strip, and she has to find Daisy to get it pulled. It’s the one from the bonus strip, I don’t think we’ve seen Dorothy wear those clothes yet, so it’s still in the future.
hm, reading the follow-ups. I haven’t checked the outfits for those, but the Julia Gray strips take a turn that’s possibly more relevant than originally intended.
It’s possible to simultaneously recognize that (1) Joe has done significant emotional labor with maturity and grace, and is in need of validation and time with Joyce to sort through the mess she created in their relationship; and (2) Joyce has just realized that the newspaper photo is likely going to have significant impacts on Becky and her immediate family, and has justifiably gone into crisis mode. Joe deserves to be treated better, and Joyce is navigating a ton of completely alien territory in crisis mode and we needn’t be too hard on her for not getting her perception of the subtle emotional needs of others (not an autism strength) 100% right here. She recognizes that she needs to talk through her relationship with Joe and he deserves that, she recognizes that she has some timebombs on her hands she urgently needs to handle now, and we as readers know she could have taken 30 seconds to give Joe a little more emotional reassurance and gratitude.
Ngl, that exact phrasing sounds both extremely out of character for her and like something Joe would be even more scared to hear than “we’ll talk later”. He doesn’t want her to appreciate his efforts, he wants her to keep being his girlfriend. Literally anything she might say that doesn’t directly address that is a bad sign right now.
Lets put aside the neccesary practical panic thats happening over her family/Becky finding out and look at the potential poly dynamic.
We have no indication there is any attraction between Dorothy and Joe
When Joyce thought she had to pick one person she was going to pick Dorothy
So even if everyone is okay with a throuple, thats just a bad dynamic. Where both of Joe and Dorothy are only looking to get romantic affection from Joyce, but Joyce has made it known if push comes to shove and she HAS to pick she would pick Dorothy.
That’s a very difficult dynamic to make healthy. And Joyce and her upbringing doesnt exactly have a wealth of experience navigating complex poly relationships dynamics.
That’s been my concern with the “Polyamorous ending” there’s obviously a severe imbalance in how Joe feels for Joyce and how Joyce feels for Joe. I don’t think that sort of situation is sustainable ground for a relationship unfortunately
I mean, there’s hierarchical polyamory for sure. Joe and Joyce don’t have to have balanced emotions towards each other as long as they agree on the terms–terms which should have been addressed before this point, but 19 year olds in their first big relationships aren’t the ones who would really think things through.
So Joe could choose this if he wanted, and Joyce’s feelings could evolve. Or not. Joyce is experiencing huge feelings right after the most traumatic events of her life, and Joe is allowing her the space to process while still being a point of stability. I think the comment section forgets that the characters are just kids. They’re babies, not even done with their freshman year of college.
Dorothy and Joe don’t have to have any kind of relationship with each other for poly to be completely healthy and functional, so that is a nonissue.
Also, what we know about Joyce here is that after she cheated on him, she assumed she had to break up with him. Add to that that when he suggested she didn’t, she immediately felt like a hussy.
That’s not actually the same thing as choosing Dorothy over Joe, because it’s entirely possible that instead she kissed Dorothy impulsively, and then felt like she no longer HAD a choice. And we will see in coming strips whether she’s going to have to make a choice and which of them she will choose if she does!
I agree that Joe thinks she’d choose Dorothy, and I do worry some about him through all of this, but I definitely don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that she ACTUALLY loves him less at this point.
Clarifying my own comment: “and then felt like she no longer had a choice” about breaking up with Joe. Kissing Dorothy in no way obligated Joyce to start dating her, and I seriously doubt she felt that way. But that she felt like she needed to break up with Joe? Yes.
In general, I don’t think we can discount the fundie programming (and apparent propensity towards the idea that it’s always okay to go for the fairy-tale ending) floating around Joyce’s head in terms of her making relationship decisions, and as such I think she’s about as unpredictable in this situation as she has ever been.
Nah, Joyce got the blanket and gave the oral sex. Today, she tries again and again winds up flustered in the hallway after some sexings. After a couple more tries with similar results, Dorothy’s like “fine, I’ll handle it” only to wind up flustered in the hall after oral sex.
I mean herein lies one of the struggles of reading media where we don’t get the characters’ inner thoughts. We don’t know the actual internal rationale for Joyce doing that because the act is essentially a punchline, we don’t get her rationale, we don’t get an indication that it was some deep and abiding affection for Joe, or a reciprocal act of kindness due to Joe giving her something sweet and thoughtful and special. We just get “I put my mouth in his winky” or whatever the line was. That’s not to say it isn’t a sign of deep and abiding emotional reciprocity, just that we can know for sure due to the way the author writes the strips
What does Dorothy/Joe have to do with anything? We already know their dynamic is “Joyce is life, Joyce is love”. The real question mark is Walky. Obviously he isn’t going to mind, and obviously he isn’t interested in Joyce. But is he interested in Joe? Also, he’s the only one involved potentially likely to want to extend the polycule before the four of them – he and Amber did not part on bad terms at all last I checked.
While true @Opinion isn’t talking about that, they’re talking about a lack of Dorothy wanting to be romantically and/or sexually involved with Joe. Or at least a lack of attraction between the two.
Polyamory requires all parties to consent, it doesn’t require all parties to be romantically and/or sexually involved with each other. I’m not poly and I understand this but it seems to be a stumbling block for a surprising number of people that “Dorothy dates Joyce, Joe dates Joyce, Dorothy and Joe do not date each other” is a valid configuration and they keep bringing up whether or not Dorothy and Joe would be interested in dating each other.
(Panel 2 could still be about Becky, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I am talking about all the people saying Joyce obviously wouldn’t give a shit about her mom hypothetically finding out.)
My rationale remains “Joyce has not expressed worry about her parents finding out, but has about Becky, who not only has immediate access to the paper but also is someone she can handle *here and now,* while her parents are more distant and something she has to prepare for, but wouldn’t necessarily prompt such immediate urgency.”
You’re right in that her family is gonna be a factor but I don’t see textual evidence to suggest that particular wave of realization has hit just yet in my eyes.
The counterpoint to that is that we have been asked to infer a LOT about what these characters are thinking/feeling now that events are moving too fast for expository monologues, and it’s not an absurd inference (especially in light of Willis ostentatiously tagging Jocelyn when the newspaper shows up) for Joyce’s thoughts to be something like “oh shit, my dad reads the paper, and he doesn’t know about Jocelyn and/or DoJo setting sail!”
I can definitely see the potential for the fear here to be about Becky instead, but what is getting my goat is all the commenters reacting to “oh no Carol” with “why should anyone care about Carol? Weird thing to even suggest. Anyway, Joyce is being so mean to Joe right now.”
Prediction: somehow by the time I come back to this comment section at 8pm, everything will have turned so dramatically that I’ll look very silly for acting like this was even a common take. 😭
If it is Becky she is rushing to, I had BETTER not see people hating on Joyce for putting her lifelong best friend’s trauma over her boyfriend of a few weeks.
They have been friends for months. The reason why what happens in their relationship is such a big deal is because of how it can effect their friendship.
As a counterpoint to your rationale: Joyce knows that Becky will find out. Dorothy and Becky are roommates, after all. Becky finding out is something that they’re nervous about, scared even, but acknowledge needs to happen.
But that expression on the second panel… I suppose it *could* be shock, like “Oh no, this has already happened, and now I need to confront someone who already knows instead of breaking it to them myself. But to me, it looks like a sudden realization of something she didn’t think could even happen; something that shakes her world to its core, that she can’t do anything but stop and run and maybe attempt to stop.
And I really have to think that it’s someone in her family seeing the paper online. Considering, of course, that it’s known that she’s writing for the paper. Oh, and Joss is right there on the photo, too, for any curious Brown to see, as if to say clear as day, “Why yes, that IS Joyce there, it’s not her sibling who she looks very similar to, and which would be the only vaguely acceptable explanation for this.”
My evidence for this, other than the expression, is that narratively it makes a ton of sense to ramp the stakes up right now and develop the peril.
Reminds me of yesterday when someone said Joyce would have zero consequences. People just don’t understand that life is so much more than one romantic relationship.
Joyce’s whole family will respond.
Joe’s mother could say something.
Joe’s friends (like Jacob) could point out Joyce’s tendencies towards lying and cheating as deeper issues
Joyce’s mother could decide to shoot up the school
Becky’s PTSD could absolutely be triggered on top of the whole idea that Joyce didn’t say anything to her and let her find out via newspaper
I do think it’s fair to distinguish between “consequences for cheating” and “consequences for being bisexual”.
Our remaining hopes for the former are Walky reacting badly to this. Even Becky being upset about it would probably also be some of column a, some of column b.
But. Yeah. In terms of “no drama is going to happen unless Joe was openly upset”, THAT I don’t think was ever likely.
I’ve got to say, I am getting a little irritated by people missing this distinction. Partly I think it’s conflating the (some) sicko desire for drama with the paladin desire for consequences. They’re not the same thing here.
Chalk it up to fundamental misunderstanding I guess.
Some people took up arms with the sickos against the paladins, and vice versa, but the alliance was very nebulous.
Plus, some of us have narrower definitions of drama than others. I’ve definitely also seen some bewildered paladins not understanding how any “sicko” could want a poly “solution” here, and some of the people who wanted that DID want it to be happy immediately, but some of the people who wanted (or now want) it actively want it to go Terribly and ultimately self-destruct.
You know me, I’m in the middle. I could definitely find things to like about “actually no one winds up angry, and instead this turns out to have been the prelude for a complicated poly thing that immediately or eventually turns wholesome”. It would NOT be what I’ve been cheering for this whole time, but it would make me happy in different ways.
I ESPECIALLY, with rolling eyes, love the persistently expressed idea that Carol couldn’t possibly do anything when they spent all their money to help out Toedad or whatever… as though Carol wasn’t probably still a contact for Joyce with the Bursar’s Office, as though you needed more than $1000 spare on your credit card to get a brand-new rifle and enough gas to head to your misguided kid’s college.
I really think if it’s not a factor in Joyce’s fear, it’ll be because it didn’t occur to Willis (which is fair, they’re in a VERY different position wrt “bigoted parents reacting to queerness”).
this gave me flashbacks to an old forum where I got dogpiled for saying someone could fear wearing revealing clothing because of predators. I certainly did not say that wearing revealing clothing actually was the cause of sexual assault, nor that someone wearing deserved it (I very much denied those things), but everyone was leapt from my saying it was something that someone might fear to “this person thinks that’s a justified fear and also thinks that’s the way it should be.”
something I forgot when commenting yesterday
since joyce’s dad saw her sister at the protest on the news he’s pretty like to have seen joyce as well
whether the kiss is a broadly filmably/photographable moment for news coverage is another matter
which is to say I can see why she might have other priorities than relationship stuff right now
Y’know, honestly? Given that Joe isn’t actively freaking out, and there’s a solid chance that Becky is either actively freaking out or is about to do so, this isn’t the most unreasonable time in which to go “o shit I have to talk to someone else real quick”. It’s certainly not great, but I’m not sure there is a particularly great way to act in this particular situation- it’s all a lil bit fucked.
Visually I didn’t think it was Jocelyn, but if you zoom in on the newspaper when it’s first shown, you can see another person behind the text (and roughly where Jocelyn was)
but of course leave it to the comments section to up and forget that there’s a whole rest of this comic which exists before the most recent strips (-_-)
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<<< To Be Continued <<<
*plays “Roundabout” on hacked muzak*
tune in next time
Joe: If this is my fate, I accept it
Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel?
Poor Joe. 🙁
Also, that look on Joyce’s face just SCREAMS “Everyone includes Becky!”
This was a great week for them to cover Set Theory in math, otherwise she might not have figured that out.
I got a sensible chuckle out of this!
I wish we could leave likes on comments!
+1+2+4+8
I really think she is considering the possibility vis a vis her family, more than Becky… Like that’s genuine fear, not just fear of a faux pas.
When you consider that this is a published photograph of a major incident, showcasing her gay kiss & also featuring Jocelyn- this is nuclear-level incident in a family that’s already fallen apart- & does exercise some control over her continued stay at the University.
It’s a photo in the school paper.
She has no reason to think it has circulated to non school related news outlets, so the “everyone” that she’s referring to is probably not her family.
Is it possible the picture will be in other outlets that her family could see? Sure.
But it’s more likely that she’s worried about Becky.
Yeah, what Mano30gts is saying is perfectly plausible.
But it’s Becky.
Or Joycelyne, though there was already a photo of Joycelyne, so that seems less likely.
I’m certain that her father at least will see the paper. He was following the story on the news, and the paper almost certainly has an online edition. And if it gets somehow to the attention of anyone in her old church, then it will be quickly known to just about her entire pre-college circle of friends and family.
My first thought was family, but yeah, this is probably Becky-related.
The Indiana Daily Student
Isn’t it possible for local or higher papers to buy photos from the school paper if they belatedly decide to run the story and don’t have any.
The IDS is more of a local publication than simply a “school paper”. It is distributed widely throughout Bloomington, and it isn’t uncommon for alumni and parents of students to get online editions. Additionally, these things are available in large quantities for free in multiple locations in every university building, plus several other public locations throughout the city.
Fundie groups like the one her mother is a part of and her father was a part of make a point of showing up on campus semi-regularly to try and recruit the students through their proselytization, with varying levels of success. When I was a student there was one spot on campus that I would see them at nearly every day the weather was at least decent doing their hateful preaching, and I made a point of standing next to them and loudly singing the dirtiest songs I knew whenever my schedule brought me past them and I had some time to kill.
There is an *extremely* good chance of that picture making it’s way to and through the community of her hometown and former church, and therefore catching the attention of both of her parents. Such a good chance that I’d call it more a matter of “when” than “if”.
*applauds your bawdy bardic tactics
Thank you!
*bows, flourishing my jester cap
thank you i have been speculating that that was happening for the last few strips
they’re alumni–I still get digital prints of my college’s newspaper
We know that she sent her dad a copy of the first issue with her comic in. It would surprise me if he didn’t get it regularly just because she’s published in it.
I thought it was about Dorothy not telling Walky.
Or the risk of being expelled.
I kind of assumed Dorothy was supposed to already be telling Walky, in parallel to Joyce talking to Joe. Regardless both of them seemed far more concerned about Becky finding out.
As for being expelled, I doubt they’ve thought of it and there would be nothing she could run off and do about it anyway.
“Becky!” will be her first thought. On the way rushing to see Becky she will realize Carol will also see it, and Hank, and others. Each realization will be another explosion in her head. Becky will also figure this out. Everyone’s gonna be a mess.
I never in my entire life thought I would feel this sorry for Joe.
oh god mrs. brown is gonna see this
nah, she’s “oh god”ding over Becky
Both? Both is good. She’s “Oh god”ing over Becky, but eventually this is getting back to Carol.
I hadn’t even thought of that… That could turn out very bad. At least she’ll have her dad based on what we’ve seen of him.
Yeah I expect Dorothy to get a chance to scream at Daisy over this
For real. Unbelievable dereliction of responsibility to not even let a valuable reporter on your staff know about this absolute bombshell you’re about to sideswipe her with
Hey, her brain cell fired. Good job, Joyce!
Cut it some slack, it was savoring the memory of Dorothy-neck-scent.
Joe deserves better, poor guy
He does, and Joyce could probably BE better… but first she’d have to remove her anterior from her posterior.
Joyce is a recent escapee of a christofascist cult that tried to have her best friend assaulted and kidnapped for being gay, I think she’s allowed a bit of damage control time right now.
As much as I’m on Joe’s side here, this may *literally* be a matter of life and death for Joyce.
The cult is broke, she doesn’t care what her mom says, her dad has her back, and she’s an actual legal adult.
Unless you’re saying Dina might send a pack of adorable feathered raptors after her.. then yes.. yes her life would be in danger then.
Her dad “has her back” in a obviously conditional way. He is definitely better then the mom, but he is still willingly in that cult. If he sees Joyce kissing Dorothy in a paper like that, he will not be as on her side as he once was.
We know that the dad was trying to find the sister at the rally and Joyce was scared of her dad finding out that his son was now his daughter, me thinks that he isn’t as open minded as you seem to think.
Also, Jocelyne’s in that picture too.
IIRC dad left the cult. He still goes to church, but he found himself a somewhat less toxic congregation. As to why he was looking for Josh/Jocelyne, it’s entirely possible he was just worried for their safety, a concern that we’ve seen amply justified.
the cult members are selling their homes to fund the cult. that isn’t broke. And even if that were the case, all Carol needs is an address and a shotgun, just like Ross did. Every single thing that happened to Becky is now potentially on the table for Joyce. That should be horrifying
Evil Dads III: Evil Mom??
Oh man, I just had the worst theory. Evil mom rampages, Joe takes a bullet or whatever meant for dorothy, since he doesn’t want Joyce heartbroken.
Alternatively, Sal saves amazi girl but gets badly hurt in the process. That’s the sort of tweeeeests I’d expect now that the action drama tag is back on the table.
From a psychological point of view, sure that’s on the table. From a narrative point of view it would be boring to rehash the exact same conflict again.
You don’t need money to terrorize people. You don’t have to care what your mom says for her to have an impact on your life at this stage. And despite being an actual, legal adult, I’m pretty sure Joyce isn’t paying for her own degree right now.
This is just really needlessly dismissive of real fears Joyce could reasonably have. It’s fair for Joyce to realize everyone will see that newspaper and panic, she’s only out to like three people. Even in a totally safe environment (which she is not at all in) it can be awful and scary to be forcibly outed.
Is the cult so broke that they can’t afford ~$500 for a hunting rifle and gas for Carol to get there? Toedad was incredibly threatening on that budget.
The cult has at a minimum one Joyce’s childhood home worth of money.
And at minimum, one “Joyce’s SSN” worth of access to the bursar’s and registrar’s offices, and one “Joyce was raised in a very honor-your-father-and-mother home” worth of “FERPA” waiver if I were a betting man.
Great point. And Joe loves Joyce and wants her to be happy. This could work out for him as well. He’s doing yoeman’s work in emotional labor and deserves whatever threesomes come his way.
Not sure why we’re calling it a cult when a very pressing and distressing matter is that it is by all accounts a perfectly regular right-wing American Christian church. I would suggest that it’s more interesting to address what that says about Christianity as a social force in the United States than label it as a cult, which by definition is outside of the mainstream.
because american christianity is a cult
if people need to “escape” from a religion, its a cult. its deeply reductive to not call a spade a spade just because the spade happens to be a very popular option. if the *victims* are calling it a cult, its a cult.
If leaving the church is grounds for threats of excommunication and exiled from your community and loved ones, its a fucking cult. Many religions exist that won’t burn interpersonal bridges for you leaving the faith.
Former Mormon here. It’s the high-demand religion with the best reputation, but just as much lifelong indoctrination and fear. For a cult or high-demand religion to persist, it needs to tie safety and salvation to a very narrow range of church-approved experiences.
An example: Mormons are famous for not drinking coffee while chugging Diet Coke and Monster throughout the workday. It doesn’t matter that coffee is objectively healthier than two 44 oz. caffeinated sodas; 180 years ago, Joseph Smith told his followers God didn’t want them to drink coffee and it went on the list of Things that Damn You.
The brain is infinitely detailed about categorizing sensory data. Cigarette smoke in the summer might make you think of an amusement park, while cigarette smoke in the winter might make you think of shivering at a bus stop. (With Aslan, of course.) It took a lot for me to work up to my first cup of coffee as a 40+ adult. The aversion had been reinforced for so long.
For people rebuilding their worldview after their life disproves their extreme beliefs, it’s not a matter of just accepting the truth about sexuality and applying it to everyone who could find out. Every reveal becomes another test of a lifelong promise of destruction, the same uh-oh kind of feeling you’d get as a kid when you made a mistake and worried your parents would never love you again.
Some Mormon couples divorce solely over one spouse leaving, because if you don’t check every box, then you won’t live with your family in the afterlife. You’ll be isolated with your regrets, separated from God, and have no personal relationships in a hellish paradise with a nice ambience. And if you’re a woman who still believes, you have to come to terms that you and your kids will be paired with a different man as a plural wife in order for you to qualify for the only heaven that matters.
This isn’t a logical, objective reaction from Joyce. It’s an authentic one that captures the depth of someone tripping another wirehair trigger in their minefield of indoctrinated fear.
I agree. Joe looks hurt, but things may still go his way. Hold on Joe.
Joyce, on the other hand, is always in a tizzy, but she always seems to come out on top, so I don’t worry about her.
How so?
It’s mostly because of the revelation that Joyce was going to dump him for Dorothy (see the “I kissed Dorothy, and I plan on doing so again, so that means I have to dump you.” Ergo, that means that Joyce’s connection to Dorothy is more important than Joyce’s connection to Joe.) Even if Joe is willing to be part of a throuple, the knowledge that Joyce deems you as less important than a third person has to hurt.
He deserves so much better.
Joe has to decide what he deserves and, for now, this is what he decided. I’m sure it will all go smoothly and he’s made the best decision of his life and nothing is going to break my heart any further. Right?
Yes, yes, never mind that Joyce and Dorothy have just been outed to the world, including violently homophobic members of Joyce’s family and her violently homophobic former church. The important thing here is how terrible Joyce and Dorothy are! For :checks notes: kissing after Joe deliberately pushed them together.
DUN DUN DUUUNNNNN
meadow
is empty right now because all the protesters and cops have left.
Or is it?
oh GOD joyce’s mom is gonna see this. oh god. ohhhh god no.
Exactly. Dad’s bad enough. But Mom’s gonna see it too. And it’s gonna be ugly.
But in the immediate, the bigger deal is probably Becky.
While Becky will definitely give her hell, she saw this coming a mile away and likely bears little animosity. However, Mrs. Brown has already stated her determination to sacrifice herself for her daughter’s well being. I fear that she believes Joyce’s soul is at risk and will stop at nothing to secure her salvation. Will a new masked character emerge?
I think folks are underestimating Joyce’s dad. He’s shown growth, and I think breaking free of her mom is going to give him the freedom to start learning. Is he going to understand any if this? Probably not very well, but he’ll put in the work, for both his girls.
I think Joyce has good reason to underestimate her own dad. I personally think he’ll come down on the right side eventually, but his daughters have several more reasons than me to be cautious, not least of which is that they love him and don’t want to be on the wrong side of his disappointment even as long as it takes to remove his head from his ass. A public double outing would suck for everyone.
Not to mention, in the past like 4 months for him, his daughter got kidnapped, his family friend(kinda) got murdered in front of her, he learned his wife is partly responsible for that, then he got divorced and lost his house.
Mr. Brown will absolutely be on the right side of things eventually, but having all the shit happen, then learning your two kinds you have the best relationships with are both queer, which your life-long religious upbringing has told you that that will damn them to hell for all eternity, might be a little too much for him. He might have a bit of a breakdown tbh.
What’s she gonna do, be divorced about it?
How many Internets are you up to?
February 19th, 2019 at 3:35 PM EST
Still think it’s possible thst this gose right over Carols head, she didnt take Joyce seriously when she said she was atheist and Joyce’s face isn’t in the picture.
She’s about to look for Becky, isn’t she?
BECKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
The good news is, I don’t think she’s going to break up with him or Dorothy. The bad news is what she’s worried about is much worse.
The ramifications though! Is Dorothy ok with this!? Walky!?
Batman will tell Joe what to do.
“You’re fit and black-haired, put on these bright red and yellow tights. I need a new deco-er-ward.”
I like the implication that Batman is going to dress Joe up like Robin (DC) and then hunt him for sport.
I hope he does a better job than Roadblock.
I think she just realised Becky is gonna see this
I think that level of horror on her face could really only come from the realization her family is going to see it.
I would say it’s both
It’s the campus newspaper. Her parents will only see it if someone actively takes it to them.
Or if a major protest and police action on campus causes the news media to pick up the story and use the student newspaper’s photos (which are certainly in full quality in the online version, which is going to exist because its not 1995 anymore).
And, ya know, Joyce’s parents might get a little worried about their child given the use of force on students at their daughters’ university and might try to learn more about it.
Straight-up… This visual reaction does not read like “I just crossed my best friend in a way that’s going to hurt her” fear. It reads like the realization that she is about to have problems with her family members, people who control her finances (and some level of emotional support/connection remains at least with her dad)… While also having incredibly bad history with her & her college experience.
Maybe. I think her focus is, *right now* primarily on Becky, because if Joe saw the student newspaper enough to see the pic, then Becky almost certainly is going to too.
Because its just the student newspaper, parents don’t read silly stuff like that!
I think Carol will see the picture, I just don’t think Joyce is cognizant of the steps that will likely happen to cause her to see it.
How is Danny Danny-ing it up with you two? Hahaha
Plus she was planning on telling Becky.
I do not think she was planning on telling her mom. Or John. Or even really Hank, at least like this.
I think there’s an element of “oh shit this is completely out of my control now and ANYONE could know” but the primary immediate concern is Becky.
I dunno. This looks like panic, which is not how I would characterize her previous reactions to the idea of telling Becky.
Meanwhile, Carol finding out doesn’t need to be literally dangerous for it to be a PTSD trigger.
Parameters have changed. Previously she could control the conditions under which Becky learned about things. Now there’s a ticking clock and every second that passes Becky is more likely to learn from seeing the paper, which is far worse than Joyce getting to tell her under ideal conditions. It’s lighting a fire under her ass.
Maybe!
Again it’s completely possible it’s about Becky. Especially if Willis, as someone who only came out as nonbinary after their mom’s death, wasn’t thinking of Carol’s reaction as something it made sense for Joyce to fear, then it’s not even an option! Sometimes you just don’t think of something.
But I certainly don’t think it would be weird for Joyce to be freaking out about that instead.
Joyce runs to Becky. “Oh my god, my parents know I kissed Dorothy! Our church knows!”
And that’s how Becky finds out.
To me this reads like Joyce realizing all of it at once. Her family, her church, Becky, the rest of her social circle at the dorm. Hence the dissociation face as she tries to prioritize where to run first, and the compass probably points to Becky.
Her dad saw the other photo of Jocelyne at the protest, and that was definitely less newsworthy. He’s probably following the online version of the paper or something.
For starters. Also means that her parents may well see it (depending on how far the picture ends up reaching).
Also, I couldn’t see in the newspaper image, but based on how she’s tagged in the strips featuring the newspaper, it also seems to show Jocelyne… which, uh, yeah, that could be a pretty serious concern as well.
Relevant strip: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/catch-2/
Don’t trust agreeing to talk about things later. You must settle everything in one long mega conversation then never talk about anything again! That’s called honesty!
This.
Seconded
Nah it’s chill Joyce no one reads the news these days.
SHE KNOWS BECKY KNOWS
THE HUNT (or the escape) IS ON
Ohhhh my god, you can’t take him with you?
Where she goes, he cannot follow
That’s obviously asking too much
To Dorothy, she’s all “take my hand.” To Joe, she’s “I gotta go. Gotta go. Right now.”
Joe, I understand that this is the first woman you’ve ever loved like this, but just becaue you spent your entire life trying not to be your father, doesnt mean you should springboard into being your mother.
I wouldn’t say he has become THAT submissive, but when your partner tells you they need to do something alone, its usually the good choice to listen to them.
Also the situation is very different right now, she is most likely running to Becky to try and work this situation out with her, it would not at all help Joyce if Joe was also there, she does not need distractions or another chance to mess things up by saying the wrong thing in front of Joe.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”
– The Importance of Being Earnest
I love how that has become a thing. it pleases me. Joe turning into his mom. maybe we’ll get to see his mom show up and tell him he’s falling into the same pitt she was in.
This whole “Joe is turning into his mother” take just reeks of victim-blaming if not outright misogyny. What the fuck is his mother alleged to have done wrong exactly?
I am so tired.
Joe’s mom stayed with a cheater who didn’t care about her as much as she deserved to be cared about.
Its not victim blaming to point out she was being used by Joe’s dad and that’s a bad place to be.
It’s not misogyny to point out that in Joe’s fear of being an abuser, he’s power sliding into becoming a victim.
The stance would remain the same if Joe’s mom was the cheater, and his dad was the one who stayed. Gender has nothing to do with this outside of Joe’s parents being in a het relationship.
Well put
Well for one thing, they’re divorced, so no she didn’t.
Allow me to put words in your mouth for a moment, though. “But!” you say “There was an amount of time between when he started cheating and when she divorced him!”
To which I say that A: we don’t actually know how long that time was. B: presenting it as some equal/equivalent moral failing to Richard’s cheating is a bad look regardless. C: It’s an even worse look when you take a moment to consider that being a single mother is pretty tough both emotionally and financially.
There’s a very easy thing you can do to solve all of this where you just talk about Joe, the character in this story, witthout pointing to his mother, a character we have never seen and barely know anything about, as some cautionary tale.
Good grief, drink some water and dust your shelves.
Instructions misremembered, my shelves are wet and my throat is dusty :<
What are you even talking about? The comments you’re replying to aren’t misogynistic and haven’t characterized Joe’s mom as having any moral failings, just pointed out that she was mistreated by a cheating partner until she ended things. You’re tilting at windmills.
1. We know it was more then once because Joe has repeatedly said Serial Cheater.
B. I never said it was an equal moral failing. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire doesn’t make them *equal,* it just means you try to escape one Bad Thing and fall into another Bad Thing.
三. If you can’t understand how “In trying to be less like his father, he’s fallen into the same bad justifications his mom used to stay with her cheating partner” without it being some kind of gendered attack, I will have to agree with Taffy on the dihydration issue.
However, the gravatar is utterly on point.
Thank you for articulating far better than I could.
I do feel like Tan does have a point – we don’t for certain know everything that happened between Joe’s mother and father, and what the circumstances are of his “serial cheating.” Assuming that Joe’s mom continued to stay with him over the years and endure this is a relatively safe assumption, but it’s still an assumption. What we do know, is that she was aware of the cheating and decided to stay, at least for a period of time.
And I’m 100% not going to criticize someone who decides that they’re going to take the hard road of trying to build your marriage back up after infidelity. That’s an incredibly difficult, incredibly brave task, and we should not look down on those people who selflessly give others second chances who absolutely don’t deserve it.
But I would never, EVER encourage someone to do that for someone they were dating. Especially for the short amount of time that he and Joyce were. Are. Argh.
It’s just those looks, like on the very last panel. Looking after her, with slightly watery eyes, not knowing what the future will hold. Joyce knows what the future will hold, and it will be kissing Dorothy, many times. He’s got so much of his hopes and emotions pinned on her still being in a relationship with him, that he really isn’t giving me poly vibes – even though Joyce 100% is.
Do we know Joe’s mom was aware and decided to stay at all?
We know Richard was a serial cheater, but that could have all come up after he was finally caught.
it´s kinda awful seeing people defending cheating, even if it is with another woman.
Joyce has a lot of mitigating circumstances but she´s definitely cheating and avoiding responsibility nevertheless.
I’m not sure who in the thread you’re responding to is justifying cheating, I can’t see any instance that looks even remotely like that here.
What I do see not getting acknowledged at all here is Tan’s excellent point about *why* Joe’s mom would have stayed, if she did. Because being a single parent is hard, because putting your kid through that is a nightmare, I went through a pretty low stakes, low emotion divorce with zero kids and it still took me years to recover. My daughter has nightmares frequently about her dad cheating on me or us divorcing, she woke me up at 4 am the other night to get a hug and some reassurance that no, we weren’t in a bad place. Parents stay in the face of infidelity because the marriage isn’t about them, it’s about their kids. Joe’s dad is a doctor, right? He makes good money and is a reliable provider even if he isn’t a good father/husband, meanwhile if they divorced then Joe’s mom would have to start worrying about doing it all on her own, with no support. Even if there weren’t religious/community concerns, that is so daunting.
So all that to say, Joe’s mom had her reasons for staying and trying to make it work until she got fed up, and most importantly they are not and can not be Joe’s reasons.
It’s toxic as hell to have such a fairytale view of romantic love where you think you own somebody and if they love someone as much or more than you that they are somehow sullied forever and you need to cut your losses. It’s like throwing away a glass of water on a hot day because someone put cucumber in it. Yes, it’s different from how people are raised these days but it’s absolutely not a natural state to be in, to decide to cut your arm off because it couldn’t flip a pancake right. Joe already saw this situation coming, his interference prompted it to manifest, he intended that outcome, he did it because he does value Joyce and does want her to be happy and doesn’t want to lose her. Breaking it off with her or her breaking it off with him would be losing her. People have a lot of love to give, he will still get her love and her time, but yes, it will not be literally all of the love and time she has available.
So saying, what I wondering if this is what’s impacting him in this page is that before she -would- have pulled him along on any adventure, but she is instead saying “something I’m deeply afraid of may have happened and I don’t intend to face it with you by my side.” It suggests no matter what she has already recontextualised the dynamic they share where he is less important, at least for the moment.
She is really being supremely shitty to him here, yeah. It seems like she’s got bandwidth for everyone else’s emotions except Joe’s, and that’s pretty bad. He’s always been there for her, even when they were more like frienemies than anything else. Getting tossed aside over and over so Joyce can be there for others is unfair to him on a lot of levels.
She stopped to make it abundantly clear that she is coming back. He is not tossed aside. There is something horrendous coming.
Taking him with her would not be kind or fair to him at all. She can’t rely on him as her boyfriend until she’s sorted out if he still is, as well as preferably the implications for their relationship and how they’re going to present it, and what happened, to other people – as a united front, since that’s the only way taking Joe along won’t make things even worse. Which Joe knows, and would act like, which means Joyce dragging him along while they’re still in relationship limbo would require incredible feats of effort, love, patience and support of him.
Joyce running off to handle her own shit is the most considerate thing she could have done on this panel tbh.
…Yeah, that’s probably a good reason to recalibrate.
I am really worried about this relationship. Poly (including ‘ranked’ poly with a primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. Forgive me, I don’t know the technical term for this relationship structure) can be great and healthy but I worry that some of this is coming from a place of low self-esteem and fear of losing Joyce for Joe and that’s not a healthy place for any relationship – mono or poly – to come from. Doesn’t mean he can’t get better while in the relationship but I worry it will be choppy sailing for a while.
which is why im against them being in a Poly relationship. neither Joe or Joyce are in the headspace to be sharing like that. Joe would end up very hurt within a month of it happening and Joyce would let it go right to her head and end up trampling on both of their hearts, or at least Joe’s, by mistake.
I want all three of them to be happy, and thats not gonna happen if they attempt a Poly relationship like the one Joe is suggesting.
I think Joyce is too horny for both of them for any of that to.matter.
…and they’ll pick up the pieces eventually,.somehow
Honestly I think you’re underestimating all three of them. Will it be a hilarious mess? Yes. Will they truck on sorting it all out as they go without accumulating lingering bad feelings? Also yes. If anything, I expect Dorothy to show the kind of respect and consideration to Joe as Joyce’s other partner that will actually help Joe’s self-esteem and self-respect in this area. Sometimes you need someone in your corner willing to go “excuse me, they asked for no pickles” and Dorothy visibly radiates this energy.
Not for Joe. For Joyce? Yes 100%. But Joe?
The guy she literally called a cheating asshole to his face, like three days ago? That also told him, again, to his face, that he never had to try for anything in his life, when he was literally forgoing any kind of actual loving relationship for the sake of others?
You really think that she’s going to go to bat for him, after she taught Joyce how to masturbate to get rid of him?
After how she treated both Danny *and* Walky?
ALL of this is coming from from a place of low self esteem on Joe’s part. He doesn’t think he deserves Joyce, so he’ll be happy for any kind of attention she’ll give him.
As opposed to the truth, that he actually doesn’t deserve Joyce, because he’s grown past her.
I don’t think it’s 100% coming from a place of low self esteem, but it mostly that. I think he said he didn’t think he got to feel jealous, not that he didn’t feel jealous.
He said he did not. He only said he don’t get to right after. It is true of course that he may have lied, and even to himself. I’m really hoping he didn’t.
hm, maybe you’re right. I’ve had a hard time finding the strip. Maybe I remembered it the other way because I took it as him lying to himself, the qualification showing that.
I hope he’s lying to himself. Everything working out nice and neat, and Joe not having any issues is boring.
found it, it’s Flush
I can’t decide whether I wanna see a Becky crashout or not. Part of me wants her character to be so past this semi-toxic Joyce possessiveness crush, but part of me also thinks seeing the drama would be entertaining.
I really hope that Becky doesn’t fall into some sort of deep obsession drama over this. She’s got a good thing going with Dina, and I’d really hate to see that get damaged over Joyce.
Unfortunately this comic is not called ‘Smarting of Age’, as has been noted many times
Also, drama is bad for people but good for webcomic plots.
Unless this is what makes Becky over Joyce, I predict drama.
The question is, how much of that was real and how much of it was Becky’s “Dottie is my archnemesis” schtick?
quiet: real
loud: at least some schtick
How much of the archnemesis schtick is “ha ha only serious”? She’s clearly playing it up as a joke. But there’s also clearly a kernel of truth in it. The question, which she’s been quite effective at obfuscating, is where the joke ends and the truth begins.
I think there needs to be some drama because of how chill Joe’s been, but I don’t expect it to be as bad as what Joyce clearly fears
I’d prefer the drama come from Walky as one of the parties actually wronged in this situation. It’d be really weird if both the guys were chill about it and the only people crashing out over it were ones who are external to the situation.
Especially if they can clearly be framed as wrong because they’re upset about her coming out as gay or about the potential poly or on behalf of someone who isn’t actually upset about it themselves (Like if Sarah stays mad at Joyce for betraying Joe while Joe actually happily stays friends with her).
The thing is, Dorothy and Joyce being one step away from making out has long been an open secret to everyone in their circle but them. Walky and Joe very much included. Both of them entered their respective relationship with one of them without worrying about it – Joe because he’s thought it through and concluded that he’s poly enough for it, and Walky, imho, because he sees a sexual/romantic relationship as friendship with sexy privileges plus whatever hangups his current partner has about it.
A random outsider dude would be justifiably upset and surprised about this. But neither of them are dating random outsider dudes. Both Joe and Walky pretty much knew they were signing up for girls’ love romantic drama, and wouldn’t have entered the relationship without being ok with that.
Let me rephrase, then: it would be insanely boring if both of the guys were cool with it, and I would be right back to absolutely despising this storyline.
I really want Becky to be perfectly okay with it, maybe take some exception to the cheating thing for religious reasons but otherwise not be bothered at all. The way everyone keeps building up Becky’s reaction is telling me that seeing her be okay would be funniest.
Walky who is 100% perpetually forgotten crashing out is what I want lol. I need a solid “wtf bro this whole operation was your idea” followed by him going on a grump arc. Bro needs friends, he needs to find his people because this group has never been it.
I’d also like to see Billie upset because 1.) She Didn’t Actually Say That and 2.) I just wanna see her be nice to Walky some. Stand up for her lifelong friend that she drops at every convenient opportunity, y’know?
Also hoping for Becky to either be completely okay with it (completely over Joyce) or (more realistically, especially for Becky) pretending to be completely okay for it both for Dina’s sake and her own pride(/’face’/dignity). Even if you’re in a relationship with someone else, learing someone important to you feels about you “I like having you as a friend, but I wouldn’t want you as a life partner” (friendzoning) is an uncomfortable revelation (which might weaken the relationship between Becky and Joyce more than other things so far).
I need Billie to be a good sister to Walky for once.
Is it weird that I think Walky doesn’t have friends? Not in the traditional sense. It’s not that his friend group has failed him as much as their judgement is skewed by constantly wanting to fuck him. Jennifer may be his only actual platonic friend that supports him in anyway without romantic intent. Even Amber has admitted to it, and Joyce taking petty joy in stealing his girl really takes a lot credibility out of the friendship, it’s very solidly toxic and not so much the cute sibling dynamic people like to pitch it as.
So Walky is left kind of hanging. That’s why he seems forgotten. No one is thinking about him. There’s just Jennifer and maybe Booster, but Booster doesn’t seem very solid as a friend yet.
There’s Sal, increasingly. But yes Walky has a problem where all his friends are Joyce and Dorothy’s friends. I’d like him to form more of a friendship with Joe like in the Walkyverse, but then the problem repeats itself.
Not at all, I don’t consider Walky having any friends. Friends are people who will stand in your corner when pressed. Maybe not when the chips are down, maybe not to the death, but like… if Linda came and said something bad about Sal in front of their friends, I can see several people getting uncomfortable or even saying something. I cannot picture that with Walky. I don’t think Walky has anybody in his life who actually has his back and it makes me profoundly sad for him. Dorothy was the absolute closest and she cheated on him lol.
Walky should go hang out with Ethan and Asher. They’d actually be a pretty nice friend trio with similar enough interests before Asher’s inevitable embrace of evil.
If Becky makes a scene, it’s going to be for the bit to cover up her actual hurt.
Becky. Oh 💩
I’m trying to remember. Did someone in her family say that they were getting the paper now that her comic was in it? Would that even be possible, for a college newspaper?
Becky would be my guess.
Oh god that would be terrifying if it’s one of her folks because they would see Jocelyn in that photo
Yeah. Hank would… well, I believe he’d be in a similar place as where Joyce was when Becky came to her.
But Carol would turn the rest of her family against her, and then disown her, “for her own good.” And all the while they would tell her that they were doing it because they loved her.
Yeah, Becky is what I HOPE that horrifiee face is referring to.
Hank would work past it, and I kind of doubt she cares about the rest of the family if they make it an issue either. What are they going to do other then shun them.. which.. thanks, shunning is pretty awesome.
I do not think Joyce would find shunning by not only most of her family but also everyone she grew up with to be “awesome”.
Plus, again, PTSD trigger. Her mom literally called her up after the shotgun incident to let her know she identified with Ross and felt the same way Ross does.
PTSD trigger is definitely a thing.
In the long run though, even if she herself was straight, she’s going to face shunning from Carol and John and a lot of that church. Or she’s going to cut them off herself. She’s not giving Becky up. She’s an atheist now and isn’t going back to church. Jocelyne’s on HRT which means she’s pretty much coming out or going no contact soon enough and Joyce will fight for her if needed.
It won’t be awesome and she may not be ready to accept it, but the tracks are laid and the train is rolling.
Speaking from experience: it’s different to be shunned by someone because they’re a bigoted asshole (generic) in a way that only affects you because you’re a human being with compassion than it is to be shunned by someone because they hate an intrinsic part of who you are.
In that first half? Joyce is a hero taking on a burden out of love for Becky, etc.
In that second half? Yeah. Not so much!
They both hurt like hell coming from your mom, though.
ALSO extremely true.
I just mean being braced for one does not mean being braced for the other.
Carol has an uncanny ability to deny what’s right in front of her when it’s something she doesn’t want to acknowledge. it’s possible she will deny it’s Joyce in the picture or say Joyce is just lashing out for attention. Not great but the less seriously she takes her daughter the better.
It’s possible for them to be emailed it. College newspapers are online, like other papers, and without a paywall (at least the ones I’ve looked at). My guess is that Hank got the first photo of Jocelyne from some sort of alum or parent email newsletter from IDS.
idsnews.com has at least three buttons on the front page to subscribe to get emailed their “daily rundown” newsletter, one at the very top of the page.
“Are you mad dad?”
“Of course I’m mad! You lied to me! You told me [deadname redacted] wasn’t at the protest but [pronoun] was! And on top of that, you were getting freaky in public!”
I actually think the lie is going to bother him more than the kiss, like in this hypothetical phone call Joyce is a couple of hours away from getting.
I don’t remember them saying they were getting the newspaper, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one or both of Joyce’s parents are getting copies of the college newspaper, either in mail or online.
It’s a major incident. Any eye-catching photograph surrounding a major incident like that is going to make the real news- & then social media.
Add in the fact that she was in the news for a kidnapping/murder case just a few months ago & she’s going to be headline material.
Which all adds up to- her family (or whatever is left of it) is going to see this. & They are going to see Jocelyn as well. & They have some level of financial hold over both of them.
Hank already saw Jocelyne – the reason Joyce was even at the protest was because he sent her a picture of her there.
Panel 4 Joyce looks just like Jocelyn awwwwe
Calling it, Dina and Becky both saw it and had a conversation off frame about it this morning.
Dina: ‘That explains a few things.’
Becky: ‘Yeeeeeep.’
Dina: This does not bring pants euphoria.
Becky: Surprisingly, my pants are also melancholy.
God. He just wants an answer, man.
He’s getting one.
He is getting it, and the answer is, ‘you’ll always be the last thing in my priorities list. Bail out now.’
Or maybe that’s a conversation that needs to include more than just the two of them to resolve. A poly relationship would need all members involved to be consenting, no? And even relationship stuff aside, there’s a very real chance Joyce is worrying about the fallout of a publicized coming out, as discussed in the 13 comment threads above this one.
Joyce isn’t bailing out on this because she needs time to think about it or because she needs to consult with Dorothy. She’s bailing out becasue she’s either:
– going to deal with parental fallout, which, fair: she’s dependent on Hank, so that might top her priority; or
– going to deal with Becky fallout, which, unfair: if relationship talk with Joe isn’t her priority after she cheated on him over talking to Becky because she might had her feefees hurt because Joyce wasn’t romantically into her, Joe should bail out now. All the bails. Forever.
She has already had a relationship talk with Joe and needs to process what he said now. He already WAS her first priority before Becky. Joe does not get full dibs on her “processing the entire disaster, including parts that are not about him” time, that would not be good to either of them.
Even as she was running out the door with horror face, Joyce remembered to turn around and reassure him that she’s coming back. That aays enough about how much she prioritizes him, I think.
Unpopular opinion, but I don’t actually think your college boyfriend needs to be your first and only priority when you and your sister have just potentially been double-outed to everyone you know.
”First and only”? How about any priority?
This photo doesn’t out Jocelyne at all. The reason Joyce was even at the protest was because Hank ALREADY had a picture of her.
And unless Jocelyne changes her look every time she meets up with the parents, that one wasn’t outing her either.
……..yes, she is changing her gender presentation for meeting her parents. As closeted trans people do, when they have the ability to do so.
She also doesn’t seem to see them that often.
But she’s not really, though, or at least it doesn’t look like.
The clothes she’s wearing at the protest aren’t gendered, so she’s not being outed in that angle – to change her gender presentation she’d need to cut her hair short every time she sees them so she’d look more like she did at the start of the strip (as far as I can tell, she’s been growing it out for a while now).
And even if this picture gendered her it wouldn’t out her to the parents anyway, because Hank already has a picture of her at the protest.
I suppose this changes if Daisy interviewed her for the article, but Joyce hasn’t READ the article so she can’t be reacting to that.
I would direct you back to the strip where she was waiting anxiously downstairs for Joyce and specifically said out loud to herself that if she chickened out, she could just keep her jacket on and it would hide the feminine clothing and the changes HRT has made so far.
Good catch.
But she does have her jacket on in the picture (and again, it doesn’t matter because Hank already has a picture of her).
That wasn’t the part of your comment I was disagreeing with.
I do think that “Joyce told Hank that photo wasn’t her” followed by “another photo of the person who looks like her and now Joyce is also in the photo” is still potentially relevant? But yeah, I was just replying to argue with the idea that Jocelyne hasn’t been portrayed as closeted and hiding her transition, because she has been, at least with her family.
Ah, gotcha, gotcha! 🙂
It’s actually very reasonable to not be able to give an on-the-spot answer to “would you like to break your deeply ingrained beliefs about how relationships work in order to continue seeing me”
Joyce is absolutely not running out right now because of that.
It’s why she’s not inviting Joe to come with.
It’s fine for her to need time to think and put out some more urgent fires before coming back to actually talk and give Joe’s proposal the consideration it deserves. Also, Dorothy should probably know about it before she agrees to anything.
Agreed. Joe’s said his piece, snd while them hanging out while Joyce thinks it over would be ideal for their relationship, Joyce has too many urgebt problems she just found out about to do thay. Joe had her undivided attention for the key part of the conversation, then the other implications caught up.
For Joe to come with her now would imply she has already made all the decisions relevant to this and they’re operating as a duo all on the same page. Which at this point would be unfair to Joe, because Joyce is obviously still processing; he would be expected to.back her up without having the slightest idea of what might come out of her mouth next, because she’s Joyce and she’s panicking.
Not to .mention, both Dorothy and Becky deserve a private conversation with Joyce about this, without Joe also there.
In short: Joe is not the one caught gay kissing on the front page of the newspaper, this time.
How is Joyce supposed to give him “an answer” before she’s even spoken to Dorothy about the idea, dude?
How exactly would that work? “Yes, let’s be poly together, I’m sure Dorothy, whom I have not spoken to about it, and who is even now breaking up with her boyfriend, will be delighted with the idea!” This only works if the only person yr considering in the situation is Joe.
She’s either worried about her folks seeing Jocelyne or Becky seeing the kiss. (Or both)
I want the polyamory talk to happen so bad, but also Joyce may have just realized she has a ticking clock over her head until her violently homophobic mother calls out a hit on her to “save her soul” or something.
Not all foreshadowing about Joyce’s inevitable bi-wakening was going to be pleasant.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/sweetie/
This is what I’m worried about but also I’m not sure what the odds are that Joyce’s mom gets the campus paper
The newspaper is almost certainly also online.
And there was a protest with a massive police retaliation at the school that the Browns’ youngest child was at. They are going to find out about that, odds are high they’ll look up what happened online, and that kind of picture is absolutely the sort that would be picked up by social media and other media agencies.
Figure the odds that they *don’t* see the picture are pretty negligible, all told.
I doubt Mrs. Brown gets the campus paper. However, the front page image might be used by other more mainstream publications or shared around on social media, where Mrs. Brown is more likely to see it.
news (and iconic protest photography) spreads fast in this day and age
Honestly, even if Joyce’s parents and community were all supportive, Joyce and Dorothy might be getting targeted by *cops* for this for the rest of their lives. Real world protestors in these photos have been assassinated. And Joyce’s mom *is not supportive.* She has openly stated she’d “die for” Joyce, which by her definition, means violently attacking her and her loved ones. If she catches even a single whiff of this from anywhere, which she almost definitely will knowing her cult’s creepy ass behavior, this is *dire*.
Whoever said yesterday that these two should be suing the campus newspaper over this cover picture, uh. Like I was too caught up in the moment to really think about it, but that person was DEEPLY correct, this is an actual life threatening situation they were put in for no reason.
On the campus the last act of homophobic terror happened on!!! TWICE!!! Daisy is now at the bottom of my tier list, whoa holy fuck.
I mean, the IDS in real life has an e-mail subscription option and could easily be bookmarked by someone already annoyed at happenings surrounding her kid at that campus.
Re: Megan
To the latter half of your comment, ohgOSH! That strip makes me incredibly worried given how unhinged Carol can get with self rationalizing her decisions and thought process.
Recalling her recent visit/last time she saw Joyce…
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/sell/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/04-but-dont-give-yourself-away/becausegodtoldmeto/
While I agree this is going to filter back to Hank and Carol and that’s going to cause drama (possibly on the same level as The Toe That Walks and Blain were able to cause) given that it’s a college paper I’m not sure yet that’s occured to her yet and she’s worried about people on campus seeing it. Including and especially Becky who both her and Dorothy seemed to agree was going to be harder for them to tell than Joe and Walky would.
The whole reason Joyce and Dorothy went to the protest was because her father had seen a photo of Jocelyne there, and that was definitely a less newsworthy photo. He’s almost definitely following the news and Joyce knows that.
yeah like a huge part of the last chapter was Joyce trying to keep her queer sibling safe from her parents, who were finding things out they had no reason knowing. that was in-universe a day ago TToTT
And said queer sibling is also in that photo, as the tags and hover text have been pointing out.
Sure, but it doesn’t matter – Hank already has a photo of Jocelyne at the protest, meaning that photo is already out there making the rounds. This photo might out Joyce and Dorothy (to a limited number of people, seeing as everyone else is going ‘no shit, sherlock’ about this), but it doesn’t really change Jocelyne’s visibility.
There was plausible deniability of the first one, since Hank was asking if it really was her. A second image, with Joyce also there, makes it more clear.
The amount of side-view closeups in this one make me viscerally uncomfortable for some reason
Maaaaaaan I hope everyone’s fears are wrong and Becky is not the concern here. I like Becky and I’m gonna think less of her if her reaction is “how dare you not date/smooch/be attracted to me instead”
If Becky feels hurt over it I think it’d be more than it means (to her) that Joyce didn’t not want her because she was straight but because there’s something wrong with her.
Or it could bring up more of her anxiety around identities being fluid or feelings of abandonment. Y’know, Becky has a lot of insecurities she tries to hide now that I think about it.
That’s fair, just all the comments about “Becky’s gonna be sooooo mad at Joyce not wanting to date her originally if she turns out to like girls” have left such a bad taste in my mouth. Not least because well, it’s a possible emotional reaction a young adult could have! But I hope not 🙁
I’m with you there. There’s a lot of predictions that seem a little bit mean spirited or based in bad faith. I think Becky is more emotionally mature than she sometimes comes across, but she’s got her vulnerabilities.
I think Becky will be mad that Joyce didn’t come out to her before she was on camera smooching her girlfriend.
Like, she’ll be mad that Joyce might think Becky was still holding a torch for Joyce, while she had Dina, the Best GF ever. so she didn’t tell Becky because she’d try and smooch Joyce.
she should be good once she realizes that 20 second speech unlocked her bisexuality like the “Link Finds a Boomerang” Song.
I have been wondering if this is going to be the switch-up on the obvious, as well. Becky’s not mad Joyce is bi, Becky is mad that Joyce and Dorothy felt like they had to go behind her back, when she actually does quite a lot to have theirs.
Ooh, yes. I think you and Throwatron are getting warmest. There’s been a lot of Becky growth.
Having a wonderful girlfriend doesn’t automatically magic away whatever lingering complicated feelings one might have over one’s childhood best friend one was in love with for years.
To be fair, I think Becky has noticed that Joyce and Dorothy are in aggressive denial and lying to themselves, not her. Not teleporting to her mid-protest before teleporting back to br non-consensually photograped, I think she’ll understand.
What her actual reaction is going to be does not corealate to what Joyce is concerned her reaction might be.
This. Becky will likely be chill, but… I think if Joyce did not prioritize talking to her about this, she *would* end up deeply hurt inside. And Joyce probably knows this about her: that Becky would not make a scene, but that does not mean she’d fake it well.
Just the confirmation that Joyce absolutely does care about her and think about her and understand why she would be upset is worth a lot.
yeah everyones been expecting Becky Incel Moments for a while now, but its like. Becky is an entire adult woman with a happy months-long relationship. She already took the rejection, recovered, got mad at Joyce for something else, recovered from that too, and is still going strong.
Becky’s fine. If anything, she’s not going to get mad at Joyce, she’s going to have depression about the fluid identity insecurity thats been eating at her *while also* trying to support her newly gay best friend.
I mean, probably, at least. I’ve been having so many hard reads with Joe and Dorothy and whatnot that eventually I have to be wrong sometime, but like. Becky doesn’t read as incel to me
Oh no, poor sweet Joe.
Wait… What if, instead of being hurt that Joyce just left, he is actually worried about her and her impending confrontation? Since Hank saw Jocelyne in the paper, I’m pretty sure Joyce realized that her parents will likely see this. Granted they are divorced now, but I bet Carol would still find out…
My thought too
My thought is this is an impending misunderstanding–Joe is taking this as a soft “no,” while Joyce has just realized that either her parents or someone else might also be seeing this on the news, and that fire needing putting out has driven everything else from her head at the moment
People who were all like “man I don’t get how Joyce is just whirlwinding through all of these steps so fast to get from the start of today, to macking Dorothy in the middle of a protest, without stopping to think for a second?”
Like, this is the most who she is, that she can be. She only stores one thing in her head at a time, but she’s fully involved in whatever comes up. She doesn’t stop to consider, she immediately does whatever new thing she suddenly feels is the most important thing to do, right this moment.
I kind of love this. Because, for a brief moment, that thing was giving Joe a BJ then smooching her new GF.
OH! Do you think Joe realizes she finally felt cozy enough to mouth his ween because she was guilty about her Hussydom?!
On a meta level, it also makes her a great protagonist for certain kinds of stories. If the plot ever starts dragging a bit, wave a distraction at Joyce and she’s off like a dog after a squirrel.
I think Joe might think that briefly, but then someone’s going to clue him in before he does anything really stupid.
I hadn’t even realized the implication of Willis tagging Jocelyn until I read the comments. Oh. Oh noo…🫣
My thought too. And I think the implications oast his relationship may have hit him too. He knows what happened to Becky and joyce and dorothy
But has Joe had the same revelation about what it being in the paper might mean that Joyce just had? (Whatever that is. We don’t actually if she’s thinking about Becky or about her parents.)
Probably not. Remember the porn tape? Joe was completely chill about that even as it DID have tangible negative consequences for him. He’s never been in the kind of precarious emotional&social situation Joyce is in right now.
And he has a pretty good reason to be distracted with the personal relationship drama right now!
Which leaves him wondering what’s going on and why she’s running off.
If he’s still focused on personal relationship drama, he’s got to thinking it’s a reaction to what he said.
Yuppp. Poor guy.
(Not in a “bad evil Joyce” way, though. This is a situation that just sucks for everyone)
Everybody saying Becky, kinda ignoring that Joycelyne has been tagged everytime the newspaper was shown, and the whole reason she was at the protest was to warn Joycelyn about their father.
I wager that Becky is on Joyce’s mind more immediately, and then she’ll get ambushed by her parents finding the photo after she’s done with *that* fire…
Also, the “I gotta go. Right now.” hints at Becky. She can go to Becky, maybe even before Becky sees the paper.
With her parents, there’s little damage control she can do.
Also, she’s leaving the room, not pulling out her phone at all, which suggests whatever she wants to handle is in situ.
Ooft for everyone involved. Big oofts all around.
JOOOOOEEEEEEEEE……….. SOBS
For a moment, I thought you were referring to someone named Joo-ee. (Jew-y? Come to think of it, Joe qualifies as Jew-y, I guess.)
Everyone who reads the school newspaper will see it. And I wonder how many people actually read it. I know when I was in college I rarely read the newspaper.
I only read my school newspaper if the front page grabbed my attention and was clearly about something I’d be interested in. Otherwise… yeeeah I didn’t read that thing.
If there’s a major disruptive event that happens on campus, then yeah, I think a lot of people are going to give it a look. Its also a front-page picture, so you just have to walk past the stand to see it.
I mean, FFS, *Joe* saw the photo. He’s pretty low on the list of people you’d expect to read the student newspaper regularly.
Two girls kissing is going to go viral.
Joe said he’s been grabbing the paper everyday because of her comic.
I expect Hank is doing the same – digitally at least.
Does Hank even know she has a comic in the paper?
Joyce said when it started she was sending him a copy. Also to Jocelyne
She did not say Carol
BECKY BECKONS
CAROL CALLS
HANK HARKENS
Oh no, her parents
More likely that Becky is who she is worried about.
Although I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dad knows because he was IN TOWN to try to find her Sister and either picked up the paper or maybe even saw the kiss from afar.
I don’t think he’s in town.
Didn’t he literally text her and thats why she ran out to find her sister?
I’m having a hard time phrasing, “he very likely texted her from out of town,” without sounding like a smart ass.
The strip in question: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/pervasively/
We don’t actually know if he’s in town, because we haven’t seen him since then.
I bet it’s both. Like she’d be running to Becky, but panicking about everything.
I expect “Oh no, her parents!” to be the next major plot line we’re building to. Mostly “Oh no, Carol!” Hank is less likely to try his hand at kidnapping or murder. Or hiring someone to attempt those.
No, it’s a student paper and I think her current worry is other students who might see it. Mostly Becky.
I mean that and realizing she’s been outed at a protest.
I think Carol is the physical/financial danger, but Hank is the emotional danger. He’s had Joyce’s back so far, and in her place I’d be more afraid of losing that than the mother I’d already lost. Plus he’s the one whose reaction we’ve been primed to dread, given how this all kicked off.
I think people are really underestimating Hank. Recall the storyline where Joyce and Becky go back to their hometown to get Becky’s documents? Hank was 100% there for Becky, she was like his daughter.
He flat out told her “Your mother would be so proud of the woman you’ve become.”
Hank will 100% have Joyce’s back. He might not understand Joycelyn, but if there is one thing Hank knows it is that he loves his children. I think that will see him through.
No one is underestimating Hank. The observation is that this storyline started with a text from Hank asking Joyce if it was her “brother” in a photo of the protest for reasons we don’t yet know.
Also, it doesn’t matter how irrational it might be to fear losing Hank, that’s still what goes through your head when you’re outed. Coming out to important people pretty much never stops being scary. You never can be completely sure that even seeming okay with other people being gay means they’ll be okay with it for their own children. Sometimes? They’re not.
We the adults removed from the situation can predict Hank will be kind. Spiders Joyce, who has just had two kidnappings over a gay friend happen on campus, one of them funded by LITERALLY HER OTHER PARENT (who she also did not used to think was evil) is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
Basically! Also, excellent meme.
Just continuing to be annoyed at Daisy here (*side eyes own Gravatar*) thinking that even if she got to the part where she was going to run the image, she could have at least given a heads up to Dorothy, who she definitely has contact info for and a work relationship with.
(It’s hard to say exactly how identifiable they’re supposed to be in the picture to people who don’t know them well, but Dorothy at least seems like she might be, and definitely to those close.)
I don’t really know the law enough to speak on this, but is there any grounds to sue? There’s no real expectation of privacy in a public area like that, we see photos of protestors used in newspapers very often and they don’t need public releases for that stuff or anything.
Its absolutely a dick move by Daisy (girl, you being horny on main 24/7 is amusing when it doesn’t get people hurt, dang it), and probably unethical too, but I don’t know if its actionable…
It’s 100% legal but also 100% unethical.
Yeah, this is incredibly shitty on her part and I expect to see Dorothy get pissed at her about it.
Seems pretty likely given the preview panel from later this week of someone shouting Daisy’s name.
Don’t leave him hanging too long Joyce! He’s standing by you, you could stand by him too.
Walky is part of everyone, yes.
Oh god, poor Becky.
I really don’t get the Becky thing. Obviously anyone has the right to be upset about anything they want, but nobody owes Becky anything. The person she was crushing on rejecting her is a reasonable thing to say “Poor Becky” about, but that happened ages ago, and that rejection remains a rejection regardless of whether Joyce is straight or bi.
If a guy made a move on a girl and she rejected him telling him she was a lesbian, but six months later she started dating a guy… okay she’s not a lesbian anymore, but I wouldn’t see much of a reason to go “Poor guy”, any more than crushing on anyone who isn’t interested back.
Maybe because you’re thinking about it in terms “rights” and “owes” rather than “my best friend who I care about is going to be hurt”.
I can understand why Becky would be upset but that almost feels like a regression of her character, maybe even unappreciative in some ways. I’d personally feel more sympathy for Dina who might have to watch her girlfriend spiral because her childhood crush does like women but just not her. It feels as if Dina has not been good enough this whole time despite being exceptionally patient with Becky’s numerous insecurities in their relationship. It would sadly validate that rebound narrative Sarah proposed so long age.
Becky’s done so well forming connections and coming into her own security and development that don’t directly involve Joyce. It would just kinda sting that she’s still holding onto that bit of bitterness even though I know emotions often don’t make sense.
Also she kinda treats Dorothy like junk specifically when it comes to Joyce not the performative rivalry thing. It would be nice to see that end.
At least a part of Becky’s performative rivalry with Dorothy is Becky expressing “I can see with my own two eyes that Joyce has a crush on you and the both of you not acknowledging that is making me feel like I’m crazy and seeing an alternate reality, so *I* will acknowledge it at least in a joking fashion”. I expect her to drop at least half the act now that they’re no longer unintentionally gaslighting her.
Becky will not cause a scene about this, and will try to be her usual cheerful self to Dina, because she knows she is not entitled to Joyce’s gay affection.
But if Joyce does not come talk to her about this, check on her, reaffirm that she does still care, that will cause a much deeper wound than the rejection itself.
Why are we all suddenly afraid of Carol? What can she even do now?
The parent of a young adult in college can make their life difficult in many ways, in addition to the baseline horrible feeling of “my mom hates me now for being a [slur redacted]”
To be perfectly logical, still a lot. She is just as terrible as toe head was and also has anger/control issues.
Joyce could very easily lose access to most of her family forever, get taken out of the Will, of if Carol was really gunning for her, she could make a big fuss to the school leading to Joyce getting taken out of school to save face (like how the school is handling the protests), or she could attempt to do what Toe Head did.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m underestimating Carol but I feel like a lot of her narrative influence was spent in the big Toedad bailout plan. Once Ruth body slammed her that kind of undercut her threat potential to me. Now she’s just a old bitter divorced lady that lives in a studio apartment because she foolishly sold her house to give money to the church. Maybe she still has some sway in her church community but I really don’t know what she can do beyond making Joyce feel bad.
Well, if her main source of power is the sway she has over her church community (the church she sold her house and donated the proceeds to, that gets you a lot of sway I’d think) then the real question isn’t what can she do it’s what can she convince her church community to do.
You know, thinking about it selling her house and donating the money to the church might have gotten her a hell of a lot more than she lost. My wife’s fundy aunt didn’t even do anywhere near for her church and when she died we disovered that despite her complaining about her cramped apartment and how she was so poor it turned out she had living in half of a very nice duplex provided by her church and receiving a very generous ammount of money from their widows and orphans fund (not a widow, divorced) on top of her social security. And I bet the congregation is still bringing Carol food and offering to do her chores . . .
I’m not sure we’ve really thought through how much power this actually gave her. I mean, she’s no where near as powerful as whoever’s running the cult, but this likely put her right up there with the official or unofficial leadership just below him. Probably somewhere above his goons and below his fixer. And below any “prophet” or “miracle healer” that might be part of the church if he doesn’t take that role.
With them divorced and Hank the sole income in the family, I don’t see Carol having any financial control over Joyce – whether college tuition or Will. As far as the family goes: Carol and Jon are lost causes. Jocelyne’s the sister she always wanted and Hank’s probably at least winnable. He won’t be influenced much by Carol anyway.
Its worrisome because Carol could be the one paying for Joyce’s college tuition/dorm fees?
If she had the money to pay towards Joyce’s education, it too would have joined the money from selling the house. No, the expenses are being paid completely by Hank. Almost certainly.
Or a combination of college savings in Joyce’s name, scholarships, government grants, and student loans. I mean, Hank could be paying and we could get drama from him pulling that but Willis seems to like action with his drama so when this finally comes home to roost I’m expecting to see an evil mom actively causing trouble on campus.
Isn’t Hank a dentist? I could be wrong but I think I remember Hank being a dentist and dentists make pretty good money. Regardless of what he does for money Carol did not seem like she worked so I feel like Hank is definitely footing the bill. Pretty impressive he’s managed to put at least 3 kids through college so far.
Hank’s a dentist, more than likely he was already the primary breadwinner.
I’m glad people like you don’t have any clue about what parents like Carol can do to their children.
I’m not being sarcastic. I’m really glad
That she’s 18, her parents are divorced and that Hank controls the financial support mitigates a lot of the obvious stuff.
She could buy a gun and come to campus.
Honestly it is actively WEIRD to me how dismissive some commenters are being about this.
Even if Carol hadn’t literally called Joyce up to tell her the exact same spiel Ross gave Becky, even if she was completely powerless in every material sense, coming out to your family is almost always scary, and I’m sure at least John would join Carol in disowning her.
Then there’s also, like, everyone Joyce knew growing up.
It doesn’t matter that rationally she “shouldn’t” care what any of them think of her. That’s still a terrifying thing to have happen to you at any age, and she’s 19. She doesn’t even have a job. She is not financially independent.
Realistically, she wouldn’t wind up on the street, because she has a lot of people who care about her, but again: terrifying situation.
Carol doesn’t actually need to come after Joyce with a gun for her PTSD to be screaming at her right now.
*18-19
Yeah, the PTSD alone is enough to cause her to panic – adding a forced outing that is completely beyond her control to her peers is vulnerable too. I think enough folks reading this comic are alright with LGBT+ being visible, but unless you’re in something akin to Joyce’s position, it’s hard to understand how mind-killingly scary and life-altering it is to come out.
As someone who was disowned by my run-of-the-mill Catholic parents, I can tell you that it feels like actual death when it first happens. If I hadn’t had someone to turn to, I might not be here anymore. Joyce may or may not be consciously fearing that, but it can reach levels of existential terror that go well beyond the dread of the words a mean parent might say. It takes a long, long time to pull yourself back together when that baseline human-instinct level of “my clan is my lifeline, and now I’m in the wilderness” has been triggered. No matter what community you have around you, it’s a wound that lingers. This fear dictated most of my life and ended up being true – Joyce is only just recently woken up to how much of an irrational death cult she has been raised in. And boy HOWDY was it an awakening, losing Mike and seeing her best friend orphaned, on top of multiple friends being in grave danger.
Now, if my mother was on record of being willing to die for me, adjacent to my best friend being kidnapped by her father for coming out as a lesbian, that would NOT help, and that fear would spill out everywhere. The stakes with Becky alone no doubt feel astronomically high, no matter how Becky actually responds. Becky might be hurt Joyce didn’t talk to her, might still be carrying a torch, might even just be like “oh hell yeah high five dude”, and it wouldn’t matter, because PTSD means fear of a repeat of old helplessness and pain. Joyce and Dorothy both have the terrible experience around a friend coming out as gay and nearly being taken away because of it, and PTSD is not logical by design. It is our most basic biological programming trying to protect itself, and the rational mind has been compared by mental health professionals to a flea riding an elephant.
Joyce’s panic is totally understandable given everything, whether it leads to consequences or not. I feel sad for Joe, but Joyce is potentially in an emotional trigger state right now, and that possibility makes me feel sad for her, too.
I’m so sorry you went through that. 🙁
This exactly. Honestly, the fact Joyce had the emotional maturity to not drag Joe with her like an emotional support teddy bear, and also to turn around and reassure him that she hasn’t forgotten he has a stake in it too, feels like amazing progress for her.
Jordan’s going to see, and he’s going to be so disappointed in her poor infosec.
Huh, guess Joyce is coming out to her parents before Jocelyne. Ooh, I wonder if that leads to Jocelyne also coming out to them in solidarity.
My money is that this is about Becky, actually
Oh probably, but that headline is definitely going to go through news outlets and social media. Her parents and former church community are bound to find out…Ohhh, and Jocelyne is in the photo too. Never mind, guess they’re both coming out lol.
See that’s the neat part. Jocelyn is ALSO being outed since she’s in the picture.
Yeah. Neat.
I know Becky is the bigger worry (and somewhat justifiably so, though honestly I think it’s most likely there’s gonna be a “fucking knew it!” celebration and she’ll gripe behind closed doors) but “everybody” also happens to include Mary who is not going to be anywhere near friendly or kind about this.
I’m honestly trying to come up with a way that Mary is the one who gets the informaton to Hank and/or Carol but I think she’s in a different cult than the one Joyce left. Although, with the Hank/Carol divorce I suppose Hank may have wound up going to a different church. Which could be the one Mary’s parents attend.
Unless Mary knows them well enough to know that they’re both cheating on their boyfriends I don’t see a lot she can really do here
And even then, that’s already been defused by Joe and Joyce talking and hopefully either defused or exploded by Dorothy talking to Walky.
What can you really do with the knowledge that someone’s cheated when all the relevant parties already know?
Joyce and Joe have been together long enough that they’re probably a publically known couple, but who all actually knows that Walky and Dorothy are back together?
But even if she does, what’s she going to do once Dorothy’s talked to Walky? In theory she could try to run straight to Joe or Walky now to show them, but her style is more to hold secrets and use them for advantage and there aren’t going to be any secrets here in about 5 minutes.
In general people vastly overestimate Mary as a threat. The only thing she’s ever been able to do was blackmail Ruth for a bit, and that blew up in her face.
The thing is that Mary is a hateful bigot who wants to be a threat. One of these days she’s going to figure out how to actually do something as terrible as she wants.
I mean, is she? Her entire character is wanting to be that but always failing in humiliating ways. She’s the Dr. Doofenshmirtz of christofascism. If she was ever able to be legitimately threatening, something would be lost.
If you’re familiar with Buffy the Vampire Slayer there’s the concern she might be the Warren of the comic. Who was a joke villain, right up until he tried to shoot Buffy and hit Willow’s girlfriend instead. And even if Mary herself remains useless that doesn’t mean she can’t be responsible for motivating other Christofascits to come start trouble.
Yup. Joyce is joining the “explicitly targeted by local homophobes” club.
WELP. There could be several reasons for Joyce running away now:
– Jocelyne has been tagged (and the reason she’d gone to the protest was TO WARN JOCELYNE about laying low!
– Her parents are going to see it (not impossible if they’ve got an email subscription)
– Does Dorothy know of the picture?
– Oh god, BECKY.
HOWEVER. There is one reason Joe looks like that in the last panel:
– She broke his heart.
Poor dude, y’all. He’s doing his best here but no way he’s not in pain.
Dude has known that he would never be her priority, he comes after Dorothy, then Becky, her Sister, then Sarah, then him.
He has always known that, but it always hurts to be proven right.
Well, it feeds into his need to be better, as toxic as that is right now. Don’t think of your own happiness, make others happy, you don’t deserve jealousy or boundaries, you’re making it up to the world for who you were, so shut up and take it, you’re a man and can take it, HAVE TO take it.
Except… has that been proven? It would’ve been better if she’d given an answer now, but she’s clearly never even considered the poly possibility before. They could talk it over, but she obviously believes there’s some kind of crisis (though it’s yet to be revealed precisely what she’s worried about, others have speculated on possibilities).
So… she’s hurried off in a panic, but still cares enough about Joe to promise to get back to him about this. There’s no evidence that whoever she’s worried about matters more to her than Joe does — it seems more likely that she thinks whatever it is simply can’t wait.
Put another way: if Jocelyne were actively getting kidnapped by a member of Joyce’s sect, to be taken to some sort of conversion camp or something, would you still think Joe’s being mistreated by having to wait a little bit before they finish discussing this? It probably isn’t anything that serious, but Joyce’s hardly the sort to react calmly to events.
Also she needs time to process what Joe has sugested. It’s better that she take time and think before answering than give a hasty answer she’ll regret later. And whether it’s her parents or Becky she’s worried about seing the photo that needs dealt with now not after she takes time to think this through and give Joe a proper reply.
There is the fact that when she was saying she has to break up with Joe because she kissed Dorothy and plans to keep doing so. Joe brought poly, which she potentially could be open to. But the reality is she is shown that she mayne open to both but if she HAS to pick one person its not going to be Joe.
Joyce has not actually “picked” Dorothy at all. Sure, she impulsively did all the sexy things with her, but in the same period of time she *also* impulsively gave Joe a blowjob. She’s just an impulsive person! Whose morals were telling her that since she *has* impulsively cheated, she now owes Joe a breakup, *because that is the decent thing to do when you’ve cheated*. Even if she would have preferred to keep Joe and stay friends with Dorothy if faced with the choice.
(Making out in the middle of an extremely intense life and death and political values situation is not being presented with that choice. Joe was not there. Considering all the factors and making a choice based on your ultimate long term priorities is not how impulsiveness works)
Looks more like concern for her, since she’s clearly about to confront something.
I’m not sure what to make of the last panel, honestly. He might be worried about Joyce, or it might be other feelings he was previously suppressing shining through… we’ll see.
It’s probably a lot of things.
Upon consideration, I think I’m reading his expression as “if she says no, I’m shaving my head and leaving for Alaska to work at a fish farm forever” (specifics pending)
I don’t think the Dorothy conclusion is breaking his heart, but Joyce saying she’ll get back to him on their relationship status sounds terrifying for him.
steve dallas wondering where his sunglasses got to
*ACK!*
“We’ll bang ok?”
Oh no.
This is a comic. It’s not even in papper. All DoA universe, living in a WordPress servers.
This strip should not give me genuine anxiety.
It should not. I mean, it’s good to feel empathy for imaginary characters and be anxious on their behalf. But not to where it impacts you negatively.
Dormammu I’ve Come To Bargain please stop end strip with Joe’s Glazed eyes
For some reason, Joyce & Dorothy & their relationship remind me of Rei & Usagi from Sailor Moon.
Well, in the manga, Usagi and Rei meet because Rei is so pretty that Usagi follows her off the bus in a lovestruck trance, so.
Poor Joe.
I’d be interested if readership has dropped or increased over this storyline. Shit be stressful.
The Becky-ing commences
She is now in a picture with her sister at a protest her dad is convinced her sister is at.
And while she technically did not lie to her father that her brother was not in attendance…
Hang in there Joe, I’d put money on it being ok.
(Also I am further convinced that Becky’s reaction to this is going to be somewhere between “KISSING GIRLS IS RAD” and “I *knew* it” and then in private confess that she has conflicting feelings but she’s ok with it and she’ll be more ok with it the more time she has with it to Dina)
Same. But I do think a lot of Becky’s emotional reaction will depend on whether Joyce comes to talk to her about this. Just the fact of a check in will mean a lot.
Oof 🥺
Someone give this man a
BJmouth hughug!You know what’s wild is had to come to my family because I knew I was bisexual in the newspaper 🫠
Okay thanks for confirming I’m definitely Joyce-est out of all the character options. Yaaaaaayyyyy
For once, I AM surprised! Joyce being quick off the mark!
oh yeah that’s one HUGE scandal for someone who’d like to become president
(then again, that’s very very tame compared to what some of them did lmao)
No one involved in this wants to be President anymore.
Place your bets, everyone. What or who is Joyce afraid of seeing this?
-Mr. Brown
People is understandably wary of Hank. He’s just recently broken up this wife because things went too far. But we don’t know if he’s going to choose to love his family or to hold on to whatever is left of his old life. He might be a new man, but he could also give up on his kids for going too much on the other direction. That would devastate Joyce and hurt Jocelyn.
-Ms. Brown
Carol is a horrendous person, we all know that. And we already know that anything new she learns about her family isn’t going to sit well with her. That being said, is there much she can do? Maybe, we’re not sure what either of them could do. They’re not Thumb-man, but he was one extreme of a very messed up spectrum.
-Incelerator
Or any of his like-minded losers really. We’ve already seen Ryan’s friends going to extremes in his name. And there’s no lack of them.
-Becky
She’s probably going going to be very hurt by this. As much as she insists she hasn’t gotten over Joyce. Her newfound queerness exploding in public with the girl she already disliked for taking what she considers her place in Joyce’s heart is going to be a hard blow. And she’ll be exposed to it for a while.
-Walky
Somewhat like Becky, but we don’t know for sure if he’ll be hurt of if he’ll be nonchalant about Dorothy’s love life. Joyce is probably more concerned about Dorothy’s reaction to it.
Any other individuals we should keep in mind? I’ve already commented on the more general repercussions this could have but in here Joyce is clearly concerned for something or someone specifically.
Most likely Becky. That she realizes Joycelyne doesn’t know about it, is less likely, but as someone else pointed out, Willis has been tagging Joycelyne every time the paper has been shown. A somewhat distant third is that she realizes Dorothy doesn’t know and is about to approach Walky who might have seen it.
But my money is on Becky.
Jocelyn was there though, wasn’t she?
Jocelyne knows what happened, but probably doesn’t know it’s in the paper and thus doesn’t know to brace for incoming fire from the parents.
oh doesn’t know about the ARTICLE. I thought it was ‘Jocelyn doesn’t know they kissed so Joyce needs to tell her right away,’ and was like “but she does know, and also that’s not really an emergency.”
yeah, it’s obviously Becky. Though I still think Becky is going to take it way better than Joyce is thinking.
I don’t think it’s who she’s currently worried about but it’s been sugested one person that could cause problems because of this is Mary.
Might want to throw in the counter protestors in general.
Deliberately wrong answer: Mike. Joyce knows that he’d never let a little thing like death stop him coming back to comment on recent events… which would be fine, but she needs to go and warn Ethan that his ex has returned.
Of the potential candidates listed here, I’m going to say the most immediate concern is Becky, because:
1) While Hank is somewhat conservative, he’s nowhere near as bad as his wife, as he’s been shown to be more concerned with the well-being of his children and their happiness than with the will of God.
2) Carol was honestly my second choice here, because while you are correct that she is a terrible person and will most likely be sometihng to worry about further down the line, she’s not the immediate choice here of people Joyce would/should be concerned about.
3) Incelerator would be a surprise concern here, considering how little of a threat he actually was to the group. All he did was skate around them indoors and shout things at them, before being swiftly incapacitated by both Amazi-Girl and Tony.
4) Dorothy’s already going to speak with Walky (or at least that was the plan), so Joyce would hopefully have faith in Dorothy to do that.
Becky, meanwhile, is the one person both Joyce and Dorothy have been dreading to tell about the situation, as it’s her reaction they’re fearing the most.
I genuinely expect Walky’s reaction to be along the lines of “next time you send boob shots to joyce i get to be cc’d”. This is “I would blow a dude for a pizza” guy, there’s no way he would think much about it beyond “sweet, I win every bet about you two eventually making out”. Like, I don’t think it’d even ping his insecurities, Dorothy has broken up with him before over a much more hurtful reason and he took her back without blinking. At least Joe follows Joyce’s logic, I expect Walky to be stumped over why Dorothy would think he’d be upset about this for at least a few seconds.
He’s not attracted to Joyce, and he might well already feel like someone Dorothy’s sleeping with to distract herself.
I think the question is whether he will process this as “I’m not even good enough to distract Dorothy” or not, because that’s an ugly place. 🙁
https://
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/zigzaggin/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/schema/
Also I would call this blinking, personally.
Bonus: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/rebounding/
I don’t even want to say it because I think it will upset people, but I think she’s worrying about Dorothy – or more specifically, Walky finding out before she has a chance to tell him herself.
OK, I’ll venture a prediction: Joyce and Jocelyne look similar. There is great fear of what will happen when the picture is seen, but actually (apart from those who know) it is assumed that the person kissing Dorothy is “Josh” (ie Jocelyne) and the person watching is Joyce.
There is much confusion.
I have an unrelated question, about IU.
It’s really odd to me that the students we see are almost always on campus. If any of you went there, or to a seemingly similar school, was that what it was like? Or are the characters in DOA at school more than usual? (other than Sal when she had her bike)
I’m asking because I never lived in college residence (I didn’t want to share a room and it was more expensive than renting a two bedroom with a roommate anyway), but even my friends who did weren’t really hanging out on campus except for classes and when they were “home,” eating in the caf or hanging out/sleeping in their rooms. The rest of the time we’d hang out downtown, or go to the mall or an off-campus coffee shop, or otherwise wander the city.
I’d say it depends. I lived in a college residence my first year, then later I lived in off-campus housing. While on-campus, I did primarily just spend my time in the dorms or attending school events that they had at the time. The school sponsored events were free, and I had neither disposal income nor a car, so I really only left my campus to grocery shop, occasionally going out somewhere with my roommates, or to visit my family. When I lived off-campus, of course I only spent time on campus during classes and very rarely did I attend those school sponsored events, mainly because it was no longer convenient since I still didn’t have a car and relied on school shuttles to go back and forth. If I had disposal income and a car freshman year I probably would have explored my city more.
I didn’t go to IU but lived in my college dorms freshman/sophomore year without a car. I was close enough to home and my dad worked at the university so I went home on weekends (to do laundry and go to church mostly) but the rest of the week was spent entirely on campus. There were a few things in walking distance and my roommate had a car, but we didn’t have a ton of spending money lol.
So the characters being always on campus isn’t unrealistic to me. That’s just how dorms are, especially for freshmen.
Thank you (and doopyboop) for answering . I guess it probably also made a difference that we had free bus passes and downtown was a ten minutes with no transfers away. Me and my friends who lived in residence didn’t have cars (or gas money) either, but we were always out places, mostly free ones. It was also probably a smaller campus than IU, which means, I assume, that people wanted to go out more.
(nb I tried to send this last night but I did it wrong so it got filtered)
I don’t think I left campus once my first year of college.
I spent most of my time on campus when I was in college. I found a group of friends with similar nerdy interests and we hung out in each others rooms and in common areas a lot when we didn’t have classes or work to do for those classes. If I didn’t feel like hanging out with people during my free time I would play video games or read books or watch TV in my dorm room. I went home and stayed with my family for the Summer and Winter breaks, but other than that I was almost always on campus during my college years.
A lot of it depends on the school. My campus was rural with little within easy walking distance but a few shops (and bars) that were there because of the campus market. So while we were there, we spent most of our time on campus itself. Probably more than the characters here do.
IU is in the middle of a city, so I’d expect more time in the city itself.
What strikes me as odd is that no one goes home for weekends basically ever. Joyce did once, after an attempted kidnapping. Though not after the second one. In my experience some people went home every few weeks and almost everyone a couple times a semester at least. Narratively it makes sense though: keep the cast together so they can interact. Especially with the slow pace of the comic where someone going home for a weekend would mean they were cut off for months of real time.
Joyce’s home is several hours away by car and she does not have a car, so it would require Hank coming to pick her up. Several other characters are from even further away. Doesn’t seem weird to me at all.
Sure. It’s not weird everyone isn’t going home every couple of weeks.
It’s weird that no one at all does ever. (Except for Joyce for the big post happy-fun-gun-time confrontation.)
On the other hand, we don’t actually know no one is going home, it just doesn’t often come up.
I’m sure plenty of unnamed characters go home. Maybe even some of the minor named characters.
But the main cast is always here on the weekends. (Sure, you could probably do a detailed study and find that there was a weekend where someone didn’t appear on panel and thus could have been home unmentioned, but that’s stretching.)
It’s not that big a deal. It doesn’t actually bother me and there are definitely good narrative reasons for it. I just would find it a bit odd in reality.
Looking at this and other comments, I must have worded this badly. I didn’t mean going all the way home, I meant going off-campus in general, like out into town, or on day trips to parks/beaches/hiking, or to restaurants that weren’t on/adjacent to the campus or visiting friends (not that this last one is really relevant to DOA, since as far as I know Marcie is the only person living off campus, presumably doesn’t have room to host in her shared place, and only three people of the cast are likely to visit her).
We did all get free bus passes included in our tuition though, so maybe that makes a difference? And it was probably a smaller campus.
(I missed the comment specifically bringing up the point of going home, nvm)
Contrariwise, I knew a lot of people in my dorm who basically never went home — we had enough of those types that some dorms stayed open (for a small extra fee per resident) over the major breaks, including winter break.
Hell, my parents only lived 90min from campus, and I went home once a month at MOST.
I went to a much smaller school in a suburb, but I essentially never left campus except for vacations and College Bowl competitions at other schools. Then again, I basically had Amber’s attitude towards leaving my room, so I’m hardly an average example.
I went to PSU — for a lot of the big state schools, in my experience, you can spend 100% of your time on-campus or directly adjacent to it.
All the clubs meet on campus.
The dorm cafeteria food was pretty great, actually.
Gyms and pools on campus.
Most of the student-welcoming bars and restaurants are across the street from “on campus”.
The campus has parks and outdoor hangout areas — lawns, gazebos, we even had a nice shady walking path.
Even the kids I knew who lived off-campus would routinely take a bus into campus at 8-9AM and either go home at dinner time or take the late bus home after getting dinner and going to club meetings on-campus.
Even half the fraternities and most of the sororities had their meeting places and hubs on-campus — only the big party frats had actual frat houses, and those were mostly 1-2 blocks “off-campus”.
as someone who avoided frats like the plague and thus doesn’t know anything, I actually assumed it was normal that other than maybe a party house, frats were on-campus
As a fraternity guy, but a music fraternity that allowed non-music majors, there were frats and there were frats.
At my university, there were basically three categories:
The (basically all-male) party and old-school frats had huge old houses/mansions in which dozens of college kids could sleep two to a bedroom, bought by alumni, and took themselves very seriously in terms of networking but that’s about it.
The sororities that were of similar age/membership to those tend to have agreements with the campus that certain floors/wings of certain dorms have preference for members of specific sororities. There are no sorority houses to my knowledge.
The co-ed and professional fraternities (in which I was comfortably ensconced) tended to have no house or transient houses, and used university resources like ordinary clubs — we had a “house” for a while that was just a random rental in which we arranged to grab all eight bedrooms in a two-story, two-apartment house, but our meetings were invariably in a conference room in the music building, for example.
And realistically, my frat had six-eight separate music rehearsals a week (split among 3-4 groups), one business meeting, and 0-1 parties per week, so I felt pretty good about it. We also maintain a couple of alumni groups that are pretty much spaces for getting men some emotional support from friends without the toxic-masc culture of judging guys for, y’know, having normal emotions and needs.
The worry is about Becky – Dorothy and Joyce have already stated that they are super afraid about telling Becky. Also there’s the fact that Joyce thought that “if she were gay she would be gay for Becky”, turns out that actually, no she wouldn’t!
Becky has been very fearful of sexuality being fluid which is going to present itself here in a very painful way. I think now Joyce is going to rush back to Dorothy and either Becky will be there already or will turn up shortly after.
Joyce doesn’t have romantic feelings for Becky because she sees her as a sister. Becky justified this to herself as “Joyce isn’t into girls anyway”.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/away/
I’m not saying Joyce has romantic feelings for Becky – I’m saying that previously when she was thinking about her sexuality she thought she was straight because if she did have any queer feelings, she would expect to feel them for Becky.
I don’t have the exact strip, but it came up yeaaars ago when Becky first came to the campus and confessed to Joyce
Poor Joe. He’ll be left waiting with no answers.
She made it quite clear she is coming back to talk. Joe is patient. Helluva thing to spring on her.
I think it’s fair for him to have at least a little anxiety given the circumstances
I love Batman’s sympathetic face in the background. I swear his expression changes between panels four and five.
He’s Batman. He can
breathe in spacemove in a still pictureNever thought I’d say it.
Let her go , Joe.
It’s not worth it.
Joyce has repeatedly expressed extreme fear about revealing this to Becky and extreme reluctance to talk to her about it because she knows what a difficult conversation this is going to be and yet has consistently since this began insisted that the news must come from her because it would break Becky otherwise.
The problem is Becky. Everything else is secondary.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/catch-2/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/safely/
Doesn’t really read like extreme fear to me. Am I forgetting something?
I gotta be honest, if you’re looking at that first link and not seeing “extreme fear” in the last panel I don’t think we can have a productive discussion because we apparently operate in entirely different realities. Like what do you think those faces are about or that suggestion about faking their deaths? Same thing if you’re seeing the second panel and seeing anything other than “extreme reluctance to confront the issue.”
The fact that it is a joke.
Like, are the characters joking? No. But that first link is definitely “comical expressions of dread”. The second link features exasperation from Joyce that Dorothy is being so avoidant about telling Becky when she should have been more prepared for difficult conversations.
Today’s second and third panel, by contrast, look like fresh panic to me.
Whoops, Poe’s law. Was genuinely pretty confused how anyone could read that otherwise there but wasn’t able to discount it entirely.
I always forget if that’s the Hitler one or the “You should probably use an emoji” one.
Wikipedia says it’s the emoji one.
Nah, we are just reading the strip differently. That’s okay.
I felt like Dotty was more worried than Joyce (though to be fair, Dotty does have to share a room with Becky)
The way Joe looks reminds me so much of a depression crash. Everything inside stops, no internal dialogue, no background ‘music’, unable to initiate anything. Ruth described something similar the Billie once. Horrible thing.
Conversely Joyce has had every neuron fire at once. Lock n load, people!
Poor Joe, he’s beginning to understand how unprioritized he is by Joyce.
Joe has been a consistent friend as she decompartmentalizes the toxic parts of her upbringing. He’s worried about her and the fall out affecting her from lots of angles.
He’s also balancing by not being smothering. I think Joyce realized that he truly loves her as a person and not a posession or conquest when he said that he couldn’t fulfill the same niche Dorothy does, and he’s emotionally mature enough to understand that.
She was texting Joe when she visited home. He has always made time for her, Dorothy has had her own spiral time, but that doesn’t mean Dorothy doesn’t love Joyce. Joe has just been more gentle like he doesn’t want to scare Joyce away.
Joe does think a lot about Joyce and her situation.
I just get the feeling it isn’t mutual.
And thats why I think a poly relationship isnt going to work. Poly relationships should be mutual, not one person settling for being the reserve.
Joe is allowed to want some of Joyce’s love, rather than none of it.
Joyce got through the relationship convo with him until the natural “now gimme five minutes to actually process this” stopping point, at which point she realized what all this might actually mean for her social and family life. I wouldn’t call that deprioritizing Joe.
Of course he’d be worried and upset over her lack of an answer before runnjng away. But the fact is, their relationship right now is significantly less on fire than the rest of everything else. And if anything, Joyce is being thoughtful&kind towards him by not enlisting him to help her put it all out while still in a limbo.
It’d be really funny if people were right about Carol showing up, maybe even with a gun and/or hired goons (from the church mafia, idfk), but then some random passerby just decided to pepper spray her and not stop.
YES! i am in agreement that i think the panic is regarding here sister and father before becky, but her mom showing up is absolutely a thign that could happen, and it would be honestely funny to me if her involvent in toedad incedent means she’s known to campus security, and we get a shot of joyce and friend moving between classes, and carol in the background just getting wiped out by campus security.
Or just suplexed again by Ruth.
But sadly for such happy imaginings, Carol has shown up on campus without being bothered by security since the kidnappings.
damn, then ruthplexed in the background is the new hope.
my fear is she shows up with a gun
I doubt that Willis is just going to do a repeat of the Toedad incident. If there’s parental drama, it’ll be in some form we haven’t seen before.
Nah, fuck campus security. They’re not funny, because they’re cops. A rando with several canisters of pepper spray would be funny, though.
Totally off the relationship drama topic.
But if Joyce was writing her comic for the newspaper wouldn’t she know what days it comes out? Seems weird for a paper to not run comics on a Sunday and I know that Roomies! Had special strips on weekends. I know Joyce got super intricate with the plotting and dates of the comic for pacing purposes.
I’ll check back tomorrow because I’ve been getting heck for being hyper focused on the comic too much by my partner.
I think the joke is that the IDS does *not* have a Sunday edition, and why would a student newspaper have one? Despite its name, I don’t think it’s even a daily, it’s published once a week.
The in comic one is daily. Joyce has far too comic strips for it to be otherwise.
And why wouldn’t a student newspaper have a Sunday edition? It’s not like students aren’t on campus over the weekend.
Becky
This is about Becky and I don’t know why this is a matter of speculation. Becky is the person whose reaction Joyce and Dorothy have most vocally feared. There could be some concern about Joyce’s parents creeping in now that this is becoming wider news but what Joyce is concerned about here, and what she can do something about right now, is Becky.
“…maybe we should just fake both our deaths. She’d take that easier.”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/safely/
Counterpoint.
It’s low on the list but neither of them look afraid anymore, and also the first fear was played for laughs.
Gonna be honest I don’t think this is a counterpoint!
Like I said: neither of them look afraid to me. Joyce looks a bit incredulous as she points out to Dorothy that she would’ve had to have difficult conversations as a president.
This strip looks like panic to me, which is just completely different from “comical faces of dread” followed by “jeez, all the way down at 700+, huh?”
The second strip shows more dread from Dorothy than from Joyce.
Willis might still be going there, I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying I personally think fear of being outed to her family makes more sense to me.
“Carol sucks and Joyce shouldn’t care about her” okay but emotions don’t care about those things. PTSD certainly doesn’t.
So many folks today dismissing Joyce’s PTSD as something that obviously won’t be triggered because they personally don’t think Carol is a credible threat. Weird, but then again, this is the same comment section that kept acting like Dorothy’s flashbacks to Joyce’s kidnapping were an insult and unfair to Joe, as if they were a choice she was making on purpose.
Sigh. Sorry. I’d delete this if I could. I am obviously frustrated about the dismissal I keep seeing, but this is a rant I shouldn’t have aimed at you. It’s just kind of leaking out.
I love Joe, I don’t like that last panel! But it is rough seeing so many people not only focus entirely on Joe’s feelings in response to this strip but be kinda rudely dismissive of Joyce’s anxiety. Whether it’s over Becky or her family, it’s not a reaction she is choosing to have because she doesn’t care about Joe.
On that much we can agree! Joe’s thrown a lot at her, none of which was she was expecting, and she’s got a lot of fires to go put out right now. She’s handling things and treating Joe probably the best she can be right now, circumstances permitting.
Which of course doesn’t mean Joe has no right to feel hurt! Just that it’s not fair for folks who are upset on his behalf to be treating this strip like Joyce went, “Oh dang, I forgot I had a load of laundry in the dryer, I’d better go move it over.”
Or something else equally nonurgent but I can’t think of a good example that isn’t a metaphorical meme now, heh.
Agreed fully & exactly. This is shit timing for their relationship to be at a vulnerable point at the same time Joyce’s entire life is on fire, but it is what it is. From the moment Joyce got her shit together to talk to him, she’s been as kind, thoughtful and caring of him as she possibly physically could.
Like, her options as of this moment are:
– stay in Joe’s room, talking through her realizations and worries and hangups one by one with him until she reaches a conclusion. Joe would undoubtedly prefer this, but it would mean basically abandoning the rest of her social life in his favor. If anything, it would effectively make him responsible for the results of this neglect (which can be minor or not), making this not the kindest option to him at all;
– ask him to come with her while she handles the Everything without having actually given him an answer about their continued relationship status. In this arrangement Joe would be expected to silently stay behind Joyce, either looming or making himself invisible depending on context, implicitly or explicitly supporting her in everything she says and decides to address this, even as, with her still not having processed it all, it can be literally anything including “actually we ARE breaking up right now, I just decided”. Needless to say, this would be an option that EXTREMELY takes advantage of Joe’s kindness towards her, and has great potential for him to be personally hurt while also humiliated in public. Bad;
– blurt out an answer to Joe that she hasn’t considered, hasn’t thought through and hasn’t processed the implications of. Which is also unkind to him, because Joyce’s not-thought-through default settings are fairly terrible. She knows this, which is why these days she tries to take her time when confronted with a novel situation;
– this, here: put off answering Joe until she can think about it, and run off to handle her shit by herself in the mea t ime.
The only better option I could see would be to tell him what she suddenly realized she needs to run off to do, which would reassure him it’s not her freaking out about his suggestion.
Of course that would kill the suspense for us of who she’s actually most worried about finding out right now. Especially if we’re cutting away from her tomorrow.
Joyce did say “oh shit, EVERYONE is going to see this”. Which, honestly, I think covers her panic. Becky’s probably first on the list, but I really think it’s sorted by proximity.
I’m bad at faces; sometimes, it’s nice when characters overreact like they’re in a classical Greek tragedy so they’re unambiguous… but yes, it does risk taking something that’s deliberately exaggerated for humorous effect by the characters themselves as though it’s their sincere reaction. I’m still confident Joyce cares a lot about Becky’s reaction, but am not certain it’s her priority right now.
But… I was distracted in my reasoning by much the same thing you were, Li; over the last while, there’ve been a number of comments that seem to treat Joe as the only character in the strip who matters and regarding Joyce’s concerns as entirely irrelevant.
Yes, Joyce cheated. Yes, that’s bad. That doesn’t make her an unperson, just a horny teen making mistakes (much as Joe has). Some of the comments seem to regard her as having permanently crossed the moral event horizon, and almost make me feel like a few of the people who chose the “frightening body horror manifesto” option in the poll maybe weren’t actually joking.
I’m not actually sure what my point was here. Maybe I should take a break from commenting outside of blatantly jokey stuff and perhaps the occasional filk or whatever.
well it’s fun to speculate, isn’t it!
My money is on worrying that this is outing Jocelyn *and* her simultaneously, but we’ll see.
we agree on this! this feels like an action drama initiation rather than relationship drama initiation.
Who was it who was worried about there being no consequences?
Because now Becky and perhaps Joyce’s parents now know, so there may be some pretty bad consequences
ESPECIALLY if Joyce’s mother reads this paper
She’s as cracked as Toedad was
The relationship paladins want consequences for the cheating.
Consequences for Joyce coming out as bi aren’t the same thing.
but if they had not cheated, this picture would not exist, and there would be no panic. therefor this is a direct consequence of the cheating. and for someone of joyce’s history, publicly being outed as at minimum BI as well as cheating is a pretty damn big consequence.
it may not be the consequence wanted by the palladins, but it is still 100% a consequence of their cheating.
That seems like a big stretch or a complete misunderstanding of what the paladins mean.
If she hadn’t been dating Joe at all, that same sequence of events at the protest could have played out with the wedding verse and the archway of teargas and the Kiss caught on camera without any cheating and all these consequences for coming out as bi would still be the same.
It’s because they kissed so publicly, but not because that public kiss was cheating.
As an OG paladin, this right here.
removeing the context of the events that actually occurred does not change the facts of what occurred. that is no different than saying that they could have just as easily had all the same events witout kissing and not ended up front page news.
joyce is dating joe
joyce attends protest to warn sister
dorothy while at protests decides to make a statement regarding her beliefs (what beliefs are only known to willis atm)
joyce seeing dorothy taking a risk, and barely escapes harm herself, decides to go after her.
they confront each other and discuss their love being intense and mutual. (at this point it would be easy to remember their suroundings and run)
they decide to kiss. an act we can define as cheating in the mind of the participants and the victim of the cheating)
everything that follows is a consequence of the act of cheating. hypothetically removing the victim of the cheating doesnt mean anything as that is not the facts of what occurred.
just because the consequence you want to occur has not yet happened (there is a good chance that she loses joe as a romantic partner and friend, dont’ want it to happen but i do acknowledge that it could) doesnt mean that what is currently occurring isnt not a consequence of their actions.
Like I said, a complete misunderstanding of what the paladins are talking about.
I’m fairly certain the paladins don’t mean “consequences” in a butterfly effect way.
Becky will probably be hurt, and Joyce may be concerned about her feelings, but Joyce and Dorothy didn’t wrong her.
Joyce wronged Joe, and plot armor protected her from that by having Joe set it up.
I got a horseshoe theory about sickos and paladins, and the un-monikered middle who want a shake up with everything working out and nobody really doing anything wrong.
I don’t think it’s plot armor. I think it’s “the writing has been on the wall for months, and both Joe and Walky knew what they were walking into”. If either of them had been dating a person new to the social circle, like Walky with Lucy, it would have played out different. But a guy who knows them this well who would be opposed to “my girlfriend has a girlfriend” simply would not have started datjng either of them.
Did she wrong Joe? I mean, isn’t that up to Joe to decide? The person who seems to be of the opinion that no she didn’t?
so close to understanding what I wrote.
See, part of me worries that with everything that’s about to happen, Joyce will probably forget to get back to Joe regarding this.
For how long?
Ideally not too long, depends on how severe the situation is with Becky, but I’m predicting it won’t be until next day.
“I’ve gotta gay. Go. Go, I’ve gotta go.”
Off to apologize to Becky?
0 for 2 on breaking up with Joe btw
Accurate.
i actually wonder if we get Joe going wait and following her out the door, to me his last panel face has a strong FEAR element to the mixture of emotions, and he knows about her family. i could see him trying to catch up, with “ok is this a mike moment and if so how can i help”
Obligitory DAMN YOU WILLIS!!!!!
I am praying to all the gods for polyamory. Listen, if my friend group could be a near perfect circle of venndiagram of sexy to sexyish leanings, so can my favorite webcomic, damnit! lolololol
I just don’t want Joe to cry D:
For what it’s worth, Walky is definitely a “does this mean I can hook up with Joe if I want” kind of guy.
a side observation regading the comment section reactions, it does help demonstrate how easy it is to get tunnel vision when speculating. like i am guilty of projecting what i want to my prdiction just as much as anyone here, and seeing the variety of takes helps remind me of the possibilities of views is as endless as the universe itself!
stay kind everyone!
It’s an avalanche of consequences and people that have to be talked to . Bring it on. This day will take the rest of the year.
“Today could last another million years,
Today coud be the end of me”
Blondie ’11:59′
Something that just occurred to me is that Joycelynn was the one who wrote the article, right?
… how does that make sense though?
She hid her identity so thoroughly from the family for so long and then publiclly shares that her little sister is queer as well so soon after learning?
…..no? Why would she have written an article for a student paper? Daisy wrote the article.
???
Jocelyn is in the background of the photo of Dorothy and Joyce. She doesn’t have a byline.
It doesn’t make sense because, while Jocelyne is a writer, she’s not a writer for the paper in question, and is unaffiliated with the school beyond having graduated from it.
The character we’ve seen who has authority over the paper’s contents is Daisy, who’s both a lesbian and a monomaniac over women doing anything remotely gay.
That certainly is random mister.
Ah, family. And also family. But also…
…that’s right, family.
It really doesn’t seem likely to me that Joyce’s parents are going to see this photo. Even if they do, Joyce has her back to the camera with about one-eighth of the side her face visible. Would they even recognize her. As for Jocelyne, she’s in the background and partially obscured by the title text. Even if she is recognizable, she doesn’t look noticeably more femme then she did in the strip where Hank commented on her growing her hair long. (That might have been a bonus strip.) I don’t think she’d be clocked as trans just from this photo. Now, if Willis decides to go there, it’s plausible enough that I’ll buy it, but as it stands, it doesn’t seem likely to me. To be fair, I didn’t think we’d end up seeing the protest or that there would be a photo so I’m not doing great on predictions recently.
As for Becky, I can see her having pretty much any reaction from ‘outwardly chill, but inwardly hurt,’ to ‘nuclear explosion,’ but I lean towards the former. I expect that, like Joe, this isn’t going to be a big surprise for her. She’s shown on several occasions that the attraction between Joyce and Dorothy hasn’t escaped her, and when Joyce told Becky about her autism diagnosis, Becky first guessed that Joyce was going to tell her she was gay. On that occasion, while Becky didn’t seem thrilled at the prospect, she also didn’t seem like she was going to explode.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/02-turning-saints-into-the-sea/confirm/
I mean, her dad already saw a photo of the protest, so.
Her dad already saw a photo of *Jocelyne* at the protest! He wants to know if she’s there! It’s not out of the bounds of insanity that he would check in on the protest (besides if there’s snipers on the roof then it’s making the local news and he’s relatively local), and in doing so come across the front page image.
That’s kind of my point.
I think it’s odd how many people are incredulous that Hank or Carol could possibly see this photo of the protest, given that Hank has literally already texted Joyce about a photo of the protest.
She’s realized Dorothy’s going to see an upcoming Julia Gray strip, and she has to find Daisy to get it pulled. It’s the one from the bonus strip, I don’t think we’ve seen Dorothy wear those clothes yet, so it’s still in the future.
hm, reading the follow-ups. I haven’t checked the outfits for those, but the Julia Gray strips take a turn that’s possibly more relevant than originally intended.
It’s possible to simultaneously recognize that (1) Joe has done significant emotional labor with maturity and grace, and is in need of validation and time with Joyce to sort through the mess she created in their relationship; and (2) Joyce has just realized that the newspaper photo is likely going to have significant impacts on Becky and her immediate family, and has justifiably gone into crisis mode. Joe deserves to be treated better, and Joyce is navigating a ton of completely alien territory in crisis mode and we needn’t be too hard on her for not getting her perception of the subtle emotional needs of others (not an autism strength) 100% right here. She recognizes that she needs to talk through her relationship with Joe and he deserves that, she recognizes that she has some timebombs on her hands she urgently needs to handle now, and we as readers know she could have taken 30 seconds to give Joe a little more emotional reassurance and gratitude.
Yeah just an “I appreciate all the thought and effort you’re putting in” would have gone a long way. But she’s in panic mode right now.
Ngl, that exact phrasing sounds both extremely out of character for her and like something Joe would be even more scared to hear than “we’ll talk later”. He doesn’t want her to appreciate his efforts, he wants her to keep being his girlfriend. Literally anything she might say that doesn’t directly address that is a bad sign right now.
Lets put aside the neccesary practical panic thats happening over her family/Becky finding out and look at the potential poly dynamic.
We have no indication there is any attraction between Dorothy and Joe
When Joyce thought she had to pick one person she was going to pick Dorothy
So even if everyone is okay with a throuple, thats just a bad dynamic. Where both of Joe and Dorothy are only looking to get romantic affection from Joyce, but Joyce has made it known if push comes to shove and she HAS to pick she would pick Dorothy.
That’s a very difficult dynamic to make healthy. And Joyce and her upbringing doesnt exactly have a wealth of experience navigating complex poly relationships dynamics.
That’s been my concern with the “Polyamorous ending” there’s obviously a severe imbalance in how Joe feels for Joyce and how Joyce feels for Joe. I don’t think that sort of situation is sustainable ground for a relationship unfortunately
I mean, there’s hierarchical polyamory for sure. Joe and Joyce don’t have to have balanced emotions towards each other as long as they agree on the terms–terms which should have been addressed before this point, but 19 year olds in their first big relationships aren’t the ones who would really think things through.
So Joe could choose this if he wanted, and Joyce’s feelings could evolve. Or not. Joyce is experiencing huge feelings right after the most traumatic events of her life, and Joe is allowing her the space to process while still being a point of stability. I think the comment section forgets that the characters are just kids. They’re babies, not even done with their freshman year of college.
Dorothy and Joe don’t have to have any kind of relationship with each other for poly to be completely healthy and functional, so that is a nonissue.
Also, what we know about Joyce here is that after she cheated on him, she assumed she had to break up with him. Add to that that when he suggested she didn’t, she immediately felt like a hussy.
That’s not actually the same thing as choosing Dorothy over Joe, because it’s entirely possible that instead she kissed Dorothy impulsively, and then felt like she no longer HAD a choice. And we will see in coming strips whether she’s going to have to make a choice and which of them she will choose if she does!
I agree that Joe thinks she’d choose Dorothy, and I do worry some about him through all of this, but I definitely don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that she ACTUALLY loves him less at this point.
Clarifying my own comment: “and then felt like she no longer had a choice” about breaking up with Joe. Kissing Dorothy in no way obligated Joyce to start dating her, and I seriously doubt she felt that way. But that she felt like she needed to break up with Joe? Yes.
In general, I don’t think we can discount the fundie programming (and apparent propensity towards the idea that it’s always okay to go for the fairy-tale ending) floating around Joyce’s head in terms of her making relationship decisions, and as such I think she’s about as unpredictable in this situation as she has ever been.
Also true!
SHE GAVE HIM A BLOWJOB LAST NIGHT
“no indication of attraction between Dorothy and Joe”
Unless I missed something 🤔
Oh misread that. Well in that case who cares, Dorothy and Joe don’t have to date.
My take exactly!
But I did briefly enjoy the mental image of like, ULTIMATE goblin AU, Dorothy went to talk to Joe and received the blanket and gave the oral sex.
Nah, Joyce got the blanket and gave the oral sex. Today, she tries again and again winds up flustered in the hallway after some sexings. After a couple more tries with similar results, Dorothy’s like “fine, I’ll handle it” only to wind up flustered in the hall after oral sex.
ffffff
“He’s surprisingly reasonable and persuasive, I’ll give you that”
Powerful sexual kindness :/ it’s got a wide splash zone.
…just like Joe!
I mean herein lies one of the struggles of reading media where we don’t get the characters’ inner thoughts. We don’t know the actual internal rationale for Joyce doing that because the act is essentially a punchline, we don’t get her rationale, we don’t get an indication that it was some deep and abiding affection for Joe, or a reciprocal act of kindness due to Joe giving her something sweet and thoughtful and special. We just get “I put my mouth in his winky” or whatever the line was. That’s not to say it isn’t a sign of deep and abiding emotional reciprocity, just that we can know for sure due to the way the author writes the strips
What does Dorothy/Joe have to do with anything? We already know their dynamic is “Joyce is life, Joyce is love”. The real question mark is Walky. Obviously he isn’t going to mind, and obviously he isn’t interested in Joyce. But is he interested in Joe? Also, he’s the only one involved potentially likely to want to extend the polycule before the four of them – he and Amber did not part on bad terms at all last I checked.
Well, Dorothy past history with Joe may well lead her to not be willing to be in any kind of poly relationship involving him.
I don’t think Dorothy would be more of a holdout than Sarah XD
…also, if this arc is going in the kind of “literal physical danger” direction that it can, Joe might just get the chance to prove himself!
…now watch Joyce process that she’s going to be in a polycule with Walky…
While true @Opinion isn’t talking about that, they’re talking about a lack of Dorothy wanting to be romantically and/or sexually involved with Joe. Or at least a lack of attraction between the two.
Polyamory requires all parties to consent, it doesn’t require all parties to be romantically and/or sexually involved with each other. I’m not poly and I understand this but it seems to be a stumbling block for a surprising number of people that “Dorothy dates Joyce, Joe dates Joyce, Dorothy and Joe do not date each other” is a valid configuration and they keep bringing up whether or not Dorothy and Joe would be interested in dating each other.
idk maybe you should talk to poly people rather than just relying on the stuff you made up in your head about being poly?
This comment section, for two months: don’t forget that Joe has trauma around cheating!
The same comment section today: “Why would Joyce even care about her mom hypothetically finding out she’s bi?”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/sweetie/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/amazinglove/
Gosh can’t imagine
(Panel 2 could still be about Becky, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I am talking about all the people saying Joyce obviously wouldn’t give a shit about her mom hypothetically finding out.)
My rationale remains “Joyce has not expressed worry about her parents finding out, but has about Becky, who not only has immediate access to the paper but also is someone she can handle *here and now,* while her parents are more distant and something she has to prepare for, but wouldn’t necessarily prompt such immediate urgency.”
You’re right in that her family is gonna be a factor but I don’t see textual evidence to suggest that particular wave of realization has hit just yet in my eyes.
The counterpoint to that is that we have been asked to infer a LOT about what these characters are thinking/feeling now that events are moving too fast for expository monologues, and it’s not an absurd inference (especially in light of Willis ostentatiously tagging Jocelyn when the newspaper shows up) for Joyce’s thoughts to be something like “oh shit, my dad reads the paper, and he doesn’t know about Jocelyn and/or DoJo setting sail!”
Not an unreasonable position at all! Just not one I share right now.
See my reply.
I can definitely see the potential for the fear here to be about Becky instead, but what is getting my goat is all the commenters reacting to “oh no Carol” with “why should anyone care about Carol? Weird thing to even suggest. Anyway, Joyce is being so mean to Joe right now.”
*my reply to myself
Prediction: somehow by the time I come back to this comment section at 8pm, everything will have turned so dramatically that I’ll look very silly for acting like this was even a common take. 😭
If it is Becky she is rushing to, I had BETTER not see people hating on Joyce for putting her lifelong best friend’s trauma over her boyfriend of a few weeks.
I have unfortunately already seen at least one instance of this take in the comments.
Eleven days. Not even two weeks yet let alone a few.
They have been friends for months. The reason why what happens in their relationship is such a big deal is because of how it can effect their friendship.
As a counterpoint to your rationale: Joyce knows that Becky will find out. Dorothy and Becky are roommates, after all. Becky finding out is something that they’re nervous about, scared even, but acknowledge needs to happen.
But that expression on the second panel… I suppose it *could* be shock, like “Oh no, this has already happened, and now I need to confront someone who already knows instead of breaking it to them myself. But to me, it looks like a sudden realization of something she didn’t think could even happen; something that shakes her world to its core, that she can’t do anything but stop and run and maybe attempt to stop.
And I really have to think that it’s someone in her family seeing the paper online. Considering, of course, that it’s known that she’s writing for the paper. Oh, and Joss is right there on the photo, too, for any curious Brown to see, as if to say clear as day, “Why yes, that IS Joyce there, it’s not her sibling who she looks very similar to, and which would be the only vaguely acceptable explanation for this.”
My evidence for this, other than the expression, is that narratively it makes a ton of sense to ramp the stakes up right now and develop the peril.
Real.
Thanks. Sigh!
Reminds me of yesterday when someone said Joyce would have zero consequences. People just don’t understand that life is so much more than one romantic relationship.
Joyce’s whole family will respond.
Joe’s mother could say something.
Joe’s friends (like Jacob) could point out Joyce’s tendencies towards lying and cheating as deeper issues
Joyce’s mother could decide to shoot up the school
Becky’s PTSD could absolutely be triggered on top of the whole idea that Joyce didn’t say anything to her and let her find out via newspaper
I do think it’s fair to distinguish between “consequences for cheating” and “consequences for being bisexual”.
Our remaining hopes for the former are Walky reacting badly to this. Even Becky being upset about it would probably also be some of column a, some of column b.
But. Yeah. In terms of “no drama is going to happen unless Joe was openly upset”, THAT I don’t think was ever likely.
I’ve got to say, I am getting a little irritated by people missing this distinction. Partly I think it’s conflating the (some) sicko desire for drama with the paladin desire for consequences. They’re not the same thing here.
Chalk it up to fundamental misunderstanding I guess.
Also we’re just… not two coherent sides!
Some people took up arms with the sickos against the paladins, and vice versa, but the alliance was very nebulous.
Plus, some of us have narrower definitions of drama than others. I’ve definitely also seen some bewildered paladins not understanding how any “sicko” could want a poly “solution” here, and some of the people who wanted that DID want it to be happy immediately, but some of the people who wanted (or now want) it actively want it to go Terribly and ultimately self-destruct.
You know me, I’m in the middle. I could definitely find things to like about “actually no one winds up angry, and instead this turns out to have been the prelude for a complicated poly thing that immediately or eventually turns wholesome”. It would NOT be what I’ve been cheering for this whole time, but it would make me happy in different ways.
I ESPECIALLY, with rolling eyes, love the persistently expressed idea that Carol couldn’t possibly do anything when they spent all their money to help out Toedad or whatever… as though Carol wasn’t probably still a contact for Joyce with the Bursar’s Office, as though you needed more than $1000 spare on your credit card to get a brand-new rifle and enough gas to head to your misguided kid’s college.
If you don’t have sufficient money in your savings account, you CANNOT harm your child in any way, obviously.
Never mind that the question isn’t “can she do it” but “could Joyce possibly fear it”.
Yup. And we KNOW Joyce fears the link between Toedad’s profession of motive and her mother’s identically-worded one.
I really think if it’s not a factor in Joyce’s fear, it’ll be because it didn’t occur to Willis (which is fair, they’re in a VERY different position wrt “bigoted parents reacting to queerness”).
Or if he’s got a plan.
I wonder if it’s something Becky will bring up when Joyce finally tells her.
(95% chance this vanishes without a trace. 5% chance I look like a genius.)
I wish you luck on your bet, friend.
this gave me flashbacks to an old forum where I got dogpiled for saying someone could fear wearing revealing clothing because of predators. I certainly did not say that wearing revealing clothing actually was the cause of sexual assault, nor that someone wearing deserved it (I very much denied those things), but everyone was leapt from my saying it was something that someone might fear to “this person thinks that’s a justified fear and also thinks that’s the way it should be.”
everyone means every character except Mike, someone’s next-door neighbor, people and politicians all over, maybe Tristan…
still, putting all the eggs in the doombasket ain’t worth it
something I forgot when commenting yesterday
since joyce’s dad saw her sister at the protest on the news he’s pretty like to have seen joyce as well
whether the kiss is a broadly filmably/photographable moment for news coverage is another matter
which is to say I can see why she might have other priorities than relationship stuff right now
One of the key differences between this comic and Shortpacked!, is that if this was Shortpacked!, Batman would be tagged.
Also, he can breathe in space.
Y’know, honestly? Given that Joe isn’t actively freaking out, and there’s a solid chance that Becky is either actively freaking out or is about to do so, this isn’t the most unreasonable time in which to go “o shit I have to talk to someone else real quick”. It’s certainly not great, but I’m not sure there is a particularly great way to act in this particular situation- it’s all a lil bit fucked.
A photo like that would be national news.
Her dad was already watching. Her mother will likely not be able to miss it.
It doesn’t out just her, this also outs her sister.
national news? why? it’s not particularly newsworthy
now one could suggest this photo could go viral because it’s a cool photo, maybe
Its anti war and lgbtq, it would make everyone take sides and is “salacious”. That’s slow news day crack right there.
… you’re not wrong on any account, especially given they live in a red state
Satan only knows the conservative media machine LOVES to bolster stories like this to matters of national importance 👀
Would it? Let’s not overstate now. At best it’s in a photo carousel on an article on the local NBC affiliate.
https://www.tumblr.com/queenofsodor/792980791089070080/i-think-they-twitch-sometimes-proof-of-concept?source=share
This is fucking adorable.
I want to animate again so badly, even now after the kiss.
She saw the date and remembered John said he was leaving for India in January, and January is almost up, and she still hasn’t met his wife.
That scene in the restaurant is one of my favorites. Damn RIGHT she’s angry.
Visually I didn’t think it was Jocelyn, but if you zoom in on the newspaper when it’s first shown, you can see another person behind the text (and roughly where Jocelyn was)
Check the tags on the last page
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/05-as-long-as-its-free/absent/
Joe felt inadequate compared with Dorothy specifically because he was absent for all of her trauma.
Could this be a monkey’s paw about to curl for him??
Thanks, I hate it!
You’re welcome! I was looking for a different Amber+Joe strip and found this gem.
oh god the buildup really is EVERYWHERE XD
but of course leave it to the comments section to up and forget that there’s a whole rest of this comic which exists before the most recent strips (-_-)
❤️
well that’s not boding well