My sister’s teased me in the past about having a beard like Father Christmas (so have my colleagues). My response – put together a full Father Christmas cosplay! ^^
I wished Jocelyne came out to Hank, but now I’m see how she is relieved. Like she’s feeling it’s not a good idea to risk it.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems Jocelyne is the weakest point of thehe rope, instead Joyce.
Her sister made a solid for her.
Yeah, she wasn’t ready yet. And she may yet be outed, as she says, but it still should be her choice. And I love that Joyce was able to see that and act in time.
Totally support Jocelyne coming out at a time of her choosing. I do still wish there was some indication that she and her dad had actually discussed the whole protest thing, peer-to-peer, but… yeah.
As an elder sibling, I can assure you, we do this shit out of love. And spite.
Mostly love though, like 85%. We just all have vivid memories of you younger sibs getting away with shit we never did because the parents weren’t as burned out during our go. 15% spite is perfectly reasonable.
As a youngest child- that seems to be the way. In some ways, the youngest benefits from their parents having more experience being parents, in other ways they suffer from their parents knowing more ways things can go wrong and being more fearful and protective.
I´m just beginning to figure out – in my late fourties, mind you – that my older sis was a saint and broke all the ground for me.
She had to fight for everything, while our parents still where full of pedagogic vigour and ideals.
When I came along? My mom was already sick, my dad up to his ears in work and I basically skated through every obstacle she had
fought through. Allowance, home-by-times, solo holiday trips, Motorcycle licese, you name it. All tracks where already comfortably broken in for me.
Dorothy is a “plan fifteen steps ahead” sort of person, so in that instant she’s calculating the odds that she ends up marrying into this family and having Jocelyn as a big sister for the rest of her life.
Y’know. I was honestly holding out hope that maybe Jocelyne would be a bit annoyed at Joyce for more or less interrupting what could’ve been her best chance at coming out to her father. Like maybe Joyce meant well but Jocelyne actually feels let down she’s been prevented from coming out to her father and has more or less been pushed to remain closeted. If anything this may have BEEN one of the best chances to do it on her “own terms”
Hey, is there a place you put your sketches? ‘Cause I don’t always look at the comment section but I know in the past you’ve thrown stuff on imgur, but that’s about it.
I haven’t been posting to it in a while, but I compiled a lotta my art on imgchest https://imgchest.com/p/ne7bw5ovn75
Some of it has aged POORLY but in the name of transparency I put everything I’ve ever drawn here. I apologize for anything past yoto did that may be problematic. Also Future yoto. Not current yoto though. He’s perfect.
There would be no way, because Joss was attempting to confess to take the bullet for Joyce when she didn’t even want to see her dad that day, she was keeping a low profile and deserves to be able to handle these confessions in her own time. She has no reason to believe her dad would take it well, have you looked at the real world lately? “Trans” has replaced “gay” in the Christian extremist community for the terrible awful thing that can happen to your child that requires drastic measures like conversion therapy or disowning or even murder. People want someone to get mad at Joyce, for anything, because her behaviour with these relationships has seemed childish and inconsiderate. Yes, an 18 year old who has barely even dated before with a heavily sheltered past makes dumbass mistakes when it comes to how to treat others. But if y’all keep reading this comic through the lens of your personal distaste over the crowning moment of this arc, you are never going to be satisfied because it is clear that the author along with many of us in the reader base do not share your distaste.
Real barely-adults fuck up, they fuck up a lot and yet they’re still human and still deserve supportive siblings and understanding friends, even when they kiss someone who isn’t their boyfriend.
Yeah, for me, this has all been pretty in character for Joyce – someone who has consistently shown that her heart’s in the right place, but she just doesn’t know how to properly handle these situations. In part because of inexperience, in part because of religious indoctrination, and in part because of her own autism. I think she’s a great character, and has been handling things the way that I would expect her to – not perfectly, but with a genuine hope of doing the right thing.
That said, if I was in Jocelyne’s shoes, I would have been extremely put out with Joyce and how she handled the situation. But I’m not in Jocelyne’s shoes, and so I can enjoy seeing Joyce’s antics as she bumbles her way through this granted rather dicey situation. It’s entertaining if nothing else, and fully in character for her and her story arc thus far.
@eskimolos – Very well said. I think it’s wild that some people want Jocelyne to be angry at her sister, as opposed to glad that everything worked out.
I don’t think Jocelyne was ready to out herself to her father. I think she was only about to come out in that moment because she believed that Joyce desperately needed protection.
Note her words right as she was about to out herself “I’m afraid I’m suddenly no longer the most vulnerable.”
I also vaguely recall her advice to (I think) Becky a long time ago, which was something to the effect of “Do what you need to keep yourself within access to resources.”
Jocelyne had decided that Joyce was at risk of being cut off from her father’s tuition payments and other support during her Freshman year of college. So she was prepared to sacrifice herself as a distraction from the kiss photos. It’s probably not how she wanted things to go.
On top of what Justin said, I think it’s worth remembering that Jocelyne likely made that decision in a manner of minutes. She didn’t warn Joyce ahead of time, so she likely didn’t know about the photo, and she definitely didn’t know about Hank showing up. That means that Jocelyne had to make that decision in the window of time between Hank showing up and him seeing her in the lobby. I think a lot of people are misinterpreting it because Jocelyne seemed calm in the moment, but it was definitely an impulse decision on her part, really just made as a sacrifice for her sister.
I’m not trying to be mean about it. Kinda like what Li says, we’re all prone to projection at some point or other. Me saying that the evidence is overwhelming and that someone who is still saying the opposite is projecting doesn’t mean “you suck, crawl in a hole and never speak again.” I mean exactly what the words mean. My hope is to prompt some form of insight, not to insult.
Point of order: we are ALL projecting, and it needn’t be an accusation. This is a story, after all, not real people talking to us about their real lives, where projecting would be rude.
And I mean, none of us can really help bringing the context of our own lives to a story. Who else’s experience are we meant to be bringing to our reading, and how?
Like, yes, a certain flavor of literature criticism calls for trying to assume other viewpoints, and that’s an important skill for critical thinking, but it’s certainly not the only valid way of reading a text.
TL;DR: I technically agree with Falcon in that I don’t think Jocelyne has actually seemed like she wanted to come out, and that folks who are upset on her behalf are upset generally because they’d feel differently in her position — or, fully valid, because they want Joyce to be told off (generally) and they keep getting denied that.
But also we all project. We project all the time. It shouldn’t be said as an insult, that’s an extremely glass house to be throwing rocks from. :/
Sure. Lots of cookie cutter phrases are overused. The evidence remains overwhelming that Jocelyn doesn’t want to come out at this exact moment. I’ve been frustrated to see people shitting on Joyce for protecting her sister too because of their projection of themselves onto Jocelyn, and I’ve seen that way too often too.
She basically spelled out that she was doing it to take heat off Jouce, that’s very much not doing on her own terms, that’s putting yourself in possibly harm’s way because you fell you have to.
I would suspect so, as Becky seems to have had a crush on Joyce for a long time and they seem pretty intuitive while having not an close relationship but strong report with Becky. However, I also know they are a somewhat older sibling, so I am not sure how much of Becky and Joyce’s teenage years they were around for.
I’m holding out hope they’re just trying to account for the gender shift across a wide temporal range, which is obviously wrong to do, but ultimately well-meaning.
Also I can’t help but recall that Jocelyne has met, talked to and implicitly approved of Joe. Did she just think Joe was a beard or like…does she just think that Joyce and him have an open relationship or does she just not really care? I dunno the two seemed to hit it off and she’s not even curious about what happened to him. I dunno I sure hope she asks about that.
I’m honestly going to guess that Jocelyne is roughly 2% invested in who exactly her little sister freshman in college happens to be dating right now so long as that person isn’t someone whose body she needs to hide.
Plus Jocelyne has had a full conversation with Joe, where she acknowledged how “down bad” he was, and they both discussed how caring about things can get you hurt but she still thought it was the right thing to do.
Also as far as I can tell, Jocelyne WITNESSED Joyce’s confession of love to Dorothy at the protest. Speech, kiss, everything. Witnessed and smiled with joy about it. So it’s not like she’d be in the dark about what’s going on, and have at least an inkling about the situation.
Idk I guess I figured that’d be something an older sister would tease or comment about, but maybe that’s not their dynamic
Jocelyne witnessed the exact moment her sister found out she is in love with Dorothy.
She gets how sudden it was, how big of a revelation and how things aren’t black and white… (as some people during the last months would want to paint the whole scenario).
Also, she is happy for her sister, for finding happiness.
What more is there to say?
No, no, no, you’re doing it all wrong! We need to castigate the traumatized teenagers more! They should have ten years experience at being adults by now! It’s just like the job market!
I meant more so that Jocelyne has seen both things — Joe AND the confession to Dorothy — so I found it a little odd she hasn’t brought it up with Joyce at all.
Even if she’s seemingly in full approval here, I still find it odd she hasn’t mentioned something like “how’d Joe take it?”
Since the last time she saw them all, Joe had seemed pretty serious, and she’d even had a direct talk with him about it.
Uh, if my college freshman little brother announced that he had a partner who was introduced to me as such, and then a day later was kissing/getting horny around someone else as hard as Joyce has been doing to Dorothy, I’d have some fuckin’ words to say to him about conducting himself with integrity, frankly.
Even if I also, in the long term, agreed that conducting oneself with integrity meant acknowledging and moving forward with the revelation of one’s own sexuality to themself.
Your comment made sense to me in context, but it’s possible your avatar’s facial expression affects how people might read your comments, given how so many humans seem to have this thing about adjusting their interpretations of stuff based on non-verbal cues… which, yes, shouldn’t generally take these avatars into account, static as they are, but instincts get confused sometimes.
Nothing a younger sibling loves more than a lecture on their personal life from their older sibling, I’m sure. That’s definitely not going to provoke a “Fuck off, you’re not my parent.”
Pissing off your younger sibling is sometimes the intended response!
But in all seriousness it depends on the younger sibling and the relative life stages you’re both at. Source: I’ve been an older brother for over four decades. There have been times I could have said that to bro and he’d have been like “shit, yeah, I should check myself” and times he’d’ve responded more along the lines of what you said. (granted, the time I told him he had to rethink his plans was the one time he stayed after one of my concerts and announced his intention to have me take him to go underage drinking with the college kids, to which I said “I will throw your ass right out of my frat party, you aren’t endangering my friends’ police records for your teen rebellion.” He responded as quoted above, and ended up going home a few hours later when he couldn’t sneak into anyone else’s party either. :D)
For Sarah, it was the cheating / sneaking around on Joe thing that was acutely bothering her, while the new lovers flirted in Joyce’s bunk while hiding from their problems. While Joyce still needs to realize she owes Joe more consideration because he still wants to date her, she did address Sarah’s demand of coming clean to him.
Regardless might not be a great idea to take this party back to Sarah & Joyce’s room right now… and they still have Becky to thank and talk to…
Joyce doesn’t owe Joe more consideration because he wants to date her. She broke up with him. I would LOVE for a polycule to happen, genuinely, but at this moment in time Joe is broken up with. No matter what he wants.
She said “I need to break up with you”, he questioned, she seemed unsure and then promised to talk about it later. I seem to have more patience than half the commenters here (it is still the same in-comic day! She’s been busy with unexpected parent!), but she does need to have that later conversation with him at some point.
She should have that conversation, yes. Ideally she’ll have it at some point in the next day or so. She’s still dating Dorothy in the meanwhile, so I don’t think it affects that in particular.
But she doesn’t owe him “more consideration because he still wants to date her” which is what I was directly responding to.
I genuinely don’t agree with this. Joyce last left him with “we need to talk about this and we WILL”.
I think DOROTHY thinks he’s broken up with. I think Joe might think any number of things — he looked potentially worried at the end of the strip, so it could be “she doesn’t really want to keep dating me, she’s just putting off saying so” or it could be “the corner of Joyce’s heart that I currently have is even smaller than I thought” or it could just be general regret and anxiety because I’m not sure his proposal of polyamory was coming from the most ideal emotional place…
But I don’t think Joyce MEANT that conversation to have been a breakup, by the end of it. I think she meant to stick a pin in it for later, and has since completely forgotten about where it ended up because of the whirlwind that the rest of her morning has been.
Like, Joyce was of course within her rights to break up with him regardless of how he felt about it, relationships are a matter of ongoing consent, but I think she didn’t think they were broken up at the end of that conversation: hence her awkward “yyyeah” when Dorothy later called Joe her ex.
I should have read what you were replying to! The phrasing in your comment caught my eye and I went all 🤔🧐 while entirely forgetting that context is a thing.
Fully agree that “owing” is kind of a weird way to approach relationships. I think it’s part of what makes, say, marriage different from a less formal romantic relationship — with marriage, you’re making a much more formal commitment, and I think you’re agreeing to put a certain level of work in, when there are problems, before you give up?
…Obviously I’m assuming the relationship was in no way coerced, sob. I also wanted to compare it to having kids and how I think there’s a similar commitment being made to take care of another person there, but ALSO would have to caveat about no coercion…
Ofc folks can set up these relationships with higher degrees of commitment, just as they can set them up with lower degrees, but yeah. “Owing” Joe more time spent thinking about the relationship? No.
Totally fair to disagree, but we’re both just interpreting a comic and my interpretation is that Joyce went in there and broke up with him. Any wibbliness afterward falls squarely into “we’ll see how it goes”.
I’m not saying they won’t end up doing polyamory, I’m not saying Joyce thinks they’re broken up (or that she doesn’t), I’m saying that people breaking up with another person don’t then owe that person a long conversation about it just because the person they were breaking up with offered an option they hadn’t yet considered.
IMO: Joyce is probably going to consider herself not broken up with Joe, but that doesn’t change my opinion about how much consideration she owes him about the break up in this moment.
People always say this, but I think it’s pretty clear based on how Joyce ended that conversation and her uncertainty when Dorothy called Joe and Walky their ex-boyfriends that she does not consider that break a clean one at this point.
Going by her own words and actions to Joe and later to Dorothy, JOYCE thinks the discussion is still open and needs to be finished, and that they’re not (fully or unambiguously, perhaps) broken up.
Going by how Joyce’s acting around Dorothy and what Joe knew previously, he’d be a fool to act as though they were anything but broken up until their next conversation, if that every happens.
I couldn’t remember so I checked the strips with Joe and Jocelyne, and apparently Joyce told Jocelyne that Joe was her boyfriend when they first met. And Joe and Jocelyne seemed to get along pretty well the times they interacted with each other before the protest. I’m not sure how long it was between when Joe and Jocelyne met and the big kiss at the protest, but it can’t have been more than a few days, and today’s strip is the day after the protest I believe.
Also Jocelyne knew before the protest that Dorothy was dating Walky. So I wonder what she thinks about the fact that probably only a few days ago Joyce and Dorothy were dating their boyfriends, and now they’re dating each other. I kinda hope she’s at least a little curious about why they’re no longer with their ex-boyfriends, and asks them about it. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t care, since so few characters seem to care about Joe and Walky these days.
It wasn’t even just “a few days” the protest was the next day (in universe, the timeline was Jocelyn comes out to Joyce ->meets Joe and friends ->gets lunch and is accosted by some masked dipshit and saved by Amazi-Girl ->Jocelyn says her goodbyes and preps for the protest -> Joyce and Joe later that day have their date and have non-penatrive sex ->Joyce excitedly talks to Becky about it the next day -> realises that she by an inclusive definition of sex lost her virginity to Dorothy weeks ago -> runs off to “do laundry” with her again -> gets a text from her dad about Jocelyn and runs off to find her sister ->Dorothy whose been having her own crisis tries to make a stand and gets a Big Damn Kiss from Joyce -> they scatter from the cops (somewhere along this Amazi-girl gets shot and patched up by Sal and Asher) -> Joyce and Dorothy are deep in their honeymoon phase/on the high of adrenaline (Joyce still blows Joe when trying to confess what happened to him) -> The girls fall asleep kissing and cuddling together -> Next day Sarah is Pissed(tm) -> The girls “confess” to their respective partners and find that the paper has outed them -> etc etc
It’s been 3 days in-universe
First: everyone who wants proper consequences for the cheating has my full and complete sympathy, and the sympathy only grows in intensity as it looks like most characters aren’t going to be taking Joyce or Dorothy to task over this.
That said, I imagine Jocelyne’s assumptions are one of the following, if not a combination:
1. “Kids do fall in and out of love quickly sometimes.” College romances do move fast sometimes, people can be very hot and cold. Maybe Joyce and Joe really did break up that quickly, in which case it’s probably a sore subject.
(I think Jocelyne is more likely to be dismissive of Joyce’s romances as being True Love than any other member of the cast except maybe John; there’s this WINDOW OF TIME right after you leave an age group where many of us think of that age group as being little kids. Like, “oh, I remember when I was that young and foolish, a whole two years ago. Stay in school, kids!” You feel so much older than 19 when you’re like 24.)
2. “Maybe my sister has always been a lesbian.” Conveniently, nothing Joyce has actually SAID so far contradicts this assumption, and it would make breaking up with Joe again a potential sore point but not something Joyce had done wrong.
Bonus: I think Jocelyne clocked Dorothy and Joyce as being potentially into each other the first time she met them as herself. There are some knowing looks from her to Dorothy throughout their private conversation, and then she greets Joyce by saying she can see why she “became an atheist for this one”, which was a heck of an assumption on her part.
Double bonus: then there’s the LAST time she met Dorothy, which AFAWK was the first time Joyce stood up to their parents about ANYTHING.
3. “Maybe Joe is okay with this?” A bit of a leap, but Joyce has been changing a lot very quickly. In this scenario, which is mmmmostly accurate to to how Joe himself would tell it, Joyce doesn’t have to have done anything out of bounds for the current status quo.
(I honestly think “maybe Joyce cheated” wouldn’t even be on Jocelyne’s list of guesses, though if she knew about the Jacob situation, it probably would be.
This is a potential source of drama, where the idea of Joyce cheating on someone is just so at odds with the assumptions her family would make about her that it hasn’t even occurred to folks like Jocelyne and Becky yet, but I have to agree with the general consensus that it would be weak tea for Joyce and Dorothy to be lectured by these folks if Walky and Joe continue to put up a front of indifference and acceptance. Jocelyne’s disappointment might be harder for Joyce to bear than Walky admitting to being hurt, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually Jocelyne’s business in the same way.)
I’m caring as much about peoples reactions to joyce and dorothy cheating as willis is now.
Which is not at all.
Dude wanted to write a “cheating arc” but forgot all the drama that usually has to come with a cheating arc and decided to just fill it with face smashing and flirting
I don’t think she’s really thought about it. She’s caught up in the excitement that she isn’t the only queer Brown sibling, and also caught up in the stress over worried about her dad finding out she is trans, while ALSO being focused on the protest.
His name was Big Munch. He was an orange Alsatian. He was only twenty-seven years old. Jocelyne Brown came into my fourth-floor apartment uninvited and threw my dog into the sky at high speed, where he struck a passing airplane and separated into his base elements before being scattered to the wind. Worst character in the comic, really kinda feels personal how she was written to do that.
I love it so much. Especially since it was an important aspect of their relationship pre-Jocelyne coming out. That it hasn’t changed in the slightest now that she’s established as Joyce’s sister is so great to see.🥹
A. It’s just extremely endearing and I eat it up.
B. In a lot of media, this kind of teasing is very “older brother” coded. Similarly, in a lot of media with trans characters, when they are out they tend to distance themselves from behaviors associated with the gender they were assigned at birth.
It’d be really sad to see this piece of their sibling dynamic fade as Jocelyne becomes/shares more of herself. I’m so glad to see it being portrayed as something so core to HER that it transcends the confines of its typical gender-coding
So I guess Jocelyne doesn’t know that Joyce and Dorothy were still dating Joe and Walky when they kissed? I’d like to hope she wouldn’t be so happy with them getting together if she did know about that.
They still haven’t had a moment to breathe. Joe still deserves a real conversation about this, as does Walky, but it’s pretty clear that these two are non-negotiably Here for eachother. Acknowledging and accepting the relationship that’s been forming since the day they met is not a sin. Life is messy, people don’t always make the best choices, and sometimes when they make the right choices they don’t get the order right. This has been an especially chaotic pair of days in an extraordinarily chaotic first year of college. If anyone is due some grace, it’s this set of freshmen that have faced death and ruin more times than many face in a lifetime.
It’s been 4 months at some point how long it takes for the *reader* to experience things has to be taken into account.
This arc is the boat arc of Dumbing Of Age if you’ve read Berserk and get my metaphor.
I understand that in hindsight this will all probably smoothly read amazingly but fuck if this isn’t the most unsatisfying story to read out page for page
I mean, just think about how much better this is for her. Like, she’d still put up with doing this as a boy, but like, where’s the joy in anything when you’re forced into boy-moding?
Ah yes, ain’t a comments section without people reminding us how stinkybadwrong it is that this relationship came out of a kiss while *gasp* in the sanctity of relationships that had been going on for about a week at most
It is very important that everyone know that there is no greater measure of moral turpitude than smooching a girl while dating a guy who’s done everything but push your faces together while saying, “Now kiss!” We must make sure to tell them every single day!
I just realized that while Roz is getting all up in Joyces face in that panel, Dorothy is ALSO in line with Joe’s hand on that side.
And Walky is lined up on the Joyce side.
So potentially he could be shipping
Roz/Joyce, Dorothy/Joyce, Dorothy/Walky, or Roz/Walky.
Three predictions out of four is a pretty good track record.
It likewise isn’t a comment section without someone posting the obligatory UGH RELATIONSHIP PALADINS AMIRITE, so I guess it’s good we got all the bases covered.
I don’t believe I’ve ever used that phrase in these comments! I think distilling down arguments to two opposing sides with teams names and t-shirts tends to throw actual discussion of facts right out the window in favor of everyone vilifying the opposition
I am willing to bet the people currently most upset at Joyce/Dorothy would mostly fall into the “Karma” and “Cheaters cheat” camps, but that’s just speculation on my part. A little bit based on comments made to that exact effect already.
Well, the people who are in this because “hey, self-discovery is messy as hell and teens make mistakes” and/or “Dorothy and Joyce are a great couple” might be pretty mad, but the people who’re mad about cheating will probably take a tack more like what Nymph said.
My issue with the cheating is less watsonian and more doyalist. I just dont get a reason why it was written that way. Like if you write this such that the breakups happen right before the protest, nothing is different. Joe can still say everything he said, Walky can still eat a bunch of nuggets, Joyce/Dorothy can still have their confession moment at the protest. Nothing is different.
It’s sorta like my same frustration with characters coming back from the dead willy-nilly in media. If death isn’t permanent what’s even the point of killing off characters?
Oh I can actually answer this, but you aren’t going to enjoy or be satisfied by the reason.
Willis wrote it this way because their wife pointed out that they were writing a messy college relationship comic and yet the people involved weren’t actually being very messy! Each couple was completely and doubtlessly broken up before the next couple got together, no one ever cheated or miscommunicated what was happening, no one ever overlapped or oopsied.
So they wrote A Cheating Plotline™. Arguments can be made that it would have been better not to make them cheat at all for a variety of reasons, and I even agree with some of them, but ultimately this was stepping outside Willis’ comfort zone, intentionally. I can’t help but be wildly empathetic that they can’t do that without a hundred people telling them their first try at something is bad and wrong and they shouldn’t have done it.
Sharing your writing is terrifying, especially when it’s something you’re not in your element about. There were certainly better ways for them to go about setting this up, but they’ve copped to just about every error and I’m mostly just hopeful the second try will go better! BE MESSIER!
This is basically my take as well. I don’t think it’s “bad and wrong and they shouldn’t have done it”, but I do think it fell flat and I think part of the reason is that they weren’t willing to commit to the messiness. To letting them behave worse or letting one of the partners be angry about it.
I’m more okay with it since I reached that conclusion, since I’m no longer waiting for the shoe to drop.
Because there was no reason for them to break up before everything came to a head at the protest. Dorothy thought there was no chance her feelings could be reciprocated and was trying to persuade herself that they were just a trauma reaction. Joyce hadn’t even considered the possibility of a romantic relationship with Dorothy. If they knew ahead of time what was going to happen at the protest, I’m sure they would have broken up with Joe and Walky first, but life doesn’t work like that.
I mean, for my money, Willis has basically said on patreon that he kinda dug himself in a whole with his writing choices and I kinda feel like he dug himself in a whole trying to dig out of the first whole and I’m someone who on the whole likes Joyce/Dorothy. Just my 10 cents for whatever it’s worth.
“So, Joe, I ran off to cope with the fallout of that picture, and then my dad turned up and it all got complicated and I was afraid Jocelyne would be outed, and that I would be, but in the end I outed myself to save Jocelyne, so then there was the fallout of that, and then Jocelyn wanted to hang out and…. Joe, why are you standing exactly where you were when I left?…”
Even not counting joyce and dorothy who have come out since (or walky, when she realizes some things :p) I count at least 5 openly queer people other than booster at that fairly small party
Appropriate enough, if the sentiment is heartfelt- which it certainly seems to be! Sex is not inherently inappropriate and I wish we as a culture could agree on that.
I can see why you would think that – but Joyce really isn’t the sort of person to INTENTIONALLY do that. I mean, sure, she does do that rather a lot – but that’s part of being autistic, and it’s not something that we do intentionally. We’re just that bad at reading social cues, and our attempts to relate to the topic of discussion often comes off as trying to make everything about ourselves.
I’m glad that Jocelyne appreciated what Joyce was trying to do in that situation – and maybe even realized after thinking things through that Jocelyne’s attempt to pull focus off Joyce was doomed to failure anyways – even though it’s a situation that I would have been extremely put out with if it happened to me. But, again, that doesn’t mean that Joyce was acting selfishly – she was just being overenthusiastic and not terribly wisely. Which, given the situation, I can entirely understand.
She messed up once. And then she rewrote reality so it never happened and can never happen again. There is no J—. There has never been a J—. There is only Jocelyne. There has only ever been Jocelyne.
It’s pretty easy to assume that Jocelyne doesn’t actually give much of a shit about Joe, given she’s known him for what, about forty-five seconds?(depending on how much they talked while the titty-pic stuff was happening in foreground)
Also, like…Jocelyn is obviously sex positive, like a normal, well-adjusted person? She’s already talked about getting her back blown out by multiple dudes completely casually. She’s queer, and like Joyce, has probably been working her way through an entire teen-years amount of fundamentalist sexual repression.
If anything, she’s just glad that her queer sister is also unpacking some of the horrifying sexual trauma that her upbringing entrenched in her heart and mind. Like, fuck her for being glad that people she loves are getting laid? Ultimately, like 70% of the queer people I’ve ever personally known would make a joke like this. Can’t believe that people find sex positivity so weird.
IMHO this whole discussion is also the same one as the “but their relationships are only a week old!” consequence of Webcomic Time Dilation but in reverse — there’s some sense in which we have both “Jocelyne was super approving of Joe/Joyce two days ago” and another sense in which that happened “last November”.
Can I just say that it’s so personally satisfying to see Jocelyne thank Joyce for taking a bullet for her?
When that comic came out, so many people were treating Joyce like she had done an awful and selfish thing, and ruined Jocelyne’s moment. Even though it was clear that Jocelyne wasn’t ready to come out.
It’s really quite weird for Jocelyne to comment so strongly on her little sister’s sex life.
I remember one time my younger brother and I tried to have an honest conversation about his sexual experience, and the instant his words got past PG-13, I nope’d out of the conversation so hard.
I also think the assumption of intimacy so soon after this relationship started is unhealthy, particularly for someone as inexperienced as Joyce. Not DoJo being so down bad for each other- I think that’s unhealthy for different reasons- but the way this is set up feels like it really normalizes that fucking on the first date, more or less, is what is expected of a couple.
Mmm, on the other hand, given how these two dorks have been acting since The Kiss ™, anyone who spends more than three minutes in their collective presence has witnessed at least one “forgot what they were doing due to getting fucking horny” incident, and frankly if MY little brother were acting that pent up around a new partner while I was visiting, I would DEFINITELY call it out that hard.
1. It’s not “quite weird” that other people have different kinds of relationships with their siblings. I’ve happily had frank and serious conversations about sex with my siblings, and while we don’t talk about it All The Time you can absolutely bet I’d be happy to tease/torment them about it. Sex isn’t inherently taboo for everyone.
2. I don’t think this is an assumption of anything. I think it’s a joke. She’s joking with her little sister. You’re taking it very seriously and ascribing a bunch of more severe meanings to “Jocelyne knows saying this will annoy/embarrass her little sister”.
1. While fair, as I said, this is coming from my personal experience where the repulsion to any details was completely subconscious- I was actively trying to have such a conversation and I simply couldn’t.
2. I…really, *really* don’t think Jocelyne is joking here. Oh, she’s teasing Joyce, to be sure, but I think she (and most of the readership, to be frank) fully expects DoJo to go at it the moment they’re behind a locked door.
There’s nothing *malicious* about that, and it’s fully justifiable by noting, as Big Z does, that Jocelyne has eyes and can see that these two idiots are too horny to function. But Jocelyne didn’t say “OK, you two idiots are too horny to function, you have my blessing to go at it like rabbits”, she just said “go fuck my girlfriend”, like it’s a normal thing to do when she knows they got together literally yesterday.
With the caveat of how time in this comic means that most relationships move super, super-fast if you just look at “days spent together”, the strip has previously been quite good about not normalizing such things. Dina and Becky took plenty of time and Danny & Sal also took time to establish their relationship and comfort with each other before jumping each others’ bones. Heck, Lucy and Walky never even made it to such.
But the way her comments are phrased here, alongside everything else that this comic’s done recently (Alice screaming that she wants to smoosh her cooch against Jennifer’s cooch in particular), is really off-putting how much it’s been *focusing* on not just DoJo getting together but explicitly on WLW sex.
I will note, at least in Joyce’s case, that she’s already been SUPER primed for a long while of both real world-time and around a week of comic time to engage in sexy times, albeit with Joe. So at least JOYCE being ready to jump some bones is understandable — horny is quite often transferable.
If true then I’d say it’s an interesting trend in DOA as of late that characters who have a very slow gradual buildup to having sex quickly jumping into bed with the next person. Like those credits just transfer right over to the next person.
My own post-religious college experience suggests that in some cases, once one has decided to escalate to the next step of sexy times, the second and subsequent times are often far, far faster.
Not to be too crass, but I was totally “no sex ever, kissing MAYBE is okay” for most of high school, then I had a long-term GF I moved to oral with after a few months. Immediately, every subsequent relationship moved to oral within 2-3 dates max. Same with college — had PIV sex for the first time after a month or two of hemming and hawing, then every subsequent relationship was 0-3 dates before PIV happened. In fact, the second person I had PIV sex with was a random one-time hookup!
That’s pretty common I think, but the weird thing I think Yotomoe was seeing is that here they had the slow gradual buildup with one person that didn’t reach sex, but then jumping right into with the next person.
Lucy with Walky, then with Jacob is the clearest example, but it looks like Joyce is headed in that direction. Though she may of course still panic at the last moment as she did with Joe (before she changed her definition of “sex”, but she still backed down from the PiV she’d talked about.)
I’m also going to double down — that is not a “I am dead serious that I think you two need to fuck” smile on Jocelyne in the last two panels, that is 150% a “welp, time to fuck with my younger sibling’s head while I’m here” smile.
1. No, you outright said “I’m just gonna say it: It’s really quite weird for Jocelyne to comment so strongly on her little sister’s sex life.” There wasn’t a single hint of “to me” or “in my personal experience it would make ME uncomfy” just a broad stroke judgement. I totally get that you’re saying you didn’t intend that, but it is what happened.
2. I really, really do think Jocelyne is joking! So we disagree there, but that’s not a big deal.
3. “really off-putting how much it’s been *focusing* on not just DoJo getting together but explicitly on WLW sex.” Oh. I mean, lmao, sorry-not-sorry? It’s actually fine for the comic to focus on sapphic fuckin’. If you’re off-put by that, I’ll assume you were put off by the focus on Danny/Sal, Walky/Lucy, Jacob/Lucy, Tony/Sarah, and Joyce/Joe fuckin’ that we literally just passed? If so, that must be rough to read a comic like this where a chunk of the subject matter is off-putting to you.
Re #3: I think there’s been a thread recently of folks kinda trying to adopt a position of allyship, saying it feels like the strip is fetishizing* Joyce and Dorothy specifically, and sapphic relationships more generally. I think it’s coming from an at least somewhat good place, even if in this case it’s kind of a case of picking and choosing which self-identified sapphic people you’re listening to, because I think the majority of us are fine with the level of horniness here from an authorial perspective, even if some of us are distinctly annoyed by Joyce and Dorothy’s preoccupation in-universe.
(By which I mean: not annoyed with Willis for how he’s portraying them, exactly, but exasperated (to put it nicely) with the characters for being horny idiots.)
Leaving room for:
— the sapphic folks who HAVE complained and who have expressed that they don’t like how Willis writes sapphic women. I do think they’re in the minority? But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist or that they’re all suddenly relegated to ally status by virtue of having the less popular opinion.
— the less well-meaning people, who definitely do exist and have been making their opinions heard. I don’t think Rogue 7 falls into this camp, but these people are also real. And they’re real exhausting.
*hate hearing this term applied in this way tbqh, I would vastly prefer objectifying? “Fetishizing” really puts a stink on “feeling sexual attraction”, and I genuinely just do not care how many straight cis guys there are in the world masturbating to porn about WLW. I care how they treat real people in their daily lives, and so often there’s no correlation dot jpg. Don’t treat real people as objects, and fantasize about sapphic women as much as you like.
Yeah I dunno I definitely read this much more as a “I know Joyce will hate saying this phrase which is why I’m having her say it” moment. Granted in this instance there may be a kernel of truth to it I think she’s mostly mocking her sister’s unwillingness to say embarrassing things in this moment.
You are entirely correct.
This is fucking weird because it’s so goddamn explicit.
You can absolutely achieve the same effect without having to spell things out.
So – lack of imagination on the writers part or in universe the Browns are so homeschooled they cannot ever speak without sounding weird.
Call it.
Meh. Different siblings, different standards for teasing. I see this less as “commenting on her sex life” and more just “being Obnoxious(tm) and the sex life happens to be the vehicle for that,” you know?
Eh, dating your best friend isn’t like typical dating, you can skip the ‘getting to know you’ phase. In most cases, you were already sharing everything short of romantic and/or physical intimacy with each other anyway.
Jocelyne was just trolling, though. If anything, the teasing made Joyce a little less likely to fuck her girlfriend the minute her sister left.
Also, in the “what was Jocelyne’s actual plan for coming out” vein, do we have any collective actual theory for what Jocelyne’s “I have something to tell you before you hear it from dad” text (I didn’t go back to look up the exact wording) actually is referring to if she WASN’T planning on coming out to him?
It feels like that thread is dangling a bit IF we assume Jocelyne had no plans to come out.
My guess was that she THOUGHT Hank was going to figure it out from the newspaper photos, bc she was already planning on the protesting? Because I don’t think “I have something to tell you before you hear it from Dad” indicates any actual desire from her to come out to Hank, only the feeling that him knowing was inevitable.
But that is a guess. We’ve obviously got a bit of a divide in the comments right now over whether Jocelyne wanted to come out to Hank, and I’m on the “no” side.
Footnote: mixed feelings are a thing. I think, now that Hank is heading home, having more or less been “okay” with Joyce having a girlfriend, Jocelyne could be experiencing some regrets over not having also come out to him, even if her original plan was to never come out to him.
I can’t say there’s a divide anymore since the plain text has more or less confirmed she didn’t. I kinda wish she had wanted to, for story reasons but I’ve accepted that’s not the story being told right now.
Yeah, frankly, I have almost the opposite read, I hear “I have something to tell you before you hear it from Dad” and assume that Dad both A) already knows and B) is either authorized to tell others or is telling others out of some internal impulse regardless of Jocelyne’s preferences.
Sometimes I really wish I knew how much of this was “these things that looked pretty unambiguous were intended to be ambiguous” and how much is “Dorothy and Joyce just kinda happening + the protest protest rewrites screwed with the pacing/timeline in deeply weird ways”. I still love this comic, but the pacing has felt all wrong for most of the last few months and there’s this occasional jarring Mandella-effect hit of “wait, that doesn’t QUITE match up to what happened a day or two ago (comic time)/last year (real time)”
Oh I think it would be super interesting. I bought all the books up to like 11 specifically hoping there’d be more commentary of the kind that the It’s Walky strips have now, but I should’ve known better: we aren’t there yet. Willis won’t be providing THAT kind of commentary on arcs until, you know, it’s been ten years since DoA ended. It’s not just too spoilery, it’s too… temporally impossible! The commentary on the oldest Walkyverse stuff comes from a perspective it’s impossible to have on DoA yet.
It’s also a little weird that she apparently had no plans to come out to hank since she had previously solicited Joyce’s opinion on Hank and whether he was trustworthy.
I’m frankly also willing to allow for the idea, based on my own partner’s trans coming out experiences, that there IS no plan, just a gigantic pile of info-gathering and vibes-based decisionmaking.
Alternately, there’s far TOO much planning going on, to the point that actually doing the thing is put off indefinitely when it might be better to rip off the bandaid. Frankly, no matter how much you plan, coming out as a trans woman is always a game of Russian roulette, and it’s easy to get in your head about it.
“Hey, you’ve spent more time around Dad than me, and you had a front row seat for how he handled the Becky thing. What….. was that like?”
Mind you: it would ALSO absolutely make sense for a version of events where she wanted to come out to Hank. I just think she could also want to know even if she didn’t have plans. It could even have been the start of considering it, when previously she had assumed it would be something he never found out about her.
I also think that Jocelyne’s appearances have been mostly marked by nonconfrontationalism, and my guess would be that she had already started taking HRT and was kind of… putting off even the question of whether or not she was going to come out to Hank for later.
I also think Jocelyne’s nonconfrontationalism has hit a couple of roadblocks lately where she found herself pushed too far. John, rubbing his horribleness in her face even as she tried to broker peace — that Patreon bonus strip with her and Carol where she was visibly exasperated with Carol’s staunch refusal to believe that the candidates she had voted for were REALLY bigoted and pushing for harmful legislation instead of just believing in scripture… and I think this sequence of strips also threatened to reach that point, but Jocelyne managed to hold it together until Hank was actually out of earshot.
But also. I do wonder about the personal aspect here. Whether Jocelyne’s coming out to Hank wouldn’t have been a little close to the bone for Willis. Because if I were them, it might feel more fraught for me as an author.
These two horny idiots eventually manage to get away from everyone to have some time alone.
Then it smash-cuts to it being nighttime and Joe is still stood where we last saw him.
Finally, the sentient hat he shares a room with states the obvious – “I don’t think she’s coming back”.
Can’t help but wish Jocelyne had actually come out to Hank. I have very mixed feelings about how this strip handles its trans representation and I would have preferred to see such a difficult part of the trans experience to receive some actual focus rather than being sidelined for Joyce’s development, which has frankly gotten quite enough focus lately.
Hi, also 🏳️⚧️ here. I sympathize with your wish, but the fact is that this is Joyce’s story. And Jocelyn is only going to get development as it progresses that story.
This is an ensemble piece as much as Joyce is the de facto protagonist, and other characters are permitted to have their own arcs that don’t have to be tied explicitly to Joyce. I get that Jocelyne is Joyce’s sister, but it really sucks that Jocelyne’s entire presence here for the past few storylines hasn’t really been about her.
People often bring up that Joyce is the main character but I didn’t even pick up on that prior to the time skip cuz the comic did such a good job at giving all the characters focus. This hyper focus just on Joyce and her immediate friend group honestly feels relatively recent.
Personally I find the experience of wanting to be out to everyone, but being too scared to actually go through with it really compelling. The last strip was one of my favorites for that reason, it represented a moment I have experienced a lot.
Yknow what since some other people have brought it up already
What was the point in Joyce and Dorothy cheating at all?
Willis said he wanted to “write a cheating arc” cause one hadn’t happened yet but then has spent the entire arc ignoring the fact that cheating happened at all and has hand waved just about every opportunity for SOMETHING dramatic to come out of it.
This arc is going no idfferently than if they were both single and started smooching and it just makes all build up they had in their prior relationships feels completely pointless at the moment.
There are huge patches of the comic you can currently entirely skip and literally nothing would change because no ones treating it like it happened.
So I simply have to ask.
Why write a cheating arc if you don’t want cheating related fallout to happen? Literally why has Sarah been the only one to even remotely react to dorothy and joyce being together in any other way than “oh you’re lesbians? About time”
Like…idk I’d say i dont care but makjng a comment like this obviously i care a little. It just feels like this arc has been a whole bunch of wasted potential for interesting dialogues to happen just so we can get J&D doing cute shit more.
I’ve had this same thought. This hasn’t even really been a cheating arc, it’s been a coming out arc with some cheating-related ballast to cut because the characters got ahead of the writer. The cheating aspect of all of this has been the second-poorly handled, with the protest in a firm lead.
Third most poorly handled has been Doyce itself, which continues to be the relationship equivalent, somehow, of “if LaCroix somehow made plain sparkling water plainer”.
The best angle I can look at it is as a coming out story and even then from that perspective I feel it’s lacking. We’re weirdly trapped in Dorothy’s perspective for much of the buildup. And then the kiss happens and they’re both just…dating now. No “what is this?” Phase. None of Joyce’s usual apprehension to finding out something new about herself.
I’m starting to think the cheating angle only exists so that someone would have an excuse to not approve cuz if they were both single everyone would just be like “ok cool saw that coming.” Except even with the cheating everyone is like “ok cool saw that coming.” I dunno. There’s no sauce to this pairing. Neither internally or externally. Just two boring girls dating in a world where everyone is rooting for them to be boring together.
Yep:
– Dorothy and Joyce’s friendship I found compelling.
– Dorothy catching feelings for Joyce I ALSO found very compelling.
– Heck, I’m even really curious about that alternate timeline Willis mentioned where they kiss at the protest but then tamp it back down and try to go back to their boyfriends. HELLA opportunities for drama.
All of those options are more interesting than what we have, which is so far quite bland with a side of sappy. I just don’t really like their dynamic as lovers. Joyce is horny and Dorothy is anxious (and horny). The end.
It feels like a long series ‘almosts’, followed up by ‘but actually, no’s.
Before anyone gets it twisted oits not like i’m castigating the characters *OR* the author. I’ve just been stuck in this pesudo uncanny valley where everything just feels *a little* weird and off. That’s how the arc has felt.
And I’m not ignoring people who counsel patience! i’m not! But when we start getting to where ‘weeks ago’ are becoming ‘months ago’, i don’t think a little fatigue is like. An evilbadwrong way to feel about it.
Also its my god given right to be a Hater and i will not be silenced by the Regime.
(General call: Please don’t give the ‘take a break/stop reading then’ response here, I’m not that pressed and theres still shit i like.)
I’ve said the same thing if you go back somewhere in the comics a few weeks (?) ago. I simply don’t see the point. It gives off a little of the vibe that they didn’t really -want- to write one, but tried to force themself anyway, in in the process made its inclusion just feel weird.
Yeah I’m positive it wasn’t entirely “well I haven’t done one yet so I guess I should, even though cheating arcs make ME uncomfortable”, but it does seem to be at least a little bit that. And that’s a really odd motivation. There are a lot of plots I haven’t written and I don’t write any of them unless they’re super interesting to me.
Setups and payoffs this arc
Setup: Dorothy cheats on Walky
Payoff: Joyce laughs in his face, robbing him of closure and Billie consoles him before kicking him off a bed.
Setup: Joyce cheats on Joe.
Payoff: Joe isn’t surprised or upset and offers to do polyamory and is left hanging until a later date.
Setup: Dorothy and Joyce confront Daisy
Payoff: Daisy doesn’t give a fuck
Setup: Raidah confronts daisy
Payoff: Raidah leaves the conversation before daisy can respond.
Setup: Becky will be crushed about this new couple
Payoff: Becky is crushed about this new couple
Setup: Hank is looking for Jocelyne
Payoff: Joyce tells Hank she’s gay so Jocelyne doesn’t have to come out. Hank begrudgingly accepts and then leaves.
Setup: Becky says she no longer believes in God
Payoff (for now): Becky doesn’t elaborate and leaves.
We’re reading this week to week so obviously were tunnel vision but this entire arc feels less like…events unfolding and more just…tying up loose ends in an rpg questline. None of the characters who’s reactions I care about are actually getting much focus and the comments and the narrative and the author seem to have no interest in those aspects either which makes every new non-event seem more draining.
These are uncharitable interpretations of the comic. Some payoffs are undersold, some setup/payoff pairs are missing, and some setup/payoff pairs are pending further resolution. I’ll highlight some of the bigger ones.
Setup: Sarah changes her opinion of Joe (and more broadly, just, her pre-established personality trait of doing the right thing and feeling suffering for it)
Payoff: Sarah blows up on her (former?) friend and roommate, potentially torpedoing their relationship, or at least seriously crippling it. This is the person Joyce has to live with for the rest of the year, and who previously was instrumental in protecting her from serious danger.
Setup: Joyce cheats on Joe. (More broadly, Joe’s relationship to women changes over the course of the comic.)
Payoff: Joe has a climactic moment of overwhelming care for Joyce, reveals (to Joyce and to us) his acceptance of polyamory, and also (in my interpretation) deep insecurity about how women see him, accepting an inferior position to Dorothy. Also, this setup has further development coming soon about how Dorothy reacts to Joe.
Setup: Hank is looking for Jocelyne and has different political beliefs from his children/
Payoff: Joyce halts her trend of selfishness and improves her relationship with her sister by “taking the bullet” for her. Hank’s relationship with Jocelyne deteriorates, with her no longer being his “good boy.”
Also, Becky renouncing her faith goes unmentioned.
I haven’t been the biggest fan of this arc either, in no small part because I don’t like Jocelyne as a character (maybe I’ll elaborate on that more at a time more people will see it and respond), but there are definitely payoffs happening, and more look to be coming.
I’ve been feeling the same the past few weeks as this cheating storyline has continued with almost no negative consequences or fallout from Joyce and Dorothy’s shitty behavior so far. I’m still hoping there will be some eventually, but at this point I’m not optimistic.
As someone who’s mostly on the same general side as you are here, you doing okay? You’ve been pretty heated here in a couple of places today in a way I don’t remember seeing you get in a while.
I don’t think anything’s wrong, but I’ll tone it back a bit.
I think I’m just getting bored of this storyline.
Anytime something relatively interesting starts to happen we cut to Joyce and Dorothy who I honestly couldn’t give the least amount of shits about at the moment when every single one of their pages is “look how cute we are as a couple”
Like I was just deep into that whole Dina/Becky moment and then boom “hehe sister teasing Joyce and Dorothy for being in lesbian with each other”
Maybe I just need to take a big break from the comic in general until this arcs over
I don’t like the constant cuts to them either, but I can accept that this current storyline is about them, so it’s an inevitability. What I actually take an issue with is that it’s just the same punchline with them over and over
I’m not surprised to hear you say that, and I actually didn’t ask you to care about their boundaries. It’s a fact whether you care or not, that people get to decide what “cheating” is for themselves. You literally can’t stop them lmao.
I think Yotomoe is adopting a stance of “hate this and wish it was cheating but I’ve given up on the characters caring about it” rather than a true stance of “I don’t think this is cheating”.
But also jeez Jay. Literally all Nymph was trying to do was defend someone else’s right to feel differently. :/
I’m hairsplitting, I suppose, in that I don’t think there IS any reasonable way to define cheating outside of the context of specific relationships — although in the case of the Doyce pairing, there’s also a very big pile of “words” vs. “actions” to wade through.
Also, endorsing Li’s interpretations while I’m here.
I get that but I think the readers perspective does matter and to a reader this is going on what, 4 months now? And the most we’ve gotten is sad joe, an upset Sarah and Becky renouncing her faith (which we immediately cut away from before we could get anything of substance from it)
Not all fallout happens immediately and I do think there’s going to be continuing fallout from the Joyce coming out side of things and from the Joyce and Dorothy are a couple now side of things, but the actual cheating itself? That’s pretty much been dealt with and it’s kind of hard to see how anyone really comes back to it without getting really weird. Joe switching to caring about it after telling her not only that he didn’t want to break up, but that he even pushed Dorothy towards it? Or Sarah staying upset now they’ve told Joe and he isn’t?
Wait, what? Was Joss actually earnestly thanking Joyce here? Jocelyne was about to come out to Hank, and Joyce ruined her big moment. If I were Jocelyne, I probably wouldn’t be saying thanks, even though Joyce meant well. I know Joss has a whole lot of poise and coolness and all, but like… this is upsetting.
I guess if Jocelyne feels like her thunder was stolen, the “those words exactly” bit is her way of getting back at Joyce.
Seems like she was only coming out to protect Joyce, but then Joyce counter-martyred, and now Joss is grateful that she doesn’t have to rush into it. (Of course, Joyce definitely rushed into it, but Hank might be more inclined to accept a bisexual daughter than a trans daughter—and Joyce seems to be the child he’s closest to, these days. And maybe the eventual conversation with Jocelyne will go better now that Hank’s already had one child come out to him? reminds me of “Fiddler on the Roof”)
Why was Hank even in town, if not to confront Jocelyne? I was under the assumption that Jocelyne KNEW Hank was coming and was PLANNING on coming out to Hank. I think I must be missing something here (that happens a lot.)
I’m assuming it didn’t feel like a big moment she wanted and she’s genuinely grateful to have more time before she has to bite that bullet. I think she just feels very differently than you do/would about the situation, which happens!
I’d be fine with Jocelyne having mixed feelings about the whole situation. A “thanks, but.” Like, there’s nuance here that the strip is not acknowledging.
To be blunt, you misinterpreted the strips where she was going to come out to him. She was depicted as not being ready for it, doing it to protect joyce.
It occurs to me that the reason so many people had this take is that…Jocelyne’s plan doesn’t make any sense otherwise? Like it is established that Hank reads the newspaper regularly. It’s a matter of when, not if, for him finding out. And it’s not like it’s a time sensitive issue. The “risk” Joyce is at doesn’t change when Hank goes home and checks his phone since the risk is financial dependence which is long term. Unless Jocelyne thinks Hank will fly into a blind rage and start strangling Joyce or something. The only way it makes sense is if she presumes Hank will be so distracted by jocelyne’s announcement that he won’t care or notice Joyce is gay. Which is kinda silly.
So I feel like many of us just assumed this was already something she planned to do which at WORST was being pushed forward by how hectic everything has been. It feels less like taking a bullet and more of a show of solidarity, which if she really truly never wanted to come out she could have shown without coming out? I dunno. Doesn’t make any sense to me.
When I read this strip, I can’t help but think of the conversation Jocelyne and Joe had about him saving Joyce’s childhood drawings and the remark about him “having it bad” for Joyce. I don’t know what that means for my thoughts on Jocelyne but it’s disappointing we continue the trend of no one having any empathy. That conversation didn’t even have that long ago and was a very emotionally honest moment. But alas.
Jocelyne even told Joe that it’s important to care even if it makes you vulnerable.
Metaphorically, she very directly told him directly to date Joyce and be ready to be vulnerable to heartbreak. And this feels like a perfect opportunity to follow up on that.
“Human” as an adjective is sometimes used to mean “humane.” Compare “inhuman,” which is a synonym for “inhumane.” Humane feels like the more likely meaning here to me, versus dehumanizing people.
I know I mentioned another time that I don’t key that much into specific users in the comment section, and don’t tend to remember much about them individually. You have broken the mold and stood out among other users. I will be plain. You strike me as vindictive and aggressively miserable, overly easy to upset and offend, and I don’t have much interest in your takes that I perceive stemming from that frame, including this one.
You manifested fully formed like ten minutes before posting this and immediately jumped somebody about your tilted perception of their mental state based on one sentence, ya fuckin’ homunculus. You got no room to judge anyone about “overly easy” anything.
It kinda feels like you said something, got disagreed with (in the most mild of tones), and immediately went on the attack.
Sorry, which commenter was supposed to be “vindictive and aggressively miserable, overly easy to upset and offend” because I think you might have accidentally spotted a mirror.
Ha take that people who said joyce was “stealing her sisters moment” I swear some of you would demonize joyce even if she jumped in front of a train to save a stranger.
Yeeeah I’m not a trans woman myself, but I also initially had a negative reaction to Joyce literally jumping in front of Jocelyne during her attempt to come out. It’s not about demonizing Joyce, it’s about the fact that coming out is a very personal thing. Jocelyne made the choice in that moment to come out. I do understand and like this Jocelyne has the chance in this very strip to say “hey, I appreciate that” but in the moment when that happened all we had was Jocelyne about to state her identity and Joyce hopping in front of her to yell I’M GAAAAAAY. It’s one of those things that people can wrinkle their nose or be a bit put off about without (ironically) demonizing those people.
Something something, treating fictional characters like they’re real and treating real people like they’re fictional characters.
To be fair, we also had her saying she “needs to tell this truth before worse things happen [because she’s no longer the most vulnerable],” which…didn’t exactly point to her WANTING to come out. Pointed to the opposite of that, in fact, combined with her facial expressions. From where I was sitting, this was *explicitly* Jocelyne Reluctantly Jumps on a Surprise Grenade. Which is still some kinda big moment, and yes, it was her decision! I get it, I’m trans and would have done the same for my sister if I needed to (although I’ll admit that rings a bit hollow, since my folks are pretty accepting). It is still a very personal thing, for sure, and I 100% agree that it’s reasonable for people to be turned off by Joyce insisting on taking the grenade after all.
But at the same time, *I* have been totally baffled at the implication scattered throughout the comments that no, Jocelyne should have come out before she was actually ready or wanted to and Joyce was awful for “taking” that from her, when it really did seem super clear that Jocelyne didn’t actually want to come out. And that Joyce was giving the opportunity to come out in her own time back to her sister. This was further supported when Hank asked if there were any other truths being kept from him and Jocelyne didn’t speak up.
Point is, yeah, people are allowed to feel however they feel and nobody deserves to get shouted down or demonized. But we did have a little bit more to go on than just “Jocelyne about to state her identity and Joyce hopping in front of her.”
Pretty astute. There was also nothing stopping Jocelynne from coming out if she really wanted to. I mean, I guess you said that already. And I think that she’s explicitly thinking Joyce for jumping on the grenade should tell us something.
Wasn’t at least one of the people who disagreed with you in the original thread also a trans woman? I guess you did kinda tell her to “pipe down.” Trans opinion isn’t a monolith, don’t be so quick to assume things about other commenters.
It this final comment was said to literally anyone other than immediate family it might be funny. Currently it’s creep-city. Some boundaries are ok to have.
I have a younger sister (probably similar age gap). One of my female friends said that I should get my sister birth control and condoms for a late teenage birthday, and guess what? She and I are not friends now.
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LMFAO IM DEAD XD
Jocelyne you are the best :’)
agreed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
full on belly laugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
my siblings would be teasing me for looking like a santa ad
I just laughed so hard it physically hurt! ~<3
My sister’s teased me in the past about having a beard like Father Christmas (so have my colleagues). My response – put together a full Father Christmas cosplay! ^^
GOOD ANSWER!
lol she should repeat the ‘getting wrecked’ line she said to carla too
Came here to say this. She’s amazeballs.
Jocelyn is a treasure.
Jocelyn is the best
I wished Jocelyne came out to Hank, but now I’m see how she is relieved. Like she’s feeling it’s not a good idea to risk it.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems Jocelyne is the weakest point of thehe rope, instead Joyce.
Her sister made a solid for her.
Yeah, she wasn’t ready yet. And she may yet be outed, as she says, but it still should be her choice. And I love that Joyce was able to see that and act in time.
Making her own destiny etc
+++
but uhhhhh not wanting to come out as trans doesn’t make you a weak link?
Totally support Jocelyne coming out at a time of her choosing. I do still wish there was some indication that she and her dad had actually discussed the whole protest thing, peer-to-peer, but… yeah.
i think amos is referring to the family connections rope, and that jocylin is the sibling currently most likely to be cut off
this, all of this
In so many ways – she knows what she’s about.
As an elder sibling, I can assure you, we do this shit out of love. And spite.
Mostly love though, like 85%. We just all have vivid memories of you younger sibs getting away with shit we never did because the parents weren’t as burned out during our go. 15% spite is perfectly reasonable.
Sometimes 20-25% spite.
In this case given the religion, it seems Joyce had the strictest upbringing.
Yeah, Carol got progressively worse over the years.
There’s a reason Jordan (next oldest sibling after Joyce) went no-contact.
*next-youngest sibling
John
Jocelyne
Jordan
Joyce
As a youngest child- that seems to be the way. In some ways, the youngest benefits from their parents having more experience being parents, in other ways they suffer from their parents knowing more ways things can go wrong and being more fearful and protective.
I´m just beginning to figure out – in my late fourties, mind you – that my older sis was a saint and broke all the ground for me.
She had to fight for everything, while our parents still where full of pedagogic vigour and ideals.
When I came along? My mom was already sick, my dad up to his ears in work and I basically skated through every obstacle she had
fought through. Allowance, home-by-times, solo holiday trips, Motorcycle licese, you name it. All tracks where already comfortably broken in for me.
And she never let me feel it.
That is an older sibling play that I respect immensely. As both an older AND a younger sibling, hell yeah. Well done Jocelyn!
I love how Dorothy is every bit as turned on by that statement as Joyce is embarrassed. Gonna be a fun dynamic having them be girlfriends
Dorothy is a “plan fifteen steps ahead” sort of person, so in that instant she’s calculating the odds that she ends up marrying into this family and having Jocelyn as a big sister for the rest of her life.
Personally i think the whole thing just BSOD’d her brain, but i could accept this as an alternative.
Hank is gone so Jocelyne can let her guard down, therefore it is time to be an annoying older sister
I love Jocelyn SO much! ❤️
Step aside Becky, the real Chaotic Good has arrived
Y’know. I was honestly holding out hope that maybe Jocelyne would be a bit annoyed at Joyce for more or less interrupting what could’ve been her best chance at coming out to her father. Like maybe Joyce meant well but Jocelyne actually feels let down she’s been prevented from coming out to her father and has more or less been pushed to remain closeted. If anything this may have BEEN one of the best chances to do it on her “own terms”
Hey, is there a place you put your sketches? ‘Cause I don’t always look at the comment section but I know in the past you’ve thrown stuff on imgur, but that’s about it.
I haven’t been posting to it in a while, but I compiled a lotta my art on imgchest
https://imgchest.com/p/ne7bw5ovn75
Some of it has aged POORLY but in the name of transparency I put everything I’ve ever drawn here. I apologize for anything past yoto did that may be problematic. Also Future yoto. Not current yoto though. He’s perfect.
Indeed.
so
many
files
😀
Well there went 10 minutes of chortling and outloud laughing. 😀
The spawn of Faz and Dina… had me chuckling like crazy.
And the Joyce with blood splatter one.
Still going through them…
thank you, again
Alas
It might have been a good *time*, but not a good *place*, in the middle of the dorm hallway, with an audience.
Jocelyne would probably feel more comfortable having that discussion with Hank in private, rather than in public.
Just going to put the idea out there that Joyce knows her sister better than we do.
There would be no way, because Joss was attempting to confess to take the bullet for Joyce when she didn’t even want to see her dad that day, she was keeping a low profile and deserves to be able to handle these confessions in her own time. She has no reason to believe her dad would take it well, have you looked at the real world lately? “Trans” has replaced “gay” in the Christian extremist community for the terrible awful thing that can happen to your child that requires drastic measures like conversion therapy or disowning or even murder. People want someone to get mad at Joyce, for anything, because her behaviour with these relationships has seemed childish and inconsiderate. Yes, an 18 year old who has barely even dated before with a heavily sheltered past makes dumbass mistakes when it comes to how to treat others. But if y’all keep reading this comic through the lens of your personal distaste over the crowning moment of this arc, you are never going to be satisfied because it is clear that the author along with many of us in the reader base do not share your distaste.
Real barely-adults fuck up, they fuck up a lot and yet they’re still human and still deserve supportive siblings and understanding friends, even when they kiss someone who isn’t their boyfriend.
Yeah, for me, this has all been pretty in character for Joyce – someone who has consistently shown that her heart’s in the right place, but she just doesn’t know how to properly handle these situations. In part because of inexperience, in part because of religious indoctrination, and in part because of her own autism. I think she’s a great character, and has been handling things the way that I would expect her to – not perfectly, but with a genuine hope of doing the right thing.
That said, if I was in Jocelyne’s shoes, I would have been extremely put out with Joyce and how she handled the situation. But I’m not in Jocelyne’s shoes, and so I can enjoy seeing Joyce’s antics as she bumbles her way through this granted rather dicey situation. It’s entertaining if nothing else, and fully in character for her and her story arc thus far.
@eskimolos – Very well said. I think it’s wild that some people want Jocelyne to be angry at her sister, as opposed to glad that everything worked out.
I don’t think Jocelyne was ready to out herself to her father. I think she was only about to come out in that moment because she believed that Joyce desperately needed protection.
Note her words right as she was about to out herself “I’m afraid I’m suddenly no longer the most vulnerable.”
I also vaguely recall her advice to (I think) Becky a long time ago, which was something to the effect of “Do what you need to keep yourself within access to resources.”
Jocelyne had decided that Joyce was at risk of being cut off from her father’s tuition payments and other support during her Freshman year of college. So she was prepared to sacrifice herself as a distraction from the kiss photos. It’s probably not how she wanted things to go.
Yeah that’s fair.
On top of what Justin said, I think it’s worth remembering that Jocelyne likely made that decision in a manner of minutes. She didn’t warn Joyce ahead of time, so she likely didn’t know about the photo, and she definitely didn’t know about Hank showing up. That means that Jocelyne had to make that decision in the window of time between Hank showing up and him seeing her in the lobby. I think a lot of people are misinterpreting it because Jocelyne seemed calm in the moment, but it was definitely an impulse decision on her part, really just made as a sacrifice for her sister.
Given the overwhelming evidence before you, such emotions concerning Jocelyne should clearly be projection at this point.
Good grief. If I had a dollar for every time “projection” gets tossed around as an accusation in these comments, I’d have a lot of money.
Like $300-400 at least.
Yeah wasn’t really sure how to respond without sounding mad so I decided not to.
Probably good call, that was a little weird
That’s probably low by an order of magnitude.
I’m not trying to be mean about it. Kinda like what Li says, we’re all prone to projection at some point or other. Me saying that the evidence is overwhelming and that someone who is still saying the opposite is projecting doesn’t mean “you suck, crawl in a hole and never speak again.” I mean exactly what the words mean. My hope is to prompt some form of insight, not to insult.
Point of order: we are ALL projecting, and it needn’t be an accusation. This is a story, after all, not real people talking to us about their real lives, where projecting would be rude.
And I mean, none of us can really help bringing the context of our own lives to a story. Who else’s experience are we meant to be bringing to our reading, and how?
Like, yes, a certain flavor of literature criticism calls for trying to assume other viewpoints, and that’s an important skill for critical thinking, but it’s certainly not the only valid way of reading a text.
TL;DR: I technically agree with Falcon in that I don’t think Jocelyne has actually seemed like she wanted to come out, and that folks who are upset on her behalf are upset generally because they’d feel differently in her position — or, fully valid, because they want Joyce to be told off (generally) and they keep getting denied that.
But also we all project. We project all the time. It shouldn’t be said as an insult, that’s an extremely glass house to be throwing rocks from. :/
Sure. Lots of cookie cutter phrases are overused. The evidence remains overwhelming that Jocelyn doesn’t want to come out at this exact moment. I’ve been frustrated to see people shitting on Joyce for protecting her sister too because of their projection of themselves onto Jocelyn, and I’ve seen that way too often too.
The minute Hank gets home, Jocelyne is going to call him, say “Hey dad, I’m trans” and then immediately hang up.
Perfect, he just needs to get in the “hey trans, I’m dad,” joke before she hangs up. Then after the conversation is over, “wait, what?”
She basically spelled out that she was doing it to take heat off Jouce, that’s very much not doing on her own terms, that’s putting yourself in possibly harm’s way because you fell you have to.
Joyce an Jocelyne were doing fundamentally the same thing. There isn’t any reason to be mad at one and not the other in this situation.
Pfffft. Big sibs gonna big sib, regardless of gender.
Brown sisters still qt
I just realised that a very different mental image came to mind with the phrase “Brown sisters”.
They’re the whitest Brown sisters ever.
Staying true to annoying big-sib energy. (spoken as someone without any big-sibs)
Please do not make Joyce’s first time traumatic, oh Willis God.
According to her definition of “first time”, it wasn’t.
Yeah, she’s had sex now several times. Totally a worldly woman! 😀
I wonder if Jocelyne knows about Becky’s crush on Joyce.
I would suspect so, as Becky seems to have had a crush on Joyce for a long time and they seem pretty intuitive while having not an close relationship but strong report with Becky. However, I also know they are a somewhat older sibling, so I am not sure how much of Becky and Joyce’s teenage years they were around for.
I’m curious about why you’re going with “they” rather than “she” for Jocelyne?
I’m holding out hope they’re just trying to account for the gender shift across a wide temporal range, which is obviously wrong to do, but ultimately well-meaning.
she’s reasonably socially aware, queer, and spent a lot of time around them
I’d be more surprised if she didn’t know
Jocelyne is exactly the big sister Joyce needed. Glorious <3
She was like this BEFORE she transitioned. You can fix your own gender but you can’t fix Gremlin Sibling energy. XD
I was dead certain that Jocelyne was going to claim to be Joyce in the newspaper photo if it came up, just to cover for her sister.
Jocelyne is also in that photo, and her face isn’t covered so Joyce would have a hard time making the reverse claim to her dad
i’d imagine the photographer/daisy prollyzoomed in on the kiss more if she’s not cropped out fully
This wasn’t the resolution I expected, but it’s a nice one. Good for Jocelyne.
Also I can’t help but recall that Jocelyne has met, talked to and implicitly approved of Joe. Did she just think Joe was a beard or like…does she just think that Joyce and him have an open relationship or does she just not really care? I dunno the two seemed to hit it off and she’s not even curious about what happened to him. I dunno I sure hope she asks about that.
I don’t know if I hold out hope tbh
I’m honestly going to guess that Jocelyne is roughly 2% invested in who exactly her little sister freshman in college happens to be dating right now so long as that person isn’t someone whose body she needs to hide.
There is is 100%
You got it! Why on earth would an older sibling judge her sister on something like this, much less take the side of someone she barely met?
I can’t lie, I’d definitely at least be curious about it. I mean taking an interest in her relationships is a part of taking interest in her, innit?
Plus Jocelyne has had a full conversation with Joe, where she acknowledged how “down bad” he was, and they both discussed how caring about things can get you hurt but she still thought it was the right thing to do.
Also as far as I can tell, Jocelyne WITNESSED Joyce’s confession of love to Dorothy at the protest. Speech, kiss, everything. Witnessed and smiled with joy about it. So it’s not like she’d be in the dark about what’s going on, and have at least an inkling about the situation.
Idk I guess I figured that’d be something an older sister would tease or comment about, but maybe that’s not their dynamic
Hit the nail right there.
Jocelyne witnessed the exact moment her sister found out she is in love with Dorothy.
She gets how sudden it was, how big of a revelation and how things aren’t black and white… (as some people during the last months would want to paint the whole scenario).
Also, she is happy for her sister, for finding happiness.
What more is there to say?
No, no, no, you’re doing it all wrong! We need to castigate the traumatized teenagers more! They should have ten years experience at being adults by now! It’s just like the job market!
I feel like a more experienced commenter would have used sarcasm more effectively. You’re fired.
I meant more so that Jocelyne has seen both things — Joe AND the confession to Dorothy — so I found it a little odd she hasn’t brought it up with Joyce at all.
Even if she’s seemingly in full approval here, I still find it odd she hasn’t mentioned something like “how’d Joe take it?”
Since the last time she saw them all, Joe had seemed pretty serious, and she’d even had a direct talk with him about it.
Uh, if my college freshman little brother announced that he had a partner who was introduced to me as such, and then a day later was kissing/getting horny around someone else as hard as Joyce has been doing to Dorothy, I’d have some fuckin’ words to say to him about conducting himself with integrity, frankly.
Even if I also, in the long term, agreed that conducting oneself with integrity meant acknowledging and moving forward with the revelation of one’s own sexuality to themself.
At minimum I’d wanna pull my sibling aside and ask them “ok so what’s the whole deal here”
Ok? That mean absolutely nothing because you are not Jocelyne as far as i am aware
As you are not me, your opinion is equally meaningless.
More substantially, I was replying to a comment that said “Why on earth would an older sibling…” so I was responding as an older sibling.
But if you didn’t post an unfounded, wildly incorrect one-line take on these threads every so often, you wouldn’t be you.
Your comment made sense to me in context, but it’s possible your avatar’s facial expression affects how people might read your comments, given how so many humans seem to have this thing about adjusting their interpretations of stuff based on non-verbal cues… which, yes, shouldn’t generally take these avatars into account, static as they are, but instincts get confused sometimes.
Eh, that’s the risk I take, but I LIKE cranky Joe so he stays.
That really has nothing to do with my response.
Ah.
It’s funny I have a visceral hate reaction
and project outward when a is super Bongoish but has a super cute childish kawaii icon
My brains reads the contrast as Cutey passive aggressive hate, took a long time to figure out the overly sweet anime icons made comments sound worse
Ok
FUCK WRONG PLACE
Nothing a younger sibling loves more than a lecture on their personal life from their older sibling, I’m sure. That’s definitely not going to provoke a “Fuck off, you’re not my parent.”
Pissing off your younger sibling is sometimes the intended response!
But in all seriousness it depends on the younger sibling and the relative life stages you’re both at. Source: I’ve been an older brother for over four decades. There have been times I could have said that to bro and he’d have been like “shit, yeah, I should check myself” and times he’d’ve responded more along the lines of what you said. (granted, the time I told him he had to rethink his plans was the one time he stayed after one of my concerts and announced his intention to have me take him to go underage drinking with the college kids, to which I said “I will throw your ass right out of my frat party, you aren’t endangering my friends’ police records for your teen rebellion.” He responded as quoted above, and ended up going home a few hours later when he couldn’t sneak into anyone else’s party either. :D)
The only person who seems to care is Sarah.
For Sarah, it was the cheating / sneaking around on Joe thing that was acutely bothering her, while the new lovers flirted in Joyce’s bunk while hiding from their problems. While Joyce still needs to realize she owes Joe more consideration because he still wants to date her, she did address Sarah’s demand of coming clean to him.
Regardless might not be a great idea to take this party back to Sarah & Joyce’s room right now… and they still have Becky to thank and talk to…
Joyce doesn’t owe Joe more consideration because he wants to date her. She broke up with him. I would LOVE for a polycule to happen, genuinely, but at this moment in time Joe is broken up with. No matter what he wants.
She said “I need to break up with you”, he questioned, she seemed unsure and then promised to talk about it later. I seem to have more patience than half the commenters here (it is still the same in-comic day! She’s been busy with unexpected parent!), but she does need to have that later conversation with him at some point.
She should have that conversation, yes. Ideally she’ll have it at some point in the next day or so. She’s still dating Dorothy in the meanwhile, so I don’t think it affects that in particular.
But she doesn’t owe him “more consideration because he still wants to date her” which is what I was directly responding to.
I genuinely don’t agree with this. Joyce last left him with “we need to talk about this and we WILL”.
I think DOROTHY thinks he’s broken up with. I think Joe might think any number of things — he looked potentially worried at the end of the strip, so it could be “she doesn’t really want to keep dating me, she’s just putting off saying so” or it could be “the corner of Joyce’s heart that I currently have is even smaller than I thought” or it could just be general regret and anxiety because I’m not sure his proposal of polyamory was coming from the most ideal emotional place…
But I don’t think Joyce MEANT that conversation to have been a breakup, by the end of it. I think she meant to stick a pin in it for later, and has since completely forgotten about where it ended up because of the whirlwind that the rest of her morning has been.
Like, Joyce was of course within her rights to break up with him regardless of how he felt about it, relationships are a matter of ongoing consent, but I think she didn’t think they were broken up at the end of that conversation: hence her awkward “yyyeah” when Dorothy later called Joe her ex.
As I said above more concisely:
She doesn’t owe him “more consideration because he still wants to date her” which is what I was directly responding to.
Oh that’s fair.
I should have read what you were replying to! The phrasing in your comment caught my eye and I went all 🤔🧐 while entirely forgetting that context is a thing.
Fully agree that “owing” is kind of a weird way to approach relationships. I think it’s part of what makes, say, marriage different from a less formal romantic relationship — with marriage, you’re making a much more formal commitment, and I think you’re agreeing to put a certain level of work in, when there are problems, before you give up?
…Obviously I’m assuming the relationship was in no way coerced, sob. I also wanted to compare it to having kids and how I think there’s a similar commitment being made to take care of another person there, but ALSO would have to caveat about no coercion…
Ofc folks can set up these relationships with higher degrees of commitment, just as they can set them up with lower degrees, but yeah. “Owing” Joe more time spent thinking about the relationship? No.
Totally fair to disagree, but we’re both just interpreting a comic and my interpretation is that Joyce went in there and broke up with him. Any wibbliness afterward falls squarely into “we’ll see how it goes”.
I’m not saying they won’t end up doing polyamory, I’m not saying Joyce thinks they’re broken up (or that she doesn’t), I’m saying that people breaking up with another person don’t then owe that person a long conversation about it just because the person they were breaking up with offered an option they hadn’t yet considered.
IMO: Joyce is probably going to consider herself not broken up with Joe, but that doesn’t change my opinion about how much consideration she owes him about the break up in this moment.
People always say this, but I think it’s pretty clear based on how Joyce ended that conversation and her uncertainty when Dorothy called Joe and Walky their ex-boyfriends that she does not consider that break a clean one at this point.
Obviously she entered that room intending to break up with him, but I don’t think it’s at all clear that she actually did!
Two ways to look at it, really:
Going by her own words and actions to Joe and later to Dorothy, JOYCE thinks the discussion is still open and needs to be finished, and that they’re not (fully or unambiguously, perhaps) broken up.
Going by how Joyce’s acting around Dorothy and what Joe knew previously, he’d be a fool to act as though they were anything but broken up until their next conversation, if that every happens.
I understand that you disagree.
Literally the only person who gave the slightest shit is entirely unconnected to it all
I couldn’t remember so I checked the strips with Joe and Jocelyne, and apparently Joyce told Jocelyne that Joe was her boyfriend when they first met. And Joe and Jocelyne seemed to get along pretty well the times they interacted with each other before the protest. I’m not sure how long it was between when Joe and Jocelyne met and the big kiss at the protest, but it can’t have been more than a few days, and today’s strip is the day after the protest I believe.
Also Jocelyne knew before the protest that Dorothy was dating Walky. So I wonder what she thinks about the fact that probably only a few days ago Joyce and Dorothy were dating their boyfriends, and now they’re dating each other. I kinda hope she’s at least a little curious about why they’re no longer with their ex-boyfriends, and asks them about it. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t care, since so few characters seem to care about Joe and Walky these days.
It wasn’t even just “a few days” the protest was the next day (in universe, the timeline was Jocelyn comes out to Joyce ->meets Joe and friends ->gets lunch and is accosted by some masked dipshit and saved by Amazi-Girl ->Jocelyn says her goodbyes and preps for the protest -> Joyce and Joe later that day have their date and have non-penatrive sex ->Joyce excitedly talks to Becky about it the next day -> realises that she by an inclusive definition of sex lost her virginity to Dorothy weeks ago -> runs off to “do laundry” with her again -> gets a text from her dad about Jocelyn and runs off to find her sister ->Dorothy whose been having her own crisis tries to make a stand and gets a Big Damn Kiss from Joyce -> they scatter from the cops (somewhere along this Amazi-girl gets shot and patched up by Sal and Asher) -> Joyce and Dorothy are deep in their honeymoon phase/on the high of adrenaline (Joyce still blows Joe when trying to confess what happened to him) -> The girls fall asleep kissing and cuddling together -> Next day Sarah is Pissed(tm) -> The girls “confess” to their respective partners and find that the paper has outed them -> etc etc
It’s been 3 days in-universe
First: everyone who wants proper consequences for the cheating has my full and complete sympathy, and the sympathy only grows in intensity as it looks like most characters aren’t going to be taking Joyce or Dorothy to task over this.
That said, I imagine Jocelyne’s assumptions are one of the following, if not a combination:
1. “Kids do fall in and out of love quickly sometimes.” College romances do move fast sometimes, people can be very hot and cold. Maybe Joyce and Joe really did break up that quickly, in which case it’s probably a sore subject.
(I think Jocelyne is more likely to be dismissive of Joyce’s romances as being True Love than any other member of the cast except maybe John; there’s this WINDOW OF TIME right after you leave an age group where many of us think of that age group as being little kids. Like, “oh, I remember when I was that young and foolish, a whole two years ago. Stay in school, kids!” You feel so much older than 19 when you’re like 24.)
2. “Maybe my sister has always been a lesbian.” Conveniently, nothing Joyce has actually SAID so far contradicts this assumption, and it would make breaking up with Joe again a potential sore point but not something Joyce had done wrong.
Bonus: I think Jocelyne clocked Dorothy and Joyce as being potentially into each other the first time she met them as herself. There are some knowing looks from her to Dorothy throughout their private conversation, and then she greets Joyce by saying she can see why she “became an atheist for this one”, which was a heck of an assumption on her part.
Double bonus: then there’s the LAST time she met Dorothy, which AFAWK was the first time Joyce stood up to their parents about ANYTHING.
3. “Maybe Joe is okay with this?” A bit of a leap, but Joyce has been changing a lot very quickly. In this scenario, which is mmmmostly accurate to to how Joe himself would tell it, Joyce doesn’t have to have done anything out of bounds for the current status quo.
(I honestly think “maybe Joyce cheated” wouldn’t even be on Jocelyne’s list of guesses, though if she knew about the Jacob situation, it probably would be.
This is a potential source of drama, where the idea of Joyce cheating on someone is just so at odds with the assumptions her family would make about her that it hasn’t even occurred to folks like Jocelyne and Becky yet, but I have to agree with the general consensus that it would be weak tea for Joyce and Dorothy to be lectured by these folks if Walky and Joe continue to put up a front of indifference and acceptance. Jocelyne’s disappointment might be harder for Joyce to bear than Walky admitting to being hurt, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually Jocelyne’s business in the same way.)
I’m caring as much about peoples reactions to joyce and dorothy cheating as willis is now.
Which is not at all.
Dude wanted to write a “cheating arc” but forgot all the drama that usually has to come with a cheating arc and decided to just fill it with face smashing and flirting
I don’t think she’s really thought about it. She’s caught up in the excitement that she isn’t the only queer Brown sibling, and also caught up in the stress over worried about her dad finding out she is trans, while ALSO being focused on the protest.
Joss is the absolute best when she’s being a tease.
Jocelyne killed my fucking dog.
Based
His name was Big Munch. He was an orange Alsatian. He was only twenty-seven years old. Jocelyne Brown came into my fourth-floor apartment uninvited and threw my dog into the sky at high speed, where he struck a passing airplane and separated into his base elements before being scattered to the wind. Worst character in the comic, really kinda feels personal how she was written to do that.
i was actually there and saw this happen, i was the TV stand in the apartment
Big Munch had it coming
You don’t want to know what she did to my killing dog.
Joceyln and her absolute demon energy when it involves teasing Joyce
I love it so much. Especially since it was an important aspect of their relationship pre-Jocelyne coming out. That it hasn’t changed in the slightest now that she’s established as Joyce’s sister is so great to see.🥹
A. It’s just extremely endearing and I eat it up.
B. In a lot of media, this kind of teasing is very “older brother” coded. Similarly, in a lot of media with trans characters, when they are out they tend to distance themselves from behaviors associated with the gender they were assigned at birth.
It’d be really sad to see this piece of their sibling dynamic fade as Jocelyne becomes/shares more of herself. I’m so glad to see it being portrayed as something so core to HER that it transcends the confines of its typical gender-coding
One of us! ONE OF US!
Dorothy left speechless is 🔥
I gotta say, that is an entirely reasonable offer.
Which one says it first, though?
🤣💚
No matter the gender.
Older annoying sibling forever.
So I guess Jocelyne doesn’t know that Joyce and Dorothy were still dating Joe and Walky when they kissed? I’d like to hope she wouldn’t be so happy with them getting together if she did know about that.
Jocelyne was introduced to Joe as Joyce’s boyfriend already, like less than 24 hours before the girls kissed.
I’d have questions in her position unless she’s just that much of a shipper.
They still haven’t had a moment to breathe. Joe still deserves a real conversation about this, as does Walky, but it’s pretty clear that these two are non-negotiably Here for eachother. Acknowledging and accepting the relationship that’s been forming since the day they met is not a sin. Life is messy, people don’t always make the best choices, and sometimes when they make the right choices they don’t get the order right. This has been an especially chaotic pair of days in an extraordinarily chaotic first year of college. If anyone is due some grace, it’s this set of freshmen that have faced death and ruin more times than many face in a lifetime.
Ive given up on joe getting a real conversation
It has been less than one full day, Jay.
It’s been 4 months at some point how long it takes for the *reader* to experience things has to be taken into account.
This arc is the boat arc of Dumbing Of Age if you’ve read Berserk and get my metaphor.
I understand that in hindsight this will all probably smoothly read amazingly but fuck if this isn’t the most unsatisfying story to read out page for page
Maybe she’s just not a scold.
Well, Joyce has made progress, now she can say “fuck” whereas she couldn’t have a few months ago.
Still, Jocelyne is doing very good at being an annoying older sister and we’re all quite proud of her 🙂
I mean, just think about how much better this is for her. Like, she’d still put up with doing this as a boy, but like, where’s the joy in anything when you’re forced into boy-moding?
Hahaha I’d forgotten what great sibling-chemistry Joyce and Jocelyne have xD <3 !!
Jocelyn continues to be the best
*palpatine voice* DO IT
Ah yes, ain’t a comments section without people reminding us how stinkybadwrong it is that this relationship came out of a kiss while *gasp* in the sanctity of relationships that had been going on for about a week at most
It is very important that everyone know that there is no greater measure of moral turpitude than smooching a girl while dating a guy who’s done everything but push your faces together while saying, “Now kiss!” We must make sure to tell them every single day!
And he very well might do that too
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/continue/
I just realized that while Roz is getting all up in Joyces face in that panel, Dorothy is ALSO in line with Joe’s hand on that side.
And Walky is lined up on the Joyce side.
So potentially he could be shipping
Roz/Joyce, Dorothy/Joyce, Dorothy/Walky, or Roz/Walky.
Three predictions out of four is a pretty good track record.
That’s only 2/4?
By Joyce’s definition of sex, she had a threesome with Roz and Joe when she watched their video.
It likewise isn’t a comment section without someone posting the obligatory UGH RELATIONSHIP PALADINS AMIRITE, so I guess it’s good we got all the bases covered.
I don’t believe I’ve ever used that phrase in these comments! I think distilling down arguments to two opposing sides with teams names and t-shirts tends to throw actual discussion of facts right out the window in favor of everyone vilifying the opposition
You say that like people wouldn’t be incredibly mad if Joyce decided to ditch Dorothy and start kissing Ruth or someone.
I am willing to bet the people currently most upset at Joyce/Dorothy would mostly fall into the “Karma” and “Cheaters cheat” camps, but that’s just speculation on my part. A little bit based on comments made to that exact effect already.
Well, the people who are in this because “hey, self-discovery is messy as hell and teens make mistakes” and/or “Dorothy and Joyce are a great couple” might be pretty mad, but the people who’re mad about cheating will probably take a tack more like what Nymph said.
My issue with the cheating is less watsonian and more doyalist. I just dont get a reason why it was written that way. Like if you write this such that the breakups happen right before the protest, nothing is different. Joe can still say everything he said, Walky can still eat a bunch of nuggets, Joyce/Dorothy can still have their confession moment at the protest. Nothing is different.
So if nothing would be different then just why?
You get me
It’s sorta like my same frustration with characters coming back from the dead willy-nilly in media. If death isn’t permanent what’s even the point of killing off characters?
Because that would make no sense and character-motivation-wise, has the cart before the horse.
Oh I can actually answer this, but you aren’t going to enjoy or be satisfied by the reason.
Willis wrote it this way because their wife pointed out that they were writing a messy college relationship comic and yet the people involved weren’t actually being very messy! Each couple was completely and doubtlessly broken up before the next couple got together, no one ever cheated or miscommunicated what was happening, no one ever overlapped or oopsied.
So they wrote A Cheating Plotline™. Arguments can be made that it would have been better not to make them cheat at all for a variety of reasons, and I even agree with some of them, but ultimately this was stepping outside Willis’ comfort zone, intentionally. I can’t help but be wildly empathetic that they can’t do that without a hundred people telling them their first try at something is bad and wrong and they shouldn’t have done it.
Sharing your writing is terrifying, especially when it’s something you’re not in your element about. There were certainly better ways for them to go about setting this up, but they’ve copped to just about every error and I’m mostly just hopeful the second try will go better! BE MESSIER!
Relevant Tumblr post:
https://www.tumblr.com/itswalky/789435763608682496/was-rereading-the-old-its-walky-archives-and-found
Took me a while to find this. Guess I should bookmark it in case I need to link it again.
This is basically my take as well. I don’t think it’s “bad and wrong and they shouldn’t have done it”, but I do think it fell flat and I think part of the reason is that they weren’t willing to commit to the messiness. To letting them behave worse or letting one of the partners be angry about it.
I’m more okay with it since I reached that conclusion, since I’m no longer waiting for the shoe to drop.
“Not willing to commit to the messiness” is prettu much the speculation i settlesettled on, yeah. Unsatisfying, but c’est la vie.
And frankly, that’s cool in a way. They tried to stretch as a writer and it didn’t quite work out. Shit happens. They’ll learn from it.
Shame that it happened in what seems like the big central romance of the story, but that’s the way it works out sometimes.
Or maybe I’m completely off base and they’re happy with this aspect of it and it’s just a few commenters here bothered by it.
Because there was no reason for them to break up before everything came to a head at the protest. Dorothy thought there was no chance her feelings could be reciprocated and was trying to persuade herself that they were just a trauma reaction. Joyce hadn’t even considered the possibility of a romantic relationship with Dorothy. If they knew ahead of time what was going to happen at the protest, I’m sure they would have broken up with Joe and Walky first, but life doesn’t work like that.
Life also rarely has the parties cheated on be super cool and understanding about it but that’s just my experience.
Sure, but those are narrative choices. Willis set up the situations and could have tweaked events to bring things to a head differently.
To spin it in the other direction – worse cheating with more consequences, the laundry room could have been empty when they went to “do laundry”.
I mean, for my money, Willis has basically said on patreon that he kinda dug himself in a whole with his writing choices and I kinda feel like he dug himself in a whole trying to dig out of the first whole and I’m someone who on the whole likes Joyce/Dorothy. Just my 10 cents for whatever it’s worth.
Cheating is still wrong and joyce and dorothy are both still shit people for it 🩵
Just in case you thought we’d forgotten
How can we possibly forget when you never shut up about it?
I haven’t seen anyone bring it up for a few pages now
If the canon does not provide consequences, y’all sure will, and in the most tedious and repetitive way possible
“So, Joe, I ran off to cope with the fallout of that picture, and then my dad turned up and it all got complicated and I was afraid Jocelyne would be outed, and that I would be, but in the end I outed myself to save Jocelyne, so then there was the fallout of that, and then Jocelyn wanted to hang out and…. Joe, why are you standing exactly where you were when I left?…”
Almost every day now makes Joyce and Booster’s exchange even funnier in hindsight.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/rebounding/
Even not counting joyce and dorothy who have come out since (or walky, when she realizes some things :p) I count at least 5 openly queer people other than booster at that fairly small party
Is this Willis’ subtle way of telling us Jocelyne is now part of the main cast? 🙂
They did post a pie graph on bsky recently saying she was featured prominently in 4-5% of the strips coming up in the next 10 months 😀
That’s about 15ish strips, give or take.
I wonder where she is staying.
She says it in the last panel, she’s staying in proximity to Joyce until Joyce makes an inappropriate remark about her girlfriend.
Appropriate enough, if the sentiment is heartfelt- which it certainly seems to be! Sex is not inherently inappropriate and I wish we as a culture could agree on that.
Nobody said that last part. Don’t be ridiculous.
Then what did you mean?
I hope somebody’s been feeding her cat while she’s in Bloomington.
If she’s staying here for awhile, I demand Miss Sakaki join the cast full time too!
She was added to the cast page along with Alice and Tony a couple months ago, so I would assume yes.
hehehe
Just perfect!
Interesting reaction! I read that situation as Joyce “making this about her”, super inappropriately!
I can see why you would think that – but Joyce really isn’t the sort of person to INTENTIONALLY do that. I mean, sure, she does do that rather a lot – but that’s part of being autistic, and it’s not something that we do intentionally. We’re just that bad at reading social cues, and our attempts to relate to the topic of discussion often comes off as trying to make everything about ourselves.
I’m glad that Jocelyne appreciated what Joyce was trying to do in that situation – and maybe even realized after thinking things through that Jocelyne’s attempt to pull focus off Joyce was doomed to failure anyways – even though it’s a situation that I would have been extremely put out with if it happened to me. But, again, that doesn’t mean that Joyce was acting selfishly – she was just being overenthusiastic and not terribly wisely. Which, given the situation, I can entirely understand.
Gotta give joyce credit, she hasn’t accidently deadnamed jocelyn once yet.
I fucked up more than once with my sister when she shanged her namr,Mostly from habit, but I’m impressed by it.
I was just thinking the same thing. She got the right name out even when shocked and flustered.
She messed up once. And then she rewrote reality so it never happened and can never happen again. There is no J—. There has never been a J—. There is only Jocelyne. There has only ever been Jocelyne.
Joyce has rewired her brain to forget that Jocelyne ever had a different name. She did it here:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/02-the-one-where-jocelyne-returns/cantbelieve/
wow, Jocelyne 😐
Definite big sis energy.
Reading through old strips today, Jocelyne told Joyce that she was ready to come out to her on June 1, 2016. Just saying.
I’m betting Jocelyne sticks around awhile. She’s the only one that knows the actual state of Joe’s heart and about the undisposed artwork https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/02-the-one-where-jocelyne-returns/askabout/, and probably about Col. Mustard with the candlestick in the Dining room.
Im doubting Jocelyne even knowing joe exist ever gets brought up again
This is the same Jocelyne that, just the other day, realized Joe is “down bad” for Joyce, right?
Yup. It’s just one of the issues created by Willis deciding to skip ahead. I would really have wanted to see it too. Maybe we’ll get a poly version.
Yeah, it’s weird.
It’s pretty easy to assume that Jocelyne doesn’t actually give much of a shit about Joe, given she’s known him for what, about forty-five seconds?(depending on how much they talked while the titty-pic stuff was happening in foreground)
Also, like…Jocelyn is obviously sex positive, like a normal, well-adjusted person? She’s already talked about getting her back blown out by multiple dudes completely casually. She’s queer, and like Joyce, has probably been working her way through an entire teen-years amount of fundamentalist sexual repression.
If anything, she’s just glad that her queer sister is also unpacking some of the horrifying sexual trauma that her upbringing entrenched in her heart and mind. Like, fuck her for being glad that people she loves are getting laid? Ultimately, like 70% of the queer people I’ve ever personally known would make a joke like this. Can’t believe that people find sex positivity so weird.
IMHO this whole discussion is also the same one as the “but their relationships are only a week old!” consequence of Webcomic Time Dilation but in reverse — there’s some sense in which we have both “Jocelyne was super approving of Joe/Joyce two days ago” and another sense in which that happened “last November”.
Just stop expecting anything satisfying to come out of this whole cheating thing.
None of it obviously fucking matters cause “daw joy”e and dorothy are together now” and we’ll get absolutely 9 satisfying conclusions from it
Can I just say that it’s so personally satisfying to see Jocelyne thank Joyce for taking a bullet for her?
When that comic came out, so many people were treating Joyce like she had done an awful and selfish thing, and ruined Jocelyne’s moment. Even though it was clear that Jocelyne wasn’t ready to come out.
Maybe not everything Joyce does is thoughtless.
It is very nice but i know the people who complained will continue to treat it like that.
And indeed they atill do, they can’t just accept that they read a situation wrong.
I’m just gonna say it:
It’s really quite weird for Jocelyne to comment so strongly on her little sister’s sex life.
I remember one time my younger brother and I tried to have an honest conversation about his sexual experience, and the instant his words got past PG-13, I nope’d out of the conversation so hard.
I also think the assumption of intimacy so soon after this relationship started is unhealthy, particularly for someone as inexperienced as Joyce. Not DoJo being so down bad for each other- I think that’s unhealthy for different reasons- but the way this is set up feels like it really normalizes that fucking on the first date, more or less, is what is expected of a couple.
Mmm, on the other hand, given how these two dorks have been acting since The Kiss ™, anyone who spends more than three minutes in their collective presence has witnessed at least one “forgot what they were doing due to getting fucking horny” incident, and frankly if MY little brother were acting that pent up around a new partner while I was visiting, I would DEFINITELY call it out that hard.
1. It’s not “quite weird” that other people have different kinds of relationships with their siblings. I’ve happily had frank and serious conversations about sex with my siblings, and while we don’t talk about it All The Time you can absolutely bet I’d be happy to tease/torment them about it. Sex isn’t inherently taboo for everyone.
2. I don’t think this is an assumption of anything. I think it’s a joke. She’s joking with her little sister. You’re taking it very seriously and ascribing a bunch of more severe meanings to “Jocelyne knows saying this will annoy/embarrass her little sister”.
1. While fair, as I said, this is coming from my personal experience where the repulsion to any details was completely subconscious- I was actively trying to have such a conversation and I simply couldn’t.
2. I…really, *really* don’t think Jocelyne is joking here. Oh, she’s teasing Joyce, to be sure, but I think she (and most of the readership, to be frank) fully expects DoJo to go at it the moment they’re behind a locked door.
There’s nothing *malicious* about that, and it’s fully justifiable by noting, as Big Z does, that Jocelyne has eyes and can see that these two idiots are too horny to function. But Jocelyne didn’t say “OK, you two idiots are too horny to function, you have my blessing to go at it like rabbits”, she just said “go fuck my girlfriend”, like it’s a normal thing to do when she knows they got together literally yesterday.
With the caveat of how time in this comic means that most relationships move super, super-fast if you just look at “days spent together”, the strip has previously been quite good about not normalizing such things. Dina and Becky took plenty of time and Danny & Sal also took time to establish their relationship and comfort with each other before jumping each others’ bones. Heck, Lucy and Walky never even made it to such.
But the way her comments are phrased here, alongside everything else that this comic’s done recently (Alice screaming that she wants to smoosh her cooch against Jennifer’s cooch in particular), is really off-putting how much it’s been *focusing* on not just DoJo getting together but explicitly on WLW sex.
I will note, at least in Joyce’s case, that she’s already been SUPER primed for a long while of both real world-time and around a week of comic time to engage in sexy times, albeit with Joe. So at least JOYCE being ready to jump some bones is understandable — horny is quite often transferable.
If true then I’d say it’s an interesting trend in DOA as of late that characters who have a very slow gradual buildup to having sex quickly jumping into bed with the next person. Like those credits just transfer right over to the next person.
My own post-religious college experience suggests that in some cases, once one has decided to escalate to the next step of sexy times, the second and subsequent times are often far, far faster.
Not to be too crass, but I was totally “no sex ever, kissing MAYBE is okay” for most of high school, then I had a long-term GF I moved to oral with after a few months. Immediately, every subsequent relationship moved to oral within 2-3 dates max. Same with college — had PIV sex for the first time after a month or two of hemming and hawing, then every subsequent relationship was 0-3 dates before PIV happened. In fact, the second person I had PIV sex with was a random one-time hookup!
That’s pretty common I think, but the weird thing I think Yotomoe was seeing is that here they had the slow gradual buildup with one person that didn’t reach sex, but then jumping right into with the next person.
Lucy with Walky, then with Jacob is the clearest example, but it looks like Joyce is headed in that direction. Though she may of course still panic at the last moment as she did with Joe (before she changed her definition of “sex”, but she still backed down from the PiV she’d talked about.)
I’m also going to double down — that is not a “I am dead serious that I think you two need to fuck” smile on Jocelyne in the last two panels, that is 150% a “welp, time to fuck with my younger sibling’s head while I’m here” smile.
Agreed
I’m going to take a bold stance and say even if there is some sort of “focus” on women having sex with each other, it’s good actually.
But as nymph said that isn’t the case for everyone, that’s your personal experience, not an universal truth.
1. No, you outright said “I’m just gonna say it: It’s really quite weird for Jocelyne to comment so strongly on her little sister’s sex life.” There wasn’t a single hint of “to me” or “in my personal experience it would make ME uncomfy” just a broad stroke judgement. I totally get that you’re saying you didn’t intend that, but it is what happened.
2. I really, really do think Jocelyne is joking! So we disagree there, but that’s not a big deal.
3. “really off-putting how much it’s been *focusing* on not just DoJo getting together but explicitly on WLW sex.” Oh. I mean, lmao, sorry-not-sorry? It’s actually fine for the comic to focus on sapphic fuckin’. If you’re off-put by that, I’ll assume you were put off by the focus on Danny/Sal, Walky/Lucy, Jacob/Lucy, Tony/Sarah, and Joyce/Joe fuckin’ that we literally just passed? If so, that must be rough to read a comic like this where a chunk of the subject matter is off-putting to you.
Re #3: I think there’s been a thread recently of folks kinda trying to adopt a position of allyship, saying it feels like the strip is fetishizing* Joyce and Dorothy specifically, and sapphic relationships more generally. I think it’s coming from an at least somewhat good place, even if in this case it’s kind of a case of picking and choosing which self-identified sapphic people you’re listening to, because I think the majority of us are fine with the level of horniness here from an authorial perspective, even if some of us are distinctly annoyed by Joyce and Dorothy’s preoccupation in-universe.
(By which I mean: not annoyed with Willis for how he’s portraying them, exactly, but exasperated (to put it nicely) with the characters for being horny idiots.)
Leaving room for:
— the sapphic folks who HAVE complained and who have expressed that they don’t like how Willis writes sapphic women. I do think they’re in the minority? But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist or that they’re all suddenly relegated to ally status by virtue of having the less popular opinion.
— the less well-meaning people, who definitely do exist and have been making their opinions heard. I don’t think Rogue 7 falls into this camp, but these people are also real. And they’re real exhausting.
*hate hearing this term applied in this way tbqh, I would vastly prefer objectifying? “Fetishizing” really puts a stink on “feeling sexual attraction”, and I genuinely just do not care how many straight cis guys there are in the world masturbating to porn about WLW. I care how they treat real people in their daily lives, and so often there’s no correlation dot jpg. Don’t treat real people as objects, and fantasize about sapphic women as much as you like.
Agreed. Approved. Rubber Stamped.
❤️
Yeah I dunno I definitely read this much more as a “I know Joyce will hate saying this phrase which is why I’m having her say it” moment. Granted in this instance there may be a kernel of truth to it I think she’s mostly mocking her sister’s unwillingness to say embarrassing things in this moment.
It’s fine to rib your little sister a little about her sex life
You are entirely correct.
This is fucking weird because it’s so goddamn explicit.
You can absolutely achieve the same effect without having to spell things out.
So – lack of imagination on the writers part or in universe the Browns are so homeschooled they cannot ever speak without sounding weird.
Call it.
But it’s so goddamn explicit because of the teasing side. It’s a variant on previous jokes about trying to get Joyce to swear.
Meh. Different siblings, different standards for teasing. I see this less as “commenting on her sex life” and more just “being Obnoxious(tm) and the sex life happens to be the vehicle for that,” you know?
Eh, dating your best friend isn’t like typical dating, you can skip the ‘getting to know you’ phase. In most cases, you were already sharing everything short of romantic and/or physical intimacy with each other anyway.
Jocelyne was just trolling, though. If anything, the teasing made Joyce a little less likely to fuck her girlfriend the minute her sister left.
Also, in the “what was Jocelyne’s actual plan for coming out” vein, do we have any collective actual theory for what Jocelyne’s “I have something to tell you before you hear it from dad” text (I didn’t go back to look up the exact wording) actually is referring to if she WASN’T planning on coming out to him?
It feels like that thread is dangling a bit IF we assume Jocelyne had no plans to come out.
My guess was that she THOUGHT Hank was going to figure it out from the newspaper photos, bc she was already planning on the protesting? Because I don’t think “I have something to tell you before you hear it from Dad” indicates any actual desire from her to come out to Hank, only the feeling that him knowing was inevitable.
But that is a guess. We’ve obviously got a bit of a divide in the comments right now over whether Jocelyne wanted to come out to Hank, and I’m on the “no” side.
Footnote: mixed feelings are a thing. I think, now that Hank is heading home, having more or less been “okay” with Joyce having a girlfriend, Jocelyne could be experiencing some regrets over not having also come out to him, even if her original plan was to never come out to him.
I can’t say there’s a divide anymore since the plain text has more or less confirmed she didn’t. I kinda wish she had wanted to, for story reasons but I’ve accepted that’s not the story being told right now.
Fair enough, I should have put it in past tense! It’s definitely been a topic of discussion for like a week.
Yeah, frankly, I have almost the opposite read, I hear “I have something to tell you before you hear it from Dad” and assume that Dad both A) already knows and B) is either authorized to tell others or is telling others out of some internal impulse regardless of Jocelyne’s preferences.
I *had, since we know that didn’t happen.
That was definitely my guess at the time, I’ve revised it since then to what seems like the next most plausible read.
Sometimes I really wish I knew how much of this was “these things that looked pretty unambiguous were intended to be ambiguous” and how much is “Dorothy and Joyce just kinda happening + the protest protest rewrites screwed with the pacing/timeline in deeply weird ways”. I still love this comic, but the pacing has felt all wrong for most of the last few months and there’s this occasional jarring Mandella-effect hit of “wait, that doesn’t QUITE match up to what happened a day or two ago (comic time)/last year (real time)”
Oh I think it would be super interesting. I bought all the books up to like 11 specifically hoping there’d be more commentary of the kind that the It’s Walky strips have now, but I should’ve known better: we aren’t there yet. Willis won’t be providing THAT kind of commentary on arcs until, you know, it’s been ten years since DoA ended. It’s not just too spoilery, it’s too… temporally impossible! The commentary on the oldest Walkyverse stuff comes from a perspective it’s impossible to have on DoA yet.
From the photos or just generally going to happen pretty soon because she’s on HRT now and the changes are starting to show.
It’s also a little weird that she apparently had no plans to come out to hank since she had previously solicited Joyce’s opinion on Hank and whether he was trustworthy.
I’m frankly also willing to allow for the idea, based on my own partner’s trans coming out experiences, that there IS no plan, just a gigantic pile of info-gathering and vibes-based decisionmaking.
Alternately, there’s far TOO much planning going on, to the point that actually doing the thing is put off indefinitely when it might be better to rip off the bandaid. Frankly, no matter how much you plan, coming out as a trans woman is always a game of Russian roulette, and it’s easy to get in your head about it.
This would be my guess, basically.
“Hey, you’ve spent more time around Dad than me, and you had a front row seat for how he handled the Becky thing. What….. was that like?”
Mind you: it would ALSO absolutely make sense for a version of events where she wanted to come out to Hank. I just think she could also want to know even if she didn’t have plans. It could even have been the start of considering it, when previously she had assumed it would be something he never found out about her.
It might have helped give her the confidence to start HRT, knowing there was at least a chance it wouldn’t cut her off entirely.
I like that idea.
I also think that Jocelyne’s appearances have been mostly marked by nonconfrontationalism, and my guess would be that she had already started taking HRT and was kind of… putting off even the question of whether or not she was going to come out to Hank for later.
I also think Jocelyne’s nonconfrontationalism has hit a couple of roadblocks lately where she found herself pushed too far. John, rubbing his horribleness in her face even as she tried to broker peace — that Patreon bonus strip with her and Carol where she was visibly exasperated with Carol’s staunch refusal to believe that the candidates she had voted for were REALLY bigoted and pushing for harmful legislation instead of just believing in scripture… and I think this sequence of strips also threatened to reach that point, but Jocelyne managed to hold it together until Hank was actually out of earshot.
But also. I do wonder about the personal aspect here. Whether Jocelyne’s coming out to Hank wouldn’t have been a little close to the bone for Willis. Because if I were them, it might feel more fraught for me as an author.
Joyce: “I mean, if you’re going to stay, we need to provide you with a suitable cuck chair…”
Jocelyne: “Whoa there, I was only joking!!”
Don’t like the implications of Jocelyne being designated the cuck here!
Should really be the voyeur chair
Around here it’s called the Joyce chair.
We will also accept the Amber chair
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/badinheritedthoughts/
Those words exactly! Big sibling prompt engineering is critical to get right.
I really hope Dorothy finds out about Joyce not breaking up with Joe before they have sex.
I don’t know…that sounds like it might be something a smooth criminal would do, and we know these criminals ain’t smooth.
jocey is the best sister tbh.
im an only child but jocelyn is giving me serious sibling envy rn
Are you wishing for older siblings or younger siblings?
These two horny idiots eventually manage to get away from everyone to have some time alone.
Then it smash-cuts to it being nighttime and Joe is still stood where we last saw him.
Finally, the sentient hat he shares a room with states the obvious – “I don’t think she’s coming back”.
Can’t help but wish Jocelyne had actually come out to Hank. I have very mixed feelings about how this strip handles its trans representation and I would have preferred to see such a difficult part of the trans experience to receive some actual focus rather than being sidelined for Joyce’s development, which has frankly gotten quite enough focus lately.
obligatory I AM A TRANS WOMEN, etc
Hi, also 🏳️⚧️ here. I sympathize with your wish, but the fact is that this is Joyce’s story. And Jocelyn is only going to get development as it progresses that story.
This is an ensemble piece as much as Joyce is the de facto protagonist, and other characters are permitted to have their own arcs that don’t have to be tied explicitly to Joyce. I get that Jocelyne is Joyce’s sister, but it really sucks that Jocelyne’s entire presence here for the past few storylines hasn’t really been about her.
People often bring up that Joyce is the main character but I didn’t even pick up on that prior to the time skip cuz the comic did such a good job at giving all the characters focus. This hyper focus just on Joyce and her immediate friend group honestly feels relatively recent.
I miss Danny.
I miss him too but I’m so content with him and Sal I don’t want them to show up anymore cuz now I’m afraid they’ll unceremoniously break up
Personally I find the experience of wanting to be out to everyone, but being too scared to actually go through with it really compelling. The last strip was one of my favorites for that reason, it represented a moment I have experienced a lot.
Valid! Obviously there’ll be a lot of perspectives here.
Joycelyne is the best, and as a middle child I feel both ends of this equation.
Without being graphic my siblings have absolutely interrupted me getting laid, and I can only hope I did the same for them once or twice.
Yknow what since some other people have brought it up already
What was the point in Joyce and Dorothy cheating at all?
Willis said he wanted to “write a cheating arc” cause one hadn’t happened yet but then has spent the entire arc ignoring the fact that cheating happened at all and has hand waved just about every opportunity for SOMETHING dramatic to come out of it.
This arc is going no idfferently than if they were both single and started smooching and it just makes all build up they had in their prior relationships feels completely pointless at the moment.
There are huge patches of the comic you can currently entirely skip and literally nothing would change because no ones treating it like it happened.
So I simply have to ask.
Why write a cheating arc if you don’t want cheating related fallout to happen? Literally why has Sarah been the only one to even remotely react to dorothy and joyce being together in any other way than “oh you’re lesbians? About time”
Like…idk I’d say i dont care but makjng a comment like this obviously i care a little. It just feels like this arc has been a whole bunch of wasted potential for interesting dialogues to happen just so we can get J&D doing cute shit more.
I’ve had this same thought. This hasn’t even really been a cheating arc, it’s been a coming out arc with some cheating-related ballast to cut because the characters got ahead of the writer. The cheating aspect of all of this has been the second-poorly handled, with the protest in a firm lead.
Third most poorly handled has been Doyce itself, which continues to be the relationship equivalent, somehow, of “if LaCroix somehow made plain sparkling water plainer”.
the toast couldn’t get more milque
The best angle I can look at it is as a coming out story and even then from that perspective I feel it’s lacking. We’re weirdly trapped in Dorothy’s perspective for much of the buildup. And then the kiss happens and they’re both just…dating now. No “what is this?” Phase. None of Joyce’s usual apprehension to finding out something new about herself.
I’m starting to think the cheating angle only exists so that someone would have an excuse to not approve cuz if they were both single everyone would just be like “ok cool saw that coming.” Except even with the cheating everyone is like “ok cool saw that coming.” I dunno. There’s no sauce to this pairing. Neither internally or externally. Just two boring girls dating in a world where everyone is rooting for them to be boring together.
Yep:
– Dorothy and Joyce’s friendship I found compelling.
– Dorothy catching feelings for Joyce I ALSO found very compelling.
– Heck, I’m even really curious about that alternate timeline Willis mentioned where they kiss at the protest but then tamp it back down and try to go back to their boyfriends. HELLA opportunities for drama.
All of those options are more interesting than what we have, which is so far quite bland with a side of sappy. I just don’t really like their dynamic as lovers. Joyce is horny and Dorothy is anxious (and horny). The end.
Like I can’t even mad about the storyline itself I was so hype for this arc and to see how it develops and it just…hasn’t
It feels like a long series ‘almosts’, followed up by ‘but actually, no’s.
Before anyone gets it twisted oits not like i’m castigating the characters *OR* the author. I’ve just been stuck in this pesudo uncanny valley where everything just feels *a little* weird and off. That’s how the arc has felt.
And I’m not ignoring people who counsel patience! i’m not! But when we start getting to where ‘weeks ago’ are becoming ‘months ago’, i don’t think a little fatigue is like. An evilbadwrong way to feel about it.
Also its my god given right to be a Hater and i will not be silenced by the Regime.
(General call: Please don’t give the ‘take a break/stop reading then’ response here, I’m not that pressed and theres still shit i like.)
I’ve said the same thing if you go back somewhere in the comics a few weeks (?) ago. I simply don’t see the point. It gives off a little of the vibe that they didn’t really -want- to write one, but tried to force themself anyway, in in the process made its inclusion just feel weird.
Yeah I’m positive it wasn’t entirely “well I haven’t done one yet so I guess I should, even though cheating arcs make ME uncomfortable”, but it does seem to be at least a little bit that. And that’s a really odd motivation. There are a lot of plots I haven’t written and I don’t write any of them unless they’re super interesting to me.
Setups and payoffs this arc
Setup: Dorothy cheats on Walky
Payoff: Joyce laughs in his face, robbing him of closure and Billie consoles him before kicking him off a bed.
Setup: Joyce cheats on Joe.
Payoff: Joe isn’t surprised or upset and offers to do polyamory and is left hanging until a later date.
Setup: Dorothy and Joyce confront Daisy
Payoff: Daisy doesn’t give a fuck
Setup: Raidah confronts daisy
Payoff: Raidah leaves the conversation before daisy can respond.
Setup: Becky will be crushed about this new couple
Payoff: Becky is crushed about this new couple
Setup: Hank is looking for Jocelyne
Payoff: Joyce tells Hank she’s gay so Jocelyne doesn’t have to come out. Hank begrudgingly accepts and then leaves.
Setup: Becky says she no longer believes in God
Payoff (for now): Becky doesn’t elaborate and leaves.
We’re reading this week to week so obviously were tunnel vision but this entire arc feels less like…events unfolding and more just…tying up loose ends in an rpg questline. None of the characters who’s reactions I care about are actually getting much focus and the comments and the narrative and the author seem to have no interest in those aspects either which makes every new non-event seem more draining.
Also:
setup: Hank has vastly different political beliefs from his child(ren)
payoff: if there was any it was completely skipped
There’s a running joke on the subreddit that no scene or conversation lasts longer than three strips and, well, it’s been pretty accurate so far.
These are uncharitable interpretations of the comic. Some payoffs are undersold, some setup/payoff pairs are missing, and some setup/payoff pairs are pending further resolution. I’ll highlight some of the bigger ones.
Setup: Sarah changes her opinion of Joe (and more broadly, just, her pre-established personality trait of doing the right thing and feeling suffering for it)
Payoff: Sarah blows up on her (former?) friend and roommate, potentially torpedoing their relationship, or at least seriously crippling it. This is the person Joyce has to live with for the rest of the year, and who previously was instrumental in protecting her from serious danger.
Setup: Joyce cheats on Joe. (More broadly, Joe’s relationship to women changes over the course of the comic.)
Payoff: Joe has a climactic moment of overwhelming care for Joyce, reveals (to Joyce and to us) his acceptance of polyamory, and also (in my interpretation) deep insecurity about how women see him, accepting an inferior position to Dorothy. Also, this setup has further development coming soon about how Dorothy reacts to Joe.
Setup: Hank is looking for Jocelyne and has different political beliefs from his children/
Payoff: Joyce halts her trend of selfishness and improves her relationship with her sister by “taking the bullet” for her. Hank’s relationship with Jocelyne deteriorates, with her no longer being his “good boy.”
Also, Becky renouncing her faith goes unmentioned.
I haven’t been the biggest fan of this arc either, in no small part because I don’t like Jocelyne as a character (maybe I’ll elaborate on that more at a time more people will see it and respond), but there are definitely payoffs happening, and more look to be coming.
>I got money on them being just fine after maybe 1 page of reconciliation
>Literally put on the backburner for more Doyce being cute together (and shitting down walky’s throat)
>We’ll have to see how this progresses but I imagine this is a Year+ out kinda storyline before we get to see how this is really handled.
>Again we immediately cut away from Becky’s loss of faith before we could get anything of substance from it
the same DoA reddit where people say stuff like “sometimes children need to be firebombed”??? 👀
yeah no I stay away from that place
I’ve been feeling the same the past few weeks as this cheating storyline has continued with almost no negative consequences or fallout from Joyce and Dorothy’s shitty behavior so far. I’m still hoping there will be some eventually, but at this point I’m not optimistic.
They basically stole a balloon on free balloon day. Its cheating in name only.
Eh, when the people who did the thing use the word “cheating”, it’s cheating.
To be fair, that’s a boundary you’ve decided to follow, not a universal truth.
If Yotomoe doesn’t feel like it was real cheating despite what the people involved call it, that’s also fine.
The author himself called it cheating so I don’t really care about other peoples boundaries
As someone who’s mostly on the same general side as you are here, you doing okay? You’ve been pretty heated here in a couple of places today in a way I don’t remember seeing you get in a while.
+1
I don’t think anything’s wrong, but I’ll tone it back a bit.
I think I’m just getting bored of this storyline.
Anytime something relatively interesting starts to happen we cut to Joyce and Dorothy who I honestly couldn’t give the least amount of shits about at the moment when every single one of their pages is “look how cute we are as a couple”
Like I was just deep into that whole Dina/Becky moment and then boom “hehe sister teasing Joyce and Dorothy for being in lesbian with each other”
Maybe I just need to take a big break from the comic in general until this arcs over
I don’t like the constant cuts to them either, but I can accept that this current storyline is about them, so it’s an inevitability. What I actually take an issue with is that it’s just the same punchline with them over and over
I’m not surprised to hear you say that, and I actually didn’t ask you to care about their boundaries. It’s a fact whether you care or not, that people get to decide what “cheating” is for themselves. You literally can’t stop them lmao.
I think Yotomoe is adopting a stance of “hate this and wish it was cheating but I’ve given up on the characters caring about it” rather than a true stance of “I don’t think this is cheating”.
But also jeez Jay. Literally all Nymph was trying to do was defend someone else’s right to feel differently. :/
I didn’t read my comment as coming off quite as aggressively as people are taking it so I’ll take the L here and just apologize.
I’m hairsplitting, I suppose, in that I don’t think there IS any reasonable way to define cheating outside of the context of specific relationships — although in the case of the Doyce pairing, there’s also a very big pile of “words” vs. “actions” to wade through.
Also, endorsing Li’s interpretations while I’m here.
IRL probably true. In a story? I think reader’s opinions matter.
I mean. It has been…ONE day. Possibly not even twenty-four hours. Not all fallout happens immediately.
I get that but I think the readers perspective does matter and to a reader this is going on what, 4 months now? And the most we’ve gotten is sad joe, an upset Sarah and Becky renouncing her faith (which we immediately cut away from before we could get anything of substance from it)
Not all fallout happens immediately and I do think there’s going to be continuing fallout from the Joyce coming out side of things and from the Joyce and Dorothy are a couple now side of things, but the actual cheating itself? That’s pretty much been dealt with and it’s kind of hard to see how anyone really comes back to it without getting really weird. Joe switching to caring about it after telling her not only that he didn’t want to break up, but that he even pushed Dorothy towards it? Or Sarah staying upset now they’ve told Joe and he isn’t?
Wait, what? Was Joss actually earnestly thanking Joyce here? Jocelyne was about to come out to Hank, and Joyce ruined her big moment. If I were Jocelyne, I probably wouldn’t be saying thanks, even though Joyce meant well. I know Joss has a whole lot of poise and coolness and all, but like… this is upsetting.
I guess if Jocelyne feels like her thunder was stolen, the “those words exactly” bit is her way of getting back at Joyce.
Seems like she was only coming out to protect Joyce, but then Joyce counter-martyred, and now Joss is grateful that she doesn’t have to rush into it. (Of course, Joyce definitely rushed into it, but Hank might be more inclined to accept a bisexual daughter than a trans daughter—and Joyce seems to be the child he’s closest to, these days. And maybe the eventual conversation with Jocelyne will go better now that Hank’s already had one child come out to him? reminds me of “Fiddler on the Roof”)
Why was Hank even in town, if not to confront Jocelyne? I was under the assumption that Jocelyne KNEW Hank was coming and was PLANNING on coming out to Hank. I think I must be missing something here (that happens a lot.)
I’m assuming it didn’t feel like a big moment she wanted and she’s genuinely grateful to have more time before she has to bite that bullet. I think she just feels very differently than you do/would about the situation, which happens!
You’ve forgotten the cardinal rule:
All characters exist to tell, not show, that Joyce is simply the bestest.
Hey not her fault you misread the situation
I’d be fine with Jocelyne having mixed feelings about the whole situation. A “thanks, but.” Like, there’s nuance here that the strip is not acknowledging.
To be blunt, you misinterpreted the strips where she was going to come out to him. She was depicted as not being ready for it, doing it to protect joyce.
Yep.
I know I read that as hesitation but everyone is so quick to paint joyce as the bad guy yet again.
Jocelyne did not want to come out. She was only going to come out to distract Hank from Joyce.
It occurs to me that the reason so many people had this take is that…Jocelyne’s plan doesn’t make any sense otherwise? Like it is established that Hank reads the newspaper regularly. It’s a matter of when, not if, for him finding out. And it’s not like it’s a time sensitive issue. The “risk” Joyce is at doesn’t change when Hank goes home and checks his phone since the risk is financial dependence which is long term. Unless Jocelyne thinks Hank will fly into a blind rage and start strangling Joyce or something. The only way it makes sense is if she presumes Hank will be so distracted by jocelyne’s announcement that he won’t care or notice Joyce is gay. Which is kinda silly.
So I feel like many of us just assumed this was already something she planned to do which at WORST was being pushed forward by how hectic everything has been. It feels less like taking a bullet and more of a show of solidarity, which if she really truly never wanted to come out she could have shown without coming out? I dunno. Doesn’t make any sense to me.
I thiiiink we don’t yet know what her plan was, but that’s my guess.
When I read this strip, I can’t help but think of the conversation Jocelyne and Joe had about him saving Joyce’s childhood drawings and the remark about him “having it bad” for Joyce. I don’t know what that means for my thoughts on Jocelyne but it’s disappointing we continue the trend of no one having any empathy. That conversation didn’t even have that long ago and was a very emotionally honest moment. But alas.
Jocelyne even told Joe that it’s important to care even if it makes you vulnerable.
Metaphorically, she very directly told him directly to date Joyce and be ready to be vulnerable to heartbreak. And this feels like a perfect opportunity to follow up on that.
“Holy shit man I didn’t think she was gonna do it to you that bad. golleee I am so sorry, dude. Goddamn.”
The fact is characters can exist without thinking about and feeling bad for joe every second of every day
Well SOMEONE has to.
Whenever i don’t see joe in my line of sight, I’m always thinking, “where’s joe?”
When i’m not busy thinking about asher.
It’s not even that it’s “hey I saw you dating someone else literally a day ago, what’s this about, just curious?”
Honestly Willis, this should have ended with Jocelyn asking about Joe…
“What happened with your cute puppy dog boyfriend? Did you kick that poor guy to the curb or are you cheating on him, you hussy?”
Thankfully Jocyln is nicer and more human than the paladins and frankly its not any of her business.
Jocelyn can’t tease her sister about a perceived quick-flip relationship shange?
Also. Was the dig calling real people here ‘less human’ needed?
Of course it was. Disagreeing about what characters do in a webcomic is actually the most subhuman thing you can do.
Naw but seriously don’t say stuff like that. It’s a bit of a red flag. I’m sure you were just joking but yeah… More human is a bit …yeesh.
Particularly when a lot of us who post here are minorites of some stripe or another who get hit with dehumanization enough, like. Lmao.
I don’t think you meant it that way, Priv, but…
“Human” as an adjective is sometimes used to mean “humane.” Compare “inhuman,” which is a synonym for “inhumane.” Humane feels like the more likely meaning here to me, versus dehumanizing people.
I’m really not sure that’s much better.
I know I mentioned another time that I don’t key that much into specific users in the comment section, and don’t tend to remember much about them individually. You have broken the mold and stood out among other users. I will be plain. You strike me as vindictive and aggressively miserable, overly easy to upset and offend, and I don’t have much interest in your takes that I perceive stemming from that frame, including this one.
Wild
You manifested fully formed like ten minutes before posting this and immediately jumped somebody about your tilted perception of their mental state based on one sentence, ya fuckin’ homunculus. You got no room to judge anyone about “overly easy” anything.
I was gonna say I don’t recognize “ado” from other comments
Just call me a bongo next time lol
Anyway I have reported this incredibly bizarre personal attack
Who the heck are you again, and which random asshole are you mistaking for Dot, who’s pretty consistently level-headed and chill as far as I can tell?
It kinda feels like you said something, got disagreed with (in the most mild of tones), and immediately went on the attack.
Sorry, which commenter was supposed to be “vindictive and aggressively miserable, overly easy to upset and offend” because I think you might have accidentally spotted a mirror.
Honestly if they were talking about me I wouldn’t have been surprised but DOT of all people???? DOT?????
Like I’ll admit I come off as that descriptor to a T on this page but c’mon
Biting my tongue because I’d tone it back a bit but just know you’re a dildo
Pretty big talk for someone who can’t even spell “Jocelyne”.
Ha take that people who said joyce was “stealing her sisters moment” I swear some of you would demonize joyce even if she jumped in front of a train to save a stranger.
Yeah, take that trans women who had some gripes with how that scene was handled, pipe down and remember your place!
Yeeeah I’m not a trans woman myself, but I also initially had a negative reaction to Joyce literally jumping in front of Jocelyne during her attempt to come out. It’s not about demonizing Joyce, it’s about the fact that coming out is a very personal thing. Jocelyne made the choice in that moment to come out. I do understand and like this Jocelyne has the chance in this very strip to say “hey, I appreciate that” but in the moment when that happened all we had was Jocelyne about to state her identity and Joyce hopping in front of her to yell I’M GAAAAAAY. It’s one of those things that people can wrinkle their nose or be a bit put off about without (ironically) demonizing those people.
Something something, treating fictional characters like they’re real and treating real people like they’re fictional characters.
Reading this back I mean that people should be allowed to be turned off by Joyce interrupting Joss’ coming out and shouldn’t be demonized.
To be fair, we also had her saying she “needs to tell this truth before worse things happen [because she’s no longer the most vulnerable],” which…didn’t exactly point to her WANTING to come out. Pointed to the opposite of that, in fact, combined with her facial expressions. From where I was sitting, this was *explicitly* Jocelyne Reluctantly Jumps on a Surprise Grenade. Which is still some kinda big moment, and yes, it was her decision! I get it, I’m trans and would have done the same for my sister if I needed to (although I’ll admit that rings a bit hollow, since my folks are pretty accepting). It is still a very personal thing, for sure, and I 100% agree that it’s reasonable for people to be turned off by Joyce insisting on taking the grenade after all.
But at the same time, *I* have been totally baffled at the implication scattered throughout the comments that no, Jocelyne should have come out before she was actually ready or wanted to and Joyce was awful for “taking” that from her, when it really did seem super clear that Jocelyne didn’t actually want to come out. And that Joyce was giving the opportunity to come out in her own time back to her sister. This was further supported when Hank asked if there were any other truths being kept from him and Jocelyne didn’t speak up.
Point is, yeah, people are allowed to feel however they feel and nobody deserves to get shouted down or demonized. But we did have a little bit more to go on than just “Jocelyne about to state her identity and Joyce hopping in front of her.”
Pretty astute. There was also nothing stopping Jocelynne from coming out if she really wanted to. I mean, I guess you said that already. And I think that she’s explicitly thinking Joyce for jumping on the grenade should tell us something.
I understand that aspect of it too.
Wasn’t at least one of the people who disagreed with you in the original thread also a trans woman? I guess you did kinda tell her to “pipe down.” Trans opinion isn’t a monolith, don’t be so quick to assume things about other commenters.
Wingwoman of the year
It this final comment was said to literally anyone other than immediate family it might be funny. Currently it’s creep-city. Some boundaries are ok to have.
Sisters talk to each other about fucking and sex sometimes
I have a younger sister (probably similar age gap). One of my female friends said that I should get my sister birth control and condoms for a late teenage birthday, and guess what? She and I are not friends now.
It’s okay if this would make you personally uncomfortable! It’s also okay that other people find it #relatable. Boundaries are individual.
Eh, it’s not like Joceylnne is turned on by it – THAT would be weird. She’s just teasing.
Oh, I have a feeling I’m going to be losing some money to Slipshine again.
well, Joyce leaped like she was taking an actual bullet
hope it’s not foreshadowing anything at all
In some ways, “big brother” will always be a “big brother”. 😛